4/05/32 Written by Mr. [
1341] (11/37) and presented to the
Association by Mr. [
1151]:
Permit me to thank you for the inspiring quotation from
Ingersoll, and to enclose another, written by him in the
cottage of Burns. If you will carefully compare the features
of both Ingersoll and Burns you will find them the same, and
if you will read the last verse you will see that he himself
feels that he has at last grasped the "something deemed
divine." As to the general subject you and [
1151] and I
discussed, I have rather hastily put together the following
observations which may interest you in odd moments and which
I begin with another quotation of verse:
"Oh God for a man, with heart, head, hand
Like some of the simple great ones gone
Forever and ever by.
One still strong man in a blatant land,
Whatever they call him what care I -
Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat - one
Who can rule and dare not lie."
The idea of reincarnation is as old as the hills. Before
the body of man was, his spirit was. Two-thirds of the human
race accept the idea in principle. The remaining third are
prepared for it by the idea of incarnation and the colloquy
in the New Testament in which Jesus asks "Whom think ye I
am?" and is answered that he might be Jeremiah or Elijah.
But reincarnation is accepted anywhere now only as a belief.
It must be proven in order to have universal validity. And
if proven it would change the entire course of human thought.
It would give humanity certainty of its future, reveal the
justice of God, stimulate men to make the world a better
place to dwell in so that in the next life they might receive
the benefit, and give added force to every symbolic
expression of Christianity.
Reincarnation is the secret of the leadership throughout the
ages which is as essential to the development of humanity
as vitality. As the spirit guides the body so intelligence
rules the earth. Genius is a combination of past experience
and inspiration. History is the sum of the work of human
genius, of those inspired minds who have advanced the cause
of mankind. They in all lands and climes have been guided
intuitively. The sublime deeds of life are done by
individual men who are the servants of the Most High.
Moses, Samuel, Isaiah and David in Israel, Rameses and
Thetmosis III in Egypt, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and
Alexander in Greece, Caesar in Rome, Hannibal in Carthage,
Mahomet, Harun and Mamun in the Caliphate, Buddha in India,
Confucius in China, Zoroaster in Media, Justinian in the
Byzantine Empire, Charlamagne in Francia, Columbus in Italy,
Magellan in Portugal, Cortez in Spain, Charles V in Austria,
Peter in Russia, Cromwell and Pitt in England, Luther and
Bismarck in Germany, Washington and Lincoln in America are
among the achievers of all time who have advanced humanity
step by step to greater things.
They and those like them, individuals all, have brought
humanity down to date. Sweep away those who have labored and
struggled singly in leadership of their fellows throughout
historic life on the planet and man is again under a tree in
the forest, subsisting on the line of least resistance. And
without the individual help of those good women who have been
the wives and mothers of the world, as well as those feminine
characters who have assisted in the leadership of mankind,
such as Semiramis, Zenobia, Brunnhilda, Isabella, Catherine,
Elizabeth and Joan d'Arc, there would be but a verdant nature
on an unthinkable earth. All these spirits, added to the
conquerors and statesmen, teachers and writers, inventors and
captains of industry have fashioned the world we live in,
wresting something new in government, thought or material out
of old conditions to make for progress.
Vitality, determination, opportunity, inspiration and right
reason provide the means by which achievers perform their
tasks. They spring forward for each occasion and seem to
have been created for it. In moments of supreme decision
they appear to see more clearly than others what should be
done and advance toward accomplishment with assurance.
Through boyhood and youth they often given evidence of
uncommon and preternatural precocity. They understand
problems pertaining to activities in which they seek to
become engaged as though they had had long experience in
them. Their companions and associates, even in youth, are
forced to give way to their asserted genius. As they grow
older a glamor attaches to them. Men delight to know and
follow them.
"Sword and staff, or talents sword-like or staff-like carry
on the work of the world," says Emerson. This is due in
large measure to the fact that they utter the truth lying as
a germ in the mind of all and thereby convince, or by the
magnitude of their operations attain success, but also to
that indefinable something we call personality. In times of
stress they realize themselves and express that which is in
the nature of their being in deeds. It is then that clearest
inspiration comes to them. They feel innately that certain
things are or should be so. This is direct or immediate
intuition.
