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THE RELIGION
OF THE SOUL

PUBLISHED BY
Society for Religious Education
GLEN ELLYN, ILLINOIS, U. S. A.
(POSTPAID $1.50)

COPYRIGHT 1922,
BY
MARK SANDS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PREFACE
There is One God, one Will of God and there
fore one religion.
The ungodly strife among creeds with their in
veterate traditional prejudices, and the consequent
mental and sentimental confusion, is the result of the
fact that none of them directly appeals to conscience
as our inward bond with God.
Notwithstanding the universal conviction that
conscience is the supreme tribunal of worthiness and
judgment, no creed has ever attempted to explain
the might of conscience as the living Voice of God
and the supreme source of religion.
Though historical creeds possess a large volume
of more or less sublime religious aspirations, the
absence of the Voice of God in their fundamental
doctrines makes it impossible for them to substantiate
the spiritual honor of the soul, to establish religious
harmony among themselves, and to lead mankind to
that godly mutuality which is the desire of every
righteous heart.
No religious cult or form has any intrinsic value
unless it is strictly based on conscience, the sole
might and inspiration of religious truth.
3

4  PREFACE 
Conscience is the real temple of religion, where
the Voice of God is clearly audible.
In this holy temple we see and feel the father
hood of God, our divine childship and immortal
brotherhood, the three eternal gospels of religion
and the theme of all great prophets and teachers of
humanity. The cry for religion in the human heart was
never so potent as it is to-day. But we must first
know and possess conscience, before we shall be
able to understand the true religion of the soul.
To all men of good will, interested in their own
consciences and in the conscience of mankind, these
pages are offered in profound esteem and sincere
affection.
1 922 Justus.

Further works of the author will soon be pub
lished in the following order:
1 . Virtues, the Eternal Essence and Form of
Religion.
(A critical and formal exposition of the
essence of religion.)
2. Soul and Conscience.
(A psychology based on conscience and
logic and the intrinsic interrelation of these
sciences. )
3. The Face of God and the Plan of Divine
Creation.
(A universal theosophy including the struc
ture of the natural universe.)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface  5
Religion in General  9
Origin of Religion  10
God  12
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to the Holy Will of God. 13
Divine Holiness  13
Divine Perfection  14
Divine Eternity  16
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to the Holy Truth of God . 1 7
Divine Contemplation  17
Divine Omniscience  19
Divine Omnipresence  21
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to the Holy Love of God. 23
Divine Love  23
Divine Justice  25
Divine Goodness  27
Conscience  30
The Eternal Origin and Form of Conscience  32
The Commanding Might of Conscience  37
The Soul  39
The Reason for the Existence of the Soul  44
The Great Destiny of the Soul  46
The Fulfilment of our Holy Destiny  52
Virtues the Eternal Voice of God in Conscience and the Substance
of Religion  55
Virtues of the Will  59
The Virtue of Humility  59
1

Page
The Virtue of Fortitude  63
The Virtue of Beatitude  68
Virtues of the Mind  72
The Virtue of Divine Light  73
The Virtue of Wisdom  76
The Virtue of Simplicity  80
Virtues of the Heart  90
The Virtue of Love  90
The Virtue of Righteousness  96
The Virtue of Goodness  100
The Inward Likeness of the Religious Soul  107
The Cult of God  112
Sacramental Confession of the Church of God  115
The Decalog of Religious Life  117
Passions of the Soul  119
Passions of the Will  119
Pride  119
Religious Indolence ...  125
Spiritual Misery  128
Passions of the Mind  132
Conceit  132
Religious Ignorance  135
Duplicity  138
Passions of the Heart .  144
Hate  145
Unrighteousness  1 50
Selfishness  1 54
The Body of the Soul  164
The Future Life  1 70
The Ascent or Inward Course of Life  1 79
The Fall or Outward Course of Life  190
The Last Word of Conscience   202

