forces. The idea of a finite God who is infinitely
good in his intentions, but limited in his powers, has been
advocated by such various types of mind as John Stuart Mill,
William James, and H. G. Wells. The first mentioned of
these writes:

One only form of belief in the supernatural--one theory respecting
the origin and government of the universe--stands wholly clear
both of intellectual contradiction and of moral obliquity. It is that
which, resigning irrevocably the idea of an omnipotent creator, regards
Nature and Life not as the expression throughout of the moral
character and purpose of the Deity, but as the product of a struggle
between contriving goodness and an intractable material, as was
believed by Plato, or a principle of evil as was believed by the
Manicheans. A creed like this ... allows it to be believed that all the
mass of evils which exists was undesigned by, and exists not by the
appointment of, but in spite of the Being whom we are called upon
to worship.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mill: _loc, cit._, p. 116.]

RELIGION AND SCIENCE. While there have thus been genuine
points of conflict between theology and science, these are
essentially irrelevant to the religious experience itself. Man
is still moved by the same emotions, sensations, needs, and
desires which have, from the dawn of history, provoked in
him a sense of his relationship with the divine. There comes
to nearly all individuals at some time, not without rapture,
a sudden awareness of divinity.

It is the terror and beauty of phenomena, the "promise" of the
dawn and of the rainbow, the "voice" of the thunder, the "gentleness"
of the summer rain, the "sublimity" of the stars, and not the
physical laws which these things follow, by which the religious mind
continues to be most impressed; and just as of yore, the devout man
tells you that in the solitude of his room or of the fields he still feels
the divine presence, that inflowing of help come in reply to his
prayers, and that sacrifices to this unseen reality fill him with
security and peace.[1]

[Footnote 1: James: _Varieties of Religious Experience_, p. 498.]

Modern man, just as his savage ancestor cowering before
forces he did not understand, realizes sometimes--some
persons realize it always--how comparatively helpless is man
amid the magnificent and eternal forces in which his own
life is infinitesimally set. Even when one has been educated
to the sober prose of science, one feels sti