Thus millions had seen apples fall, but when Isaac Newton did
so he perceived the law of gravitation. Martin Luther said:
"I do not know where my ideas come from." Bonaparte said:
"no great general ever profited by experience in war." His
rivals said of him that he possessed an uncanny intuition on
the battlefield. Meneval says of him that "he began to
dictate in a serious and emphatic tone, without resting for
a moment. As ideas came to him his voice assumed a more
animated tone. In rendering his thought expressions came
without effort." Filson Young relates of Columbus that
"there gradually grew up in his mind the intuition or
conviction - I refuse to call it an opinion - that over that
blue verge of the west there was land to be found. How this
seed of conviction first lodged in his mind it would be
impossible to say." Andrew D. White says of Bismarck that
"his insight and foresight seemed due to intuition, to sudden
flashes which lighted up his course and determined his
conduct." At twenty-four Cavour wrote that he already saw
himself minister of a united Italy. Memmsen says of Caesar
that "his remarkable power of intuition revealed itself in
the precision and practicality of all his arrangements, even
when he gave orders without having seen with his own eyes."
Zenephon says of Socrates: "If it appeared to him that a
sign from heaven had been given him, nothing would have
induced him to go against the heavenly warning; he would as
soon have been persuaded to accept the guidance of a blind
man ignorant of the path to lead him on a journey in place of
one who knew the road and could see; and so he denounced the
folly of others who did things contrary to the warnings in
order to avoid some disrepute among men. For himself he
despised all human aid by comparison with counsel from
above." Socrates himself said of a conviction that "this
came to me apart from demonstration."
As men through hardship and struggle are broken to humility
and the realization that they may gain inner light and
happiness solely through kindness, mercy and simplicity, they
are brought in harmony with and therefore nearer to that
apperception by which they find surcease from difficulty and
restoration of soul. Augustine, turning from his "fill of
hell" and "fog of lustfulness", as he termed them in his
"Confessions", to the contemplation of God became the light
of a thousand years. As one can see the stars in the daytime
only from the bottom of a well, he may behold the truth
more clearly in the adversity which brings sorrow and
unselfishness into his heart. This is true of St. Francis of
Assisi and the line of mystics who have discerned love of God
in love of man.
The truly great have ever been as simple as Lincoln. In
themselves they were not great. They merely seemed so. They
were enabled to do remarkable things by their own initiative
and that inspiration and kindness which came to them. "If
God is with a man, he cannot fail; if He is against him, he
cannot succeed," said Lincoln. Before every battle the
sensitive Washington knelt in prayer. Alfred of England, one
of the noblest characters of human story, said: "As long as
I have lived I have striven to live worthily." He longed
when death should overtake him to leave with the men who came
after him a remembrance of him in good works. Canute, when
told by his courtiers that he might accomplish anything, by
taking his seat by the ocean and commanding the tide to
turn back proved that he by his own power could do nothing.
Luther, before deciding to face the Diet at Worms where his
life was endangered, found in prayer that light which told
him he was to go no matter what might be the outcome.
Charlemagne sought learning like the humblest scholar at
his court, attending school there when late in life. His
favorite book, Augustine's "City of God", was always
near him. Otto the Great was alike distinguished by his
simplicity and his desire for learning. Mrs. Gladstone
confided in John Merley that the Great Commoner had succeeded
in the struggle for self mastery "ever since he was three or
four and twenty, first by the natural power of his character
and second by incessant wrestling in prayer - prayer that had
been abundantly answered." Paul saw the vision of a more
glorified humanity and thenceforth lived for his fellow men.
These are some of "the simple great ones, gone forever and
ever by."
It was because they were simple that they were helped by
God. Insight came to them because they sought His will.
