God and My Father 　　I thought of God as a strangely emotional being. He was powerful; he was forgiving yet obdurate, full of warmth and affection. Both his wrath and affection were fitful, they came and they went, and I couldn’’t count on either to continue: although they both always did．In short God was much such a being as my father himself. 　　What was the relation between them, I wondered ― these two puzzling deities 　　My father’’s ideas of religion seemed straightforward and simple. He had noticed when he was a boy that there were buildings called churches; he had accepted them as a natural part of the surroundings in which he had been born. He would never have invented such things himself. Nevertheless they were here. As he grew up he regarded them as unquestioningly as he did banks. They were substantial old structures, they were respectable, decent, and venerable. They were frequented by the right sort of people. Well, that was enough. 　　On the other hand he never allowed churches ― or banks ― to dictate to him. He gave each the respect that was due to it from his point of view; but he also expected from each of them the respect he felt due to him. 　　As to creeds, he knew nothing about them, and cared nothing either; yet he seemed to know which sect he belonged with. It had to be a sect with the minimum of nonsense about it; no total immersion, no exhorters, no holy confession. He would have been a Unitarian, naturally, if he’’d lived in Boston. Since he was a respectable New Yorker, he belonged in the Episcopal Church. 　　As to living a spiritual life, he never tackled that problem. Some men who accept spiritual beliefs try to live up to them daily; other men who reject such beliefs, try sometimes to smash them. My father would have disagreed with both kinds entirely. He took a more distant attitude. It disgusted him where atheists attacked religion: he thought they were vulgar. But he also objected to having religion make demands upon him ― he felt that religion was too vulgar, when it tried to stir up men’’s feelings. It had its own proper field of activity, and it was all right there, of course; but there was one place religion should let alone, and that was a man’’s soul. He especially loathed any talk of walking hand in hand with his Savior. And if he had ever found the Holy Ghost trying to soften his heart, he would have regarded its behavior as distinctly uncalled for; even ungentlemanly. The writer says his father’’s idea of religion seemed straightforward and simple because his father