as adopted various expedients, the chief of which was the
sending of His only begotten Son to suffer and die in order that He
might be free to forgive the trouble we had caused Him. I hope no
reader of these words will think I am making light of a sacred subject;
I never was more serious in my life. What I am trying to show is that,
reduced to its simplest terms, the accepted theology of the churches
to-day is pitiably inadequate as an explanation of our relationship to
this great and mysterious universe. There is a beautiful spiritual
truth underneath every venerable article of the Christian faith, but as
popularly presented this truth has become so distorted as to be
falsehood. It narrows religion and belittles God. It is dishonouring
to human nature, and is absolutely ludicrous as an interpretation of
the cosmic process. Of course, the dogmatic theologian will maintain
that this is a caricature of the way in which the relationship of God
to the world is set forth in religious treatises and from the Christian
pulpit. But is it? I think I can appeal with confidence to the
thoughtful man who has given up going to church as to whether it is or
not. The God of the ordinary church-goer, and of the man who is
supposed to teach him from study and pulpit, is an antiquated
Theologian who made His universe so badly that it went wrong in spite
of Him and has remained wrong ever since. Why He should ever have
created it is not clear. Why He should be the injured party in all the
miseries that have ensued is still less clear. The poor crippled child
who has been maimed by a falling rock, and the white-faced match-box
maker who works eighteen hours out of the twenty-four to keep body and
soul together have surely some sort of a claim upon God apart from
being miserable sinners who must account themselves fortunate to be
forgiven for Christ's sake. Faugh! it is all so unreal and so stupid.
This kind of God is no God at all. The theologian may call Him
infinite, but in practice He is finite. He may call Him a God of love,
but in practice He is spiteful and silly. I shall have something to
say presently about the twin problems of pain and evil; but what
so-called orthodoxy has to say is not only no solution of them, it is
demonstrably false to the religion of Jesus.

+Every man believes in God.+--For the moment what I want to make clear
is this. No man should refuse to assert his belief in God because he
cannot bring