H G Wells

God, the Invisible King H G Wells

Perhaps all religions, unless the flaming onset of Mohammedanism be an exception, have dawnedimperceptibly upon the world. A little while ago and the thing was not; and then suddenly it hasbeen found in existence, and already in a state of diffusion. People have begun to hear of the newbelief first here and then there. It is interesting, for example, to trace how Christianity drifted intothe consciousness of the Roman world. But when a religion has been interrogated it has always hadhitherto a tale of beginnings, the name and story of a founder. The renascent religion that is nowtaking shape, it seems, had no founder; it points to no origins. It is the Truth, its believers declare; ithas always been here; it has always been visible to those who had eyes to see. It is perhaps plainerthan it was and to more people-that is all. It is as if it still did not realise its own difference. Many of those who hold it still think of it as if itwere a kind of Christianity. Some, catching at a phrase of Huxley's, speak of it as Christianitywithout Theology. They do not know the creed they are carrying. It has, as a matter of fact, a veryfine and subtle theology, flatly opposed to any belief that could, except by great stretching of charityand the imagination, be called Christianity. One might find, perhaps, a parallelism with the systemascribed to some Gnostics, but that is far more probably an accidental rather than a sympatheticcoincidence. Of that the reader shall presently have an opportunity of judging.