Theosophy - The Bearing of Religious Ideals on Social Reconstruction
Adyar
Pamphlets No.66
The
Bearing of ReligiousIdeals
on
SocialReconstruction by Annie Besant
Reprinted
from The Theosophist of December 1912,
January 1913
Theosophical Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai [Madras]. India 600
020
June 1916
[Page
1] IN
the Middle Ages beliefs were held to be of supreme importance, and a man
might die in the odour of sanctity after having poisoned his surroundings
with the ill-savor of an evil life. To accept the teachings of the Church
was the one thing needful, and she smoothed the way to salvation for the
repentant reprobate — repentant because he had no longer
strength to sin, and because the fires of hell glowed luridly around his
death-bed. So far was this apotheosis of belief carried that the heretic of
pure life was regarded as more hateful, because more dangerous, than the
evil-doer, as poisonous food would be rendered more attractive when “served
up on a clean platter†— the phrase was used, if I remember
rightly, in wrath against the heretic Melancthon's blameless life.
Then followed a
re-action against this view, and in the days when
we, who now are old, were young, [Page
2] it was loudly declared that
rightness of life was the one important thing, and that it mattered little
what a man believed provided that his life were pure. It was held that all
was well with a man if he acted nobly, and that his beliefs were quite a secondary
thing.
The
first view — as to the supreme importance of Right Belief — is
true; but the belief which is supremely important is that which the man
really holds, not that which his lips profess. Bain rightly pointed out
that the test of belief is conduct; if a man believes that murder and
theft will lead him to hell, he will neither slay nor steal; but if he believes
that he may murder and thieve in safety, provided that on his death-bed he
profess contrition and belief in the articles of the Christian Faith, and that
he will thus escape hell, then he will murder and thieve, if his taste leads
him in that unpleasing direction. He will look forward to repentance on his
death-bed. He may even risk not having a death-bed, if he believes of a brigand,
shot as he was riding in one of his forays, that:
Between the saddle and the ground,
Mercy he sought, and mercy found.
Arrangements
of this kind, enabling an unfortunate man to escape from the unending
torture which was supposed to be the result of his temporary ill-doings,
were quite necessary while people believed the immoral doctrine of
everlasting punishment. The mistake of the Middle Age view was the
making [Page
3] of what a man said he
believed the important test, the test of salvation — not what he really
believed. Long before Bain pointed to a man's conduct as the real criterion
of the strength of his belief, an ancient scripture had said: “The man
consists of his faith; that which his faith is, he is even thatâ€. [Bhagavad-Gîtã, xvii.
3] The original Samskrt phrase is very strong: “Faith-formed this
man; whatever faith, that even heâ€.
This
vital truth of the forming of character by belief is ignored in the modern
view, which exalts character and takes no account of the source whence
character springs. If we analyse the case of the Middle Age ruffian, brutal
and licentious in his life and repentant on his death-bed, we shall see the
utter truth of Shri Krshna's words; he believed that the pardon of the
Church, voiced by one of her priests, could prevent him from “dying in
mortal sin†and going to hell, no matter how vile his life had been. His
conduct was shaped by this belief; he sinned wildly and brutally; he sought
pardon on his death-bed; each course of action represented a side of his
belief.
The
true part of the modern view is the supreme importance of character, and
the recognition that, in a universe of law, happiness must ultimately befall
the righteous liver: “If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought,
happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves himâ€.
[Dhammapada, I, 2] In all worlds it is very well [Page
4] with
the righteous man. “By good conduct man attains life. By good conduct he
attains fair fame, here and hereafterâ€. [Mahãbhãrata,
Anushãsana Parva, CIV] “ It is
your own conduct which will lead you to reward or punishment, as if you
had been destined thereforâ€. [The Sayings of Muhammad, 116]
In the modern view, what are regarded as mere differences of lip-belief are
properly regarded as unimportant; it does not really deny the truth that
high ideals of life affect character.
The
full statement would be: A man's thoughts modify, may even re-create,
his innate character, which is the outcome of his thoughts in previous
lives; that which he thinks on he becomes. “Man is created by
thoughtâ€. Hence that which he believes, being part of his thought, affects
his actions, and according to the strength of the belief and the extent to
which it occupies his thoughts will be the effect upon his conduct.
