Kitabı oku: «The Universe a Vast Electric Organism», sayfa 11
But there in the darkness of that dungeon a struggle for life and hope goes on as important to the life involved as that of building a throne or destroying an empire. Never did a hero dare or a nation fight more bravely to attain its aspirations than did that little seed or bulb lying in the darkness. A slender beam of light gives it a hope of escape, and, cold and chilled, its prayer for life has slowly evolved a delicate pale vine which creeps toward the sunbeam.
Each day it has seen that beam of light fade and pass, and darkness and mildew paralyze it into the stupor of unconsciousness. And again that sunbeam awoke it to consciousness and life. At last it reached the crevice whence came the light, and, lifting itself as a prisoner escaping from death, it springs forth into the sunshine and opens its blossoms of beauty and perfume to greet and gladden the world of light and life.
Thus has humanity struggled for light, and toiled for hope and joy and sunshine through a thousand ages of gloom and chilling mildew of ignorance and darkness. And wherever a gleam of light and truth has pierced the shadows of life's struggles and tragedies, like the tiniest seed or fragile vine, the aspirations of his nature and his longing soul have reached up toward it.
What the ray of light is to the flower seed in the dungeon, religion is to man. Wherever man has crept, like the vine, in the darkness, towards the light it was his religious spiritual nature and aspirations which led him. Truth, which comes from the bosom of the eternal Good, streams down into the darkness and lifts man's soul up into the light by the same law that the flower and the vine seek the sunshine, and all true science and philosophy sustain the religious concept.
Life seems of little value when men of every nation are armed to the teeth to slay each other like madmen, as the best way in which they can show their gratitude to nature for the useless gift of life. But they are not so anxious for war and bloodshed as their preparations would indicate. And the World's Peace Conference at The Hague, and recent arbitration of national questions, mark a new era in the world's history, and indicate a disarmament of the nations in a few decades. The fear of death is useless and absurd. As Flammarion has said, there are only two sides to the question. When we go to sleep at night there is always the possibility that we may never awaken. Yet this thought does not prevent us from falling asleep. In one case, suppose death to end all; it is but an unfinished sleep to last forever. In the other case, should the soul survive the body, we shall reawaken in another world to resume the activities of life. In this case the awakening must be rather delightful, as every form of life and every creature finds its happiness in the exercise of its natural energies and faculties. The deep study of this important question and the disgust at the indifference of men to this great problem of human destiny impelled a great student of science to attempt suicide. Because he saw everywhere people absorbed in their material interests, accumulating wealth, consecrating their lives to Mammon, folly and passion and neglecting their nobler natures, it made him doubt their fitness for an eternal existence, and he determined to know the truth at once by plunging into the invisible unknown.
Prof. Albert H. Walker, in a recent lecture—May, 1903—makes a new distinction in philosophy and religion, when he says: "Two systems of philosophy will divide the attention and adherence of the people of the twentieth century. One is the old system of Epicurus which long preceded the rise of Christianity and which underlies the Declaration of Independence; and the other is the philosophy of Christian science."
His definition of religion and Atheism is something modern and unique. He says: "I define religion as belief in a God who cares; and Atheism as lack of belief in a God who cares. These two definitions, if correct, divide all men into two classes, and, according to this classification, most of the men in the United States are Atheists." He seems to think all men believe in a God, but a majority believe in a God who does not care, and that is Atheism. An Atheist has always been defined as one who believes there is no God; now they may believe in a God who does not care. This is not a very bad distinction and may be the true one in the future. For modern knowledge and culture forbids any thinking man from denying the existence of a God, and this may compel modern Atheism to modify its creed and accept a don't-care God.
He thinks this century may find an answer to the immortality of the soul, and "it may be in the affirmative through actual communication with departed souls; or in the negative by scientific demonstration that the spirit or soul of man is only a name for the electrical and chemical actions and reactions which occur in the body." He also says: "The twentieth century may show whether there is a great master hand that sweeps over the whole of this deep harp of life, or whether men are but pipes through whom the breath of 'Pan doth blow a momentary music.'" Religion has nothing to fear from the future; materialism is vanquished and now Atheism must change its creed.
