To the Bulter of the "Nortu-Cuina Datty News"
Sm—I am grateful to your correspondents for their lucidly expressed and important questions.
One writer says "I explain the Jcommencement of the universe by }God. But I do not explain the com Imencement of God. Therefore I Ido not carry the matter any further." This. criticism is based on misunderstanding. It is not the commencement" of the universe: jehich is primarily under discussion ree that en any theory we have mystery. T agree that it is just as easy (or as hard) to conceive the! eternity of matter, as the eternity lof God, It is the "development" of the universe, as we now know it, which is the true centre of discus: sion. Is it, or is it mot, the result lof blind chance? We have to choose between a mystery of madness and the mystery of God, and I have imply been trying to show that ere are weighty considerations which make the second mystery inteliectaally preferable to the first.
This point is discussed with a Tittle more detail in the third address, which will be published (with your kind permission, sir) on Mon-week, The letter of "Old Briar" makes me wish I could share his "bacco with him some evening far into the night. If he will pardon my saying 50, he is just a little bit behind the times. The confession of unbelief jin certain conceptions of God, which have ventured to make, belief entertained by a considerable jand, not negligible tendon, Far from finding that such lan belief undermines their reason for existing, these churches find their [influence increasing and their witness valued. Unfortunately Briar" seems to be quite out of touch with the beliefs and practice lof contemporary non-priestly Churches, I will not enlarge upon this, partly because I have no wish to engage in controversy about "cleric ical orders" and "validity" etc., and partly because such domestic" differences within Christendom should be regarded as slight compared with the denial of all, spiritual values %;'and the disbelief in any conception of God which is so prevalent to-day. If I mentioned the disbelief of my: own denomination it was only in the hope of interesting those who. also hold similar disbeliefs and who wrongly suppose that they are therefste "unbelievers."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.