Divine Babble

By thousands of Harlem Negroes and by hundreds of whites throughout the U. S. Rev. Major J. Divine is regarded as nothing less than God. Other observers think of small, dusky "Father" Divine, born George Baker somewhere in the South, as an amiable cultist who does genuinely useful welfare work with large sums of money whose source remains as obscure as the biography of Father Divine himself. In the interest of religious history, smallish, baldish Dr. Robert Ernest Hume, professor of the History of Religions at Union Theological Seminary, set out one Sunday last month to get the Divine record straight. The resulting interview was printed fortnight ago in The Spoken Word, Divine newsorgan. Of more interest to psychologists than theological historians, the Divine revelations rolled forth in a strange, unworldly babble. Samples:

Professor Hume: Father, I came both to seek and to give information.

Father Divine: We are very glad to have you to participate in our Meetings, to speak or sing or anything you desire, just so you are governed by your highest intuition.

Professor: There was a time, was there not, when You initiated the Movement?

Father: I do not say that there was. I do not keep dates after the manner of men. ... In recent years, I have Condescended to write as a man.

Professor: I have to tell my students that this Movement started at such and such a date.

Father: As a Professor, you may understand, I just said, "the RELAXATION of the conscious mentality,"-- to STILL one's self individually, collectively, is the main essential. The human mind can never find the hidden things or the mysteries of GOD. That is the great thought. . . .

Professor: What could be the answer in a sentence -- the origin, from the beginning, from a historical point of view?

Father: From a Historical point of view, we may speak after the manner of men -- as Spirit without a BODY, when the Spirit moved out on the Face of the deep, according to the Bible. Professor: When was that? Father: According to Bible History -- Four Thousand and Four Years. B. J. better known as B. C.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.