Mere lip-beliefs,
thoughtlessly accepted from outside and seldom thought about, do
not strongly affect conduct; all religions teach the same fundamental
principles of ethics, so differences in theological tenets need not
much affect conduct. Differences in these are mostly on subjects
which do not bear very directly on life, and these differences are,
moreover, mostly superficial. Further, they do not largely occupy
the mind of the ordinary man. Still, careless and inaccurate thought
on these is injurious, and leads to slipshod thinking on other things.
To escape this [Page
5]
undesirable influence, a man
should either form his theological beliefs with extreme care after assiduous
study, or should not dwell upon them in his mind, for “that which he thinks
upon that he becomesâ€.
Sooner or later, thought flows into action.
Hence the enormous
importance of ideals, for according to the thoughts brooded over
by the mind, cherished in the heart, will be the conduct of the outer
life. Action is threefold, two parts being invisible and one
part visible. Desire breeds it, thought shapes it, act manifests
it. An ideal is a fixed idea; it is created by the mind; it is nourished
by desire; it presses ever outwardly into the world of manifestation,
seeking to express itself in action. And inasmuch as the religious
ideal is that which comes closest to the heart and most dominates
the brain, the bearing of the religious ideals of citizens on the
society in which they live cannot safely be disregarded by those
who guide such societies. Civilizations are built round a central
religious ideal, and are moulded and shaped by the thoughts which flow
from it. The ideal which dominated the ancient Âryan root-stock was
Dharma; [Dharma is Duty, but far more than Duty. It implies that a man’s
Duty is shown by his circumstances and character, which are the outcome
of his past evolution, and it indicates his best and easiest way of present
evolution.] that which ruled in Egypt was Knowledge; that in Persia, Purity;
that in Greece, Beauty; that in Rome, Law; that in Christendom, the Value
of the Individual and Self-sacrifice. Each of these ideals shaped a religion
and made a type of [Page
6] civilisation, and the evolution
of each type only becomes intelligible as this is seen.
In
ancient India the central thought was the Family — the man, the woman,
the child. Out of this, connoting the duty of each member of the trio to each
other member, grew the social ideal of Hindûism — Dharma. The dominant
thought of the whole social system is that of mutual obligation; these
obligations bind human beings together into a social organism, and the
State is a conglomeration of families. The family, not the individual, is the
unit, and hence the profound difference between the social ideal of the
Indian and of the European. A social system based on the family as the
social unit must be a system of mutual obligations, of Duties. A social
system based on the individual as the social unit must be a system of
mutual contracts, of Rights. The latter is a modern ideal, while the former
may be said to dominate the ancient world and the East of to-day, though
the East is now being invaded by the western ideal. Throughout the East,
Duties, not Rights, have been the central ideal, the basis of human society;
on Duties were built up social systems in which each had his place, his
work, his map of life. Looking at these, we realize that human life was once
orderly, instead of anarchical; and we begin to see that while the social
ideal is that of the struggle of wild beasts in a jungle, social organization
can never rise to a high level.
In order to realize the effect of Religious Ideals on a Society growing up
around them and dominated [Page 7] by them, we should carefully study the
history of the past, bearing this in mind. Let us take for such study the
Ideals of Christianity, and the development of European Society under their
influence.
Two main Ideals
appear to me to be presented by Christianity: (1) The Value of the
Individual; (2) Self-sacrifice.
