ing Power, blind but physically omnipotent, which attracted his mind, that Power which moves in thunder and earthquake, in the growth and decay of living forms, in the dynamo, the gun, the manof-war, that Power worshipped by Carlyle and Bismarck and Disraeli and Roosevelt and all the "strong men" of recent history—has neither feet to bring good tidings, nor bowels of compassion, nor countenance divine; and knees that have bowed at the foot of the Cross, hands that have clutched the robe of the Virgin, hearts that have cried out of their depths to a heavenly Father, turn uncomforted from Motion and Change enshrined, turn dismayed from the roaring whirlwinds of physical power as from an altar to an obscene Thing.
But Henry Adams turned away, also—and this is the mark of his greatness—murmuring disdainfully, partly to himself and partly to the age which was soon to make ten millions of its sons pass through the fire to its Moloch: "Him whom ye ignorantly worship, the same declare I unto you. Your God himself, in the lapse of ages, has suffered a degradation of energy." Henry Adams turned away from the shrine of the obscene Thing with a jest of invincible skepticism, and went on a long holiday through the Middle Ages, "wooing" the Virgin, incredulous to the end that the divine love should have been transformed and annihilated in the abysses of energy, seeking to the end for a