Canon Farrar says: "Let us think noble thoughts of God and break through the brain-spun meshes of impotent negations. God is not vortices of atoms, or streams of tendencies, or earth fermentations. Heaven is not a vacuous eternity, or a future of ceaseless psalmody."
The Greek had his Elysian Fields, his daffodil meadows where the Eidola, the shadowy images of the dead, moved in a world of shadows; and his islands of the blest, where Achilles and Tydides unlaced the helmet from their flowing hair. The Scandinavian dreamed of his green sylvan paradise hereafter, amid the barren wastes. The Indian saw God in lightning, heard him in the thunder's roar, and viewed beyond the cloud-capped hills his hunters' paradise. And in the perennial hereafter in the all-life-giving sun there are green fields, daffodil meadows, golden light, rainbows that never fade, glorified cities, white-robed innocence, the crown and the palm branch, the throne of serene majesty, the golden harp and the song of rejoicing, and all-abounding happiness, innocent, thrilling, intense and unending.
The rare and radiant physical beauties of heaven we cannot describe, but it is a place where no guilty step enters the gates of pearl, in the city of God; no polluting presence flings shadows on the golden streets of the New Jerusalem. It is the dwelling place of angels and just men made perfect, and spirits of saints in celestial glory. There is no darkness, envy, hatred or slander, no gold mixed with dross. No bleared and blighted crowds, degraded out of the semblance of humanity, crawl, like singed moths, around the flaring house of multiplied temptations. Where boyhood shall not so live as to make its own manhood miserable; where manhood shall not so live as to make old age dishonorable and death ghastly. The apples of Sodom cannot grow on the same soil with the Tree of Life.
In other stars and countless worlds there may be work for us to do. What radiant ministrations, what infinite activities, what never-ending progress, what immeasurable happiness, what living ecstasies of unknown raptures may surround us in the beauty and loveliness of the land of the leal, in the life supernal?
Heaven is not a reward but a continuity, not a change but a development. It means a place of love and goodness where we are one with God and playfellows with the angels. Present science would change God into a struggle of careless forces or a complexity of impersonal laws. Let us reject the Chinese idea; they believe in God, but worship the devil, because they think the devil's rule predominates.
Let us discard the pagan deification of annihilation, and the modern agnostic's plea for suicide, and the Greek poet's pessimistic postulate: "It were best never to have been born, and next best to depart as soon as possible." Let us grieve at the dark shadows flung by theologians athwart God's light upon those who believe that human reason, conscience, and experience, as well as Scripture, are the books of God. Phrases which belong to metaphor, to imagery, to poetry, to emotion should not be formulated into dogmas, or crystallized into creed.
Discard the tyrannous realism of ambiguous metaphors, the asserted infallibility of isolated words. Canon Farrar says: "Erase from our Bible the erroneous disputed renderings of the three words, 'damnation, hell and everlasting.' Not one of these three expressions ought to stand any longer in our English Bible."
He says further: "There has never been a human being yet since time began, however beautiful, gifted, bright with genius, or radiant with fascination, who has sinned with impunity." Evil and punishment, as Plato said, walk this world with their heads tied together, and the rivet that links their iron link is of adamant. It needs no lightning stroke, or divine interposition, no miraculous message to avenge God's violated laws. They avenge themselves. The hell fire of the Bible was a spiritual fire which does not burn the flesh, but purifies the spirit. Not a material fire, but self-kindled fire, an internal fever—in fact, remorse for remembered sins—a figurative representation of a moral process by which restoration shall be effected.
