Last chapter
There is a distinct difference between the literature of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Hebrews. While the Greeks indulged in indefinite meditation over abstract questions which resulted in the creation of the philosophic schools, the Hebrews, indulging in meditation, had for their theme the way of life. The Jewish thinkers in the early ages strove not to create systems of philosophy but a system of life. This trait was responsible for the production of the typically Hebrew wisdom literature, instead of a literature of philosophy. It is, instead of a literature of philosophy, a philosophical literature.
It is characteristic that while the names of the early Greeks who laid the foundations of Greek philosophy, civics and art, were preserved and handed down through the generations, the Hebrew wisdom literature, with only a few exceptions, is anonymous. It is the task which scientific workers have taken upon themselves, to discover [rest of this paragraph lost].
[Beginning of this paragraph lost] philosophy of the individual's life, but with his way of life. "U'vacharta Bachaim -- and thou shalt choose life."
Thus, it became possible that the wisdom literature of the race carried not the names but sayings, and not books but thoughts. Obadiah, a simple peasant of the plain who "heard a rumor from the Lord," has become a messenger and his single chaptered work found its place within the people's sacred literature. A saying of only a few words by the wise was cherished and preserved.
The life and the work of each individual constitute a hymn to the Creator, says the Hassidic doctrine. However, not all hymns are expressed. It is the quality of the hymn that brings about its expression and it is its tone that creates its resonance. Not all hymns have been sung, not all are being sung, because not all are of the proper quality.
The life and work of Mary Fels, as depicted, constituted a rising song, which is in itself expressive enough and resounding.
Mary Fels, however, has done more than mere living; she has, in addition to creating an example in achievements and in addition to stimulating the broadminded vision of others, reached that degree of expression which is innate only in the few. From the height of her exemplary life, experience in all climates and contact with the best circles of living humanity, Mary Fels lived, observed and thought about the eternal problems of God, religion, love, [word lost], justice, the fate of the Jewish race, Palestine and their destinies.
In our daily life with its numerous activities, attending lectures and banquets, going to religious services and taking up University courses, we slip into the habit of thinking that we know God and that we serve Him. Yet most of us are restless, excitable, full of yearning, and all the time a vague sense of dissatisfaction gnaws in us to the very depths of our soul. It is the urge toward God. For this is certain: we are not living in harmony with Him, nor are we even near Him. Hence the soul's prodding to keep us in the quest for, and in harmony with, God. In this quest two great obstacles stand in mankind's way. One is the alien attitude of science. How absurd this attitude, how unthinking! For, what is science but man's mind on the trail of God's laws? Every discovery is a perception of the working of His laws. One set of sciences follows this working in the world of mind and spirit; another seeks clue after clue in the material universe; both try to know and understand and utilize, being on the quest for human betterment to the end, consciously or unconsciously, of getting nearer to God.
The other, and greater, obstacle is in the way man obscures God. When Pompey forced his way into the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Jerusalem, he was struck by the complete absence of any image of God. Not even with an image does Israel obscure its God, much less by beings. Its prophets are its prophets, from Abraham to the more recent Son of Man. And all are servants of God, adoring Him alone, loving Him "with all thine heart and all thy soul and all thy might," and, impelled by this love for Him, they serve his children by teaching "these words which I command thee," and by love and sympathy and active helpfulness. Every nation has its prophets to the degree of its own degree; the One God is God of all nations. Father of all, and under this Fatherhood all men are brothers.
The One and its unity is a fact simple enough. Truth has always that simplicity. One must, however, be standing in the light to see it. If one admits mists into thought, feeling, and doings, vision becomes obscured, of course. In the light of clear, healthy thinking, one sees that, as the sun is the center of God's material universe, so God in His Oneness is that of his spiritual one. It is this Oneness at the center which puts everything proceeding from it into proper place and brings about true function. We know how true this is in the material universe; why not see how the Law, governing everything everywhere, makes it so in spirit? When one comes into the light and the healthy working of this thinking, then one is on one's way to God. Then one stands in the Light, walks in the Light, works in the Light, and there is no longer stumbling. The spirit is at rest and the heart very happy.
There should be a time every day, when we are all alone, for facing ourselves, feeling the nearness of God. Wise Law, religious Law, sets aside a day a week for this, but every day should provide for it. It would sanctify every day, make it both holy and healthy, for the one brings about the other.
A woman just told me of her "beloved dog" and how she "adored him." The adoration that should go to her God she gives to a dog; the love that should reach out to God and her fellow-men is spent on a dog. What an abomination! She talks about the dog having better qualities than people. Of course, putting the dog in place of man leads to perversion of thought and feeling. She demeans man in the interest of the dog. Her feelings exercise themselves in the world of dog instead of that of man. We should by all means be kind to dogs, to all animals, when they happen to come our way, but to live with them, that is another matter; to love them should be impossible to us. Man only can be our companion, calling out our love and service. No lesser love should satisfy our craving for him.
God's ways are not "inscrutable." It is we who lack light and power for seeing. So we start with wrong premises and end in ignorance and confusion. We talk of the "mystery of the unseen," unmindful of our own inability to see. As if God were not clear as his day if only we did not mar our faculty for clear seeing. We mar it by wrong thinking, perverted feeling and bad living. We are given free will and choice to make or mar, and we mostly mar our lives. Who keeps himself simple, straight-forward, altogether natural? Who lives life in such a way as to keep the sluices of our being open, clean and clear? How to know God save through a pure spirit and its true-to-God thinking? But we are busy all the time obscuring God. We put the tenets of such-and-such church in place of God. We look to mediators instead of to God, Himself. We offer Him formalisms instead of fervent devotion. We do not turn to Him in the depths of our being but say other people's prayers to Him. How can the light from Him enter into us when we do not turn to Him in all our own inmost self? In great silence within and without, all alone, we should stand before the One God, if we would hear and be heard.
As one reads the newspapers and finds page upon page devoted to racing, to contests of so many sorts, one finds them always in the realm of our outer self. Yet it is the inner self which prompts to them. There is an inner urge toward the good, toward God, which impels people, and they make the sad mistake of thinking this outer excitement will meet the inner need. Far from it: the former only leads away from the latter. What is wanting, and so causes the mistake, is self-knowledge and wisdom. "Know thyself," and learn the laws of life, and the true fount of inspiration will open up. When this is released then one enters into true, serene self-direction. When a goodly number have thus arrived, true standards will be set up. Contests will be along the line of inner achievement. Faculties of the soul, not prowess of body, will be the contestants. Deep emulation will take the place of militant rivalry, and States will have cultural patriotism, not cold, cruel, political patriotism.
Take care that your life turns in its own orbit. "Know thyself" and live life true to yourself. Your life-mates should be of your own kind, else it will be with you as with a plant out of its own habitat. Growth will be arrested. Man needs to secure for himself both physical and mental home-atmosphere, else he does not breathe well. The society of his peers is his society. He may, on occasion, meet any other kind of society, and any other kind of person. This he should do for the deepening and lengthening of his horizon, but he must not live there, he must return to his own orbit, there to rotate, to enact life. You do not help, but hinder another by invading his orbit; you injure both yourself and others by being out of place. From your own citadel you can command the situation and can act in the light thus gained.
There are within us possible powers of such clear perception that we cannot only see into and through things, but perceive far forward. These powers are not to be developed by incantations and observances of a particular kind, but by all of life. Purity in life attains this pure vision: purity of body, mind and spirit. Purity of body through not introducing drugs of any sort, and by averting all grossness in either desire or satisfaction of desire. Purity of mind by abstaining from falsehood in thought and act. Purity of spirit by being pure in spirit and living, unfailingly, true to it. Thus the sluices of our being are kept open and clear, and the light shines in, and from, and upon us, and we see accordingly.
Asceticism is not purity. Purity must be spontaneously of the spirit, and not a cult through which rigidly to put ourselves. Asceticism kills spontaneity where there should be constructivity; it induces self-consciousness where there should be child-like unconsciousness; it sows distrust to displace trust; and it makes Faith a matter of formula instead of a spirited turning to God. It denies the holy passion of love. Asceticism and sensuality confound the latter with the cold lust of passion-apart-from-love. Sensuality especially, having sold its birthright of love for a mess of lust, proceeds to demean the God-given passion.
With purity of life there is always consecration of life. It goes with desire to devote oneself, at one's best, to the service of God, and our fellow-men -- God's children. Negative consecration would go with negative purity, and active consecration with real purity. The former is of the darkness of life, the latter is the clear light of life. The one segregates itself, withdraws from life; the other is of life and gives itself to life, to mankind. The one mumbles formulae; the other acts. The latter diligently seeks what and how and where to do; the former has "principles" wherewith to cloak inactivity. One is muddily selfish; the other "thinketh in his heart" constantly.
Hillel, that very good and very wise man, said: "Love of the neighbor is the whole Law." He meant, of course, the neighbor throughout the universe. This love is one with the Fatherhood of God. Realization of the Oneness of God, Father of all, brings with it realization of the brotherhood of man. Each people may have its own great interpreter of God and call him [a] prophet, but they all interpret, try to bring near their fellow-men, the One God. These prophets (which means forth-tellers) are nearer the divine through their love and understanding, but they must not be put in place of God. It is the worst impiety and becomes most confounding. God ceases to be to them the One God, Father of us all, and in this alienation men cease to be brothers.
Deeply inherent in love for God is appreciation and admiration of His natural world. We are moved to prayer by its beauty. Love for its Creator rises powerfully in us as this beauty bursts upon us. So it is with human love. What deep, glowing appreciation we have for every charm of the loved one! It is right that we should have keener eyes for this charm and that it should be transfigured in our sight.
Faith is proof of love. This applies to human love as to the Divine. Faith is evidence of things undefined, rather than of "things unseen." Thus it is witness to great things, those that beggar definition and description. To think to do the latter amounts to a denial -- "to define God is to deny Him." And love is the light whereby and wherein one sees clearly, deeply, according to its degree. That explains how it is "he who knows all pardons all," for he sees and knows because he loves, and by virtue of this love he wishes to "pardon all." Like God again who in His love is infinitely forgiving.
In the contests of physical prowess life itself is waged, not to speak of inroads on health, maimed limbs and shattered nerves. What iniquity! Is not this to be counted criminal as we estimate deliberate suicide to be? In the latter case there is more likelihood of sudden or prolonged irresponsibility. There is no such palliative for the former.
One who can speak of religion "as an adventure" has not real religion. For religion is all of life. It is one with every part of life and most at one with the whole of life. An adventure goes out from life but religion is that to which all life goes out or, rather, goes in. Religion is our relation to God and the right relation of everything in life to this. It is a constant circling around God and gravitation toward Him. So it is in everything we are and everything we do.
Faith is the witness to what is too large to define. By loyalty to this faith we grow toward the larger and thus comes increase of understanding leading to knowledge. Faith in formalisms can have no such growth, for formalisms are ossifications of life.
It is not the earth, earthy feminine, but the "eternal feminine" that leads us onward, upward. We think we see this eternal in beauty and we are right in so expecting: the eternal should express itself in beauty as God does in nature. God's nature is everywhere beautiful, until man comes to mar it, in his stupid materiality. Thus the beauty of human beings is so often marred -- by themselves, by society. Then it loses beauty's power and ceases to attract, even to the degree of becoming repulsive.
Real religion entails sacrifice and suffering. One cannot otherwise find God. Not needless suffering but that which comes to sensitive souls in the course of the depths of life. God is all love and beneficence and has provided in our nature that we shall not suffer needlessly. If we are not ready for the lesson of suffering then it is withheld -- by our nature, subject to God's laws. Those who may have their prosperity are spared troubles of this life, but what of their inner prosperity, what of [their] capacity for [the] joys of this or any other life? On the way to God is the only true prosperity, the only deep, lasting happiness. So one can suffer and he happy; give up all and have all. But to be intent on what you may gain by your religion is impious. What you may give, how you may get ever-nearer to God, to what service to Him and His children your love for and devotion to God should impel you, this is the way to Him. To count neither cost nor gain but just to offer yourself wholly, gladly, lovingly, as He gives to us. It is the way of true earthly love. The way toward God should be not less but greater, infinitely greater.
"Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst." It is the spirit of God that Jesus offers here. To partake of it is to come home. All cravings are for our home in God. We mistake them for what they are not and thus lose our way. To wander farther and farther out of our way by our mode of life and by departure from truth in our thinking and feeling. There is only one way back to our center: "To worship God in spirit and in truth." But it must be in truth and in spirit. Not by mumbling made-to-order prayers, nor by filling life with formalisms of every sort. Only when we are, spontaneously, on our knees in spirit should we approach God. Only in directing every craving toward God shall we find ourselves near to God. Then all of life will fall into harmony and we are at home.
When we shall worship God in spirit and in truth then we shall serve Him in a living way, by devotion to Him and His children, our fellow men. That living service is all too rare. We fail in it constantly toward our fellow men, living and dead. We have stony hearts toward the living and we erect monuments of stone to the dead. A living memorial is the only kind worthy of living beings, whether they are with us here or have gone Beyond. Better name after him the street in or near which he lived than to erect some obstruction in stone, for the one comes into our life and the other we pass by carelessly. But better set to work the noble ideas which he had and do, as far as we may and can, that which he longed to do. Thus he remains in our lives, the living factor that he was, and the memory of him does not become part of a tombstone or a static statue.
To the good God a deliberate Hell is impossible. We, in our wickedness, fashion one out of our thought and ascribe its creation to Him. Our Hell is here. We make it by our marring of God's world. God's world is altogether good, save where we mar it. We do this by ignorantly and carelessly breaking God's laws. These Laws are so beneficent: they make for goodness, and glory, and consequent happiness. But we break them, and then we suffer, and slowly, through that suffering, we learn. So breaking God's Laws becomes our Hell: the mount of Purgatory down which we fall, and up which, in good time, we climb toward redemption. It is God's Law of growth. The seed goes down into the ground and its fruit pushes its way up out of the earth. So with the spirit; once out of the earth it can look toward the heavens and proceed on its struggle God-wards. It must free itself from earth encumbrances, not add to them, as we are so prone to do. And what are such encumbrances? Loving the material rather than the spiritual; frustrating the spirit by meeting it with spirits, alcoholic and narcotic; upsetting the spirit by excitements in place of inspiritings. It is the spirit in us which gives the monitions; the body can only be a sort of interpreter; we must listen with understanding and solicitude. Do we? No, we jump about, we jazz, we smoke, we drink, we overeat. We listen-in to all sorts of sounds, and fail the one Reality, the inner call, "the wee small voice" which comes of the great Dominant Tone.
What about this art of life? It should aim at this: that man and woman should never cease to approach each other with love, reverence, awe. They must guard vigilantly against the commonplace in their relations, and familiarity should be a crime. Familiarity in marriage is indeed a crime, for it kills beautiful, wonderful love. By it love becomes a common thing -- it ceases to be love and remains, if at all, as affection. Then the good of marriage is gone; it is no longer the deep inspirer and great creator, but only something more or less comforting, deadening. This cannot be endured by the better man and woman; they get out of it, but alas! only to repeat the same blind experience with another. They will learn in time, after a long time of suffering, but whence and from whom comes light on their path? Not from the novel, which should deal just with this.
One cannot too much stress the importance of after-marriage. The stories lead up to marriage, and there they stop. They spend their force in a long elaboration of the lovemaking about which we all know, but the love-preserving of which we know all too little, they say nothing. These two people with this precious thing stumble along unenlightened by either their own preparation in thought or by experience of others. Who thinks of conserving love? Yet what is more, or nearly as much, worth every care and endeavor? Where does the art of life need to be more solicitously practiced than in preserving that sacred fire, ignited by the fusion of a man and a woman, on which rests the race? on which rests not only mankind in itself, but in his turning towards God?
Reading novels, romances, any long drawn-out fiction, and short stories also, is another way of killing time, and injuring eternity. It leaves no deposit and is far from being an uplift or any kind of inspiration. They may have a part or parts well worth reading, but to get a good effect from them you must cut them out, disassociate them from the long context. Such excellent parts are to be found in George Eliot's books almost more than in any other. Our interest in the life and experience of persons should be directed toward living beings, not used up in reading about fictitious ones. One is reminded at this point of how human emotion when expended on dogs instead of on human beings subjects itself to lamentable perversion. Even if we are quite alone in this world, better, a thousand times better, to long for human love and companionship than fall back on something less. Acceptance of the lower undoes you for the higher. When your love goes out to a dog, your love and sympathy for the human becomes impaired. Be kind to animals but love and live with your fellow creatures, in thought, feeling, act.
Instead of ending in marriage, the novel should begin with it. To be worth reading, books should teach while they interest and entertain. There is dire need on the part of all to learn the conduct of married life and the meaning of marriage. Long ago, I found myself saying, "I would go to the stake for monogamy." I know now, clearly and definitely, what made me say it. Sex-love must be for one only, for it is the love that brings us nearest to God. When we, particles of God, are thrown off to become human beings, it is, one surmises, then that we are divided into male and female. The round of our human life is that search for the other half whereby we are to get back to God. Hence the force and the persistence of the sex craving. It is the noblest desire of our nature, and suffers the worst demeaning, especially in some marriages. There it becomes common in every sense. For we fail to hold ourselves to our highest just where we should be at our best. The art of life ends where marriage begins. Marriage, sex relations, becomes an end in itself, instead of a means to the end of finding God. We should demand that marriage is the meeting of the spirit, and shrink with horror from physical mating that is not the reflex of this. "Our wishes are our prophets." We find the mate by way of love. There must be no sex mating without sex love. The mating accomplished, it must be conserved by everything that is best in us. Beauty, rectitude, wisdom, constantly ready to pay tribute of every sort. If the books portrayed this, how they would lend themselves to the rectitude of life, to the fulfillment of Law, the finding of God -- and Heaven.
Our institutions, whether of church or state or society, do not belie us. They express the general. When they no longer do so, there comes a break-up. There are always individuals who run ahead of the average advance, and these make that shining minority whose light and force guide and propel [mankind] into the new order. The longer the change is resisted, the greater the force of the break-up, the worse the pains of travail. For change (growth) being God's Law, and thus inevitable, is irresistible.
Any government that makes for bureaucracy is bad. Governments everywhere should, on the contrary, foster individual initiative. Only through the latter shall we ever attain cooperation, spontaneous cooperation, other than which there is no cooperation. In the field of industry especially is this indispensable. Then in time will the present vicious system of industry be displaced by a virtuous one. Here and there are already indications that this displacement is taking place. Save where willful blinders are in one's thinking, anyone can clearly see that industry depends wholly (capital and all) on the workers, and that accordingly the industry really belongs as much, if not more, to them than to any other or others. What avails brainwork without handwork; what is the latter without the former? Thus normally they are always partners. Every industry, from the simplest agriculture to the most intricate commercial enterprise, must recognize this and arrange the business code accordingly. Slavery must cease in business as in every department of life. Employer and employee must be superseded by co-worker.
Whence came disease germs but from disease? Thrown off by the diseased into the general atmosphere. Where do they attach themselves for further propagation but on soil favorable to their life? Thus those diseased or tending to disease are their victims. Accordingly, the more disease in the world the more disease germs are generated. The kind depend on the prevalence of its kind. How urgent then that society in general should protect itself against disease in general, no less than a person should be in good health not only to be immune from bad germs but also not to add any germs himself to the general stock.
How stupid then is society in not taking into its care all of society, in not providing that all of society lives under healthy conditions! It knows very well that food, warmth, air, light and sunshine are essential to health, yet it maintains a state of things wherein the mass of mankind is debarred from these. So those who have government in their hands are not shepherds of their people, nor look properly after their own interests. Thus those who have what they need -- and far more than they need -- are infected physically by the ill condition of those who have not what they need.
Nor does it stop at physical infection. The soul of the world is sick, both on the part of those who selfishly have and on that of those who are blighted in mind and spirit through being deprived of what mind and spirit crave. Not only is everywhere catastrophe in consequence of this but there is a constant infection of bad, low spirit, a constant lowering of mind. What might not be the mental and moral status of man if the prevailing mental and moral atmosphere were what it should be: clear and clean, healthy and robust. Let society look to it that conditions are readjusted; that the terrible disparities of life and opportunity are done away with -- displaced by equal opportunity for all.
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