Page:Heralds of God.djvu/25

THE PREACHER'S WORLD unceasingly with the hosts of heaven. By this conflict God Himself is limited, thwarted in His purposes, constrained to strive and struggle indecisively for the realization of His holy will. It is a recrudescence of the Manichaean heresy. It is quite oblivious of the repeated trumpet-note of the New Testament—that at the Cross once for all Christ raided the dark empire of evil, and vanquished the demons, and led captivity captive.

With others, again, the pessimistic mood expresses itself in religious quietism. They have carried their distrust of human nature to the point of denying the worth of any social action. Confronted with the collapse of the humanist gospel of man's self-redeemability, they seek refuge in the unethical mysticism of a thoroughgoing otherworldliness: "Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest."

Once again, there are those for whom the pressure of disillusionment has resulted in theological irrationalism. Man, according to this view, is so radically corrupt that there is no point of his nature left at which the living God can take hold. If ever he was made in the divine image, so completely has that image been obliterated that to talk of fellowship between man and his Creator is downright sophistry and self-deception. The light of reason itself is treacherous and perfidious. He that would frame dogmas, let him abjure the aid of logic. He that glorieth, let him glory in his irrationalism! It is hard to believe that this position, supported though it is by great and honoured names, 19