The
first of these made the Individual, instead of the Family, the social unit,
and, by emphasizing the value of the individual soul, evolved and
strengthened the sense of Individuality in man. The immense stress laid on
the life here as determining man's everlasting destiny; the submergence of
the idea of reincarnation — universal in the ancient world — entailing
the permanence of the after-death happiness or misery brought about by the
use of that one life on earth, thus magnifying its importance beyond all
measure; the substitution of this conception of the overwhelming value of
earthly life with its accompanying heaven or hell for that of a continued life,
repeatedly circling through the three worlds — physical, intermediate
and heavenly — in a long evolutionary process by which, ultimately, perfection
was attained; all this inevitably led to the emphasizing of the value of the
individual possessed of this single chance of salvation; this one, short,
span of earthly life linked to such gigantic outcome magnified the all-importance
of the individual soul. “What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? or
what shall a man give in [Page
8]
exchange for his soul ?†The
Christian teaching, based on the Hebraic ideas of the fixed earth with its
revolving firmament studded with sun and moon and the stars also,
made man as truly the center of life as was his earth of the universe. For
man God descended upon earth, took birth in human flesh, and died; man's
salvation was God's chief occupation; for man He rose, ascended into heaven,
and thence would come again; man's behavior pleased or grieved Him, made
Him content or jealous and wrathful; “God is angry with the wicked every
dayâ€; heaven was clouded
by man's ill-behavior, and rejoiced over his contrition. Man's importance
became enormous in this scheme of things, and his value rose to an
unimaginable figure. If we contrast it with the previous conception of
a continued life — with its quiet enduring of present wrong as the
outcome of past ill-doing; with its patient striving to plant seeds of qualities
which in the future would flower and bear fruit; with its gentle disregard
of the fate of a single life which bulked but small in the face of a life
everlasting, stretching through a long vista of births and deaths, — if
we contrast these two conceptions, we shall realise the impetus given to
Individuality by the Christian religion, the magnifying of the individual
man.
Hence we have, in the West, Individualism as the basis of Society; Man
stands alone, isolated, a congeries of inherent, inborn Rights. The
apotheosis of the Individual is seen in the assertion of the Rights of [Page 9]
Man, and the necessary corollary of a competitive Society; the individual
man asserts himself and fights against his fellows; the individual classes
struggle with each other; the individual nations war with each other. Each
fights for his own hand; each seeks to win by his own individual strength of
body or brain that which he desires to possess; competitors in trade carry
on cut-throat competition; capitalist and workman fight by lock-out and
strike; rival kingdoms seek the bloody arbitrament of war; the weaker
nations are exploited for the enriching of the stronger; trade-expansion is
forced by conical shot, and markets are opened by the sword; Society
becomes a weltering chaos of struggling interests; might is right; the hand
of the strong is on the throat of the weak; the helpless is trampled under
foot.
Is it, then, ill with the world ? Is this cockpit civilisation the result of the
teaching of the Gentlest, the most Compassionate, of the Lover of men ?
Nay, be a little patient, 0 critic of a great work of art while still half-hewn
from the stone. All is very well, despite the outward seeming, for this strong
Son of God, who is Man, is but evolving the forces which are necessary for
the work which shall be done by Him when the strength which now crushes
the weak shall be yoked to their service, and each seed of their pain shall
blossom into the splendid flowers of their joy.
For the second
Ideal of Christianity, shaped less by ecclesiastical doctrine than
by the all-compelling [Page
10] power of a Perfect
Life, is that of Self-sacrifice, whereof the Cross is the ever-inspiring
symbol;
.... the Cross of Christ
Is more to us than all His miracles.
The
piteous figure of the dying Christ, thorn-crowned and scourged, nail-pierced
and naked, was lifted to the heights of unsurpassable command when o'er
its pathetic weakness brooded the curbed omnipotence of a God, voluntarily
bowing an Immortal Life to a shameful death, and permitting the strong
hands which upheld the universe to be nailed by His creatures to the cross.
Such was the Figure which silently stood over against Christendom — silently
indeed, but there was magic in the silence. Through the storm and the turmoil,
through the struggle and the anguish, a voice was ever softly breathing: “Forasmuch
as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
meâ€. From the eyes of
angry men and weeping women and hungry children shone out the dumb
appeal of the eyes of the suffering Christ. Strength was shamed in the
moment of its triumph; ruth was stirred when greed should have slept, full-fed.
In some wondrous way weakness was seen as being stronger than strength, and
pain as sweeter than joy. And then there came to the heart of Christendom the
meaning of the forgotten words spoken by its Lord: “He
that is greater among you, let him become as the younger, and he that is
chief as he that doth serve ... I am among you as he that doth serveâ€. Then
rang out the words of His servant Paul: “We that are strong ought [Page
11]
to bear the infirmities of the
weak, and not to please ourselvesâ€. More and
more is this Ideal of Self-sacrifice asserting itself in the Christendom
of today, the Ideal of yoking strength to Service, of recognizing the measure
of power as the measure of responsibility, of the joy and the glory of
voluntary renunciation. That is the Ideal to which the younger generation
of the wealthy and the highly placed is stretching out hands aching to
serve, is offering up hearts aflame with passionate devotion to man. And
that is the Ideal which shall triumph, and shall turn the strength which
has been gained in struggle to the uplifting of the trampled, which shall
consecrate that strength to the performance of duties instead of to the
assertion of rights.
