The demand for a knowledge of the truth, God's truth, is as old as the
world, the world of intellect and knowledge, the world we know about,
and of which we have a more of [Transcriber's note: or?] less true
history. This cry of earnest and thoughtful men and women for truth,
"nothing but the truth" has rung adown the ages from the pagan, and the
nature worshipper through all the countless phases of belief to our
modern presentations of inspired faith. Everyone who dares to think
must realize how this longing of humanity has been met and exploited in
times past by ignorant and self-seeking people, and suffering humanity
has been imposed upon by superstitions and false teachings which have
left it in sorrowful dissatisfaction, or lost in the mazes of doubt and
unbelief.
The fool hath said in his heart "there is no God." Life is too short
and too full of interest in other directions for us to turn aside to
combat fools of any sort. If we admit into our inner consciousness the
absolute recognition of the existence of a supremely loving and wise
God whose attributes are more marvelously great and grand than it can
ever enter into the heart of man, or the mind of the highest archangel
to conceive, we shall have taken the first step toward so positing
ourselves toward him, as we perceive him embodied in his works, as to
begin to see some faint indications of the divine purpose concerning
the souls of men created in his image. All that we know of his laws
and his intentions toward us, as indicated by our experiences here and
now, embodied as we are in matter, supplies the whole of the data from
which we infer truth, the truth as it is in God.
We find, first of all, that we are set here a homogenous race, for as
the means of communication between widely separated branches of the
family become established and easy, our horizons expand, racial
prejudice and antagonisms vanish, new interests and fresh sympathies
arise, and we are thus brought to recognize the fact of our common
origin.
What a dull and deadly uninteresting place this planet would be without
the differentiation of the races! What if the whole united world were
Irish or German, Russian, or even loudly pervading, assumptive
American! What an awful element of boredom would be added to our
existence; and yet there are people so blind to this most wonderful
expression of God's Providence, that they limit their sympathetic
regards to a chosen few, and virtually cast all other peoples into
outer darkness. This applies especially to religious prejudices and
beliefs. Let's see about this: your antecedents were, so far as you
know, Scotch and English, but by some providential intervention you are
now American. You are expected to scorn and despise all other clans
and races, and to condone all the faults and crimes of these which have
been so honored by you, and this is called patriotism, and makes you
feel virtuous and popular, and it is necessary and right--politically
considered--but not from the standpoint of the occult, the spiritual
side of existence. There is a wise intention and purpose in the
blending of the races in their intermarriages, it is for the breaking
down of prejudices as old as the race itself, that have ever kept the
peoples of the earth apart.
There is but one law of evolution, and that which holds for the
individual epitomizes that of a nation, or a world. So as we see
people at a certain stage of their unfoldment of individuality exhibit
an extreme egotism, amounting almost to an insanity, by isolating them,
by confining them to the radius of their own mentality, so it is with
the different tribes and races and nations of the world. They are set
apart to grow their own peculiar traits of character, possible only to
their prescribed environment, that they may thus push forward their own
special gifts and endowments to their own ultimates. This is but a
phase of their evolutionary process, a class preparation looking toward
a wider experience, wherein it shall come to be seen that all the world
is akin. Referring again to the unit man. The shibboleth of the just
present past time has been individualism which, rightly understood,
means simply that the soul of man has progressed to a point where
occult forces can lay hold on the crude being and shape it into a
worthy likeness of its divine Maker, and it must there stand alone,
until it feels its at-one-ment with the Divine and sees and
acknowledges the higher law and purpose of its being, and furthermore
recognizes why it has been called into existence.
Truth is like certain chemicals. It can only be retained by the mind
wherein it finds an adapted affinity, and then it has in each a
distinctly individual expression according to the mental and moral
status of that mind. But laws and principles are stationary and
unchangeable; it is our own personal knowledge which varies and changes
with our growth. We may ignore and denounce certain phases of
phenomena, but the phenomena work on just the same, unaffected by our
beliefs or disbeliefs. The loss is ours if we willfully close our eyes
and ears against the enlightening message which it would bring to us in
passing our way.