17 DECEMBER 1927, Page 18

A MAN-MADE GOD [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]

SIR,—Mr. Venables, in a recent issue, speaks some excellent words on the danger of creating a " man-made God." Browning, with his incomparable logic, fixed the religious type for ever when—speaking of those who " adore " Christ while denying His attributes—he used his famous simile of boys riding a cock-horse : " I couldn't," he says,

" Find it in my heart to embarrass them, By hinting that their stick's a mock-horse, And they really carry what they say carries them."

(Christmas Eve.)

Could there be a better definition of the difference between a religion centred in a- divine Person, and in one who is no more than the best and greatest of the children of men ?—I am,