Modern Saints and Seers Part 17

There are great religions and small ones, and as with works of art, we are apt to find in each, more or less, what we ourselves bring to it.

Jeremiah, when travelling through Ancient Egypt, felt indignation at the sight of G.o.ds with hawks' or jackals' heads; while the touching confessions of the dead, consigned to papyrus--"I have not killed! I have not been idle! I have not caused others to weep!"--only drew from him exclamations of anger and contempt. Herodotus, a century later, also understood nothing of this world of mysterious tombs, with its moral teachings thousands of years old, or of the great spiritual revelation with which the land of the Pharaohs is impregnated. Both alike--Jeremiah, unmoved by the cruelty and hardness of Jehovah, Herodotus, oblivious to the sensuality and immorality of his own G.o.ds, who, according to Xenophon, were adepts at thieving and lying--shook their heads in dismay before the Egyptian symbols. But Plato, on the contrary, was able to appreciate the harmonious beauty of a divine Trinity, sublime incarnation of that which is "eternal, unproduced, indestructible . . . eternally uniform and consistent, and monoeidic with itself."

There are, no doubt, many Jeremiahs to-day, but there are also understanding souls capable of taking an interest in even the most bizarre manifestations of religious faith. These throw a revelatory light upon some of the most painful problems of our time, as well as upon the secret places of the human soul where lurks an ever eager hope, often frustrated, and alas, often deceived.

All religious sects and reformers since the time of Christ have only succeeded in modifying, renovating, uplifting or debasing the eternal principles already enunciated by the Son of Man. He it was who founded the integral religion for all time, but as it permits of the most varied interpretations, innumerable and widely divergent sects have been able to graft themselves upon its eternal trunk. After Him, said Renan--who has been wrongly considered an opponent of Christ--there is nothing to be done save to develop and to fertilize, for His perfect idealism is the golden rule for a detached and virtuous life. He was the first to proclaim the kingdom of the spirit, and has established for ever the ideal of pure religion; and as His religion is a religion of _feeling_, all movements which seek to bring about the kingdom of heaven upon earth can attach themselves to His principles and to His way of salvation.

Further, any religious movement which appeals to our higher instincts must eventually contribute to the triumph of human brotherhood and to the beautifying of human life--which increases the interest of studying all attempts at revival and reform. Such a study will prevent us from being overwhelmed by the uglinesses of life, or from becoming sunk in a mora.s.s of material pleasures, and will open up ways of escape into the heavenly realms.

The true teaching of Jesus has, as a matter of fact, never yet been realised in practice. It holds up an ideal almost unattainable for mortals, like the light of a fixed star which attracts us in spite of its unthinkable distance. But we may, perhaps, by roundabout ways, ultimately succeed in giving a definite form to the Platonic dreams which ever hover around the sh.o.r.es of our consciousness. Among the "saints" and "initiates" who work outside the borders of accepted dogma, there are often to be found some whose originality and real spiritual worth is not generally recognised, and instead of turning away from their "visions" and "revelations," we should rather examine them with close attention. Even if our faith gains nothing, we shall be sure to pick up psychological treasures which could be turned to the profit of science.

We have been re-living, in these recent years, the "desolation" of the prophets, only that the suffering of the few in former times became with us the suffering of all. There is the same difference between the troubles of ancient Judea and those of the modern world, as there is between her miniature wars and the colossal conflict whose aftermath is with us still.

Yet now, as in the time of Isaiah, the nations long for eternal peace, and the desire for a world more in harmony with man's deepest thoughts and wishes is one of the dominant causes of religious schism and revolt.

Let us hope that the world-wide catastrophe that we have witnessed may yet lead to the realisation of the ideal expressed by Jesus, and by the ancient prophet before Him:--

"And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." And again--"The work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and a.s.surance for ever. And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places."

Many are being stirred to new life and action by dreams which hold, in almost every case, some fragment of the longed-for truth, however foolish or illogical in expression; and we should in consequence approach the dreamers with all the sympathy of which we are capable.

Often their countenances are made beautiful by love, and they will, at the least, provide us with a golden key to the fascinating mysteries of man's subconscious mind. What though their doctrines vanish from sight under the scalpel of a.n.a.lysis? It is no small pleasure to contemplate, and even to examine closely, such delightful phantoms.