#External links "A Vision of Judgment" is a short story in 9 sections. It portrays a
Last Judgment
The Last Judgment, Final Judgment, Day of Reckoning, Day of Judgment, Judgment Day, Doomsday, Day of Resurrection or The Day of the Lord (; ar, یوم القيامة, translit=Yawm al-Qiyāmah or ar, یوم الدین, translit=Yawm ad-Dīn, ...
in which God and the archangel
Gabriel
In Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), Gabriel (); Greek: grc, Γαβριήλ, translit=Gabriḗl, label=none; Latin: ''Gabriel''; Coptic: cop, Ⲅⲁⲃⲣⲓⲏⲗ, translit=Gabriêl, label=none; Amharic: am, ገብ� ...
laugh at sinners and saints alike, embarrassing them until they flee "up the sleeve of God." After every human soul has taken shelter there, all of humanity, "enlightened" and "in new clean bodies," is given a second chance. God shakes them—or rather ''us''—"out of his sleeve upon the planet he had given us to live upon, the planet that whirled about green
Sirius
Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky. Its name is derived from the Greek word , or , meaning 'glowing' or 'scorching'. The star is designated α Canis Majoris, Latinized to Alpha Canis Majoris, and abbreviated Alpha CMa ...
for a sun," saying "now that you understand me and each other a little better. . . . try again."
"A Vision of Judgment" has been reprinted in ''The Complete Short Stories of H. G. Wells'',
''A Dream of Armageddon: The Complete Supernatural Tales''.,
and various other collections and anthologies. Some of the publications were under the title "A Vision of Judg''e''ment."
Background
Wells was raised by a mother—Sarah Wells née Neal (1822-1905)—with a "natural tendency to
Protestant
Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...
piety" and who believed "that God our Father and Saviour, personally and through occasional angels, would ''mind'' her; she believed that he would not be indifferent to her prayers; she believed she had to be good, carefully and continually, and not give Satan a chance with her. Then everything would be all right." Wells rebelled against these beliefs early on. "I was indeed a prodigy of Early Impiety. I was scared by Hell, I did not at first question the existence of Our Father, but no fear no terror could prevent my feeling that his All Seeing Eye was that of an Old Sneak and that the Atonement for which I had to be so grateful was either an imposture, a trick of sham self-immolation, or a crazy nightmare. I felt the unsoundness of these things before I dared to think."
[H.G. Wells, '' Experiment in Autobiography'' (New York: Macmillan, 1934), p. 45.] In his autobiography he writes that at the age of "eleven or twelve" "the light broke through to me and I knew this God was a lie."
He wrote a satirical anti-religious poem as early as 1885. Under the stress of
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
Wells went through an extended period of what he called in his autobiography "deistic phrasing," without, however, making "any concessions to doctrinal Christianity." But "
ter ''
The Undying Fire'', God as a character disappears from my work, except for a brief undignified appearance, a regrettable appearance, dressed in moonshine and armed with Cupid's bow and arrows in ''
The Secret Places of the Heart
H. G. Wells was a prolific writer of both fiction and non-fiction. His writing career spanned more than sixty years, and his early science fiction novels earned him the title (along with Jules Verne and Hugo Gernsback) of "The Father of Scien ...
'' (1922). My phraseology went back unobtrusively to the sturdy
atheism
Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
of my youthful days. My spirit had never left it."
[H.G. Wells, '' Experiment in Autobiography'' (New York: Macmillan, 1934), p. 578.]
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Vision Of Judgment, A
1899 short stories
Fantasy short stories
Short stories by H. G. Wells
Fiction set around Sirius
Works originally published in British magazines
Fiction about God