"I might as well confess that Dr. Powers's address two weeks ago knocked the props out from under me. What he said cut under me like a great engine that destroyed my faith."
"You mean your faith in God?" asked Bauer in a tone almost of horror.
"Well, no, not that exactly. I don't think anyone could reason me out of a belief in a God. But when Dr. Powers got through I felt as if all the God he believed in was a kind of electrical force, a little bigger unit of amperes. A sort of international ampere, so to speak, but not much more."
"Do you mean that you can't say 'Our Father' any more?"
Walter was silent half a minute. When he looked up at Bauer his face was haggard.
"I haven't prayed any since that address. What is the use of prayer if
God is a machine?"
"But if God is a machine, who made the machine?"
Walter stared. Bauer went on.
"And if God is only high power electricity or force, who made the high power or force? One machine can't make another. And a machine that really thinks and plans, is not a machine but a Being."
Walter did not answer. He was brooding. Finally he said: "Do you really believe in miracles and the superhuman and the resurrection and future and—and a Personal Redeemer and all that?"