here to spend any time or space upon the twenty thousand different

formulae in which the orthodox have attempted to believe in
something of the sort. There are several useful encyclopaedias of

sects and heresies, compact, but still bulky, to which the curious
may go. There are ten thousand different expositions of orthodoxy.

No one who really seeks God thinks of the Trinity, either the
Trinity of the Trinitarian or the Trinity of the Sabellian or the

Trinity of the Arian, any more than one thinks of those theories
made stone, those gods with three heads and seven hands, who sit on

lotus leaves and flourish lingams and what not, in the temples of
India. Let us leave, therefore, these morbid elaborations of the

human intelligence to drift to limbo, and come rather to the natural
heresies that spring from mental" target="_blank" title="a.基本的 n.原理">fundamental weaknesses of the human

character, and which are common to all religions. Against these it
is necessary to keep constant watch. They return very insidiously.

3. GOD IS NOT MAGIC
One of the most universal of these natural misconceptions of God is

to consider him as something magic serving the ends of men.
It is not easy for us to grasp at first the full meaning of giving

our souls to God. The missionary and teacher of any creed is all
too apt to hawk God for what he will fetch; he is greedy for the

poor triumph of acquiescence; and so it comes about that many people
who have been led to believe themselves religious, are in reality

still keeping back their own souls and trying to use God for their
own purposes. God is nothing more for them as yet than a

magnificent Fetish. They did not really want him, but they have
heard that he is potent stuff; their unripe souls think to make use

of him. They call upon his name, they do certain things that are
supposed to be peculiarlyinfluential with him, such as saying

prayers and repeating gross praises of him, or reading in a blind,
industrious way that strange miscellany of Jewish and early

Christian literature, the Bible, and suchlike mental mortification,
or making the Sabbath dull and uncomfortable. In return for these

fetishistic propitiations God is supposed to interfere with the
normal course of causation in their favour. He becomes a celestial

log-roller. He remedies unfavourable accidents, cures petty
ailments, contrives unexpected gifts of medicine, money, or the

like, he averts bankruptcies, arranges profitable transactions, and
does a thousand such services for his little clique of faithful

people. The pious are represented as being constantly delighted by
these little surprises, these bouquets and chocolate boxes from the

divinity. Or contrawise he contrives spiteful turns for those who
fail in their religious attentions. He murders Sabbath-breaking

children, or disorganises the careful business schemes of the
ungodly. He is represented as going Sabbath-breakering on Sunday

morning as a Staffordshire worker goes ratting. Ordinary everyday
Christianity is saturated with this fetishistic conception of God.

It may be disowned in THE HIBBERT JOURNAL, but it is unblushingly
advocated in the parish magazine. It is an idea taken over by

Christianity with the rest of the qualities of the Hebrew God. It
is natural enough in minds so self-centred that their recognition of

weakness and need brings with it no real self-surrender, but it is
entirely inconsistent with the modern conception of the true God.

There has dropped upon the table as I write a modest periodical
called THE NORTHERN BRITISH ISRAEL REVIEW, illustrated with

portraits of various clergymen of the Church of England, and of
ladies and gentlemen who belong to the little school of thought

which this magazine represents; it is, I should judge, a sub-sect
entirely within the Established Church of England, that is to say

within the Anglican communion of the Trinitarian Christians. It
contains among other papers a very entertaining summary by a

gentleman entitled--I cite the unusual title-page of the periodical--
"Landseer Mackenzie, Esq.," of the views of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and

Obadiah upon the Kaiser William. They are distinctlyhostile views.
Mr. Landseer Mackenzie discourses not only upon these anticipatory

condemnations but also upon the relations of the weather to this
war. He is convinced quite simply and honestly that God has been

persistently rigging the weather against the Germans. He points out
that the absence of mist on the North Sea was of great help to the

British in the autumn of 1914, and declares that it was the wet
state of the country that really held up the Germans in Flanders in

the winter of 1914-15. He ignores the part played by the weather in
delaying the relief of Kut-el-Amara, and he has not thought of the

difficult question why the Deity, having once decided upon
intervention, did not, instead of this comparatively trivial

meteorological assistance, adopt the more effective course of, for
example, exploding or spoiling the German stores of ammunition by

some simple atomicmiracle, or misdirecting their gunfire by a
sudden local modification of the laws of refraction or gravitation.

Since these views of God come from Anglican vicarages I can only
conclude that this kind of belief is quite orthodox and permissible

in the established church, and that I am charging orthodox
Christianity here with nothing that has ever been officially

repudiated. I find indeed the essential assumptions of Mr. Landseer
Mackenzie repeated in endless official Christian utterances on the

part of German and British and Russian divines. The Bishop of
Chelmsford, for example, has recently ascribed our difficulties in

the war to our impatience with long sermons--among other similar
causes. Such Christians are manifestly convinced that God can be

invoked by ritual--for example by special days of national prayer or
an increased observance of Sunday--or made malignant by neglect or

levity. It is almost mental" target="_blank" title="a.基本的 n.原理">fundamental in their idea of him. The
ordinary Mohammedan seems as confident of this magic pettiness of

God, and the belief of China in the magic propitiations and
resentments of "Heaven" is at least equally strong.

But the true God as those of the new religion know him is no such
God of luck and intervention. He is not to serve men's ends or the

ends of nations or associations of men; he is careless of our
ceremonies and invocations. He does not lose his temper with our

follies and weaknesses. It is for us to serve Him. He captains us,
he does not coddle us. He has his own ends for which he needs

us. . . .
4. GOD IS NOT PROVIDENCE

Closely related to this heresy that God is magic, is the heresy that
calls him Providence, that declares the apparent adequacy of cause

and effect to be a sham, and that all the time, incalculably, he is
pulling about the order of events for our personal advantages.

The idea of Providence was very gaily travested by Daudet in
"Tartarin in the Alps." You will remember how Tartarin's friend

assured him that all Switzerland was one great Trust, intent upon
attracting tourists and far too wise and kind to permit them to

venture into real danger, that all the precipices were netted
invisibly, and all the loose rocks guarded against falling, that

avalanches were prearranged spectacles and the crevasses at their
worst slippery ways down into kindly catchment bags. If the

mountaineer tried to get into real danger he was turned back by
specious excuses. Inspired by this persuasion Tartarin behaved with

incredible daring. . . . That is exactly the Providence theory of
the whole world. There can be no doubt that it does enable many a

timid soul to get through life with a certain recklessness. And
provided there is no slip into a crevasse, the Providence theory

works well. It would work altogether well if there were no
crevasses.

Tartarin was reckless because of his faith in Providence, and
escaped. But what would have happened to him if he had fallen into

a crevasse?
There exists a very touching and remarkable book by Sir Francis

Younghusband called "Within." [Williams and Norgate, 1912.] It is
the confession of a man who lived with a complete confidence in

Providence until he was already well advanced in years. He went
through battles and campaigns, he filled positions of great honour

and responsibility, he saw much of the life of men, without
altogether losing his faith. The loss of a child, an Indian famine,

could shake it but not overthrow it. Then coming back one day from
some races in France, he was knocked down by an automobile and hurt

very cruelly. He suffered terribly in body and mind. His
sufferings caused much suffering to others. He did his utmost to

see the hand of a loving Providence in his and their disaster and
the torment it inflicted, and being a man of sterlinghonesty and a

fine essentialsimplicity of mind, he confessed at last that he
could not do so. His confidence in the benevolentintervention of

God was altogether destroyed. His book tells of this shattering,
and how labouriously he reconstructed his religion upon less

confident lines. It is a book typical of an age and of a very
English sort of mind, a book well worth reading.