XXX.
The Door of Truth and Morality.
PROGRESS
Let there be many windows to your soul,
That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition; let the light
Pour through fair windows broad as truth itself
And high as God.
Why should the spirit peer
Through some priest-curtained orifice, and grope
Along dim corridors of doubt, when all
The splendor from unfathomed seas of space
Might bathe it with the golden waves of Love?
Sweep up the debris of decaying faiths;
Sweep down the cobwebs of worn-out beliefs,
And throw your soul wide open to the light
Of Reason and of Knowledge. Tune your ear
To all the wordless music of the stars
And to the voice of Nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness, as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned heights,
And all the forces of the firmament
Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.
A woman writes me that she is praying for
my soul, hoping I may yet be saved, and she gives
me the address of a "mission" where she thinks I
might receive help.
A man sends me a warning pamphlet, telling me
I must repent my sins or burn in hell fire forever.
Now, I really do not repent my sins. I consider
them as stepping-stones to a higher understanding
of life.
Of course, I wish I might have been born wiser,
with foresight which would have enabled me to
learn the truths of existence, without having to pass
through the valley of foolish experience.
But not being born wise, I feel a certain amount
of gratitude to my errors and "sins," which have
been kind even if stern teachers to me. Every sin
carries its own hell with it. When I was a small
child I told a flat lie. An older brother, whom I
held in reverent fear, stole sugar from the pantry,
and I shared the spoils. He said if I told of it he
would not allow me to play with him for a week.
When the sugar was missed, he stood behind the
stern questioner, shaking his fist at me. Asked if I
knew anything about the missing sugar, I said
"No." Then I suffered all the agonies of shame
and humiliation of soul and self-abasement for days
following, and learned as I never could have learned
through Sunday-school or sermon the folly of false-
hood.
I have never "repented" that lie. I have wished
I might have known before I told it all I knew after
it, but to my thinking it was a stepping-stone to a
higher moral place for me. So long as I reached
that plane, God is not going to question how I got
there. He has no idea of submerging me in a lake
of fire because I do not repent my lie. Such theol-
ogy was created by man, and never originated
with a loving God. If your child took a wrong
road home, but arrived full of appreciation of the
home, and thankful for his deliverance from danger,
would you pitch him into hot brimstone because he
did not take the short cut home? Of course not.
You would rejoice at his arrival by whatever route.
God is surely as good as you are. By whatever
path we arrive at the door of truth and morality,
He welcomes our coming.
There are only a few old fossils hanging to the
cobwebs of those horrible creeds of a decaying
theology. They are like half-dead flies buzzing in a
spider's web. Thank God, I have my little broom,
and will do all in my power to sweep them down
and into the ash barrel of the past.
Man's greatest sin against God is in loading upon
the Divine shoulders the mass of his own wretched
creeds and dogmas.
God is Love.
I am grateful to the good woman who is praying
for me. My life has been one succession of prayer,
and I have great faith in prayer's efficacy. I have
lived to see every prayer answered, or to be shown
why they should not be. One of my greatest
causes of gratitude to God to-day, is that some of
my early pleas to heaven were denied. Perhaps
the good dame who prays for me to go to heaven by
her special limited route, may yet see the folly of
such a prayer.
Great surprises await the "strictly orthodox"
Christians in the world to come. Each soul, like
each railroad engine, must follow its own headlight.
There are many tracks, but the Great Station
awaits us all.
Every-day thoughts in prose and verse. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Chicago: W. B. Conkey Company, 1901.
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