"As a man thinketh, so is he." This may be only measurably true, in consequence of the stress of circumstances; but sooner or later, the thought moulds the individual beyond the power of disguising the real character.
LAW.
It was all in order for Yahweh, the guardian spirit of the Hebrew race, to "hetchel" the Jews—and from all accounts they needed it—but the most anomalous phase of this whole affair consists in the fact that after having set forth to the world that the church, and all were to come under the rule of the "new dispensation," and represent the teachings of the Master, they should turn back to the old, old history of the Jews, and incorporate bodily into the so-called Christian religion, and into the political life and jurisprudence of nations, the restrictions, the penalties, and, in a word, the Hebraic law in its entirety. Law, as it is applied in America, is a process lacking in equity and justice. It is circumvented by $-s for the benefit of the rich, a menace to the poor man, binding on the needy burdens that kill, or lead to despair. Jesus Christ did not make law; he only indicated the presence of the higher law—the scientific law—that must rule all life on this planet ere justice to all can ever prevail.
The gospel of Jesus—the Nazarene—was the first that ever brought hope or promise of any possible good to the outcast, and the children of poverty.
COMMUNISM.
Communism is the beginning, and not the culminating state of societies and peoples. All efforts on this line fail, because they are based upon the false and impossible premise of the absolute equality of all men. There never has been, there never can be any such adjustment of the forces of nature on this planet; because no two souls are alike and there can only be equality in alikeness. Spirits come here in groups. They start simultaneously on their pilgrimage across the "sands of time"; but at the very outset there are obstacles and handicaps innumerable. At once there is heredity. There is no equality in heredity. It is good, bad or indifferent as the case may be. But the great divergence is in the soul itself; it grovels or aspires, and unfolds its powers according to the laws of its own individual being, and all men, and women should not be held accountable or judged alike. It is not just. Communism would seek to suppress all individuality and reduce everyone to the "dead level" of the commonplace, under the mistaken idea of universal equality. Gifted persons daring to lift up their heads above the common ruck of mankind, are at once shoved back into the narrow groove the heads of the cult have decided to be the proper rut for human beings to run in.
In this view, persons of ignoble and narrow natures may sit in judgment upon people of genius and refinement, and may force back the most aspiring seer into expressionless life by the utter lack of any comprehension by their dull, selfish fancy. Ye gods! How they exult in doing it! This trick is played upon sensitive, modest, gifted people everywhere. Fools set the pace and rule, and those who know the least of the responsibilities of living are the first to rush forward and grab them up. Envy and jealousy have it all their own way, and so it is the world around; everyone is forced to pay a fearful price for his superiority.
At different times poets and writers, good people of distinction and philanthropy, weary of the "storm and stress" of life and of invasions and intolerable "bumptiousness" of the vulgar and indiscriminating, have tried to secure a place and surroundings where high thinking and simple living might order their days and secure to them companionship fit for the gods; but the noblest and best of humanity are not permitted to go off by themselves in such ways and have a little heaven on earth all to themselves. This cannot be. They must stand apart each in their place, out in the world—"in the open"—that they may each one stand as a beacon light, object lesson, leader, and thus assist in "leavening the whole lump" of ignorant and unregenerate humanity.
HAPPINESS.
Happiness is the final achievement of the human soul. Perfect happiness can only come as the result of absolute at-one-ment with God, the divine will, and in this conforming there is no loss of personality, or of individuality; it only rounds out the soul into its godlike completeness. It is unimaginable that there should come loss of any attribute of the soul on its way up to the rendez-vous with its Parent, God. Rather, that its powers should increase in every possible direction with use, in conformity with divine law. This is the only true happiness.