THE SIMPLE WAY.
“Life, with all it yields of joy and woe and hope and fear,
Is just our chance o’ the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been, indeed, and is.”
--_Robert Browning._
Talking with Gabriel Norris one day, Mrs. Doring could not refrain from
telling him some of her astonishing psychic experiences.
“I have long known,” he said, “that they whom we call dead are more
alive than we are. I, too, have talked with them. Like St. Paul I am
a spiritualist, a word which generally excites fear and horror in
unenlightened minds. I preach spiritualism, plain and pure, but I don’t
name it. Sometimes it is best not to label one’s knowledge. It only
prejudices the ignorant against it, and builds a fence around one’s
own mind as well as around one’s neighbor’s. A name is a limitation.
That’s one reason why I cannot work in any organization. I keep my
spirit free, ever ready to absorb more truth, and I preach a free
gospel, which, like all things else is susceptible to the influence of
new light. Truth is not all revealed to any man. Little by little one
learns to know a greater degree of it, and so grows more and more free
from error. What is evolution but a gradual growing out of darkness
into light? The proof that we live again is of tremendous importance,
because with it comes the knowledge that every thought as well as every
deed helps in the building of our souls and our eternal destiny. That
we shall live always is a fact in nature, but in what estate depends
upon ourselves, upon our thoughts, aspirations and efforts, for man is
the expression, or sum, of his desires. Here or elsewhere they shall be
realized.”
Gabriel wished he might have the great pleasure of a word with
Prescott, whom he loved. Chrissalyn granted permission, and he went one
evening to see the wonders of Planchette. Prescott obligingly came,
and when Gabriel, with tears shining in his eyes asked if he had any
particular message for him, answered:
“Only to thank you for your good words about me in the church, when I
could not speak for myself.”
Gabriel had been one of several friends, orthodox and unorthodox, who
made brief addresses at Prescott’s funeral, which, by the grace of a
liberal-minded and great-hearted minister, was held in a church, in
spite of the fact that the dead editor was a bold unbeliever.
At these grateful words the eyes of the gentle preacher glistened and
his voice wavered with feeling, as he said: “You deserved all the
praise I gave you. You did your best. You spoke truth and lived truth
as you saw it. None can do more.”
In saying this Gabriel unconsciously raised his voice higher and higher
till he ended in a shout, so natural was it to think of Prescott as far
off because he was out of sight.
“Thank you again, Gabriel,” he wrote; “but let me tell you, that
although I used to be a little deaf, I hear perfectly well now.”
Gabriel laughed heartily as it dawned upon him that he had been
shouting at his invisible friend, and thought Prescott must be laughing
too.
“Are all cured of their physical defects over there?” Gabriel asked.
“Not immediately, for illness or wholeness is a matter of the
consciousness, and that cannot be completely changed at once. It is
all progression, growth, expansion, but it takes what you call time to
effect it. There is plenty of work for you, Gabriel, here as well as
there.”
“I am glad of that,” said the unordained preacher. “An idle heaven
would be hell for me. Man’s desire for action and his pleasure in it
are strong evidence of his immortality. Were death--extinction--his
destiny, somehow he would have known it, and would have been indolent
instead of busy. It is true that much of his work is impermanent and
useless or worse than useless; but it is the effort he puts forth,
the exercise of will, that is the valuable part of it. That which he
is really building through all his blundering and the only part of his
work that endures, is character.”
“Truth, Gabriel! You speak immortal truth,” Prescott wrote. “Now,
good-night.”
“Do you really believe you have been talking with Gordon Prescott?”
Cartice asked.
“Yes,” said Gabriel, simply. “I could not prove it to others; neither
can I prove that a letter is from the person whose name is signed to
it, without his personal affirmation, and even that is only valuable in
proportion to his reputation for truth-telling. Most of what we call
proofs of anything is flimsy and fallible.”
“I want to tell you, Mr. Norris,” said Cartice, speaking with feeling,
“that I owe you far more than you are aware of. You first gave me
light, and you were a mascot for me, besides, in worldly success.
Through meeting you the tide of my fortune, the day I met you,
turned from ebb to flow. The drawing I made of you opened the door
of opportunity for me. But giving me light was the greatest service.
