Conquest where conquest is possible, and submission without exhausting struggle where conquest is impossible, are doubtless true wisdom. But wisdom implies knowledge; and knowledge, right education; and education, the divinely imparted faculty for receiving instruction.
To gain the victory over self on the one hand, and to yield submission to God’s eternal laws on the other hand, this is liberty—the glorious liberty of the children of God.
It is surely our capacity for development, our power to rise, even at the cost of much suffering, to a knowledge of God, to the likeness of God, that constitutes the great hope of the universe. The idea is admirably expressed in an exquisite chant, entitled “Song of the Universal,” by the well-known American poet-philosopher, Walt Whitman:—
“Over the mountain-growths, disease and sorrow,
An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,
High in the purer, happier air.
“From imperfection’s murkiest cloud
Darts always forth one ray of perfect light,
One flash of heaven’s glory.
. . . . . . . . . .
“All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all,
Nature’s amelioration blessing all,
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
“Give me, O God, to sing that thought,
Give me, give him or her I love, this quenchless faith,
. . . . . . . . . .
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in time and space,
Health, peace, salvation universal.
“Is it a dream?
Nay, but the lack of it the dream,
And failing it life’s lore and wealth a dream,
And all the world a dream.”
THE END.
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