Summing up then: which is best? to make your works better than yourself, or to make yourself so good that no work can adequately represent you? For still it remains true that you can never put the highest into words or deeds. Speech is limited, words are insufficient to express the richest and fullest life of the soul. Speech is human, the soul is divine; finite works can never justly represent the infinite source from whence they sprang, * * * What the age needs is this constant affirmation of the spirit against the materializing influences of our common daily life, and the present one-sided development of scientific thought. "The soul," said an old philosopher, "is the measure of all things." Spirit alone can adequately interpret to us the problems of the world of matter and the universe of man. * * The fleshly eye sees the sparrow fall to the ground, the spirit reassures itself with the thought that the Father sees it fall. Unfeeling hands press the crown of thorns upon the sensitive brow, but the spirit discerns the roses crowning the thorns, and is at peace. *** It is the soul which gives birth to the distinctions, good or evil, right or wrong, for the soul is the measure of the universe. So in human life, our deeds are characterless in themselves; and merely symptomatic of our inner being. What you are lends significance to what you do. Strive then, first of all, for that sublime faith, that vital piety, that stability of character, which is the infallible source of large-hearted deeds. Deeds must spring spontaneously from the divine life within the soul. In this harmonious interaction lies the only possible guarantee for a healthy normal life. But let us recognize the soul as the true center of our moral being, and be able to say, with Lavater, "May my deeds be like my words, and my words be like my heart." Then our works will no longer be forced and unrepresentative, but genuine, spontaneous and efficient ! "Thou must be true thyself, If thou the truth wouldst teach; Shall be a fruitful seed; Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed." Charles W. Wendte, Chicago, Ill. R. W. EMERSON-TEACHINGS. -To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the luster of the firmament of bards and sages. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. The relations of the soul to the Divine Spirit are so pure, that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. -Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away-means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brooks and the rustle of the corn. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with know. ing that all things go well. -Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles. -Proverbs, like the sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. -O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the center of Nature, and over the will of every man, so that none of us can wrong the universe. -The way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is, to speak and write sincerely. A man passes for what he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less So. Never was a sincere word utterly lost. Never a magna nimity fell to the ground, but there is some heart to greet and accept it unexpectedly. --This over-estimate of the possibilities of Paul and Pericles, this under-estimate of our own, comes from a neglect of the fact of an identical nature. -The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society. Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade. I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk, but after the counsel of his own bosom. -As there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God. --Some thoughts always find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty. With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. The heart which abandons itself to the Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works, and will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers. Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. -All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function like the power of memory, of calculation, of compassion, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being in which they lie—an immensity not possessed, and that cannot be expressed. -Let man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; this, namely: that the Highest dwells with him; that the sources of nature are in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there. But if he would know what the great God speaketh, he must "go into his closet and shut the door," as Jesus said. God will not make himself manifest to cowards. He must greatly listen to himself, withdrawing himself from all the accents of other men's devotion. Even their prayers are hurtful to him, until he has made his own. Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is made-no matter how indirectly--to numbers, proclamation is then and there made that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet enveloping thought to him never counts his company. When I sit in that presence, who shall dare to come in? When I rest in perfect humility, when I burn with pure love, what can Calvin or Swedenborg say? -But the idea which now begins to agitate society has a wider scope than our daily employments, our households, and the institutions of property. We are to revise the whole of our social structure, the State, the school, religion, marriage, trade, science, and explore their foundation in our own nature. What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Re-maker of what man has made; a renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good, imitating that great Nature which embosoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, and with every pulsation a new life? Let him remove everything which is not true to him. * * * * * But there will dawn erelong on our politics, on our modes of living, a nobler morning in the sentiment of love. Our age and history for these thousand years has not been the history of kindness, but of selfishness. Our distrust is very expensive. The money spent for courts and prisons is ill laid out. We make, by distrust, the thief and burglar, and incendiary, and by our court and jail we keep him so. An acceptance of the sentiment of love throughout Christendom for a season, would bring the felon and the outcast to our side in tears, with the devotion of his faculties to our service. See this wide society of laboring men and women. We allow ourselves to be served by them, we live apart from them, and meet them on the street without a salute. We do not greet their talents, nor rejoice in their good fortune, nor foster their hopes, nor in the assembly of the people vote for what is dear to them. Thus we enact the part of the selfish noble and king from the world's foundation. See, this tree always bears one fruit. In every household, the peace of a pair is poisoned by the malice, shyness, insolence, and alienation of the domestics. Let our affections flow out to our fellows; it would operate in a day the greatest of all revolutions. The State must consider the poor man, and all voices must speak for him. Every child born must have a just chance (with work) for his bread. Let the amelioration in our laws of property proceed from the concession of the rich, not from the grasping of the poor. Let us begin by habitual imparting. Let me feel that I am to be a lover. I am to see to it that the world is the better for me, and to find my reward in the act. you. A. J. DAVIS, TEACHINGS. *** -Be contented with the Past, and with all it has brought Be thankful for the Present, and for all you have. Be patient and hopeful for the Future, and for all it promises to bring you. It may cause many conflicts and efforts, but resolve that from this moment you will live harmoniously. Every day will strengthen your resolution. Live thus and every morning the spirit will feel new and pure as an infant. |