When earthly life vanishes and we see in the visions of the soul an endless life and being in countless worlds of destiny, death has no terrors. The thought of the pale, cold body enwrapt in its winding sheet, coffined and alone in the narrow grave, its last sad dwelling place, with the grass growing above, where the lonely cricket chirps through the silent night, does not disturb the calm and reasoning soul. A few years hence and we shall all cross the dark river to the shadowy unknown shore and learn the mysteries that lie beyond. But where is that wondrous shore, and where will all of the now living inhabitants of earth be a century hence? Not floating in the marvelous belt of atmosphere which surrounds the earth. Nor on a changeful planet like our earth. Not floating in the frigid ether of space, but, if my hypothesis is correct, they will be celestial residents in the self-luminous, all-life-giving sun.
The only rational scientific theory that satisfies my mind is to regard the suns as self-luminous, perfected worlds, the visible abode of deity, and the future home of the soul. This hypothesis accords with every recently established fact in science, nature and revelation. It fits man's hopes and aspirations, his aesthetic nature, his psychic powers and religious concept which have followed him through all the vicissitudes of his history.
The question often arises: As justice reigns in the moral world, as equilibrium reigns in the physical world, and the destiny of the soul is the result of its aptitudes and its aspirations, are only those souls alone that truly live and unfold their faculties and aspire to knowledge and truth destined to a conscious immortality? Many souls pass their lives here in mental sleep, intellectual stupor, and spiritual paralysis. Will they receive the gift of eternal life? Many great scientists think they will not. And all who neglect their mental and moral development seal their own fate and will have no future existence. This is a distressing view held and championed by some of the able minds of modern times. But I do not agree with them, for I believe every soul is a spiritual atom of deity and, however ignorant and depraved, may become wise and good, and enjoy the beatitudes of an immortal existence.
CHAPTER XII
HUMAN REASON AND THE UNIVERSE ARE BOOKS OF GOD, AS WELL AS THE BIBLE
It is a mistake to consider the Bible as the only book of God and its revelations the only revelations of Deity. The natural universe and human reason are also books of God. They are books He has been writing all along through the varied history of man and the universe, from the dawn of creation until now. Man is God's handiwork, His most perfect and finished product, a machine he has been developing and improving through all the ages, a book that He has bound and rebound, and stamped upon it His name and title a million times.
The Bible teaches this when it says, "Ye are His epistles known and read of all men." He has named this book, this living epistle written by His own hands, "The Sons of God," "Children of the Most High," "Heirs of Eternal Life." And man's body, the binding which He has furnished for this book, He has designated "the temple of the living God—the tabernacle of flesh." The Bible is not only a book of religious and ethical teaching, but also a history of the reason, conscience and experience of men for a thousand generations.
The Bible is the revelation of God's mind and will, and so is man, who was "made in His image." The Bible is God's book, but so is the physical universe His book and the revelation of His will. The Scriptures affirm this truth, also, when they say, "The heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech and night unto night showeth knowledge." Thus God has three books instead of one. His first book was the physical universe, His second book was man and human reason, conscience and experience. And then He added the third, the oracles of Divine truth, to instruct His spiritual atom, man, in the essential truths of life, spiritual being and moral perfection. The theologians should remember this, and the scientists should read and study all these books.
Man is a second edition of God epitomized, and in his enlighted spiritual nature he thinks like God, reasons like God, and has the moral conscience, goodness and love that emanate from God. All these books of God should bear the same infallible testimony. The Bible should be in accord with the reason, conscience and experience of man, and both with the constitution and laws of the physical universe. Wherever they seem to differ or contradict each other it is because we do not understand them, for there is perfect unity and harmony in all creation.
Flammarion says: "Science in revealing the plan of the universe will show that the moral universe is based upon the same plan, that both worlds form but one world and that spirit governs matter. The same laws rule everywhere and make the vast universe a unity. All the ages of the past and future are one with the present, and thinking beings will live eternally through successive and progressive transformations. Everything progresses toward supreme perfection. The material world has but an apparent existence, and the reality underlying it is a force imponderable, invisible and intangible." Man is apparently an animal, but he is not; that is the visible side of his nature and is deceptive.
All he beholds is apparent. The reality is something altogether different. The sun seems to revolve around the earth, and the earth seems to stand still. The reverse is true. We dwell upon the surface of a body revolving in space and projected with a velocity seventy-five times greater than the speed of a cannon ball.
