-naturalists of the deity,
even in Captain Mayne Reid's sense. What is their deduction of
metaphysical attributes but a shuffling and matching of pedantic
dictionary-adjectives, aloof from morals, aloof from human needs,
something that might be worked out from the mere word "God" by one of
those logical machines of wood and brass which recent ingenuity has
contrived as well as by a man of flesh and blood. They have the trail
of the serpent over them. One feels that in the theologians' hands,
they are only a set of titles obtained by a mechanical manipulation of
synonyms; verbality has stepped into the place of vision,
professionalism into that of life. Instead of bread we have a stone;
instead of a fish, a serpent. Did such a conglomeration of abstract
terms give really the gist of our knowledge of the deity, schools of
theology might indeed continue to flourish, but religion, vital
religion, would have taken its flight from this world. What keeps
religion going is something else than abstract definitions and systems
of concatenated adjectives, and something different from faculties of
theology and their professors. All these things are after-effects,
secondary accretions upon those phenomena of vital conversation with
the unseen divine, of which I have shown you so many instances,
renewing themselves in saecula saeculorum in the lives of humble
private men.

So much for the metaphysical attributes of God! From the point of view
of practical religion, the metaphysical monster which they offer to our
worship is an absolutely worthless invention of the scholarly mind.

What shall we now say of the attributes called moral? Pragmatically,
they stand on an entirely different footing. They positively determine
fear and hope and expectation, and are foundations for the saintly
life. It needs but a glance at them to show how great is their
significance.

God's holiness, for example: being holy, God can will nothing but the
good. Being omnipotent, he can secure its triumph. Being omniscient,
he can see us in the dark. Being just, he can punish us for what he
sees. Being loving, he can pardon too. Being unalterable, we can
count on him securely. These qualities enter into connection with our
life, it is highly important that we should be informed concerning
them. That God's purpose in creation should be the manifestation of
his glory is also an attribute which has definite relations to our
practical life. Am