The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-08-19
Book Re,,;e,v
God and :.
a World on Fire.

What is the war going to tho to God?
That is not. IN frreyerent question.
II Is a serious question prompted by
the new conceptions of the diAinity
which have risen O,h of a world on
fire, seeking to catch hold of the
auickened. deepened vision of >inan-
kind. Will God emerge rom this war
as the handiWork of Wells or of Billy
sunday or OF the Hebrew prophets or
of something else?
A great war must react upon re.
ligions more strongly than upon any.
| thing else. Rituals, creeds, ceremonies.
| traditions are as finder in the fire OF
war. Mankind goes back to elemental
sympathies and understandings ana
| desires. Life becomes simple ana
hard; God grows real and close, Billy
| Sunday and the kaiser have already
offered one God, though Billy has him
(, wearing the Stars and Stripes while
| Wilhelm puts in respect for the Ho-
hen2ollerns. This God is not unpopu-
lar but he has rivals. II. G. Wells In
God the Invisible King offers one.
Wells True Cod is more human
than Billy sundays slangy divinity, in
Il deeper sense. Indeed, he is Of hui
mainly helping and being helped by
| man: of the earth earthly. In pro.
claiming his new religion Wells dis
connects his True God from eterni-
ties, Beyond space and time and un-
derstanding he leaves the creative
force, making his True God finite.
The relation between the True God
and the Yelled Being he expresses as
follows:
At the back Of all known thingsS
l ~ Il fni
| the ultimate of existence is Il.
Yelled Being, which seems to
know nothing Of life or death, or
good or i'll. OF that being. WlHth-
er it is simple or complex or di-
| vine, we know nothing: to MS il is
not more than the limit Of under
standing, the unknown beyond.
It may be Of practically limitless
| intricacy an. possibility. The
new religion does not pretend that
the God of its life is that Being.
or that he has any relation of con-
| troll or association with that Be
ine. 1t does not even assert that
God knows all or much more than
We do about that ultimate Being.
Wells has little patience with the
God of rituals and churches. He her
| aluS a. new UNDERSTANDABLE, III Wnlch
there are mo church, no authorities.
no teachers. no orthodoxy" So he
| says. Then he proceeds to define ana
state, making at least the semblance
II of any orthodoxy.
ii Man must make God in his own
image if man is to understand him
| note Wells Interpolation of a. finite
being between his world and the
| Yelled Being. It is not strange. then.
that Wells God should greatly re-
semble Wells and by that token par
take of the sturdy. often sentiments
u always human spirit of British altrl
ism. Now British altrnism is n,
. | American altrusm, and Wells Go
may not find worshippers oversee ]
Yet there is internationalism in Well Fl
= and in America r1GiAnnGa+ to tho gre
4 Britishcr's philosophy has been start
ling in what might be called nppcI
chautauqua circles. Perhaps the new
. | True God win be bolted whole by
, Mr.. Rritling's many admirers.
At any rate the situation is in
. terestsng. Billy Sunday and the
kaiser have put their popular God to
war; Wells is sending his God out I
make a. new peace In the world. WIN
II | either suppant the God of our
l. fathers"