That is all--but it is also all-important; for it cannot be too emphatically insisted that without a personal God religion simply ceases to be. It is a strange and delusive fancy on Professor Hudson's part, and that of a good many people, that "the religious emotions" will survive the de-ethicising, depersonalising of the Deity, and that men will remain "deeply religious" even when it is recognised that the "Great Enigma," the "eternal and inscrutable energy," the "ultimate Reality" cannot be spoken of as "a Personal Creator, or an intelligent Governor of the universe." For our own part, we find it difficult to believe that such a forecast could have been framed by anyone possessing a first-hand knowledge of what "the religious {86} emotions" are; we say with the utmost confidence that no such emotions can be felt towards a Power which "cannot be thought of as conscious," let alone as benevolent or personally interested in us. We well know that we can be nothing to such a Power--nor can It be anything to us; for a God who does not care, does not count. We cannot commune with this chill and awesome Unknown; we can only pray to One who hears; we can only love One who has first loved us. In the last analysis, an "impersonal Deity" such as one hears occasionally spoken of, is a mere contradiction in terms, the coinage of confused and inaccurate thought. Where the meaning of personality is so much as understood, doubt as to the Divine Personality vanishes; and least of all will that truth be doubted by those who see the supreme revelation of God in Jesus Christ. He, the Incarnate Son, has shown us, not a Power but a Person--the Person of the Father--and, to-day as of old, "it sufficeth us." [1] _The Churches and Modern Thought_, by Philip Vivian, p. 231. [2] _Three Essays on Religion_, R.P.A. reprint, p. 85. [3] This and subsequent quotations are taken from pp. 108-119 of Prof. Hudson's _Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer_. [4] Op. cit., p. 231. [5] Hudson, _op. cit._, p. 116. [6] _Supra_, p. 46. {87} CHAPTER VI EVIL _versus_ DIVINE GOODNESS