RELIGION 



open our eyes to the marvels in which we live. But, 

 you may say the spark is not evoked from the flint; 

 it is the result of the collision of the flint with the 

 steel, and represents the energy of the arm that 

 wielded the steel — the spark is visible energy. 

 True enough, and man was not evoked from the 

 earth without some force or push in matter which 

 our analysis of it does not disclose — an aboriginal 

 intelligence which worked its will upon the atoms 

 and molecules. 



§ 

 That the roar of the tempest and of the volcano 

 as they crush or consume towns and cities, is the 

 voice of God, is a conception of Deity that belongs 

 to an earlier age of the world. Yet these are all 

 a part of Nature. What are we to do with them? 

 There is no alternative but to dehumanize God and 

 regard him as he actually is in the material universe 

 which surrounds us, and of which we ourselves are 

 an integral part — a part, at times, as irrational, as 

 cruel, as destructive, as selfish, as frenzied, as the 

 elemental forces out of which we came. The Nature- 

 God is no better than we are, and we are as good as 

 he is, we are bone of his bone, and flesh of bis flesh, 

 mere atoms and molecules in a corporeal frame that 

 fills and is the universe. What the Nature-God does, 

 we do; our mad, irrational warrings are matched on 

 a vaster scale by his conflicting and destroying 

 forces. Our intelligence is a spark of his intelligence, 

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