hands or feet." Not then by denying or condemning or distrusting the
world in which we live, not by asserting the differences between God
and humanity do we understand Him. But by closest touch with nature
do we find Him. By a superb paradox, not without value, yet equally
ineffable in sentimentality and sublime in its impiety we say,
beholding man, "that which is most human is most divine!"

That there is truth in such comfortable and affable preaching is
obvious; that there is not much truth in it is obvious, too. To
what extent, and in what ways, nature, red with tooth and claw,
indifferent, ruthless, whimsical, can be called the expression of the
Christian God, is not usually specifically stated. In what way man,
just emerging from the horror, the shame, the futility of his last and
greatest debauch of bloody self-destruction, can be called the chief
medium of truth, holiness and beauty, the matrix of divinity, is not
entirely manifest. But the fatal defect of such preaching is not that
there is not, of course, a real identity between the world and its
Maker, the soul and its Creator, but that the aspect of reality which
this truth expresses is the one which has least religious value, is
least distinctive in the spiritual experience. The religious nature is
satisfied, and the springs of moral action are refreshed by dwelling
on the "specialness" of God; men are brought back to themselves, not
among their fellows and by identifying them with their fellows, but
by lifting them to the secret place of the Most High. They need
religiously not thousand-tongued nature, but to be kept secretly in
His pavilion from the strife of tongues. It is the difference between
God and men which makes men who know themselves trust Him. It is the
"otherness," not the sameness, which makes Him desirable and potent in
the daily round of life. A purely ethical interest in God ceases to be
ethical and becomes complacent; when we rule out the supraphenomenal