We hear a harmony of sweet sounds which charm our senses. The sound does not exist; it is an impression made upon our sense of hearing by vibrations of the atmosphere which themselves emit no sound. Without the auditory nerve and brain there would be no sound. In reality there is only motion in the ether.
The rainbow expands its radiant circle, the rose and lily sparkle in the sunshine; the green fields and golden grain diversify the landscape by their vivid colors. But there are no colors; there is no light; there are only undulations in the air that set the optic nerve vibrating. The sun warms and fertilizes, the fire burns, but there is no heat, only the sensation of heat. Heat, like light, is only the result of motion—invisible, all-potent, supreme. Here is a solid iron joist sustaining tons of enormous weight, yet the joist is composed of molecules which do not touch each other and are in continual motion. What constitutes the solidity of this bar of iron? Not the atoms that compose it; but the cause of its solidity is molecular attraction, the invisible force of magnetic attraction.
The present scientific theories have only been apprehended by the brightest intellects within the last half century, and would have been a conglomeration of absurdities to the wisest men of the world a century ago. So, written revelation had to use the language and symbols understood by the ancients. And it seems that scientific evolution is constantly struggling for new terms to express new ideas and discoveries.
Some scientists believe it impossible for the terrestrial being to attain a complete knowledge of the truth because he has only five senses, and a multitude of the phenomena of nature remains unknown to his mind because he has no means by which to reach them. Just as if we should be unable to see if deprived of the optic nerve, or to hear if deprived of the auditory nerve. Our terrestrial harp may be wanting in many chords which prevent us from catching the perfect harmony and truth of the universe. It is said the smallest magnet can more easily than Newton or Leibnitz discover the magnetic pole, and the swallow has more knowledge of the varieties of latitude than had Columbus or Magellan. But whatever our experience, it is a part of the book of God and nature.
Flammarion says: "No one who is aware of the progress made in the exact sciences of to-day can pretend to be a materialist. The psychic atom, the principle of the human organism would be immortal, like atoms everywhere, if scientists were to admit the fundamental axioms of chemistry. But it would be superior to atoms, and be conscious of its existence. Can the soul partake of the character of electricity? We conceive that it exists as force that survives the dissolution of the body."
I conceive the soul controls electricity, which is the right hand of its power, and the tongue of the spirit, and survives in conscious power "the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." "Whither does the soul go?" asks the same author, and he answers "to other worlds. Yes, living principles of force can transport them from one world to another." I agree with him. I believe they go to other worlds, and the other worlds are perfected sun-worlds. We must not think that the soul belongs to some supernatural world. There is nothing that is not in nature. Nature is unceasing progress. It is only a few thousand years since terrestrial humanity emerged from its chrysalis state of being. Yet certain spirits have attained transcendent power, and humanity has produced a Shakespeare, a Goethe, a Hugo, a Newton, and a Milton. We live in reality among the stars.
We are inhabitants of the skies. Life, light and eternal progress to perfection is the final end and purpose of the universe. Every thinking man feels in his moral and psychic nature that he is linked to justice, truth and Deity.
Maeterlinck, the Danish philosopher, sustains this thought in his latest work when he says: "Though nature appears unjust and nothing authorizes us to declare that a superior power rewards or punishes here or elsewhere, it is none the less certain that an image of that invisible, incorruptible justice we have vainly sought in the sky or the universe reposes in the depths of the moral life of every man. It will not add to or take from our wealth, it will bring no immunity from disease or lightning, it will not prolong one hour the life of the being we cherish; but if we have learned to reflect and to love, it will establish in heart and brain a contentment that shall still be inexhaustible and noble.
"It will confer a dignity of existence, an intelligence, that shall suffice to sustain our life after the loss of our wealth, after the stroke of disease or lightning has fallen, after the loved one has forever quitted our arms."