Consciously or unconsciously they placed themselves in
harmony with the Infinite Intelligence. "If the body has
many attributes of higher value than pleasure," says Cicero,
"what think you of the mind? The wisest sages of antiquity
believed that the mind contains an element of the celestial
divine." Says Marcus Aurelius: "God is in man and so we
must constantly attend to the divinity within us, for it is
only in this way that we can have any knowledge of the nature
of God." And Agapetus: "He who knows himself will know God;
and he who knows God will be made like to God; and he becomes
worthy of God who does nothing unworthy of God, but speaks
the things that are His and speaks what He thinks and does
what He speaks." Isaiah says: "The Lord Eternal hath
given me a tongue for teaching, that I should know how to
strengthen the weary with the word. He wakeneth my ear to
listen like those that are well taught." Jeremiah: "And the
Lord stretched forth His hand and touched me therewith on my
mouth; and the Lord said unto me, behold I have put My words
in thy mouth." Ezekiel: "And he said unto me, son of man
receive all My words that I will speak unto thee and hear
them with thine ears." "Happy are they," says Augustine,
"who know it was Thou that gave the command. For all things
are done for them that serve Thee, either for the providing
of themselves of what is needful for the present, or for the
foreshadowing of something to come hereafter." Thomas a
Kempis pleads: "Seek for thyself a secret place, love to
dwell alone with thyself, desire the conversation of none,
but rather pour out devout prayer unto God that thou mayest
keep thy mind in compunction and thy conscience pure." St.
Bernard says: "To lose thyself in some sort as if thou were
not and to have no consciousness of thyself at all - to be
emptied of thyself and to be almost annihilated - such is
heavenly conversation - so to be affected is to become God."
Tagore in his autobiography relates: "From now I began to
train myself to listen to His command, to understand the
deference between my own inclination and His will. What
appeared to my conscience to be his command that I tried
to follow. Then I prayed to Him to inspire me with
righteousness, to guard me with moral strength, to give me
patience, courage, fortitude and contentment. I could make
out that He was dwelling within me, seated in my heart. Even
as He, dwelling in the sky, guides the stars and planets, so
does He, dwelling within my heart, inspire all my righteous
feelings and guide my soul." Schepenhauer declares that "it
is possible in certain cases for knowledge to escape from
the bondage of the will, at which time the individuality of
man is cancelled and he becomes entirely absorbed in
disinterested contemplation. This revolution and
emancipation, in which the will disappears and pure
perception has the upper hand, can only be explained as a
sudden breaking forth of the faculty of intuition." Thus it
is likely that no new truth is ever added to the thought of
the world except by immediate intuition; that is, by
realization without demonstration. Empirical investigation
assists by concentration of cognition in the discovery of
hypotheses before unknown, whether in invention, science or
pure reason, but does not in itself disclose that which is
discovered which comes to one suddenly and intuitively.
Indicative and deductive principles as applied to experience
only prove that which is already known.
It was such an intuitive message that declared of David that
"I will appoint him my first born, the highest among the
kings of the earth." "My son art thou. Ask it of me and I
will give thee nations for an inheritance, and for thy
possession the uttermost ends of the earth." "The spirit of
the Lord came suddenly upon David from that day and forward."
"And David felt conscious that the Lord had established
him as king over Israel." "Thou hast also spoken of Thy
servant's house for a distant time." "Thou preservest me to
be the head of nations. A people which I know not shall
serve me." (2 Samuel 22:44) "The spirit of the Lord spoke
through me and his word was upon my tongue. Thus said the
God of Israel, that I should be ruler over men, ruling in the
fear of God."
If a man's ambition is his intuitive perception of what he
may become if he will, the thought of Alexander the Great
that he must conquer and govern the world was as inspired
as that of David. Mommsen says: "Caesar renewed the
interrupted work of the great Alexander whose image we may
well believe never was absent from Caesar's soul. In the
capital of his empire he regulated the destinies of the world
for the present and the future." The Emperor Julian remarks:
"Nor do I despise that lot with which I was endowed by the
god Helios, that I should be born of a house that rules and
governs the world in my time." Gibbon says of Zinghis Kahn
that "he accepted the title of Zinghis, the most great, and a
divine right to the conquest and dominion of the earth." The
same historian also declares that "the conquest and monarchy
of the world was the first object of the ambition of Timur."
Gregory VII felt that he had been entrusted by God with the
task of uniting all mankind in a single society in which His
will would be the only law. This was also the thought of
Boniface VIII. Charles XII longed to emulate Alexander.
Turenne most admired the exploits of the great Greek and of
Julius Caesar. So did Bonaparte, who in his exile at St.
Helena said that the grand ideal toward which his efforts had
been directed was a great confederacy of peoples, bound
together "by unity of codes, principles, opinions, feelings
and interests." He prophesied that it would yet be realized,
sooner or later, "by the force of circumstances."
