  THE SEEKERS
by Jessie E. Sampter
With an introduction by Professor Josiah Royce
MITCHELL KENNERLEY NEW YORK MCMX
Copyright 1910 by Mitchell Kennerley
A successful experiment in non-sectarian religion, in moral and Æsthetic enquiry, with young people in new ways, in search of the Meaning of Things. THE SEEKERS Errata Page 37, Line 2. “and he saw” should read “and we saw.”
" 91, Last line. “I answered” should read “she answered.”
" 93, Line 22. “but a word itself” should read “work itself.”
" 104, Line 15. “a sense of duty” should read “a sense of unity.”
" 236, Line 13. “different from each one” should read “different for.”
" 266, Line 3. “operator” should read “spectator.”
Errata have also been incorporated into the Transcriber's Notes. Table of Contents Table of Contents not in the original book and is added for reader convenience. Transcriber's Notes can be found at the end of this eBook. THE SEEKERS BY
Professor Josiah Royce, Ph.D., LL.D.
I have been asked by the author to say a word by way of introduction to this very interesting record of conversations and inquiries. On the whole, I feel my word to be superfluous; for the book speaks for itself, and every reader will form his own opinion. But since the author has asked for my co-operation, I gladly offer what little I can. I am a teacher of philosophy at a university. For the most part my own courses are technical in character. Some of my work is with graduate students. I am accustomed to discuss controverted opinions with people who regard philosophy from a skeptical and more or less controversial, and almost always highly critical, point of view. Hence, my own first impression of the work of the “Seekers” and of the leader of their always pleasing inquiries, was mingled with a certain wonder as to the possibility of their accomplishing together, as well as they have done, what they undertook. This wonder has changed, as I have become better acquainted with them, into a delight that the tact, the caution, the tolerance and the earnestness of the leader, and the skill and docility of the pupils, could result in setting before us so fine a model of teaching and of learning as here appears. The book is one to encourage every lover of good things, and everyone who wants to see how the minds of young people in this country, and living under good conditions, can be turned toward great questions in such a way as to encourage sincerity, thoughtfulness and the beginnings of true wisdom. In what little I have to say of this book I ought of course to abstract altogether from such agreement as I indeed feel with the form of Idealism which Miss Sampter represents. The question put to me is the question whether the method of procedure here adopted is one that promises to be genuinely useful as an initiation of young people into the study of deeper questions. I answer that the author seems to have made out her case, and to have proved her faith in her method by her work. The age and the previous training of the “Seekers”—as they are sketched in the author’s preliminary statement—once presupposed, this mode of procedure could only prove a help to them. The methods used are an important beginning. If any of the “Seekers” go on to a more advanced study of philosophy, in college or elsewhere, they ought to prove apt learners. If they simply turn to life as their further teacher, they should be ready to profit by some of its deepest lessons better than they could otherwise have done. If, upon further inquiry, they incline to other opinions about the world and about life than the ones they have emphasized, they will still always remain more tolerant of the varieties of opinion, and more hopeful of the right and the power of the human mind to grapple with grave issues, than they would otherwise have been. These hours of “seeking” will have opened their eyes to values which are indeed permanent, whatever will be the true solution of the problems of philosophy; and the memory of these hours will prove henceforth a safeguard against cynicism when they doubt, and against intolerance and inhumanity when they believe. And, whatever the truth may be, about God, or about the world, or about life, cynicism in doubt, and intolerance and inhumanity in belief, are great evils, against which the young people of our time need to be guarded quite as much as men needed to be guarded against such evils in the days either of the Sophists or of the Inquisitors. For, in one guise or another, speaking the language of old or of new faith or unfaith, Sophists and Inquisitors we have always with us, either corrupting or oppressing the youth. The methods of our author, as set forth in this book, make for liberty together with seriousness, for self-expression together with reverence, for thoughtfulness together with a sense of deeper values. And in so far the book is a success as a model of the way in which our new problems must be met when we have to deal with the young. If one undertakes to consider such topics with a class as youthful and at the same time as enlightened as the “Seekers,” the dilemma is obvious. One must indeed be more or less dogmatic in tone about at least some central interest; one must make use of the persuasive power of a teacher’s personal influence; or else one will lead to no definite results. On the other hand, if one propounds one’s dogmas merely as the traditional teacher of religion has always done by saying: “This is our faith. This is what you should believe,”—one is then in no case teaching philosophy, and one is hardly helping the young people to “seek.” Moreover, such mere dogmas, addressed to young people in whom the period of “enlightenment” has already begun, will tend to awaken in their minds new doubts and objections, rather than to convey to them the positive truth, even if one’s own dogmas happen to be true. Hence arises a problem of instruction which cannot be solved in the case of these “Seekers” as we teachers of philosophy often try nowadays to solve our analogous problems in dealing with older pupils in college. Some of us meet our own problems with the older students by directly disclaiming all authority to control their convictions, by asking them to become as self-critical and independent as they can, and by stating our own opinions with the intent not to make disciples, but to enable our students to form their own personal judgments through the very sympathy with our efforts to be reflective, self-critical and constructive. Thus we do not try to convey a faith so much as to help our students to their own spiritual independence. In strong opposition to our mode of procedure, many popular teachers of this or that form of “New Thought” have been trying of late to annul modern doubts, and to lead men to a higher spiritual insight by means of certain “intuitions,” for the sake of which skeptical inquiry, stern criticism, elaborate reflection must be laid aside; so that the kindly disposed learner, even if he indeed is not to be a believer in certain old-fashioned creeds, still looks to his teacher for a means of quieting his doubts, and so that what is supposed to be “philosophy” becomes a sort of “anÆsthetic revelation,” with the teacher as the assistant who administers the anÆsthetic whereby the pupil is prepared for the surgery of life. Now, whatever may be the use of such “New Thought” for invalid wrecks, or even for more or less world-weary lovers of the good, whom sad experience has turned away from their earlier religious creeds, and who need to be restored to their courage in facing reality;—still, these anÆsthetic methods of the lovers of the “silence” and of the vague light, are not suited to the best needs of the enlightened young people, such as these “Seekers” who are about to begin life, who know their little fragments of science, of socialism, and of modern problems, and who want unity with clearness. Nor are such young people at just this age yet ready for our more technical academic procedure. Shall they be left then unguided, until their interest in unifying life has been lost in the confusion and variety of their increasing knowledge, until their youthful idealism has been saddened and perhaps soiled by the world, and until their criticism of life has become at once tragic and cynical? Miss Sampter has undertaken to answer these questions by dealing with the need of just such people. She does so with a genuine clearness of vision, with a careful touch that helps and with a spirit which prepares them to meet their problems, and not to lose unity by reason of the complexities of their situation. She dogmatizes a little, to be sure; and in fact she repeats some of her dogmas not infrequently, without giving any elaborate reasons for these dogmas. They are the dogmas of a metaphysical idealism which I myself in the main accept, but which no direct intuition can very adequately justify, while their technical justification could not possibly be discussed at length in the meetings of the “Seekers.” On the other hand, our author is no mere partisan of intuition. Her dogmas are stated in forms that not only win her “plastic youth” to agreement, but challenge them to a reflection which ere long, in some of them, will lead to new interpretations, to doubts, and so, in time, to a higher insight than they at first gain. She sets her pupils to thinking as well as to receiving; they become inquirers rather than passive recipients of an intuition. They are thus prepared for a variety of future religious and philosophical experiences, and yet they are kept in touch with that love and hope of unity which alone can justify the existence of our very doubts, of our philosophical disputes, and of our modern complications of life. As a means of avoiding both of the opposing extremes sketched in the foregoing account of the ways of teaching philosophical opinions, as a via media in the work of beginning the philosophical instruction of young people, as a preparation for more critical study, as a conservation of some of the best in the spirit of faith without an undue appeal to mere intuition, and as a model of what can be done to awaken a very notable type of young inquirers such as our modern training tends to produce in the homes of very many of us—this book is, in my opinion, to be very heartily commended. The educational problem with which it deals concerns meanwhile a very deep and intensely practical interest of our American civilization. We cannot retain the unity of our national consciousness unless we can keep, even in the midst of all the complications and doubts of the modern world, our sense of the great common values of the spiritual world. Without philosophy, our nation can therefore never come to its own. Philosophy does not mean the acceptance of any mere authority. And it will not lead us to universal agreement about any one form of creed. But it will teach us to unite freedom, tolerance, insight, and spirituality. Without these, of what worth would be mere bulk and mere wealth to our nation? I welcome this book then because our author has contributed to one of the most important of the tasks of our time—the task of helping our nation to regain the now much confused and endangered consciousness of its own unity. Josiah Royce Harvard University, August 3, 1910. THE SEEKERS This is a live book. It was lived first, and written only afterwards. So it can lay no claim to the title of art, which is experience remoulded in the cast of individual genius; for this was not at all moulded, save as the written word reshapes the spoken. It is a philosophic adventure, an experiment, written down by one, but lived by seven. Why did I write it down? may be asked. Every new book needs an excuse for being. I wrote it down because it seemed an answer, perhaps a partial, but still a living answer, to two questions that cry aloud. As I look about me, and observe the doings and thoughts of men and women in this active time, I notice two problems, related one to the other, and wanting but one solution. First of these is a lack of common purpose in the works of life. Many religions are there, many creeds and anti-creeds, many purposes, from petty, selfish gain to reforms in government and social service. Scientist, politician, artist, philanthropist and minister go each toward a partial goal, in opposition to one another, with no one purpose, no end beyond all lesser ends, no larger patriotism. Morals are either very stiff or very lax, without any conscious reason for either their stiffness or their laxity. The only reason for moral conviction, the only purpose that could unite all purposes, the only patriotism to hold all men together and give the union needful for great and strong achievement, is a common faith in the goal and meaning of life. The second problem is a more conscious one, the problem of moral and religious education for our children. For ourselves—so think many among us—we do not need a philosophy or religion; we are good enough without having any reason for being good. But we think our children need some instruction and guidance, something to satisfy the blessed cravings and doubts that we have long since killed within ourselves. For barely one among us fails to remember his fifteen-year-old questionings and strivings, and his defeat, when at last he decided to think no more, because his problem was insoluble. But even these who are so well contented with their own hard-won torpor want something better for their children. The question is asked again and again: “Shall we teach our children what we do not believe? And can we teach them what we do believe?” In this book I attempt to solve both problems at once, and through the children to speak to their parents. For many who will not admit the least interest in the vital questions that have created every religion and philosophy throughout time, still are interested and will listen when the problem touches their own children. And only through the creative, open and daring mind of youth, not yet either stiffened or broken, can the spirit of a larger and a richer faith give new inspiration. I am convinced that to-day all thoughtful men believe the same, where vital questions arise, and that each man sees a different angle of the same truth, which grows and grows in our vision, with the growing knowledge of man. All our ministers with their different churches, and our congregations with their sectarian prejudices, have at heart a common goal, a faith that needs only to be spoken to be believed. Let their children draw them together. Find a common religion to be taught in the school—where this necessity is the present problem of all educators, and where so far ethical courses and emasculated Christianity have given no solution—and from that larger patriotism of a common faith in childhood will spring the faith bigger than ethics and philanthropics, big enough to include all churches and systems in an unseen brotherhood. Were I able to carry out this idea in a school, I would have classes or clubs, such as the Seekers, for all girls and boys of about the third or fourth high-school year. Then, for the younger children as well as for the older ones, I would have songs and readings at the assembly, which would suggest or picture forth the inmost spirit of our modern faith. These songs and readings I would let the older pupils choose and discuss in their clubs; and I would leave in their hands, as much as possible, the social and spiritual regulation of the school life. Faith and action go together. Each without the other is barren. My purpose in this book is then twofold: to record how such clubs and classes work in practice, and thereby suggest a method from experience; also to give, in such large and perhaps superficial aspect as the means necessitate, the main outline of my thought. Not mine alone, but yours and every man’s. I bring no news; but only an old, forgotten story, new and strange to our widened knowledge. Accept its large intent, if you reject its lesser achievement; admit that this is the only possible truth in the light of our present knowledge. Though you believe more than this, accept at least the Seekers’ path as pointing toward the goal. To these children it gave a way and a light; it satisfied a need and answered a question, and brought new weapons for the battle of thought wherein most of us fail from weariness. For them it has already succeeded, whatever its coming fate. Unless one sees a glimpse of truth at fifteen, enough to recognize it, one is not likely to discern it later, through the mist of unformed knowledge. And at fifteen one craves this something that can relate and shape all thought. So it happened that I organized the club of Seekers, composed of very different girls and boys, because of this one common need. The conditions necessary for membership were few. The first condition, the one in its nature inevitable, was that each member should be interested and enthusiastic in our quest, a seeker from need and desire. Only such would have stayed with us. And this, perhaps, was a selective process of extreme rigor. Otherwise the conditions of membership were not of the sort to put a premium on extraordinary ability. They were that the members should be over fourteen, and under seventeen, and should have finished their elementary school course. I also limited the membership in number. Among my acquaintances were many more girls who would have wished to join us, but no more than the two boys. I explain this not by the fact that boys are less interested in these questions, but that their interest develops later. If I had sought boys of eighteen or nineteen, I could have found them easily. At the time, however, I did not realize this fact. I think that the children were average of their kind. The kind, nevertheless, may have carried with it some intellectual superiority or precocity, such as the effects of environment and urban life. For these things, through the chance of acquaintanceship, they had in common: they were all bred in New York City, in educated families of the upper middle class (though not all of well-to-do parents), and all but one, Ruth, who is a Christian Scientist, of homes unusually liberal in their religious thought. Therefore these children were free from those clogging superstitions and false perspectives which result from early training in any symbolic and fixed creed. Take these influences for what they were worth. Beyond them the children had no special advantage or disadvantage. I say all this as a defence against a possible criticism: namely, that the children seem, by their comprehension and original ideas, to be far above the average boys and girls of the same age. This I deny, and for good reasons. Naturally I have meant this experiment of a class in religious philosophy for adolescent boys and girls to be general in its application. And I believe it to be so. Most grown people have forgotten how they felt and thought at fifteen, and are apt to underrate the mental processes of boys and girls. I myself at that age felt so keenly the lack of sympathy in older people that I made a point of remembering and writing down certain experiences. I questioned several friends, and at last got admissions from them that they, too, had thought in the same way at fifteen. But no doubt they still look upon themselves as unique in this respect, for at fifteen we all think ourselves exceptions, and no matter how commonplace we may be now we are apt vaguely to keep that memory. Then, too, one must not forget the effect of conscious and unconscious suggestion. I had my plans carefully made, and knew exactly in what direction I meant to lead our ideas, but the children knew very little of this foreplanning, and went of themselves where I wished them to go. No doubt suggestion blazed trails for them through this wilderness, if it did not make a path, and, as my record will prove, my questions often stimulated them to answers that would not otherwise have been possible. But often their answers were wholly unexpected and surprising. As our name tells, we are seekers, and I have found, at the very least, as much as they. Above all, my boundless faith in the young was justified. And my critics must admit that they have not this faith themselves, and so could never have put it to the test of experience, as I have done. The children’s papers show better than written words of mine exactly what the meetings meant to them, and will prove also, I think, their average ability. They are printed exactly as written, save for corrections in spelling and punctuation, which were by no means perfect. The conversations were recorded as precisely as possible from memory and from notes taken immediately after the meetings. As any one with experience will know, it is impossible to record the broken fragments of actual speech without sometimes combining mere phrases into complete sentences. The written is never like the spoken thought. It appears like it, which it would not do if it were a precise phonographic transcription. I have made the children speak “in character,” using always their own words and their own ideas, whatever those might be; even being careful to record characteristic phrases and expressions. And that I had succeeded was proved by the children themselves, when they heard the manuscript read and recognized themselves and each other, to their great amusement. Not until all the meetings were over had they any idea that I was keeping this record. We seven, then, have made this book; and one other one, who, though never present at the meetings, had his large share of influence in them. This was my friend and Florence’s big brother Arthur—so often quoted by her—and quoted by me without acknowledgment, especially in the meetings on the Æsthetic ideal, which would have been impossible without his help. For all lovers of youth and individual thought, for all lovers of the quest, we have made this book, as a personal recognition of the bond of kinship that binds all free seekers, and as an answer to those vital questions which all of us must ask together, and answer, at least in sympathy. Alfred, my cousin, not quite fifteen years old when the club was begun. In his first high school year. In appearance, a young Arab chieftain, dark, athletic and dignified. His character fulfils the promise: he is taciturn, slow to act, independent, serious for his age, and with a great thirst for knowledge. A lover of nature and the country; a hater of all things petty or mean. He entered the club with a good knowledge of evolution, and no religious training of any sort. Virginia, my cousin, almost sixteen years old. She had one year of high school, but as she would not study, and drew pictures instead, she was sent to art school a year and a half ago, where she has been working hard. She has read and re-read many good books. Although she is of a blonde, Saxon type, yet her hair and eyes are very dark. Light-hearted and yet earnest, self-satisfied, always sweet and lovable. Bright, interested, original, humorous. She has had no definite religious training, but much sound religious philosophy at home. Florence, a young friend, fifteen years old, but much older in appearance. In her third high school year. Large and dark, with gray eyes. She is vacillating, and may turn out to be a fine, independent, intelligent and forceful woman, or a materialistic, flippant society lady. It depends on the influences brought to bear, and on her own will. Somewhat spoiled. A good student, a good thinker, but not impelled to think by any great desire. She loves dancing more than anything else in the world. She comes from a home of mixed and uncertain piety. Henry, Florence’s cousin, not quite sixteen years old, unknown to me before we formed the club. In his second high school year. A young student, dark, slim, shy, with much to say, but not yet able to say it well. He is rather dogmatic, but open to influence, a born seeker. Often appearing at first to be slow, or commonplace, he suddenly reveals unexpected understanding and originality. He comes from a conventional home. Marian, Florence’s friend, also unknown to me before the club. Fifteen and a half years old. In her fourth—last—high school year, preparing for college. A light brunette of a languid and yet intellectual type. Very intuitive, of quick insight, sympathetic, a lover of human nature, shy and quiet. A dreamer and a hero-worshiper. She expresses herself well, but often in broken sentences and with hesitation. Her parents belong to the Ethical Culture Society, and have given her no religious education. Ruth, Marian’s chum, sixteen years old, is also in her last high school year, preparing to study kindergarten. A slight, blonde girl, tall, and with her character written in her face: self-possessed, poise, idealism. Her voice, enunciation and language are those of one trained to speak well. Her thought is unusually developed, but along rather narrow lines. She loves children, and has chosen her work with an idealistic devotion. Her mother is Christian, her father Jewish, and their religion is Christian Science. She is a convinced Christian Scientist. When we were all gathered about the table at three o’clock, I opened the discussion thus: “Do you remember that I told you we were going to speak to-day of the fact that there is almost no religion at present, and the cause for this? Now, are we all agreed that there is very little religion—true religious belief—at present?” All agreed to this except Henry. He said that he thought people were as religious as ever. “I think,” said Florence to Henry, “that you are confusing religion and creed. People belong to churches and temples, and think they are religious, but they don’t know what they believe.” I saw Henry was not convinced, so I said to him: “I think perhaps we do not mean the same thing by religion, therefore we might as well go on, and speak of it later, when we do understand. “Now, I believe there is a definite historic reason for our religious lack, and I will tell it to you.” Then I reviewed briefly the history of ancient religions, Brahmanism, the Egyptian creed, the Greek and the early Catholic religions, to show that all these for various reasons—but chiefly because of the ignorance of the populace—had been, as it were, double religions. There was an initiated religion of the priests, who did indeed see truth, who were monotheists of the universal vision, and were filled with the sense of unity in all things. Besides this was the religion of myths, the popular religion. The people took literally the poetical tales told by the prophets; and these prophets, or priests, even went so far as to deceive the people purposely, for what they considered the people’s good. “I don’t see how the priests could have known the truth,” Ruth said, “if they meant to deceive the populace. Those who knew the truth would not wish to deceive.” “You are right,” I answered; “they had not the whole truth, but in so far as they saw, they saw truly.” Ruth seemed to doubt this historic account. I quietly proved to her and the others that it was true. I read them a passage from Plato’s “Republic,” in which he recommends telling the people a myth because belief in it would put them in the proper frame of mind. I went on to explain how the democratic spirit began to destroy the religion of the initiated. The aristocracy of religion was as much resented as the aristocracy of government. The result was that every one believed the popular, mythical religion; and that is what most of our churches have lived upon since then. All the superstitions of creeds, the absurd stories that are believed literally by some people even to-day, are the poetic symbols of prophets and teachers, accepted as narratives of fact. Next came the scientific spirit, and said: “The world is more than six thousand years old; it was not created in a week; the whale could not have swallowed Jonah, and given him up again.” Now people cried out: “Religion is not true. We will believe nothing but science.” When I spoke of the difference between mythical and true religion, I found the children already understood this, that they realized Moses’ true meaning when he spoke of the burning bush; that they knew Jesus, when he spoke of himself as the son of God, meant to express the divinity of man. I said the true religion spoke in poetry, and the popular made its figures of speech into gods. “For instance,” I said, “from where comes the line, ‘The rosy fingers of the dawn’?” “From Homer,” answered Marian, “from the Odyssey.” “Well,” I went on, “a person reading that might say, ‘Just think, the dawn has fingers; then it must have a hand.’” “Then,” said Virginia, “he would add, ‘So the dawn is a woman.’” I said one might worship an image of a god, but if he kept his mind upon the vast divine unity he would not be an idol worshiper. “But,” objected Henry, “if he did it long enough, he would become an idol worshiper.” “He might,” I said, “but he need not.” Now we came to the question of science. What has religion to do with science? Alfred said science led in the same direction, was looking for the same thing. Henry said science was supposed to be in opposition to religion, because it destroyed her creeds. That, I answered him, seemed to me a good thing. Virginia said she thought religion and science were almost the same. She meant that her scientific knowledge of the universe led her to her religious convictions. Florence said she thought science and religion were altogether separate, had nothing to do with each other. Marian said she did not see how science could help us to religious knowledge. But it turns out that she has read no science at all, save what she was taught in school. Ruth said that science was the enemy of religion, that two things seeking in a different way could not possibly both reach the truth; that science might tell us of material facts, but could not possibly give us the divine truth. I asked: “Are you sure material truth is not divine truth?” Then I said that I myself thought science was the servant of religion, that it was valuable only in so far as it helped us to a knowledge of life—divine and whole—(I said aside to Ruth) and that I did think it helped us so. It gave us a sense of unity, of our relation with the whole world, because we knew that the same law moved us and the stars. “Now,” I went on, “Marian mentioned the other day that she had heard people say they were too educated to need religion. They meant they knew too much science. Can science replace religion?” They all said no. They saw at once that behind every science was the mystery, the unexplained, and that every scientist must begin with a philosophy. I said: “I have heard people say that science disproves immortality.” Virginia answered: “It does not disprove immortality. It proves, indeed, that nothing ever is destroyed.” “Do you think,” I asked, “that there is such a thing as absolute religious knowledge?” “Yes,” they said. “Do you think we can get it? That it is a certain knowledge?” They answered “Yes.” “But,” said Ruth, “you would want it proved.” I used the word “faith,” and the children rightly objected, because, they said, faith could be used to express the most superstitious of mythical beliefs. One must know. “I mean self-evident knowledge,” I said. “If to-day the priests and the myths are dead, if we are to have a democratic religion, then each one of us must be a prophet. We here to-day, we seven, shall find the unanswerable truth. Shall we?” “Yes, I believe so.” “How do we know that such truth is to be reached? We do know certain things in ourselves? We know the mystery is there? We know that which we call God?” “Yes,” they said. “Is there any other reason for believing that the truth can be known?” Marian said: “In past times some men have known it, we feel certain.” “That is just what I meant, Marian. Such men, you mean, as Moses and Jesus?” “Yes.” “And we here shall get it. We shall know. “I believe,” I said, “that when we have talked everything over we shall know the truth, and it shall be the same for each.” “In fundamentals, perhaps,” said Ruth, “but not in all things.” No religion could be the true religion, we said, if it fostered antagonism or bitterness toward those of another persuasion. “One would wish to teach them,” said Marian. “Well, then, what is the truth? We spoke of the nature of ‘God.’ What is God, the something we all know and cannot speak?” Henry said: “I could tell better what I mean by God by saying what is not God.” We tried to make him explain. “Nothing is not God,” said Virginia, “everything is God, good and bad, too; and the bad only seems bad to us, but really leads to good.” “Everything is not God,” said Ruth, “for God is perfect, and we are imperfect, and are striving for his perfection. Imperfection and all bad things are not of God.” “What are they, then?” I asked. “Surely you do not believe in two gods, like the Zoroastrians, in a good and a bad? But the wisest of them saw that the two were one.” Ruth answered: “I have it at home in a book, how evil came into God’s world, although we are of him and he is perfect. I will bring it next time. I don’t remember it.” “Yes, do bring it. But I believe that as long as we are not perfect, God is not perfect.” “That seems,” answered Ruth, “as if we were God.” “So we are a part of God, who is the whole. Anything else is unthinkable. And unless we are perfect, how can He be perfect?” The children corrected me, for I had used the wrong word. “God must be perfect,” they said, “if we long for that perfection.” Virginia said: “If the world is ever to be perfect, then it is perfect now. Whatever shall be is here now, is here forever.” “You are right,” I answered, “I should not have used that word.” Henry said: “The apple-tree might be perfect, but the apples might still be unripe.” “Yes,” I went on, “but the apple-tree would not be perfect unless the apples ripened.” “The world is like a rose-bud,” said Alfred. “It is perfect as a bud, and yet it must open and evolve in its perfection.” “Yes,” I said, “or like a sleeper who awakens. “Now, then,” I asked, “you do all believe in progress; that the world changes and that it changes in a certain direction?” “I don’t know,” said Virginia. “I believe that the world, that God, must always be the same, even though it change.” “That is true, and it is a strange paradoxical truth, which I hope to make you understand later on, that all things change and progress, yet are ever the same, even as the rose-bud that unfolds.” We had tacitly admitted that God and the aim of life stood for love and unity. Once when Henry spoke of the “fear” of God, the others corrected him. “Now,” I said, “if there is progress, what is it?” Ruth answered: “There is progress of individuals, not of the world. Certain men saw the truth as clearly in old times as they could now.” “I do not believe so,” I answered her. “I think the whole must evolve and bud forth, and that it does. Now you all admit that Moses was a prophet who saw the truth?” They said “Yes.” “But he felt enmities. Jesus was a greater prophet than Moses. In what was he greater?” “In his realization not only of the unity of God, but of the unity and divinity and love of man.” “If Moses were here to-day,” I asked, “in what might he be greater than he was in his own time?” Florence said: “He would have all the advantages of culture since then.” “That would not make him greater.” Marian answered: “You mean the democracy of to-day, the realization of the brotherhood of all men.” “Yes,” I said, “that is just what I mean. When I look at history, I can see no progress but this. Automobiles, electricity, scientific knowledge, these are not progress except as they lead to that other progress. We do understand our fellowmen better than we ever did. We can—some of us—call every savage our brother. That is the clear progress throughout history.” The children were impressed by this fact. “Then you mean,” said Ruth, “that universal love is the object of life?” “Yes,” I said, “but I am afraid to use the word ‘love,’ for it might mean blind love, and I mean understanding love.” “Of course,” said the children. “You mean love of mankind?” asked Marian. “Yes,” I said, “but individual love, too; and perhaps more than both of these.” “I still believe,” said Ruth, “that progress is only for the individual, and that it doesn’t matter whether we progress here or hereafter. Personal love is selfish. We want divine love.” I answered her: “I will not speak now of hereafter. But here and now, to-day, do we not want at once the thing that we want?” “Yes,” they said. “Then, now and here we mean to go forward, as far as we can, and now and here we will love men with our might, because that is the human way and the human progress.” “It does seem to me, from books,” said Virginia, “that people are less mean, selfish and jealous than they were a hundred years ago.” Marian smiled over to her. “You have been reading Thackeray,” she said. “But,” said Virginia, “all people are not progressing together, for though we should find the truth now, many others will not find it for a long time. The world is like a bunch of roses, in which some are full-blown, and others are small buds.” “Yes,” I answered her; “and for the whole to evolve, each bud must be unfolded in beauty.” Now we said many things beside these, but these were the chief trend and conclusions of our thought. I also told them how every moment was a promise and a fulfillment, a state of the endless whole. Next Sunday each is to tell me what he or she does mean by the word “God.” The children were enthusiastic, uplifted, whole-hearted in their interest. Virginia and Alfred, who stayed some time after the others, had a long discussion on good and bad, in which I refused to join. Virginia said she thought all bad things had good results, and could be used for good. Alfred answered he was not sure of that, but he believed bad to be a necessary part of good. He said: “If I never felt ill, I could not know I felt well.” Virginia said: “Reason made evil, for when creatures became reasonable they knew that the things they had done before were wrong.” |
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