Speaker 1: The divine center. The secret of life, of abundant life,
with its strength, its felicity, and its unbroken peace, is
to find the divine center within oneself, and to live
in and from that, instead of in that outer circumference
of disturbances, the clamors, cravings, and argumentations which make up
the animal and intellectual man. These selfish elements constitute the
mere husks of life, and must be thrown away by
him who would penetrate to the central heart of things,
to life itself. Not to know that within you that
is changeless and defiant of time and death, is not
to know anything, but is to play vainly with the
unsubstantial reflections in the mirror of time. Not to find
within you those passionless principles which are not moved by
the strifes and shows and vanities of the world. Is
defined nothing but illusions, which vanish as they are grasped.
He who resolves that he will not rest satisfied with appearances, shadows, illusions, shall,
by the piercing light of that resolve, disperse every fleeting fantasy,
and shall enter into the substance and reality of life.
He shall learn how to live, and he shall live,
he shall be the slave of no passion, the servant
of no opinion, the votary of no fond error. Finding
the divine center within his own heart, he will be
pure and calm, and strong and wise, and will ceaselessly
radiate the heavenly life in which he lives, which is himself,
Having betaken himself to the divine refuge within and remaining there,
a man is free from sin. All his yesterdays are
as the tide washed and untrodden sands. No sin shall
rise up against him, to torment and accuse him, and
destroy his sacred peace. The fires of remorse cannot scorch him,
nor can the storms of regret devastate his dwelling place.
His tomorrows are as seeds which shall germinate, bursting into
beauty and potency of life. And no doubt shall shake
his trust, no uncertainty rob him of repose. The present
is his only. In the immortal present does he live.
And it is as the eternal vault of blue above,
which looks down silently and calmly, yet radiant with purity
and light upon the upturned and tear stained faces of
the centuries. Men love their desires for gratification seem sweet
to them, but its end is pain and vacuity. They
love the argumentations of the intellect, for egotism seems most
desirable to them, but the fruits thereof are humiliation and sorrow.
When the soul has reached the end of gratification and
reaped the bitter fruits of egotism, it is ready to
receive the divine wisdom and to enter into the divine life.
Only the crucified can be transfigured. Only by the death
of self. Can the Lord of the heart rise again
into the immortal life and stand radiant upon the olivet
of wisdom? Do you have trials? Every outward trial is
the replica of an inward imperfection. You shall grow wise
by knowing this, and shall thereby transmute trial into active joy,
finding the kingdom where trial cannot come. When will you
learn your lessons, o, child of earth? All your sorrows
cry out against you. Every pain is your just accuser,
and your griefs are but the shadows of your unworthy
and perishable self. The kingdom of Heaven is yours. How
long will you reject it? Preferring the lurid atmosphere of hell,
the hell of your self seeking self. There springs the
healing streams, quenching all thirst. There bloom the immortal flowers,
carpeting all the way with joy. There throng, swiftest and
sweetest hours. The redeemed sons of God, the glorified in
body and spirit, are bought with a price, And that
price is the crucifixion of the personality, the death of self.
And having put away that within which is the source
of all discord, they have found the universal music, the
abiding joy. Life is more than motion. It is music
more than rest. It is peace more than work. It
is duty more than labor. It is love more than enjoyment.
It is blessedness more than acquiring money and position and reputation.
It is knowledge, purpose, strong, and high resolve. Let the
impure turn to purity, and they shall be pure. Let
the weak resort to strength, and they shall be strong.
Let the ignorant fly to knowledge, and they shall be wise.
All things are man's, And he chooses that which he
will have. To day, he chooses in ignorance. Tomorrow he
shall choose in wisdom. He shall work out his own salvation,
whether he believes it or not. For he cannot escape
himself nor transfer to another the eternal responsibility of his
own soul. By no theological subterfuge shall he trick the
law of his being, which shall shatter all his selfish
makeshifts and excuses for right thinking and right doing. Nor
shall God do for him that which it is destined
his soul shall accomplish for itself. What would you say
of a man men, who, wanting to possess a mansion
in which to dwell, peacefully purchased the sight, and then
knelt down and ask God to build the house for him.
Would you not say that such a man was foolish?
And of another man, who, having purchased the land, set
the architects and builders and carpenters at work to erect
the edifice, would you not say that he was wise?
And as it is in the building of a material house,
even so it is in the building of a spiritual mansion,
brick by brick, pure thought upon pure thought, good deed
upon good deed. Must the habitation of a blameless life
rise from its sure foundation, until at last it stands
out in all the majesty of its faultless proportions. Not
by caprice nor gift nor favor does a man obtain
the spiritual realities. But by diligence, watchfulness, energy, and effort.
Strong is the soul, and wise and beautiful. The seeds
of godlike power are in us still. Gods are we bards, saints,
heroes if we will. The spiritual heart of a man
is the heart of the universe, and finding that heart
man finds the strength to accomplish all things. He finds
there also the wisdom to see things as they are.
He finds there the peace that is divine at the
center of man's being is the music which orders the stars,
the eternal harmony. He who would find blessedness, let him
find himself. Let him abandon every discordant desire, every inharmonious thought,
every unlovely habit and deed, and he will find that
grace and beauty and harmony which form the indestructible essence
of his own being. Men fly from creed to creed
and find unrest. They travel in many lands and discover disappointment.
They build themselves beautiful mansions and plant pleasant gardens, and
reap weariness, heaviness, and discomfort. Not until a man falls
back upon the truth within himself does he find rest
and satisfaction. Not until he builds the inward mansion of
faultless conduct does he find the endless and incorruptible joy.
And having obtained that, he will infuse it into all
his outward doings and possessions. If a man would have peace,
let him exercise the spirit of peace. If he would
find love, let him dwell in the spirit of love.
If he would escape suffering, let him cease to inflict it.
If he would do noble things for humanity, let him
cease to do ignoble things for himself. If he will
but quarry the mind of his own soul, he shall
find there all the materials for building whatever he will,
And he shall find there also the central rock upon
which to build in safety. Howsoever a man works to
write the world, it will never be righted until he
has put himself right. This may be written upon the
heart as a mathematical axiom. It is not enough to
preach purity. Men must cease from lust to exhort to love.
They must abandon hatred to extol self sacrifice. They must
yield up self to adorn with mere words the perfect life.
They must be perfect when a man can no longer
carry the weight of his many sins, let him fly
to Christ, whose throne is the center of his own heart,
and he shall become light hearted, entering the glad company
of the immortals. When he can no longer bear the
burden of his accumulated learning, Let a man leave his books,
his science, his philosophy, and come back to himself, and
he will find within that which he outwardly sought and found,
not his own divinity. He ceases to argue about God,
who has found God within. Relying upon that calm strength
which is not the strength of self, he lives God
manifesting in his daily life the highest goodness, which is
eternal life.