The Religion of the Soul
RELIGION IN GENERAL
What is religion?
Religion according to its Latin derivation "re-
ligere," "to esteem," and "religare," "to bind,"
means the holy bond between God and the soul.
This holy bond demands the knowledge of God,
the knowledge of the soul and the knowledge of
the soul's relation to God. These are the three
essential objects of religion.
It is the absolute demand of our conscience that
we know God and our soul in order to understand
clearly our relation to Him.
Ignorance of God arises from unwillingness and
neglect of the understanding of things divine, and
is in itself sinful, a fact which has never been suf
ficiently impressed on the human conscience.
From the ignorance of God follows the ignorance
of our soul, and this ignorance causes confusion and
sinfulness. If we do not know the absolute source
of our being it is impossible to understand rightly
9

K)  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
the great courses and final evolutions of our spiritual
capacities and the essential rules of life.
No vital question can be solved without religion,
because religion is the sole answer to all intimate
and important questions of life.
ORIGIN OF RELIGION
What is the origin of religion ?
The origin of religion lies in conscience, the ever-
living Voice of God.
God as our Creator, as our Lord and our eternal
Father, is .the Leader and Teacher of our inward
ness. For this reason our responsibility to God is al
ways the first responsibility. It precedes all other
responsibilities, a fact which is proved by the instant
consciousness and feeling of having performed a
good deed or of having committed an evil deed.
Conscience is the continuous and everlasting con
tact of the soul with God. God guides and teaches
through conscience and he who is attentive to the
dictates of conscience and who follows these dic
tates unhesitatingly is on the path to holy life, while
the one who is neglectful in the execution of these
dictates is bound to fall beneath his human dignity
and suffer shame and punishment.

RELIGION IN GENERAL 11

Natural existence is external and transient.
Spiritual existence is supernatural, because it has a
higher dignity through personal cooperation with
the Will of God, and personal responsibility. But
conscience is superspiritual, because it is the holiest
Voice of God which dominates our soul.
Conscience, therefore, is the holy origin and bond
of religion, the sole ground of our personal honor,
the one true light which guides our judgments, and
the immaculate and beautiful warmth of pure senti
ments.

GOD
What is God?
God is the Superpersonal and Superspiritual might
from which all life, spiritual and natural, derives.
What are the intimate features of God?
The inward superspiritual manifestations of God
are Holiness, Truth and Love, the fundamental
trinity of His inherent Divine life.
Why do xve call God superpersonal?
We call God superpersonal because God is not a
personal and relative being like ourselves, but the
one, absolute and superpersonal Superbeing, eter
nally creating and dominating the existential being
of which our souls are a part.
Why do Tee call God superspiritual?
We call God superspiritual because His might
surpasses infinitely the power of all created souls
and because God creates our spiritual essence and
dominates our spiritual life.
Now let us behold and study the three funda
mental superspiritual manifestations of God, His
majestic Holiness, His contemplative Truth and
His sacrificial Love. 12

 GOD  13
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to
the Holy Will of God
Divine Holiness
What is the Holiness of God?
Divine Holiness is the absolute, perfect and
eternal Will of God, Who rules in supreme majesty,
Who acts almightily, and Who lives in His eternal
superspirituality. What do we understand by the absolute Will of
God?
By the absolute Will of God we understand the
one holiest voluntary might which is related to noth
ing superior and to nothing equal except itself.
By the absolute Will of God we also understand
the supreme superpersonal might which always and
everywhere, through all ages and spheres, rules in
eternally adorable majesty.
The Will of God is the one supreme and majestic
Will which all saintly and virtuous souls adore and
love and all wicked souls fear and hate.
The Will of God is the law of all laws, the
supreme leader of worthy deeds, the sole sanctifier
of holy life, the most bountiful bestower of heavenly
gifts and the most merciful savior of fallen souls.
The majestic holiness of God inherently possesses

H  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
the omnipotent perfection and superspiritual eternity
as the integral mights and revelation of the Divine
Will.
Indeed, holy, holy, holy is the Will of God !
Divine Perfection
What is Divine Perfection?
Divine Perfection is the plenitude of the holiest
mights of God in all their manifestations. It con
tains the almighty attributes of God which emanate
from His Holiness like luminous rays issuing from
an infinite and holy fire.
What are the almighty attributes pertaining to the
holy Will of God?
1 — The majestic Holiness.
2 — The omnipotent Perfection.
3 — The superspiritual Eternity.
What are the almighty attributes pertaining to the
holy Truth of God?
1 — The creative contemplation of God.
2 — The omniscient predestination of God.
3 — The omnipresent providence of God.
What are the almighty attributes pertaining to the
holy Love of God?
1 — The eternally guiding sacrifice of God.