This
is the permanent Ideal, while the other is temporary, and shall pass away,
having served its purpose, and shall be looked back upon as marking one
of the many stages through which man has climbed from savagery to civilisation;
it will be seen clearly in the future — as some
already see it today — that Society could not endure as a constant battle-field
of warring interests, but that there must come a great reconstruction, in which
the needs of all shall be reconsidered, the happiness of all shall be aimed
at, the extent of possession shall measure the duty of service.
That is the
Ideal which, in many different forms, is making its way among the
nations of the West. Sometimes it appears in the fierce shape of
democratic Socialism, with class-hatred as its inspiration; but hate [Page
12]
is a disintegrating force; it
cannot construct; and every effort that springs from hatred is doomed to
exhaust itself in failure. Side by side with this is another form — a
Socialism of love, which aims at giving, but does not exhort to spoliation.
It is the noble longing of the happy to bring happiness to the unhappy, of
the educated to bring knowledge to the uneducated, of those who have leisure
to bring leisure and diminution of toil to those who labour. It is the feeling
we call the social conscience — a
feeling which has its roots in love and sympathy, and which is therefore
constructive. For the forces born of love are those which join together,
and only a Society which is built on love, and cemented by love, can endure
through the ages of the future.
Let
us consider what religious Ideal will now serve us as a basis for the reconstruction
of Society. What Ideal will suffice to breathe into men's hearts the necessary
inspiration for action ? Can such an Ideal be presented in a way so precise,
clear, intelligible and rational, that it will command the brains of men
as well as attract their hearts, that it will give to the social conscience
the force of a natural law ? Unless this can be done, our labours will
largely fail, for we cannot rely for social reconstruction only on the
generous impulses of the noblest and most spiritual men arid women. It
is necessary that all people should feel that a law exists, accord with
which means happiness, and disregard of which brings ruin — slowly
or swiftly, but inevitably. For there is nothing which so compels human
reason[Page
13] as
the sense of an inviolable natural law, working around us, below, above
us, a law from which we cannot escape, and to which we must conform ourselves — or
suffer. In Society, as in religion and in morals, we must appeal to the reason,
we must justify our proposals before the bar of the intellect; only thus can
we bring those whose instincts — growing out of
the past — are anti-social, to realise that they cannot wisely satisfy
those instincts, because such satisfaction would result in a common ruin, in
which they, as well as others, would be engulfed.
What religious Ideals, then, are there which may serve as a basis for
Society, and may be seen as rooted in natural law, unchangeable and
inviolable ? First: the One Life. We must realise that we all share a
common Life, are rooted in that Life, so that nothing that injures another
can be permanently good for any one of us; that the health of the body
politic, as much as of the body individual, depends on the healthy working
of every part, that if one part is diseased the whole of the body suffers.
On
this point science and religion teach the same truth. We can show, from
a book on physiology, how the scientific man builds up, in ever more
complicated fashion, that which he calls an individual. He recognises that
each of our bodies is built up of myriad individuals, each of which lives its
own life, was born, grew, died and decayed; it is huge communities of
these individuals which make our bodies — plastids or cells he calls
them as they are walled or unwalled — whether actively moving about [Page
14] in
the blood, or comparatively stable; these form the lowest grade of individuals.
Then when these are joined together we have the second grade of
individuals — tissues. Tissues, joined together, give us the third
grade of individuals — organs. Organs joined together make the fourth
grade of individuals — plant, animal and human bodies. Bodies joined
together make the fifth grade of individuals-communities. Communities joined
together make the sixth grade of individuals — nations. Nations joined
together, make the seventh grade — Humanity. This is not the teaching
of the poet, of the dreamer, of the man fond of allegory, simile, symbol.
It is the dry presentment of fact in the physiological handbook. For science,
out of the study of diversity, has realised the underlying unity, as religion,
beginning with the unity, has divided gradually that unity in training the
State, the Family, the Individual. The scientific man regards humanity as
an organism, and religion recognises the same idea. Only where science sees
one universal Life, religion sees also one universal Consciousness, and
calls that Consciousness — GOD. Religion teaches the Immanence of God:
One Life in many forms, One Consciousness in many consciousnesses, One Spirit
in many spirits —The ONE individualised for love's sake,
for bringing “many sons unto gloryâ€.
