Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1909-1911, 1909-08-27
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THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE
By Henry F. Cop'

THE HEART OF THE UNIVERSE.
By Henry F. Cope.
"As the hart panteth after the wa
ter brooks so panteth my soul after
thee, 0 God."-Ps. %: 2.
AS soon as you take one god away
from man he looks for another. The
hunger for an infinite object Of love
and confidence, for the life in which
all life explains itself, Is common to
all The ages show 1t to be ineradi-
cable. Whatever it might have signi-
fed in the past of fear or worship, to
the mind Of man to-day 1t Is the
search for a personal center to the
universe.
Long since we have outgrown the
old theologian's god, the mighty man
who made the earth with His fingers
and guided the stars with His hands,
who, sitting aloft in the skies, die
tated human affairs, an arbitrary,
awesome, omnipotent sovereign, a
king lifted to the highest degree. That
picture once contented men because.
just as regal power then seemed essen
tial to a state, so did that suDerhumaa
sovereignty seem to be essential to the
universe.
But we have not outgrown our need
of a center and a life to our living;
we have not outgrown the need or
such being as will answer the prob
lem of living in terms Of our own
lives. Just as normal life needs
other lives, other personalities and
friendships, so does the larger life OF
every man reach out into the infinite
with its longing for larger friendship
and love.
This Is the search for God, reach
ing our hands into the dark night Of
the infinite and unknown hoping that
we may find there the touch of hand
that can lead through the shadows and
feel the throb Of heart that will as
sure US Of the unfailing goodness and
rightness ruling through all We seek
not a king nor first cause, but a
life that answers in the measure Of
that larger living to our own.
You can never satisfy the hearts Of
men with the most elaborate schemes
of the working OF blind force; the last
word Of science leaves much unspoken
for the soul Of man. We may accept
all and deny nothing that science may
say and still demand that more must
be said and insist on our liberty to
seek further where microscope and
scalpel can discover nothing.
In us something answers to this,
that there is one who cares, that love
and sympathy, the best we know and
the highest we have, are at the heart
of all, that we are not as dust on the
whirling wheels of relentless nature,
but that through all, as in us all,
moves that of which tenderness, com
passion and affection are born.
Such being defies all description,
such being makes no formal demands
of us. No questions of loyalty, Of
worship, or of an analytical belief can
enter here. But given a heart to the
universe, one there to whom we can
turn, toward whom our love can go
out, half the problem Of living is
solved and all takes on new meaning
That Is what we need, not defini-
| lions of the infinite, not agreements
on attributes or names, but the sense
that just as our own lives find unity
in a personal spiritual center so does
all life. that we can only read the
| mystery Of living in letters of love.
God Is not for purposes of argument
nor for systems Of ecclesiasticism, but
for our aid and encoura cement in liv-
ing.
1t matters not at all whether our
inner visions of that central unifying
life may agree. 1t matters only wheth
er the whole Of life takes on this per-
sonal meaning, whether in the dark
and trying hours we can be sure that
through the eternities, where our
friends cannot go and where other
helpers fail, hands of love are
stretched to US and a heart of tender
ness beats with ours.
This Is mans hunger for God. not
for pictures of one who made the
worlds, not so much for a creator. nor
for an infinite lord, and still less for
the theologian's masterpiece, but for
that tenderness, affection and wisdom
that in the wider, farther reaches Of
life will be to us what father and
friend are in the smaller circle of
their DoSsihiIities