Probably the passage in the Bible which has given the greatest colour to this idea, and which certainly is largely responsible for the distortion of Christianity which is associated with the name of Calvin, is the picture of the Potter and the Clay. "Shall the thing formed say to him that made it, why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the Potter power over the clay, to make one vessel unto honour and one into dishonour?" This is the passage from St. Paul's writings which is most widely quoted in this connection. At the first blush this seems to confirm our worst fears; but when we trace this illustration of the Potter to the original passage in Jeremiah we find an absolutely different picture; the potter is a patient, resourceful person who, so far from having arbitrary powers over the clay, is being defeated at every moment by the refractoriness of the clay with which he has to deal. He attempts to make, let us say, a porcelain vase, but the clay will not respond to his efforts; there is a flaw in the material, or the clay is not of the kind to make such a design possible; he starts again with his "Gospel of the second best," and this time he succeeds in making a humbler but useful bowl. Or again, in the course of his work, something goes wrong, and "the vessel becomes marred in the hands of the potter"; but even now he is not defeated; he tries again--to use the words of Jeremiah--"_he makes it again another vessel, as it seems good to the potter to make it_." This is the real picture of the potter, and it is a touching picture when you consider that it is meant for all ages to describe the dealings of GOD with the human race, of which we ourselves are members. Of course, the question entirely hinges upon what GOD meant mankind to be. We used to discuss this question in East London Sunday after Sunday--"Did He mean mankind to be like clocks, bound to go right, like puppets who would dance to the strings which He pulled; or did He mean them to be what we call human fallible men, who might go right or wrong, but who in any case had the freewill to do either?" And it is a striking testimony to the common sense of a great working-class audience that, while they started with a predilection in favour of being made to go right, after an afternoon's discussion they invariably came to the conclusion that with all its risks it was better to be men and women; that forced goodness was no goodness at all, and that if GOD did wish to have as His companions in eternity companions worth having, He could have done nothing less than endow them with freewill. Now, if this is so, it is obvious that the metaphor of the Potter and the Clay has a great bearing on the question of "_The War and Religion_."