Thus this idea
of One Life in us and in all, One Life expressing itself in countless
individuals, is expressed alike by religion and by science. It matters
not whether we climb up to a truth [Page
15] from
below by countless observations — the Method of Science, or descend
into matter from the heights of Spirit — the Method of Religion; both
ultimately proclaim the same reality, and this unity of Life, and therefore
of Humanity, may be accepted from either. The recognition of that common
life is the only sure basis for the building up of Society in the multiplex
individuals that we call nations.
Let
us suppose that this thought becomes the dominant thought in all minds; will
they not inevitably begin to realise that the health of the whole
must depend on the health of the parts ? Put poison into the mouth, and
the whole body suffers. Inject it into a vein, and the whole body is sick.
Allow poverty, misery, ignorance, to spread abroad in your body politic, and
the whole body politic becomes diseased, and there is no sound health in
it. A belief in the Immanence of God compels the recognition of the
Solidarity of Man: “There is one Spirit and One Bodyâ€. The second
truth is only the earth-side of the first. Hence any scheme of social reconstruction
that is to endure must be based on the practical recognition of a common
Life in which all are sharers. That means that there must be no slums, and
no plague-spots of vice in our cities; it means the disappearance of the
frightful poverty which gnaws at the life of millions of our fellow-beings.
It means such a recognition, such a realisation, of the common Life, that we
who are cultured and comfortable shall feel diseased and tortured unless
we are doing our utmost [Page
16] to relieve our brothers and
sisters from suffering; a realized common Life cannot rest content while there
is so much agony unregarded.
This
is felt in blood-relationship. There is no need of law to compel a brother
to assist a brother; the law of love in the heart negates the need for
any other law, and compels us to carry help to a suffering member of the
family. And it is true that “God hath made of one blood†all the children
of men; and until we feel for those outside the blood-family as we feel for
those within, until for us all form one family, until — in the phrase
of an old Hindû scripture — we regard all the elders as our parents,
the contemporaries as our brothers and sisters, the youngers as our children,
we have not really risen to the human point of view at all. For in true
men and women, the sense of love, compassion and sympathy — of Service,
in a word — stretches over earth, through death, and back to earth again,
and just in proportion as we have evolved this quality in far-reaching
benevolence are we truly Man.
As this truth
becomes generally recognized, all who suffer will have an indefeasible
claim on all who are able to help, by the mere fact of their
suffering; instead of running away from the sight of suffering, and trying
to forget it, as so many do today, we shall allow the. suffering
to wring our hearts until we have removed it from another. We shall
live out the exquisite words of that gem of literature, The Voice
of the Silence,
given to us by H. P. Blavatsky: “Let not the fierce sun dry one tear of pain
before [Page
17] thyself
hast wiped it from the sufferer's eye. But let each burning human tear drop
on thy heart and there remain; nor ever brush it off until the pain that
caused it is removedâ€. And it is written: “To live to benefit
mankind is the first stepâ€
As this Ideal begins to rule, the sense of true
Solidarity will arise, and Society will be built in full recognition of the law
that social health depends on the health of every individual in Society, that
it is not enough that some should be successful, but that all must have their
share of happy life. Without this, Society perishes. The law of the common Life,
the expression of which is Brotherhood, is woven into the very substance of the
human race. There have been many Empires, many Kingdoms in the past, and
they have all broken up when they denied the law of Brotherhood. Where
Brotherhood is ignored, it breaks that which ignores it. Empires have been
built by King-Initiates, and have lasted for thousands of years in
happiness and prosperity; but when, in later days, selfishness grasped the
sceptre, the Empire slowly crumbled into dust.
The
first Ideal, then, which is necessary for Social Reconstruction, is the
Unity of Life — we are all one. None can suffer in the body politic without
the happiness of all being tainted; success and failure are common for the
whole of us; while to ignore the law may for a brief time bring success, in
the long run it inevitably brings destruction. A man takes advantage of his
fellow man, builds up his own business [Page
18] by the destruction of the
businesses of his neighbours, gathers together money by injuring, not by
serving, those around him. Perhaps as a lawyer he is unjust, unfair, and
wins his cases and fame and fortune by unjust and unfair pleadings in our
Courts. The result is that the standard of morality of the nation is lowered.
