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Page 5
We are thus brought face to face with other questions of deep importance
What part do weakness, limitation, suffering, sorrow, and even sin, play
in the development of souls? Is it necessary that any should fall in
order that they may rise? Did John Bunyan truly picture the ascent of
the soul? Does its path, of necessity, lead through the Slough of
Despond, through Vanity Fair, by Castle Dangerous, and into the realm of
Giant Despair?
Must one pass through hell and purgatory before he may enjoy the
"beatific vision?" Are temptation, sin, sorrow, and even death, angels
of God sent forth to minister to the perfection of man? or are they
fiends which, in some foul way, have invaded the otherwise fair regions
in which we dwell?
These are some of the questions to which we are to seek answers in the
pages which are to follow. I am persuaded that, as the result of our
studies, we shall find that the same beneficent hand which led the
"Cosmic process" for unnumbered ages, until the appearance of man, is
leading it still, that far more wonderful disclosures are waiting for
the children of men as they shall be prepared to receive them, and that
the glory of the "Spiritual Universe," as it approaches its
consummation, when compared with the finest growths of character yet
seen, will transcend them as the ordered creation, with its countless
stars, transcends the primeval chaos.
In the meantime it is well to remember a few very simple and
self-evident facts. One of these is that human souls must vary, at
least as much as the bodies in which they dwell. Individuality has to do
with spirits. We think, love, and choose in ways that differ quite as
much as our bodily appearance. There is no uniformity in the spiritual
sphere;--this we know from its manifestations in conduct and history.
One man is heroic and another tender, one a reformer and another a
recluse, one conservative and another radical. The same Bible has
passages as widely contrasted as the twenty-third and the fifty-eighth
Psalms, and characters as unlike as Jacob and Jesus. Indeed, may it not
be assumed that physical differences are but expressions of still more
clearly marked differences in spirits? If this is true it will follow
that, as we move toward the goal of our being, while all will be under
the same good care, we will move along different, though converging,
paths. There are many roads to the "Celestial City" and, possibly, some
of them do not lead through the Slough of Despond, or go very near to
the realms of Giant Despair.
I cannot leave this part of my subject without dwelling for a moment
upon two thoughts which to me seem to be full of significance.
This wonderfully complex nature of ours,--this power of thinking,
choosing, loving, these mysterious inner depths out of which come
strange suggestions, and within which, all the time, processes are
carried on which may rise into consciousness and startle with their
beauty or shame with their ugliness--does no suggestion come from it
concerning its origin and destiny? Until they pass mid-life few men
realize the terrible significance of the command of the oracle at
Delphi, "Know Thyself." Who is not surprised every day at what he finds
within himself? It sometimes seems as if two beings dwelt in every body,
one in the region of consciousness, and one down below consciousness
steadily forging the material which, sooner or later, must be forced up
for the conscious man to think about.
In proportion as we know ourselves more accurately it becomes
increasingly evident that as spirits we are allied to the great Spirit.
Few who earnestly think can believe that their power of thought could
have grown out of the earth; few when they love can believe that there
is no fountain of love, unlimited and free; and few, when they choose
one course and refuse another, would be willing to affirm that they are
without the power of choice, and have no destiny but the grave. In other
words, is not the fact that we are spirits all the proof that we need to
have of the Father of Spirits? Is not a single ray of light all the
evidence which any one needs of the reality of the sun? Is not the
presence of one spiritual being a demonstration of a greater Spirit
somewhere? Every soul indicates that, whatever the process by which it
has reached its present development, it came originally from God. "In
the beginning God" is a phrase which applies to the spiritual as well as
to the material universe.
The soul is not only a witness concerning its own origin, but it is also
a prophecy concerning its destiny. The more thoroughly it is studied the
more convincing becomes the evidence that it must some time reach its
perfected state. The perfection of intelligence, love, and will require
endless growth. The great words of Pascal can hardly be recalled too
frequently:
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