These figures of the past had the same intuitive perception
of destiny for the reason that they were the same spirit born
again from life to life, showing quite naturally the same
talents and aspirations. Their line is as follows:
Bonaparte 1769-1821
Charles XII 1682-1718
Turenne 1611-1675
Suleiman 1494-1566
Casimir IV 1427-1492
Timur 1336-1405
Boniface VIII 1239-1303
Zinghis Kahn 1164-1227
Alphonse VII 1126-1157
Gregory VII 1036-1085
Canute 995-1035
Hugh the Great
905-956
Alfred
848-900
Harun al Hashid
766-809
Leo the Isaurian
680-740
Heracleus
575-642
Justinian
483-565
Attila
385-453
Julian
331-363
Maximin
275-314
Aurelian
212-274
Septimus Serverus
146-211
Trajan
53-117
Tiberius B.C.
37-42 A.D.
Julius Caesar B.C.
101-44 B.C.
Mithradates I
170-138
Hannibal
234-183
Ptolemy Philadelphus
309-246
Alexander
356-323
Alcibiades
450-404
Miltiades
540-488
Psammeticus I
664-610
Sargon
755-705
Shelmonessar II
878-823
Sheshonk
950-885
David
1055-980
This was the one of whom it was said: "Out of him cometh
forth the corner stone, out of him the tent nail, out of him
the battle bow, out of him every ruler of others together.
And they shall be like mighty men, treading down their
enemies in the mire of the streets in the battle, and they
shall fight because the Lord is with them, and the riders on
horses shall be made ashamed." The Old Testament seers were
neither the first, nor the last to lay down the principle of
everlasting life. Socrates said that death is only the
separation of the soul from the body; that the intelligence
is soul, like the Divine Mind, and both are immortal; that
we recollect afterward things which we acquired before our
birth; that "if the soul exists before birth and when it
comes into life and is born from anything else than death and
a state of death, must it not also exist after dying, since
it must be born again." "These souls," he said, "flit about
until, through the desire of the corporeal which clings to
them, they are again imprisoned in a body." And again: "God
and the principle of life and everything that is immortal can
never perish. The soul being immortal is also imperishable."
Aristotle says: "Now though only one of the powers of the
soul, intellect alone of these powers has no bodily organ; it
alone in immortal; it alone is divine." In the Upanishads
in the seventh century B.C. Death answers Nachiketas, "The
knowing self is not born; it dies not; it sprang from
nothing; nothing sprang from it. The ancient is unborn,
eternal, everlasting. If the slayer thinks that he slays, or
if the slain think he is slain, they do not understand, for
this one does not slay nor is that one slain." Philo of
Alexandria before Christian thought had perfected itself and
Giardano Bruno in later times attested to the same belief.
Hume says: "Metempsychosis is the only system of immortality
that philosophy can hearken to." Bulwer Llyton declares:
"Eternity may be but an endless series of those migrations
which men call deaths, abandonments of home after home, ever
to fairer scenes and loftier heights. Age after age the
spirit may shift his tent, fated not to death in the dull
elysium of the heathen but carrying with it evermore its two
attributes, activity and energy." And Schopenhauer makes
this statement: "We find the doctrine of metempsychosis
springing from the earliest and noblest ages of the human
race, and always spread abroad on the earth as the belief of
the great majority of mankind."
The character and genius of those mentioned as of the line of
David reborn from life to life are the same. The greatest of
military strategists, statesmen by being builders of unity
and order, law-givers, writers and even orators, they, or
more properly speaking the last mentioned as Bonaparte.
Potentially, the personal characteristics in each life are
similar. If we would demur that Attila was unlike Alexander,
Caesar or Bonaparte, let us consult Creasy, who in his
"Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World" says: "When we turn
from the legendary to the historic Attila we see clearly
that he was not one of the vulgar herd of barbaric
conquerors. Consummate military skill may be traced in his
campaigns; and he relied far less on the brute force of
armies for the aggrandizement of his empire than on the
unbounded influence over the affections of friends and the
fears of foes, which his genius enabled him to acquire.
