How can such grim facts be evaded ? and, much
more, how can they be explained ? Moreover, there



70 THE AGE OF FAITH

is another side to nature and history than the one
thus far presented. Even if love and justice do
dominate the household, by what fiction can they
be said to rule in society ? The state punishes the
weak and unfortunate as if they were responsible
for the acts for which they suffer. What element
of justice is exhibited when a poor, frail woman
who, in a fit of shame and desperation, has
smothered a new-born child, is brought to punish-
ment for what she would never have done if she
had been in the circumstances of those who pass
judgment ? The violence in nature ; the calamities
which destroy thousands of lives in a moment ; the
pestilence, and, perhaps most of all, the principle
of murder, by which man and beast alike are " red
in tooth and claw," — how can these incontestable
and terrible realities be reconciled with fatherhood
at the heart of things ? I do not at this time at-
tempt to answer these questions, but I do not
ignore them. They cannot be evaded ; but whether
they may be adequately answered is an altogether
different question. This much at least may be said
at this time : neglect, cruelty, accidental father-
hood are not essential and elemental in the idea of
fatherhood. Among the most barbaric peoples are
rudiments of holiness and love which, if they have
opportunity, always grow and become sovereign.
