Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-05-26
GOD THE INVISIBLE KING
AS HE SEEMS TO H. G. WELLS
The New Deity Found by the Creator Of Mr. Br+-
ling Is Finite Being Struggling
Upward With Humanity

@oCTOR McFABRE had just been say
~ ing that he was intensely interested
!. professor Kents book on THE Social
T.ocbings of the Prophets and Jesus"
.hout which we had little discussion a
u,bue ago. when his eye rested on II. G.
wsl,s's book about God, that lay on
my table.
"oh. ho! he exclaimed. 80 he has
,od us about the God that Mr.. Britling
found! What is He like?'
stretched out my arm and took "A
vo,ume from a bookcase, opened it and
read:
Some weeks ago | said in letter.
,eThe dream Of my life is rest; not rest
from labor because I am weary, not
reIease from any or all of my burdens,
Int Gods rest the rest of a soul at one
with Him and filed with His great life"
think ! have cast off all created forms
NJ truth and tried to grasp with literal
touch of soul the things themselves. /
have tried to realize God and touch His
suhstance; tried to make faith give me,
moi truth but substances. Of course it
is inpogsible yet | cannot admit that it
is foolish. or anything else than the very
hest that I or any one else can attempt
"This letter was written, ! suppose,
about fifty years ago by young Baptist
nreacher in a central New York village.
There was and still is a college in the
village. A few years before he wrote
The letter-in 1859. to be exact--he de-.
pvered an address to the students, in the
course Of which he disclosed the attitude
of mind which led him to seek to get in
touch with substances. Let me read a
few sentences from the lecture:
Truth flows beneath the material world
IN an cver-mOVing changing stream. y
man may dip a Cuptul by statement
but that is all. and when II rests in his
nup II has lost its greatest character
istics for 1t has lost its relations and
It's flow There is no isolation of any
truth Statements do carry
over truth from the great ocean Of truth
and paur it into the spirit and conscious
ness Of men. but these vessels in which
n is carried over are small. and can
garry but very little at most and, more
over. they are often very leaky so That
BY the time they get to us there is moth
ing in them at all.
"The president Of the college in that
village put the matter a little differently
when ne Sdlu Il lew NtdlS lNN'i '''N ''''
man who writes creed for himself
fences out a great deal more than he
fences in
But what has all this to do with
Wells?" the clergyman's nephew asked.
I was not aware that he had been listen
ing. for he knew that Dorothy Owen
was expected, and his attention seemed
10 be directed toward the door,
1T simply means" said |, that the
great discovery which Mr.. Wells thinks
he has made, the discovery that no
creed can express all there is Of God
and that God can be found by earnest
souls looking for Him is not new. Mr..
Wells reminds me, in way, of young
mathematician in one of the Government
departments in Washington, who had
never heard of a book of lOgarithms, so
he set to work to prepare one. II was
printed at public expense. and when 1t
appeared il was full of errors and was
not half so good as a book prepared
years before by men who had been expert
mathematicians before the Government
clerk was born"
Miss owen entered just then, and after
a few moments general conversation she
and Ames went into the next room. They