Fifteenth Meeting
We had our meeting on Christian Science.
I wish to record it in so far only as it related to our planned work, as I think neither Ruth’s exposition nor our answers were original or enlightening.
I had given her a list of topics. The first was the idea of God. In this we found we agreed, and it gave occasion for much reviewing. Ruth had translated all her ideas from the vocabulary of Christian Science to that of our club, and this helped her to shape her thoughts. We spoke at some length of the personal and universal self. They called it “two selves,” and I answered them that it was only one, the one including the other.
With the subject and matter and spirit we had some trouble. They all understood what I said, but failed—I, too—to understand Ruth; and we are not sure now whether she and I agree.
Marian said: “Scientists speak of ‘dead matter,’ of all matter as dead. Is that so?”
I repeated my ideas on spirit and matter—all form is an expression of spirit—and also insisted on the limitations of our knowledge. I said: “Matter seems never to be dead, because when one force takes leave of it, another comes into possession, and decay is always the beginning of new life.”
Marian answered: “You mean the particles in this table are held together by a force?”
“Surely.”
“What is it? Does it feel?”
Again I pleaded ignorance.
We spoke of form as the eternal changing expression of spirit, of time as merely the measure and rhythm of progress or change. So Ruth found me willing to grant that all bad was a condition, not an unalterable thing, and that time was only a convention.
Concerning immortality Ruth believed all I do, and more besides. Alfred now agrees with me. He, too, feels that in some way he must continue to be.
Of the individual—or soul—Ruth thought as I. We also agreed on moral good and bad, and on the use and manner of prayer.
Marian asked me: “Why, if mind force forms body, can we not make our bodies perfect at once?”
I answered her that mind force had formed our bodies in the past, as they were now, and that our present, mental force was making future physical conditions; that all things went slowly, and the results of the past were inevitable. I spoke of the influence mind and action had on the body, on circulation, for instance. I said again that physical perfection could not be the aim, but only one of the conditions of progress.
On the subject of disease and cure Ruth and I disagreed entirely. But this we both held to be not tremendously important. I do not care here to record the arguments—not in the least bitter or heated—which we gladly left in air. None of us was in the least convinced by Ruth, and we were frank—she, as well as we—in our expressions of opinion.
So we found Ruth was with us in all that mattered, and had been candidly with us all the while. The children said the club had not changed their views, but enlarged and ordered them.
I read aloud the Christian Science prayer Ruth had brought some weeks ago:
MY PRAYER
“To be ever conscious of my unity with God, to listen for his voice, and hear no other call. To separate all error from my thought of man, and see him only as my father’s image, to show him reverence and share with him my holiest treasures.
“To keep my mental home a sacred place, golden with gratitude, redolent with love, white with purity, cleansed from the flesh.
“To send no thought into the world that will not bless, or cheer, or purify, or heal.
“To have no aim but to make earth a fairer, holier place, and to rise each day into a higher sense of Life and Love.”
We liked all of it, save the words “cleansed from the flesh.” Ruth explained that this meant cleansed from the idea of evil in the flesh.
“Then,” I answered, “the author should have said, though it is less poetical, ‘cleansed from the prejudice against the flesh.’ I would agree with that.”
Virginia again suggested the subject of animal consciousness, by telling Mark Twain’s story of the cat and the Christian Scientist. Ruth said that just now she was studying this subject.
Florence asked: “Do you believe jelly-fish are conscious?”
I reminded them of Cope’s theory of consciousness and desire as the cause of life, and of the higher consciousness swamping the lower. They remembered it, and were interested. Virginia said: “It is like the stars, which are always there, but cannot be seen when the sun shines.”
“Yes,” I answered, “the light of our larger consciousness hides those lesser feelings.”
We spoke of other religions and creeds, and Henry used the term—referring to Unitarianism—“a mild form of Christianity.”
Marian asked me whether mine was an absolute belief in an absolute truth.
“Because,” she said, “I don’t believe any one can find the absolute truth.”
“You must see,” I answered, “that I believe in a growing truth. Why else had we called ourselves Seekers? And I believe we will be seekers all our lives. All I have given you is a direction.”
“I am not sure,” answered she, “that I want just one direction.”
“He who would go in all directions at once, must stand still,” I replied.
“Perhaps I must,” she said. “I believe only one thing absolutely, and that is that I am immortal. And I don’t think I believe that just because I like to.” Still, when I questioned her on the whole self, and progress toward sympathy as the good, she fully agreed. She is afraid of accepting too much. This is a large truth, different for each one, able to include all, growing, forever changing, and forever the same, like life itself. I said: “We will always be Seekers together.”
