d from it an untruth. In proving the being of a God from
nature alone, we get only the idea of power joined to a dead necessity
of laws; and it must be in the study of the human soul, with its
personality and volition, that we shall get the other ideas, which,
joined to that of power, prove to us the being of a personal God. Nature
has been studied and analyzed and searched with all the social and
individual power of the age, while the science of mind and soul has
stood still; and so it is that men no longer believe there is any God
but cause and effect; not the nation which is right is successful, but
'God is always on the side which has the most cannon;' not the just man,
but the shrewd man, will succeed; not God but rain and sunshine, will
bring forth the harvest.

Give us back the time when men fought hand to hand in ordeal of battle,
or bared their feet to walk over burning ploughshares in their firm
trust that God would defend the right; give them back with all their
superstitions and darkness, if with them we may receive again the lost
knowledge of a God who is 'Our Father,' a God who loves and protects His
children. If there is anywhere on the earth a soul that trusts and
prays, then must the world be wrong in its belief. A law is a rule of
conduct, a law of nature is a rule of God's conduct, and though we have
abstracted the personality and freedom, they are none the less there.
There is also a mitigated form of this atheism as follows: many believe
in a personal God, yet conceive Him to be fettered by his own laws; as
if He had made the machine of the universe, wound it up, and could now
only stand helplessly aside to see it go. Prayer is of no avail to such
a God; thus the first need of the soul is left unsatisfied, and man
stands in the universe alone. Herein is their error: because He has
always acted in this manner, they reason that He always will, and then
go farther and think He always must; not seeing how He stands behind and
moves the law. When the hammer in the pianoforte rises, the wire will
sound; but there is one who sits unseen at the key board and controls
the wires of the hammer. When the lightning bolt falls, the tree is
shattered; but God holds the lightning in His hands.

Succeeding a mechanical idea of God, we have a similar idea of man. The
fundamental question of human nature is that of free will or necessity.
The history of philosophy is but a history of the conflict of these two
ideas: