ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE 



out his notice, and that heaven is not a place, but a 

 state of mind, yet makes its God a personal being, 

 endowed with our human attributes, with likes and 

 dislikes, sorely tried by our sins and weaknesses; 

 nearer us sometimes than at others, present every- 

 where, yet abiding in one particular place called 

 heaven — these and many other childish and con- 

 tradictory things. 



That keen, clear-minded man, Cardinal Newman, 

 regarded God under the image of a maker, detached 

 absolutely like any human workman from the work 

 of his hand. He is the Eternal King, absolutely 

 distinct from the world as being its center, — 

 "Upholder, Governor, and Sovereign Lord." "He 

 created all things out of nothing, and preserves 

 them every moment, and could destroy them as 

 He made them." "He is separated from them by 

 an abyss, and is incommunicable in all his attri- 

 butes." This being is always described and in- 

 terpreted in terms of man, or of our own finite 

 human nature, reflecting in his outlines human 

 history, human political and social institutions, 

 and the aims and objects of concrete human 

 beings. He does not hesitate to relate this God 

 to "every movement which has convulsed and 

 refashioned the surface of the earth," and hence 

 to make him responsible for the death and de- 

 struction and misery which have attended earth- 

 quakes and have set back the tide of human prog- 



268 



