But, did our Heavenly Parents not progress,
There would be no progression for us here;
All stagnant would become, and motionless,
With utter silence and obliviousness
As infinite as Being's boundless sphere;
Progress for one involves progress for all,
As long as Love its mate delights to cheer;
As long as Love responds to Love's sweet call,
No cataclysmal force can Being's tide forestall.
16.
But does it seem too much for mortal hope
To dream of a career so far above
And still advancing as conditions ope
The way of endless progress? Who can cope
With infinite progression, born of Love,
And say where it shall end? Our destiny,
With all eternity in which to rove,
Must have unbounded possibility;
Oh! glorious broadening ages that are yet to be!
17.
We only have a glimpse, and yet behold
How vast the scene stretched out before our eyes!
We start from seeming nothingness of old;
As we our dawning consciousness unfold,
What strides we make! How vastly do we rise
From knowing nought to science quick with sight
To penetrate the earth and scan the skies,
So eager is the soul in search of light,
Full of its destiny to grasp the infinite!
18.
Who cannot see eternal progress must
Have infinite results, and no one can
E'er be so far advanced beyond the dust
That, progress ended, he will stop and rust
Mid Evolution's ever-onward plan?
If dreams of a progressive life are not
A vain delusion, then must rising man
Become more than the mind conceives of what
Befits a God—beyond all reach of earthly thought.
19.
And who shall say it is so very strange
That suns and systems should be born and reared
Amid the ceaseless and unfolding change
Through which evolving souls are made to range
In their progression, marvelous and weird,
When mere conjunction of the sexes gives
To human beings form and life endeared
To parents and to other relatives—
The highest type of Being here on earth that lives?