New-York tribune., 1921-12-04
The Quest of God
The Struggle of a Youth
Who Seeks Reason of Life
GODS. BY Shaw Desmond. Published b,
Charles Scribner's Sons. 81.
By Grace Phelps

by 1race Phelps
<<N obs" is soul-stirring novel.
y It is the story of an Irish
youth who asks: "God! Who
Was God? Was He?" The quest Of God
IS no new thing, but this pilgrimage of
Finn Fontaine epitomizes the modern
struggle of those who cannot accept
dogma to fnd-among the welter of
gods and men, of chaos and cruelty and
beauty-the one and true God and the
reason for life.
Shaw Desmond inscribes his novel:
To the Unknown God. 1t is at once
his confession of faith and failure.
Through the lips of Paris Asthar, the
@sthete, who was thought to worship
the devil in his secret chapel, the
author states the quest and its direc-
tion clearly:
"You think the gods are dead. The
gods never die. They have never been
more living-both the gods of power
and those others-for the gods, like
mortals, fight together. The principle
of godship, as of mortality, is struggle.
YOU think that this life of the concrete,
if you will, of the conscious, this life
of eating and drinking, buying and
selling, lovemaking and death, is the
life. 1t is but the shadow of life. AL
these things are but shadows of the
things behind, pin points in space for
the realization of the end of life-con-
sciousness. The things that you say
have no existence, the things of super
stition or magic or faith, are reality
this earth-life the unreal. Everything
exists. There is no non-existence.
Everything that can be thought exists,
for thought is the creator"
1t is among these gods, the gods Of
science and religion, of church and
chapel, of Billy Pickles, the American
evangelist, and Father Lestrange, the
Jesuit of Ellen Masters, the univer-
salist, the gods Of social democracy
and intarnationalism, Of patriotism
and materialism, that Finn Fontaine
takes his way. Not god of them all
is sighted. He even tries the sons
and daughters of the morning star,
where a lady in paradise silk "discov-
cred to him that he had been priest
in the time Of Ra, some four thou
sand years before, putting it to him
as business proposition as to whether
he did not remember dancing the
sacred dance with her before the
quenchless fire."
The action of the novel is divided
between London and Ireland, but net
thsr in Dunhallow, where the material
ism of his American employer comes
to grief on the rock Of Deirdre Asthar's
passionate patriotism, nor in Fleet
Street, where Finn's career as n jour-
nalist is wrecked by his passion for
truth, does he find his God.
In a double monastery" where he
and Deirdre elect to spend their honey
moon, Finn comes upon q significant
conclusion. Perhaps" he reasons. mo
man by searching could find out God
but perhaps no man could escape Him.
In the end, on the eve Of the World
War. he watches . crowd Of helpless
Internationaiists in the square. and
sees them as humanity staring upward
to thai fate which seemed to beckor
them 10 something--to life everlasting
through present death. He saw them
pressing in the ages to come, reaseiess
resistIess under the Urge Behind. un-
der that urge which could not be stified
Climbing to the unknown Goal"
~Godsn is q white light on the con-
fiicts of the times. It is . challenge
to thinkers ana shiaine sword y the
svmx4u. Al