The commandant had been deep in a treatise on nuclear theory as discussed in a book called The New Knowledge. It had been written in a popular and entertaining vein by a scientific author whose name I don’t now recall and, besides setting forth clearly the new idea as to the structure of the atom and a theory of electronics, it had developed an absorbing spiritual theme. The author, recognizing the resemblance between the laws controlling the actions of electrons within the atom and those that controlled the astronomy of the universe, had emphasized his own conviction that no conflict existed between religion and science. On the contrary, the more a scientific mind studied the revelations concerning the physical world, the stronger became his convictions as to the existence of an infinite God.
The commandant’s lady fingered a book she had just finished but seemed to hesitate about opening a discussion of it.
“If you are like the rest of the students,” she smiled, “you’ll have your nose buried so deeply in that precious Flight Manual, that you’ll have no time for anything else.”
The commandant was rather proud of that Flight Manual. It was the book of instruction for the flight-training course that had been evolved out of long experience with many students. It had been compiled by one of his instructors, Lt. Barrett Studley, who was also writing a book on the subject. Every detail was so well covered in it that it had become a veritable “student’s bible.” No matter how often he read it and reread it or practiced the maneuvers described in it, every new reading revealed something there he had not previously absorbed. Even the instructors boned the manual—and found new inspiration in doing so.
As Mrs. Upham talked, the commandant stirred the fire until it burned brightly, shining on his wife’s serene features.
“My book,” she said, “bears on the same theme as the one developed by The New Knowledge but approaches it from a wholly different point of view.”
She went on to point out that its author, whose name I have forgotten along with the title of the book, had been a successful minister—at least one might judge him so by usual standards. He had managed a large New York congregation, kept the church in repair, and collected substantial sums of money for worthy causes. But after his retirement he had reached the conclusion that his ministry had been a complete failure. Lacking faith in religion, because he had not been able to reconcile the Christian Gospel with his reasoned analysis of it, he had failed in his spiritual leadership.
Deep concern over this had caused him to restudy the Gospels and especially the history of their composition; and he had concluded that in the interim between the death of the Apostles and the compilation of the Gospels, numerous additions might have been made and certain beliefs carried over from earlier faiths might have been interlarded into the basic concept of the Christian idea. He had therefore set about to delete from the Gospels, as recorded, all the inconsistencies with the Gospel as he thought it must have been preached, and had emerged with a kernel so dazzling and completely credible to the rational mind that he had become convinced that it must have been divinely inspired.
For no one man nor group of men could possibly have conceived a faith so wholly consistent and so inspiring as had Jesus Christ himself. The very idea of individual dignity had brought men conviction that they were not meant to be slaves but responsible children of God. With that conviction, human liberty was born. And human liberty was not just a pleasant material situation but the world’s most vital, dynamic, and constructive spiritual force. To cast off the rule of tyrants men must only be governed by God.
As the commandant’s lady finished her review, she handed her book over to me.