may be misunderstood and misrepresented, does not mean the necessity of
progress on the part of any one person or any one people, any more, for
example, than the growth of the human body is inconsistent with the
fact that cells and composite parts of the body are in process of decay
and dissolution every hour, every moment of our lives.

Nations grow, advance, if they comply with the laws, the conditions, of
growth and advance; and, if not, they die out and disappear. And so is
it of individuals. But, on the other hand, in the presence of the
loving, lifting, leading God, humanity in the larger sense has been
advancing from the beginning of human history until to-day; and the
grade, dim glimpses of which we gain as we look out toward the future,
is still up and still on.

According to this theory of the universe, there does not need to be any
stupendous breaking in of God into his own world after any miraculous
fashion. We do not need an infallible guide in religion any more than
anywhere else, unless we are in danger of eternal loss because of an
intellectual mistake. We do not need any stupendous miracle to
reconcile God to his own world; for he has always been reconciled. We
do not need any miraculous bridging of any mythical gulf; for there
never has been any gulf. And the outcome, not as we look forward are we
haunted by fearful anticipations of darkness and evil; as we listen, we
do not ever hear the clanking of chains; as we look, we know that the
dimness that hangs over the coming time is not caused by "the smoke of
the torment that ascendeth up forever and ever." It is a story of
eternal hope for every race, for every child of man and child of God.

Here are these two theories, then, two schemes of the universe and of
human history. Which of them shall we accept?