Austerely sober in his private life, - severely just on the
judgment seat, - conspicuous among a nation of warriors for
hardihood, strength and skill in every martial exercise, -
grave and deliberate in counsel, but rapid and remorseless in
execution, - he gave safety and security to all who were
under his dominion, while he waged a war of extermination
against all who opposed or sought to escape from it." Arrian
says of Alexander: "As to those pleasures which regarded the
body, he showed himself indifferent; as to the desires of the
mind he was insatiable." Helland Rose says of Bonaparte:
"In spite of his prodigious failure, he was superlatively
great in all that pertains; to government, the quickening of
human energies and the art of war...His greatness lies, not
merely in the abiding importance of his undertakings, but
still more in the titanic force that he threw into the
inception and accomplishment of all of them - a force which
invests the storm-blasted monoliths strewn along the latter
portion of his career with a majesty unapproachable by a
tamer race of toilers." Sheshonk founded a new dynasty in
Egypt by his own capacity, conquered Israel, Judah and Nubia,
and developed his kingdom to great prosperity. During the
reign of thirty-five years of Shalmonessar II over Assyria,
Babylon was reduced to vassalage by his military prowess.
Great in soldierly and administration qualities the second
Sargon by his own capacities became king of Babylon.
Psammeticus was a firm and wise ruler under whom Egypt
recovered its prosperity and extended its boundaries. Greece
was saved at Marathon by the genius of Miltiades. Athens
lost the war with Syracuse because it failed to make use of
the talents of Alcibiades, and Hellas finally triumphed
through Alexander. Philadelphus was the greatest of the
Ptolemies and patronized scientific and literary research.
Hannibal was not only a great warrior, but a statesman and a
man of resource. The innate military prowess of Mithradates
I enabled him to succeed his brother on the throne and extend
the frontiers of Parthia over Babylon, Bactria, Iran and
Media. And it was the same intuition and memory that led
Tiberius, Trajan, Septimus Sereus, Aurelian, Maximin and
Julian to rise by military steps and solely by individual
merit to the purple.
Finley says "the fame of Heracleus would have rivalled that
of Alexander, Caesar or Hannibal had he expired at Jerusalem
after the successful termination of the Persian war. He
had established peace throughout the Empire, restored the
strength of the Roman government, revived the power of
Christianity in the East, and replanted the holy cross on
Mount Calvary. His glory admitted of no addition." Of Leo
the Isaurian Foord writes: "He opened his reign with the
most splendid victory in history, saving his realm and
religion from destruction, once more staving off from Europe
an attack which could not otherwise have been resisted; out
of the wild chaos about him he built up a fresh and in many
respects an entirely new structure of Europe, throwing into
the tremendous task a force and enduring energy, a stern and
pure religious enthusiasm. Where he inherited ruin and
misery, he left strength, order, peace and reviving
prosperity."
Justinian, who reformed the legal and administrative system
of the empire and instigated its wars and ecclesiastical
reforms, was a man of remarkable bodily and mental energy.
The reign of Harun al Raschid was the most brilliant in the
history of the Caliphate. Scholar and poet, he surrounded
himself with learned men. Zinghis Kahn and Timur subdued
Asia, but possessed the traits and likeness of Caesar and
Bonaparte. Spain was united by the statesmanship and
military talents of Alphonse VII. The executive and
diplomatic genius of Gregory VII laid the foundations of
papal power for centuries. Though the life of Boniface
VIII fell in a more unfortunate time, he evinced the same
qualities of leadership. Alfred and Canute were alike as
simple warriors and statesmen, loved by their followers.
Casimir IV of Poland was one of the greatest statesmen of
his age. His habits were simple, his political sagacity
profound. Creasy says of Suleiman the Magnificent: "We must
remember his princely courage, his military genius, his high
and enterprising spirit, his strict observance of the laws of
his religion without any taint of bigoted persecution, the
order and economy which he combined with so much grandeur and
munificence, his liberal encouragement of art and literature,
his seal for the diffusion of education, the conquests by
which he extended his empire, and the wise and comprehensive
legislation with which he provided for the good government of
all his subjects." Hugh the Great was the real founder of
the dynasty of the Capets. He might have made himself king
had he chosen, but, instead, nominally supported the last of
the Carelingians while himself exercising all real power.
Cardinal de Retz says that Turenne from his youth up
possessed all good qualities. He was a warrior and of
heroic mould. Montecuculli, his opponent and enemy of the
battlefield, said: "Today a man has fallen who did honor to
man," and uncovered respectfully.