Commerce and trade become rotten, and no man can really trust his
neighbour; for the tricks of business and trade are played, and people know
it. As mistrust gradually spreads through the people, prosperity sinks lower
and lower; and the children and grandchildren of the successful but
dishonest man share in the degradation of the whole nation. For the poison
that he put into the veins of the nation has gradually spread through the
whole body, and the whole is sick and degraded: the national life becomes
polluted and devitalised, and every one suffers. The wealth he gained by
wrong is scattered, and the family, for which he cheated and saved, sinks
down in the general national decay.
Another religious
Ideal, needed especially for the actual work of Social Reconstruction,
is the joy and glory of Sacrifice. This again is beautifully seen
in the family. No compulsion is there needed. Where food goes short,
the youngest children are the first to be fed. The baby is the last to be
neglected, when pressure comes upon the family resources: for,
instinctively, the elders feel that the burden must not fall on the weaker
shoulders, while they are there to bear it in their stead. Sacrifice is seen
not[Page
19] to be sorrow, but
a healthy instinct of the true human heart, and wherever it meets
weakness there comes the impulse to serve.
And
if this were carried out in the reconstruction of Society, what would be
the result ? No longer then would most be expected from the weakest, nor
would the bearing of the heaviest burdens be put on the shoulders least
fitted to sustain them. Who, in our Society, are those who most need
something of the ease of life — good food, good clothing, good shelter,
and leisure that will truly recreate ? Surely it is those who toil —those
who are giving their strength to production, and who for long hours labor for
the common helping. And yet those, under our present system, are the worst
fed, worst clothed, worst housed. It is far harder for a man, exhausted by
eight, nine, ten hours of labor, to go home to a slum where the air is foul
and the surroundings repulsive, than it would be for one less exhausted. It
may be said that he feels it less than would one accustomed to other life.
That is true, for habit dulls. But is not this the heaviest condemnation of
our social system, that we have crushed our workers down to the point where
they do not feel sufficiently acutely the evil conditions of their lives
? We force them to be less than human, and then plead their lack of refined
humanity as an excuse for leaving them as they are.
Modern
civilisation has failed to make the masses of the people happy.
Look at the faces of the poor; they are the faces of a saddened
and weary people, [Page
20] weary with the burden
of life. Until the people are happy, we have no right to talk of Society;
there is only a weltering chaos of social units, with no social organisation.
But gradually we shall take the social question in hand, and aim
at the realisation of the splendid phrase: “From
each according to his capacity; to each according to his needs". That
is the Law of the Family, and one day it will be the Law of the State; for
it is the true social law. As the truth of reincarnation becomes accepted
once more, the duty of the elders to the youngers, the claim of the youngers
on the elders, will be recognised; help, protection and training will be
gladly rendered by the elders, and the evolution of the youngers will be
quickened.
This
can only come about by religious effort and the religious spirit. Not out
of the Ideal of material prosperity but out of the religious Ideal must spring
the Sacrifice that is joy, because it is the conscious expression of the
common life; only out of the religious Ideal can come the Brotherhood
which exists in all its splendour in the spiritual world, and, in time, shall
surely spread to us in this mortal sphere. It is the spiritual sight which is
the true vision; and the testimony of the spiritual consciousness, which
has been so ignored in the West, is beginning to be seen as an asset human
Society. That spiritual consciousness always
speaks for Unity, for Brotherhood, for Service and for Sacrifice; as it unfolds,
it will bring the materials for a nobler social State.[Page 21]
The
Immanence of God; the duty of the strong to serve and to protect; the linking
together of power and responsibility; the realisation that the higher and
stronger should put forward no rights — that rights belong to
the weaker and the more helpless; these Ideals, as they are recognised,
will regenerate Society, and will stimulate the noblest emotions of the
human heart to love, to help and to serve. There will be no need of
confiscatory legislation, for the heart full of love will be the law of life;
it will be a question of giving not of taking, of voluntary help not
of compelled drudgery. Then will the danger of warfare pass away, and
peace, which is the fruit of love, will spread over the lands. In the
unity realized by religion, the apparently conflicting interests of men
on the material plane will disappear, and as the Spirit of Love dominates,
the discords caused by hatred will pass away.