I now read Henry’s paper:
“We spent a few minutes in speaking of Patriotism. Patriotism is loyalty to our fathers, and from this it comes to be loyalty toward our country, and then to the whole world. No one should be patriotic to the extent of ‘My country right or wrong,’ nor should any one be so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country and his home. The patriotic man is not always the right man, but the man with ‘Firmness in the right as God gives him to see right.’
“Many people spoil their lives, and even those of others, by putting unimportant things on a level, or perhaps higher than the really important questions of their life. There are women who try to teach or do settlement work because they think it a duty, even though they have no taste or ability in those lines, and their right place is in their own homes. The farmer who comes to the city and tries to be a business man, will not, as a rule, succeed. Every man has some work at which he is best, and he should find out what his calling is, and then give his best efforts to that.
“To represent light in a picture, we must have shadows, and without variation life would be dull. Hobbies are very good; and if a business man delights in visiting picture galleries, or baseball games, he will be better off if he gratifies these hobbies.”
Henry’s paper aroused some comment. They criticized Henry for saying one should not be “so patriotic in the cause of humanity as a whole as to forget his duty to his country.” They said patriotism for humanity must be patriotism for one’s own land. We agreed that his error was one of words rather than of meaning.
The girls teased him about his opinion on woman’s whole duty, and accused him, truly, it seems, of being opposed to woman’s suffrage. I said I wished it were not out of our present plan to argue all those questions, but we would not discuss definite social or political problems at all, since the girls and boys had neither the experience nor the judgment to profit by them now.
“Do you mean,” asked Marian, “whether the very rich man ought to keep his money, or throw it out on the street to everybody?”
“Yes—if you wish to put it that way.”
“I am certain,” said Florence, “no one could change my views on social questions.”
“No,” I answered, “probably not. But no doubt you will often change them for yourself.”
“Very likely,” she said.
I now read Marian’s paper:
“Our discussion last week at the club was on various subjects. The first was patriotism. We should be patriotic for our own country and the whole world. If we are rightly patriotic for our own country, we will be so for the whole world. It is not patriotism to say I am for the whole world, but not for my own country. This would be very inconsistent. Patriotism does not consist of saying your own country is always right, and that another is wrong because it is not your own. We also discussed the question of choosing professions, and agreed that we should always choose what we like, whether it is conventional or not. It is better to be a good dancer than a poor teacher. In doing work for others, we ought not to choose settlement work because our friends are doing it, or because we or some one else thinks we ought to. If it is work that appeals to us, we should do it; but, if not, we might go among the young people of our own circle, and help them. Another thing we spoke of was boring and being bored. Never bore any one or allow them to bore you. If you don’t know anything to say worth while saying, keep still. If some one else bores you, look at them from some standpoint such that, if they don’t interest you, at least they make you laugh at them. If possible, don’t frequent the society of people that bore you.”
They asked, had I not said it was wrong to laugh “at” people. Yes, I answered, malicious laughter was bad, as malicious criticism was bad, but there was a kindly laughter, that laughed with people, and smiled at their superficial weaknesses in a loving way openly, as we smile at our own. In this way we often laughed at, and with, the people we loved most. But, I said, let us never forget or disrespect the self, the growing, wonderful self in every creature, especially in every human being.
Now Virginia and Marian have their troubles. They do dislike certain people, and they like talking about them. Virginia said a fool was a fool, and continued to be a fool, even if you thought of him as a developing self. Marian objected that though she agreed with me, she couldn’t live up to it.
I said: “I am not going to tell you what to do, or preach you a sermon. Only I want you to see the thing in a true light. I find it impossible to sympathize with some people, and I cannot help disliking those who have done harm to any one I love. But I look upon it as a weakness and limitation of myself, which I mean to overcome. Remember that every self you fail to understand is a limitation of yourself. Every judgment you make of another is a judgment of yourself. I wish one could say, not: ‘I hate that person,’ but ‘I am one who hates that person’; the hate being a quality of your own, and reflecting only upon yourself.”
“I have said of people,” said Virginia, “that I did not see how they could have any friends.”
“But they did have friends,” I answered, “and the limitation was in your power of seeing. When you speak ill of a person, you are defining yourself.”
“It would be much pleasanter,” said Virginia, “to think it was a definition of the other person.”
“No doubt,” I answered; “do as you please, but remember what you are doing. Realize your limitation as such, at least.”
Marian said: “I would like to be able to think of myself as perfect.”
“At once, Marian, dear? Then make a little set of rules for yourself, and follow them, like the petty moralists, and be perfect. But we, of the growing truth, cannot reach perfection. At least, we want to know what is good, and strive for it. I can tell you more than I can do, because I see ahead. Let us remember that with our judgments and sympathies we are measuring ourselves.”