. Lucretius, for instance, did not deny the existence
of the gods; he merely asserted that they no longer concerned themselves
with human affairs, which he was heartily glad of, as they were mostly
bad characters. He observed "the reign of law" as clearly as our modern
scientists, and relegated the deities to their Olympian repose, so
beautifully versed by Tennyson.

The Gods, who haunt
The lucid interspace of world and world,
Where never creeps a cloud, or moves a wind,
Nor ever falls the least white star of snow,
Nor ever lowest roll of thunder moans,
Nor sound of human sorrow mounts to mar
Their savored everlasting calm.

Even the savage, in times of prolonged peace and prosperity, begins to
speculate on the possibility of his god's having retired from business;
for religion is born of fear, not of love, and the savage is reminded of
his god by calamity rather than good fortune. This idea has been caught
by Robert Browning in his marvellous _Caliban upon Setebos_, a poem
developed out of a casual germ in Shakespeare's _Tempest_.

Hoping the while, since evils sometimes mend,
Warts rub away and sores are cured with slime,
That some strange day, will either the Quiet catch
And conquer Setebos, or likelier He
Decrepit may doze, doze, as good as die.

But presently poor Caliban is frightened out of his speculation by a
thunderstorm, which makes him lie low and slaver his god, offering any
mortification as the price of his escape.

There is a good deal of Caliban in our modern multitudes, but the
educated are working free from his theology. Science and miracle cannot
live together, and miracle and providence are the same thing. How far
from us is the good old God of the best parts of the Bible, who held out
one ear for the prayers of his good children, and one hand, well rodded,
for the backs of the naughty ones. The seed of the righteous never
begged for bread, and the villain always came to a bad end. It was the
childish philosophy of the "gods" in a modern theatre. The more critical
want something truer and more natural, something more accordant with the
stern realities of life. Renan has some excellent remarks on this in the
Preface to his second volume of the _Histoire du Peuple d' Israel_.

"The work of the genius of Israel was not really affected until the
eighteenth century after Jesus Christ, when it became very doubtful to
spirits a li