It is said Jesus was a chosen medium to communicate to the people of the earth the higher sentiment of love which prevails in the sphere of spirit life. His mission was to teach the doctrine of love to humanity, and to afford a striking and never to be forgotten example of its violation.
This same Jesus taught that God's law is written in the hearts of men, and to those who listen to His voice—the still, small voice of the spirit—"He moveth in them to will and to do according to His good pleasure." This shows, as Maeterlinck says, "That the invisible justice that reposes in the moral life of every man" comes from God and His epistle, written on the secret tablets of the human soul.
Goldwin Smith says: "It will be found that Anarchism and Atheism generally went together. But minds of the finer cast have preserved the religious spirit while they have thrown off the shackles of creed. Yet the Positivist feels the need of a religion, and for the worship of God he substitutes the worship of humanity. Humanity is an abstraction, an imperfect abstraction. It cannot hear prayer or respond in any way to adoration. The adherents of Comte's religion, therefore, are few. Tindall and Huxley would console us for the loss of religion by substituting the majesty of law. But the idea of law implies an intelligent, authoritative imponent of some kind. There is no majesty in a sequence.
"The all-embracing philosophy of Herbert Spencer excludes the supernatural and Theism in its ordinary form, and looks upon them as the Unknowable, which he presents as an object of reverence. But unknowableness in itself excites no reverence, even though it be supposed infinite and eternal. Nothing excites our reverence but a person, or at least a moral being." Thus does Goldwin Smith, the great Freethinker of to-day, demolish the Freethinkers of yesterday, the Tindalls, Huxleys and Darwins of Materialism, the Comtes and Voltaires of Atheism, and the Herbert Spencers and Ingersolls of Agnosticism, and contends for the inexorable necessity of a personal deity with intelligent moral or spiritual power. He says the present tendency is "to minimize the supernatural and throw it into the background, bringing the personal character of Christ and his ethical teachings into the foreground," and, "the legemen of reason should consider to how great an extent our civilization has hitherto rested on religion."
Abstract humanitarianism, and scientific naturalism do not constitute a moral standard, nor can scientific postulates be made a basis for moral culture. Only when acted upon by man does nature give response to the increasing purpose of the world, and the supreme test is spiritual. Religious truths are fundamental truths. First, the existence and personality of God; second, His creation and government of the universe; third, man's immortality and freedom of will. These are not contradicted by the solid facts of science nor shattered by "the great eternal iron laws of the universe." On the contrary all harmonize with these great truths.
Emperor William of Germany in his letter to Admiral Holbrun, Feb. 20, 1903, says: "I distinguish between two different kinds of revelation—progressive and, as it were, historical, the other purely religious. It does not admit of a doubt that God reveals Himself continuously in the race of men created by Him. He breathes into man the breath of His life, and follows with fatherly love and interest the development of the human race. In order to lead it forward and develop it, He reveals Himself in this or that great sage, whether priest or king, whether among the heathen, Jews or Christians. Hammurabi was one, so was Moses, Abraham, Homer, Charlemagne, Luther, Shakespeare, Goethe, Kant, and Emperor William the Great. These he sought out and endowed with his grace to accomplish splendid, imperishable results for their people in their intellectual and physical provinces according to His will." Emperor William seems from these statements to be a firm believer in spiritual revelation and personal inspiration.
"The second form of revelation, the more religious," he said, "is that which leads to the manifestation of our Lord. It was introduced with Abraham, slow but forward looking and omniscient, for humanity was lost without it. Now begins the most astonishing activity of God's revelation. Abraham's race and the peoples developing from it, regard faith in one God as their holiest possession, and it follows, hold fast to it with iron-like consistency. It was the direct intervention of God that caused the rejuvenation of His people through centuries, till, the Messiah, heralded by prophets and psalmists, finally appeared, the greatest revelation of God in the world, for He appeared in the Son Himself. Christ is God—God in human form. He redeemed us, and inspires and entices us to follow Him. We feel His fire burning in us. His sympathy strengthens us. His discontent destroys us. But also His intercession saves us. Conscious of victory, building solely upon His word, we go through labor, ridicule sorrow, misery and death, for we have in Him God's revealed word. That is my view of these matters. It is to me self-evident that the Old Testament contains many sections which are of a purely human and historical nature and are not God's revealed word. These are merely historical descriptions of incidents of all kinds which happen in the political, religious, moral and intellectual life of this people."
