NATURAL CRUELTY OF THE UNDEVELOPED.
The most unaccountable phase of the minds of the leaders of religions has been their persistent effort to make their fellow beings wretched and miserable instead of glad and happy. We expect savagery from the Comanchee Indians and other primitive tribes and races; but from self-styled Christians the history of their cruelties is astounding. It is pure devil worship—that is what it is—if they but knew it.
One of the beautiful plans of theologians and priests for scaring half-witted people into their individual folds has been telling them that they were in danger of committing the most dreadful of all sins, the "sin against the Holy Ghost." The utterly "unpardonable sin" of all sins. This blasphemous, fiendish proposition has frightened numbers of half-baked folks, and they have pestered their small modicum of brains over this mysterious say-so of priests and parsons even to the point of committing suicide, or of landing themselves in lunatic asylums.
THE WORST SIN.
The much speculated over "sin against the Holy Ghost," the so-called "unpardonable sin" is the sin that men and women commit against themselves; for the most holy of all ghosts, or spirits, is that portion of God—the universal Spirit—embodied in their own separate personalities, and it is only "unpardonable" in that it sets the soul back from its possible and intended progress toward its ultimate perfection.
REINCARNATION.
The objections to the acceptance of a belief in the law of reincarnation are based upon the imperfect teaching, and the consequent inadequate understanding of the laws controlling such experiences.
Some of the reasons for disbelief are utterly illogical. For instance, one view is this: "I never want to come back to this earth after I once leave it." The fact is, that there could be no return to today's recognized conditions of life. If one were to return to this planet and become reembodied, he would find himself in some other country, and under such entirely changed conditions that he would be totally unconscious of being on the same world where he had formerly lived. Then, again, the law of vibration is so immanent in material things, the changes are so constantly undermining conditions and setting up quite others that if one were to return in one hundred or even in fifty years, it could not be the same, and that person could not be in any way subject to the same conditions, or to the same experiences.
Furthermore, it is nature's wise and provident law that there is hardly ever any memory of any previous life here. Still, after the soul has passed through many lives and has accumulated great knowledge, a vast consciousness which can not be laid aside, there come to individual souls faint gleams of memories of past experiences which, if heeded or understood, might become helpful and instructive, if not altogether consoling.
There has never been a time when the needs of humanity have so reached the great spiritual overlords of this planet as at present. Or, that those needs have been so responded to by the return to earth of wise, and godlike spirits as now. Many of these have sought to approach humanity through personal reembodiment in the flesh. It would be well for the world if, instead of cramming the brains of children with effete ideas and superstitions, the messages of these wise ones could be listened to and heeded.