That day, in your lecture at the market house you told us we were
not here simply to be happy; that happiness as we pictured it, was
not the purpose of existence; that we were here to learn and to grow
to the perfection nature intended, as a plant or a tree grows. In
other words, we are to unfold from the seed and express our true
being. Up to that time, like everybody else, I had made the hunt for
happiness my chief aim. When, in consequence of that, I found myself
swamped in misery, I considered myself injured, and felt sure somebody
was to blame. I could not see that I, myself, was the culprit; that
the selfish search for happiness must lead directly away from that
condition. Ah, I suffered much, much up to that time; but I see the
uses of it now. I was being educated by the only means possible. Had I
secured the kind of happiness I was looking for, I should still be in
darkness. It was the ideal of an undeveloped mind. Now I see plainly
that the spiritual side of suffering is good. It means birth--the birth
of knowledge, of light, of truth. I don’t think suffering is ‘sent
upon us,’ as many good people assert. We pursue false ideals and they
bring us to grief; but through that suffering we find the true ideals.
Suffering becomes our teacher. Truth, which is good, is ever struggling
to express itself through us; but in our ignorance we oppose and
obstruct it, and that makes pain for us. All suffering comes from our
obstinate opposition to good, though we are usually unconscious of it
till our eyes are opened. I thank you again for helping me. Since that
day suffering has fallen away from me to a great extent. As soon as I
became willing to suffer in order to get on the right road, I ceased
to suffer. Strange law, but true. And so I argue that when we cease to
pursue happiness or think about it we shall possess it.”
“Yes, it has long been clear to me that we are not here to hunt
happiness; though I doubt not that every human soul is destined to be
happy; but it will be an order of happiness most unlike the common
dream. Even here it could be found, if we sought it where the master
told us to look. Did he not say that the kingdom of heaven is within
us? It is a state of consciousness. He told us how to attain it, too.
How simple the way! Only to love one another. This, indeed would make
heaven for us all. That is what we are here to learn--that is the chief
end of man, for, when we learn that, we shall know all the law--all
there is to learn, and shall have reached the full development which is
the purpose of our existence. How simple the way! We have no call to
go forth and reform our erring brother; to devise schemes to save his
soul; to build barriers to put temptation out of his way; to weave nets
to ensnare him to our faith. We have only to love him. Thus shall we
fulfill all the law; thus shall we do all we have to do. Neither are we
here to do good. Even this is not our work in life. Many well-meaning
people busy themselves, and bluster about doing good, from their point
of view. Oftener than not they put their Father’s house in disorder.
We are to _be_ good. Then the doing of good comes without effort. We
are here but for one purpose, and that is to learn and therefore grow.
To learn that we are the sons and daughters of God--otherwise supreme
wisdom, love, life, light and intelligence. The more we recognize this
infinite source of our being the more of it we reflect and become, the
more perfect our development. And how shall we do this? In the simple
way we were told--only by loving one another. This is the purpose of
our creation. This includes all there is to know, and to become. This
is the perfection at which we were told to aim. This sets our feet on
the road to happiness.”
“What is the body?” Cartice asked.
“Perhaps it is the objective side of our existence on this plane--the
self as it appears to others, but not as it really is.”
After Gabriel was gone Chrissalyn said with a yawn:
“Cartice, you and Gabriel tire one all out bothering about the ‘purpose
of life,’ the soul and the body and so on. What’s the good of heating
your heads about such things? Just to slip through easy, is all I’m
asking now.”
“Yes, dear; but you are a Butterfly and have a butterfly’s standard.
Gabriel and I aim to be gardeners, who make it possible for butterflies
to circle about and enjoy themselves without bad boys catching them
and pulling their wings off. But you have grown astonishingly, since
I first knew you, in spite of yourself. You used to find nothing
better to do than kill time with a procession of admirers. Now you
have outgrown that. And you were dependent on your husband for your
very bread. Now you are able to stand on your own feet, and are a
self-supporting, useful member of society. Don’t you see, dear, that
the lesson every soul must learn sooner or later, here or elsewhere, is
to be able to stand alone? Each of us, woman or man, must fulfill the
purpose of creation, which is to grow toward perfection, and we can’t
do that by leaning on somebody else. Woman is a human being as is man,
and is responsible for her own destiny. The responsibility can’t be put
upon another.”