The Life Everlasting | Page 4

been thousands of such Voices;--most of them ineffectual. All through the world's history their echoes form a part of the universal record, and from the very beginning of time they have sounded forth their warnings or entreaties in vain. The Wilderness has never cared to hear them. The Wilderness does not care to hear them now.
Why, then, do I add an undesired note to the chorus of rejected appeal? How dare I lift up my voice in the Wilderness, when other voices, far stronger and sweeter, are drowned in the laughter of fools and the mockery of the profane? Truly, I do not know. But I am sure that I am not moved by egotism or arrogance. It is simply out of love and pity for suffering human kind that I venture to become another Voice discarded--a voice which, if heard at all, may only serve to awaken the cheap scorn and derision of the clowns of the piece.
Yet, should this be so, I would not have it otherwise, I have never at any time striven to be one with the world, or to suit my speech pliantly to the conventional humour of the moment. I am often attacked, yet am not hurt; I am equally often praised, and am not elated. I have no time to attend to the expression of opinions, which, whether good or bad, are to me indifferent. And whatever pain I have felt or feel, in experiencing human malice, has been, and is, in the fact that human malice should exist at all,--not for its attempted wrong towards myself. For I, personally speaking, have not a moment to waste among the mere shadows of life which are not Life itself. I follow the glory,--not the gloom.
So whether you, who wander in darkness of your own making, care to come towards the little light which leads me onward, or whether you prefer to turn away from me altogether into your self-created darker depths, is not my concern. I cannot force you to bear me company. God Himself cannot do that, for it is His Will and Law that each human soul shall shape its own eternal future. No one mortal can make the happiness or salvation of another. I, like yourselves, am in the 'Wilderness,'--but I know that there are ways of making it blossom like the rose! Yet,--were all my heart and all my love outpoured upon you, I could not teach you the Divine transfiguring charm,--unless you, equally with all your hearts and all your love, resolutely and irrevocably WILLED to learn.
Nevertheless, despite your possible indifference,--your often sheer inertia--I cannot pass you by, having peace and comfort for myself without at least offering to share that peace and comfort with you. Many of you are very sad,--and I would rather you were happy. Your ways of living are trivial and unsatisfactory--your so-called 'pleasant' vices lead you into unforeseen painful perplexities--your ideals of what may be best for your own enjoyment and advancement fall far short of your dreams,--your amusements pall on your over- wearied senses,--your youth hurries away like a puff of thistledown on the wind,--and you spend all your time feverishly in trying to live without understanding Life. Life, the first of all things, the essence of all things,--Life which is yours to hold and to keep, and to RE-CREATE over and over again in your own persons,--this precious jewel you throw away, and when it falls out of your possession by your own act, you think such an end was necessary and inevitable. Poor unhappy mortals! So self-sufficient, so proud, so ignorant! Like some foolish rustic, who, finding a diamond, sees no difference between it and a bit of glass, you, with the whole Universe sweeping around you in mighty beneficent circles of defensive, protective and ever re-creative power,--power which is yours to use and to control- -imagine that the entire Cosmos is the design of mere blind unintelligent Chance, and that the Divine Life which thrills within you serves no purpose save to lead you to Death! Most wonderful and most pitiful it is that such folly, such blasphemy should still prevail,--and that humanity should still ascribe to the Almighty Creator less wisdom and less love than that with which He has endowed His creatures. For the very first lesson in the beginning of knowledge is that Life is the essential Being of God, and that each individual intelligent outcome of Life is deathless as God Himself.
The 'Wilderness' is wide,--and within it we all find ourselves,-- some wandering far astray--some crouching listlessly among shadows, too weary to move at all--others, sauntering along in idle indifference, now and then vaguely questioning how soon and where the journey will end,--and few ever discovering that it is not a 'Wilderness' at all, but a