East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1918-01-19


nothing else it has OF least done this
made thoughtful men ask whether
there rs a responsible head TO this
universe or whether everything is un-
/ guided and ungoverned One has on
/ ly to read of the books that have been
( written since August t9I. 10 realize
! that what men want Is certainly about
I God and IL they find him then IT ia
/ easier to believe that someway, some.
I how out Of all this welter of tears and
/ blood, Of heart aches and soul sor-
( rows good rs to come both to the in
dividual and the race. The writer
| who is perhaps more widely read to-
| day than any other is Mr. @. II. Wells
/ Early in the war he wrote MIR. Brit
ling Secs 1t Through" which caus-
, ed such a sensation and made tre-
nendUus Impression not only in En-
gland but everywhere. Wells might
be described when he wrote that book
as a philosophical materialist. lie
differed from the scientific material
ist who reduces everything to force
and power and blind, unreasoning
Aaw for he reduced all things to ideas
and truths and felt that through these
the goal of humanity was to be reach
ed But in this book he shows us the
complaccncy Of the English people.
their SNUG satisfaction over their
world position. and how above all
their indifference to the church anO
impatiencc of the narrowness Of the
religious ideas which the church pre-
sented. Then the war came and the
English people were shaken out of
their complacency. They must have
an anchor that could hold the ship of
thought steady while everything about
them was rocking in the e,urm. Thus
they went back and re-examined their
old religious conceptions and while
they discovered that the ages had
grated on to the tree of religion many
shoots that were Injurious to the tree
that after all the tree was sound at
heart and that all that WIS necessary
was to prune the tree and let it pro-
duce the fruit that was so urgently
needed. And SO in this book Wells
cut and pruned and at the end the
Tree stood forth bearing this fruit -
We believe in God for our sons who
have gone out into this struggle for
humanity and civilization nave taught
us this" Then followed his BOOB
God the Invisible King" which is
one of the most exasperating books
ever written The trouble is that the
book was written too soon. He had
found God and without stopping to
consider all that the discovery meant
without digging into the content O,
the God-idea he just wrote with the
result that his book is a mixture OF
some of the most brilliant ideas ever
penned and some crudities and alb
surdities that would not be Creditable
in a child of five years old. 1t can
be said that the book satisfies no one.
But it does show Wells cropping for the
light and longing for something that
can be an anchor to his disturbed |
and distracted soul. Wells Is type, |
In him there is a picture of thousands |
of men who are asking SO earnestly |
lis there. a God" III so c.. nd viii |
he give me that peace and comfort /
which the world cannot bestow in this |
my hour of distress o. Nor do men /
want simply what John Stuart Mills .
called, the power not ourselves that T.
makes for righteousness " Not blinu /
power but q real person /
who thinks and feels. who sorrows and /
suffers this Is the demand Of the hours
Perhaps no one has voiced Jobs I
cry. 80 that I knew where / might .
find Him" more fully than happy.
Jolly. carc-free Harry lauder. The .
story is familiar of how the news .
came to him that his only son. Cap +
tain john Lauder. had fallen out .
there on the western front. Harry
tells us that after the first shock OF f
and anguish he realized
there was only one Of three things to
do: To retire To some quiet place
where he could brood over his grca:
loss and keep Il grudgc against the
world for having demanded this sac
rificc. the second thing was to taKc
TO drink and try by this method I,