And yet we must not regard any of these men who contributed
so much to civilization as great. We think of David as the
author of the Psalms more than as the warrior and statesman
who unified Israel. His simplicity in the presence of God
has endeared him to Christendom. Alexander appeals to us
also as the pupil of Aristotle and because he took with him
to India a body of savants who were to advance civilization
alone with the sword. Caesar, said by Merivale to be the
greatest name in history, is known to every school boy mainly
as the author of the "commentaries." And the youthful
Bonaparte, emulating Alexander, took with him to Egypt a
number of scholars who were destined to discover the Rosetta
stone, unlock the learning of the ancient East and found the
study of comparative religions.
If Caesar were to walk in upon us today, diverted of all
pomp, power and reputation, attired in the clothes of our
time, it is quite unlikely that we should regard him as
great, though we might think he had a certain air of
distinction. But, even so, the distinction would arise
solely from his personality. We might agree with Mommsen
that he was a gentleman and a man of genius and that he had
a heart. Anything else would require the time and the
opportunity to call forth those latent forces within his
nature, which, added to inspiration from without, could make
him again an instrument for the development of humanity. We
should find the contour of his features the same. And we
should find this to be so because the spirit gives form to
the body. We know as the result of careful analysis that
traits of character are depicted in the face. Indeed, we
have a new type of professional activity in personnel experts
who tell by the physiognomy who and who not to employ. We
know that characteristics are shown in the shape and lines of
the hand. We know that temperament is shown somewhat by the
structure of the body itself. It should not be difficult,
then, to go a step further, and grasp the meaning of Isaiah
when he said: "Behold, I shall remove the veil from off all
faces and destroy death to eternity, saith the Lord."
Caesar, or shall we say Bonaparte? was only one of many
geniuses who have profoundly influenced civilization and made
the story of history. If we have an intuition that one of
these was the other how shall we prove it? We know that
there is a law of continuity of form, that is that form in
nature is continued in its own form, as the tree, the flower,
the dog and the man. We know that there is a law of
continuity of being, that the spirit which is imperishable,
because now in a body as a process of nature and giving its
differentiating features the form they possess, must have
been in a body before and must be in a body again. We must
depend upon our intuition that one is the other, an intuition
which has come to us without reasoning or comparison, and
then if the features are the same and the character and
powers are similar we may conclude that the law of
probability is in our favor. But if we can trace the course,
through century after century, wherever they had opportunity,
of all the great Builders, whether in large affairs, art or
letters, and each one of the instances corresponds perfectly
in contour of physiognomy, character and powers, then we may
conclude that our theory is science and that the basis of
history is spirit, personality, intelligence, leadership.
And we may conclude likewise that this is the basis of time,
space, the universe. We do not see God because God entirely
obliterates self in incessant effort for good everywhere. If
we look into the sprouting crops, the restless ocean waves,
the stars twinkling in the night, the puppies and children
playing, the application of electricity and steam we see
constant activity. We must understand, then, that one of the
attributes of the universe is activity. The eternal hills of
earth, the gaseous mass of the nebulae seem changeless, but
investigation of other worlds and nebulae in differing stages
of growth reveal that all are constantly active. Empires wax
and wane, formal religions rise and fall, "our little systems
have their day and cease to be, for they are but trembling
lights of Thee." But all are moving slowly but surely from
lower to higher forms, from the apparent triumph of decadent
form and moral wrong to the ultimate survival of the fit.
Therefore we know that another attribute of the universe is
growth, or evolution. Constant activity and growth toward
what? If we look about us and study the history of mankind
we find that the highest aspirations we have toward
perfection are expressed in justice, love, kindness, mercy,
unity and the general welfare. If we look outside of
ourselves in the realm of objective nature we see a constant
development for the good of the whole. The spirit of the
whole in man necessitates justice, kindness, love, mercy,
unity and the general welfare. The spirit of nature outside
ourselves necessitates the spirit of the good of the whole.
Hence we may reason that the attributes of the universe
are justice, kindness, love, mercy, unity and the general
welfare. All of these attributes are spiritual. Back of
and through the universe is mind, the mind of God. His
attributes are perfect justice, love, kindness and mercy.
