he hastily disclaims any interference of the Deity. Some of our more
advanced theologians are claiming that the finest improvement they have
made in their science is to have brought God from _without_ the universe
(where no theologian had ever put him) and make him _immanent_ in it.
But they seem just as incapable as the others to trace his interposition
in human events.

Theologians still maintain a valiant and stubborn fight against
scientific men, but they do not fight historians. They are very keen on
maintaining the influence of God over atoms and stars and roses and
birds, but not half so keen to vindicate it in the life of man. The
story of the world, _our_ world, may be divided into three chapters: a
chapter describing the moulding of the globe and the rocks, a chapter
describing the slow evolution of the plants and animals, and a chapter
describing the antics and fortunes of man. Some may surrender the first
chapter to science, some the second chapter, but it looks as if they all
surrender the third. They have long been accustomed to surrender the
early part, and very much the longer and more laborious part, of man's
story to natural forces, or the devil. Then there was a melodramatic
notion that God, after the lapse of hundreds of thousands of years,
began to take an interest in one very small people and kept revealing
things to it, and smiting its enemies, until Christianity was given to
the world. History tells the story in a totally different way. We find
the stream of moral and religious evolution flowing steadily on nineteen
hundred years ago, much as we do to-day. At this point, of course, the
theologian does make a struggle with the historian. In proportion to the
imperfectness of his culture and the backwardness and conservatism of
his Church, he fights for miraculous interpositions in human events
nineteen hundred years ago. But we need not delay to examine that
difference of opinion, because the later period suffices for my purpose.