"Dispel this cloud, the light of Heaven restore;
Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more!"
(Pope)
To you of that great voiceless multitude,
"THE PEOPLE"--
You whose bewildered cry is still for light; whose silent tragedy our
well beloved Longfellow could so well portray:
"O suffering sad humanity!
O ye afflicted ones, who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried!"
To you and your needs this brief epitome of a coming greater work is
given as a fitting Christmas offering--
"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"
It is the cry which despairing, deluded humanity, in the darkness of its
frenzied ignorance, has flung back hopelessly to heaven since first the
spirit of an Infinite Intelligence brooded upon the race. It is the
appeal of man's immortal unity to the All-Father, from age to age, for
knowledge sufficient for its hourly needs, since ever, back in the far
dim ages of the earth, primeval man, beetle-browed, furtive and
fashioned fearsomely, first felt the faint vibration of a Soul; and,
like an awakened giant, that chief of human faculties, a Mind took form
which, pressing on along the uncertain way, has scaled the giddy heights
of knowledge where genius, enthroned, does battle with an envious world
of shams and greed and venal prejudice. Led by the resistless pulse of
power it follows still that "banner with a strange device:
Excelsior!";--for, ever onward yet it wends its way where'er the devious
pathway trends, whose troubled, varied course is time, whose bourne is
in eternity.
But where seek we, then, the answer to a cry so shrill, that smites the
high face of heaven from a world in pain?
Shall we seek it where false learning leads us in the quest?--Ah no.
It comes, not in the crash of Sinai's thunders with the rockings of a
riven sphere, as in the allegoric stories of a puerile past.
Softly it falls--yes, almost fearfully--from the fervid lips of some
lone world-neglected persecuted man--some patient toil-worn son of
science, whom Genius loves to call her own--though, haply, to the
schools, to fortune and to fame unknown. One whose transcendent,
superconscious mind has dared, Prometheus-like, to snatch from heaven
the fire of the immortal gods and offer it in benefits to all mankind.
Thrice happy he upon the sensory surface of whose open mind such seeds
of knowledge and of wisdom fall, and happy the land where one and all
may dare to warm chill hands and hearts before its sacred flame; that
halcyon land, the Ultima Thule of our fond imaginings, wherein true
freedom reigns; wherein the legalized tyranny of the chartered
libertines of a so-called learned profession shall be finally relegated,
in common cause to the limbo of a sordid and degraded past. For these
are they who seek to maintain a strangle-hold on science, who paralyze
the arm of individual research and, even in this advancing age, still
block the path of progress and of peace, of universal freedom and
equality of intellect, to all beyond the narrow limits of their own
elect.
Thus then, to the free fraternity of the open mind I dedicate this
brief resumé of the product of long years of study and of toil,
steadfastly believing that therein is found the missing dimension for
their urgent need, suited alike to all who hold that to maintain the
health of body and of mind is a worthy object for enlightened man. To
you, mothers of the land, who recognize your duty, towards God and to
the State, to rear your children healthy, strong and good to look upon.
To all whose keener common-sense looks upon Nature, the Creator, as
logically therefore, the healing power also. To all endowed with wit to
understand the obvious truth that, not by poisonous drugs is healing
wrought, but by such reasonable help as man's intelligence can afford,
to second nature's effort to that end; and further, that, in order to
achieve success, it is useless to attack, suppress or remove the
symptoms of disease by force of drugging or the knife, whilst the
_cause_ of the evil is left untouched, unthought of, and, too
frequently, unknown. Truth and reason alike proclaim: remove the cause
and the symptom _must_ disappear.
To all, then, to whom the ever blessed triad of health, hope, and
happiness on earth, are dear, the sanctity of child-life and the
improvement of the race; and especially to those whose clearer mental
vision can grasp the stupendous fact of eternal Universal Unity--the
oneness with that mighty Primal Cause, the great Life Principle,
immanent and active throughout all nature; can grasp and assimilate the
idea that everything that has life is, each in its separate form and
degree, but a medium through which the Infinite Universal Source of
Life--that vast, ineffable power which we, blindly, designate as God--or
Good--seeks expression in the scheme of evolution whose aim sublime is
pure perfection, as its ultimate, attainable, though far off goal.
Directed and attracted by an intelligence we call divine, it is a hope,
instinct with ability, implanted by that Power in the soul of man, as
patent in his ceaseless struggle upward toward the light of fuller
knowledge; it is a power, restricted, only in degree, by that individual
sense of human limitations fostered by false prophets and grounded in
the vitals of the race.
To you all, this brief precis is presented, as a guide, with the
author's benediction, coupled with the fervent hope that, reading the
scientific deductions and precepts therein contained you, too, may see
Regeneration's Light and seeing, may
"_Dare to be Healthy._"