Nature is ever renewing himself in countless forms. Winter
and spring, sleeping and waking, decay and renewal, death
and birth are but evidences of the change which precedes new
life. It would be as contrary to the facts to say that the
outward form of the universe is God as to say that the body
of man is man himself. For just as back of the universe is
mind so back of the body is mind. But "back of" is self
evidently not the proper term, for the spirit of man only
expresses itself in and through the body to which it has
given its form. And so God expresses himself through nature,
his nature. And as all in the universe changes and renews
form while the spirit remains forever the same, so we grow
old and die but renew at birth with the same spirit. Only
God, however, is perfect. Hence our life is forever and ever
toward that perfection which we can never attain. We can
be more like him only as we are more just, kind, loving,
merciful and therefore one with him. And in that way only
can we find happiness. He is perfectly happy because he is
perfectly just, kind, loving and merciful. He is so because
he effaces himself for all, His glory lies only in his work
for the good of all. We wander away from Him in our
selfishness, willfulness for self, our perversion of our
individuality and life to merely selfish ends.
We can behold God only through truth. If we would behold the
laws of God we must behold the laws of nature. The scientist
perceives in truth the means of usefulness to man. So does
the investor. So does the teacher. So does the business
man. The most patent of all the truths of nature is that all
must serve the whole for the good of the whole. The message
of the preacher is of value only to the extent that it is in
harmony with the law of God which is the law of justice,
kindness, love, mercy and therefore of unity.
The great enemy of truth, of the nature of God and man, is
ignorance. The great enemy of man is his own selfishness.
Ignorance and selfishness go hand in hand for if we were not
ignorant of the effects of selfishness it is unthinkable that
we should be so selfish. The great implements of ignorance
are the tradition and prejudice which solemnly informed
Columbus that what his honest thought told him he could do
could not be done, threatened Luther with the fate of Huss
and Bruno at the stake, declared the tomato to be a poisoned
apple, and still exhausts itself in the contention that
immortality, the greatest of God's gifts to man, is to be
arrived at by belief. If the truth of man's universal
immortality will emancipate his mind from ignorance and
prejudice, it should be told in the name of God. And with
the proof that man's salvation from selfishness lies only in
his own efforts toward justice, kindness, love and mercy, in
the spirit of humanity and therefore of the whole, in the
service of man and therefore of God, we shall come nearer
to the fulfillment of the prophesy of old of one God, one
humanity, one law and one state in a federation of the world.
Genuine democracy is nowhere indicated more clearly than in
the loss of the wealth, the power, the tyranny, the title of
the man who may use them selfishly and yet at death can take
with him to face the justice of God only that character of
himself with which he must live in the next life on earth.
From this neither dogma nor ritual can save him, for that
which he sows will he also reap.
Nothing which a spirit has developed is lost. A Michael
Angelo becomes a Rodin, Moliere lives again as Voltaire,
Plutarch as Montaigne, Francis of Assisi as Lincoln, Danton
as Roosevelt, Jefferson as Wilson, Washington as Garabaldi.
As contemplation is only the prelude to activity, it is
unthinkable that the individual spirit should ever seek an
endless nirvana of contemplation without rebirth. And
inasmuch as like causes have like effects and the universe
has infinite worlds in infinite space, man's past and future
are not confined to this earth.
Five thousand instances of intuition of identity of genius in
history, supported by unmistakable likeness of physiognomy,
personality and potentiality, should prove to any reasonable
mind the presumption, gradually growing into a certainty of
conviction, that each one of the billion and eight hundreds
of millions of people now on the earth has lived before, will
live again and can find happiness in this life and that to
come only in the development of the best within him for the
benefit of all. Would not this work, for which courage and
fortitude are required, bring us nearer to the ideal of
Charles Kingsley: "A nation - and were it even possible, a
whole world - of free men, lifting their foreheads to God and
nature; calling no man master, for none is their master, even
God; knowing and obeying their duties toward the Maker of the
Universe, and therefore to each other, and that not from
fear, nor calculation of profit or loss, but because they had
loved and liked it, and had seen the beauty of righteousness
and trust and peace, because the law of God was in their
hearts; and need at last, it may be, neither king nor priest,
for each man and each woman were kings and priests of God.
Such a nation - such a society - what nobler conception of
mortal existence can we form? Would not that indeed be the
kingdom of God come on earth?"
4/07/40 See
1151-25, Par. 15-A advising Mr. [
1151] not to
terminate activities with Mr. [
1341].
10/03/40 See
1151-27, Par. 3-A in re [
1341] and wife
defrauding Mr. [
1151].
Edgar Cayce Readings © 1971, 1993, 1994, 1995 by the Edgar Cayce Foundation