"Then I resolved to break the conductor. I avoided seeing him, and never mentioned his name, for that is a kind of incantation. When people spoke of him in society, I was silent, or threw in a friendly word on his behalf. My Frankenstein pined away for want of nourishment, and disappeared out of my thoughts. Finally information reached my enemy that I had spoken good of him. He was struck with amazement, dwindled down, felt ashamed of himself, and believed he had made a mistake. Therefore, never speak ill of your enemy; that only rouses people in his defence, and procures him friends. You see, therefore, what deep wisdom lies in the simplest teaching of the Gospel, which you believed yourself competent to criticise."
The Goddess of Reason.—The teacher continued: "The fact that our intelligence finds so many contradictions and difficulties in the great truths of religion is due not only to defects in our understanding but to an evil will. The presumption of wishing to understand God and His purposes is as though one attempted to steer a frigate with an oar. Every Greek tragedy closes with a warning against insolence and [Greek: hubris] Nothing is so displeasing to the gods.
"Swedenborg says: 'As soon as we break our connection with what is higher, our understanding is darkened. At the same time we are punished by being allowed to imagine ourselves more illuminated than others.'
"All the philosophers of the 'Illumination' grope in darkness. That period of history which is jestingly called the 'Illumination' is the darkest we have had. The goddess of reason, Mademoiselle Maillard, was adored only by madmen. The truths of religion never contradict reason until the latter has been clouded by an evil will. But then the discoveries begin, and then every religious truth 'contradicts reason,' such as the simple truth that God exists, that the Almighty can employ unknown laws or suspend laws which He Himself has given, that He can impart spiritual blessings by means of material symbols, and so on.
"All 'free-thinking' is foolishness, for thought is not free, but bound by the laws of thought, by logic, just as nature is bound by the laws of nature. The evil will seeks freedom in order to do evil, and the evil mind seeks freedom in order to think perversely."
Stars Seen by Daylight.—The teacher said: "The fool lives only for the present, for the moment, in the last fashionable error of the day, in the diving-bell of his daily paper, in dependence on public opinion, in the slavery of partisanship. The wise man lives in all times. For him there is neither time nor space. He is present always and everywhere; on this side and that side of the grave. He ranges over the world's history and fathoms the depths of himself; he regards himself as an inhabitant of the Universe, and not merely of the earth. He feels himself related to Plato and Aristotle; holds converse with the great spirits of the past in their writings. Sometimes he lives in his childhood; sometimes in his mature age. He lives in the past, as though it were present. He can 'think himself' into the lives of others; he rejoices with the joyful, mourns with the sorrowful, sympathises with the suffering. He feels on behalf of humanity; has no age, no nation. He sees the record of to-day's conflict laid up in historical archives, often without any other result. On the morrow, to-day's wisdom is only straw, in which something else grows; even errors are useful as manure. Everything serves. He bears everything, for he hopes; and hope is a virtue; it means believing good of God.
"Ephemeral flies get excited about trifles, and believe one can discover new truths among the telegrams in the breakfast-table newspaper. If a new star is discovered, they believe the others are extinguished. But hitherto the new have all been extinguished. The new star in Perseus appeared only for two years, and then it vanished. The Chinese Y-King says, 'If one goes into one's tent, and makes it dark about one, one can see the star Mei in the Archer in broad daylight.'
"Retire then sometimes to your tent in the wilderness, and you will see the stars by day."
The Right to Remorse.—The pupil asked: "Is one right in feeling remorseful for one's past, after discovering one's errors?"