This letter of Emperor William was in reply to Prof. Delitzsch, who contended that Moses and the Israelites got their laws and religion from the Babylonians. The recent discoveries in Asia Minor seem to refute Delitzsch, especially those at Nippur.
Nippur is situated between the Euphrates and Tigris in Babylonia. It is one of the oldest towns spoken of in the Scriptures. The famous temple, library and school for priests cover an area of thirteen acres, and are pronounced the most far-reaching archeological discoveries of the century. Only about one-twelfth part of the library has been uncovered, out of which over twenty thousand cuneiform tablets and fragments have been obtained belonging to the era three thousand years before Abraham, or nearly six thousand years before our time.
These show strong evidence of civilization and culture. There have been found evidences that freehand drawing, clay-modeling and sculpture were taught. There were found works of reference, scientific treatises, and various technical volumes on astronomical and religious subjects.
These discoveries show the knowledge and culture that existed in the days of Abraham, and are a powerful demonstration of the unshaken truth of Old Testament prophesies.
Prof. Hilprecht, who made these excavations and discoveries, says: "As the attempt has recently been made to trace the pure Monotheism of Israel to Babylonian sources, I am bound to declare this an absolute impossibility, on my basis of fourteen years' researches in Babylonian cuneiform inscriptions. The faith of God's chosen people is: 'Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord,' and this faith could never proceed from the Babylonian mountain of gods—that charnel-house full of corruption and dead men's bones."
The fact is, as far as I am able to judge, every recent discovery of science tends to sustain the essential truths of the Bible, and confirm the religious concept.
Those who think that religion is losing its power should remember that thousands of converts are added to the churches daily, and fifteen church buildings on an average are erected every day in the United States alone. And there are besides thousands of persons, like myself, of a thoughtful, religious nature who are not members of any religious order.
Scientists should omit from their works all spirit of antagonism to religious faith. Such antagonism impairs the usefulness of their works, and is an offence against public morals, public security, and man's aesthetic nature and psychic advancement. Religion has helped to develop the spiritual life of the race, and is the anchor of all good society, good government and exemplary conduct in man.
The religious faith and even superstitions which some scientists rail at with such vehemence was a necessary phase of human history and experience to lift the human race to a higher plane of spiritual power. Science has passed through the same phases of credulity and superstition.
Whiskey, wines, and intoxicants once had their useful phase in arousing the sluggish brains of our half-civilized ancestors to higher realms of thought and perception. So, what now seem the most absurd superstitions once had their usefulness in deterring men from crime and causing them to lead better lives. The dread of physical punishment hereafter, and the fear of a hell and a devil that never existed, had a salutary effect on countless millions of the past which no moral persuasion or scientific arguments could have reached. But all intoxicants with their blighting curse, and all superstitions with their blinding ignorance have had their day of usefulness and should be relegated to the dark tomb of oblivion.
The solemn cathedral, the soft-toned organ, the mellow light from colored windows, the awe and anxious faith, have added soul development and psychic power to human life.
The mother who bowed in prayer, the father who assembled his children around the family altar, have added spiritual power to themselves and their posterity for all generations.
And it is the honest, home-loving, God-fearing and praying mothers and fathers of the past three centuries that have made the Anglo-Saxon race and the civilization of to-day what it is.
The Bible says truly, "to be spiritually minded is life," and to be worldly minded is to lead us back to pagan selfishness, when cruelty was a pastime, and poisoning and assassination were fine arts.
This book of God we call man is bound in imperishable atoms that dissolve into-viewless ether, and are tied together with electric bands as pliable as silk and as invisible as thought, and the spirit they enwrap is as strong and enduring as omnipotence.