GOD 15
2 — The eternally ruling justice of God.
3 — The eternally saving goodness of God.
A knowledge of these attributes is essential to
our knowledge of God, our eternal Creator, Lord
and Father. If we do not know the holiest per
fections and omnipotent attributes of God, we do
not know God, and, consequently, are bound to fail
in our faith in Him and in our devotion and gratitude
to Him.
The Divine attributes constitute the holiest proto
type of holy life, and the eternal ground of the liv
ing faith in God, and of profoundest devotion and
gratitude to Him and all things divine.
Religious life intrinsically consists in adoring,
contemplating and following the holy attributes of
God, because these holy attributes are the eternal
prototypes of holy life.
Our wills, our minds and our hearts are made
for the exclusive purpose of participating in, of co
operating with and of affirming the Life of God,
and of affirming our own souls in His eternal Life.
There is no greater purpose of life than this divine
purpose. No minor purpose is sufficient to fill the
life of a spiritual being. And any other purpose is
absurd, mad and disastrous.

16 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

Divine Eternity
What is Divine Eternity?
Divine Eternity is the state of the holiness and
perfection of God, His celestial dwelling above all
time and space.
Eternity is the most adorable life of God, from
whence radiates Divine Truth and Love.
It is the domain of the holiest attributes of God,
the living heaven of never vanishing grandeur,
splendor, beauty and beatitude.
Around this holy eternity of God dwell the
sanctified heroes of virtue, who faithfully participate
in the life of God, and who with profoundest grati
tude for their divine childship and amidst never ceas
ing blessing, devotedly cooperate with the holy Will
of God.
Heaven is the source and life of holy sacrifice,
whence all divine treasures flow.
For this reason all virtuous souls strive with all
their power to reach heaven, that they too may
possess and perform sacrifices, the sole proof of the
soul's innocence and greatness.
Likewise, for this reason the weak and the wicked
are so restless and miserable, because, not having
the purpose of sacrificial striving in their lives, they

 GOD  17
can have no taste of heaven, and hence no security
and no lasting peace and joy.
All souls have an inward longing for heaven.
Either in distress or exultation man raises his heart
to the heights above him. Every great resolution,
every expression of truth, every oath of truthfulness,
every serious pledge and every inward pleading
consciously or subconsciously feels the might of this
heavenly influence and power.
Immortality is the desire of every soul, but the
fulness of immortality is attained in the heaven of
Divine eternity. It is this subconscious attraction of
heaven which causes the desire for immortal life.
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to
the Holy Truth of God
Divine Contemplation
What is Divine Truth?
Divine Truth is an inward act of the Divine
contemplation of God's holiest attributes, from which
act emanates and radiates all light, as from a holy
eternal fire.
Thus Divine Truth is the eternal light and rev
elation of Divine Holiness, that its majestic might
and grandeur may be adored, comprehended and
loved.

\J>  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
The whole creation is embraced and permeated
by this holy light, and by virtue of it the whole
content and all forms of life are revealed and ex
pressed. Each soul is permeated by the light of truth and
is unable to give a true statement without its demand
and sanction.
In all our mental searching and sentimental long
ing we want to see and to have the true and not
the false understanding.
Because of the understanding and feeling of the
holiness of truth we loathe and disdain falsehood.
Divine truth surrounds holiness as light surrounds
fire and is as inseparable from holiness as the revela
tion of an act is inseparable from the act itself.
Truth is the shining might of God, through which
God is seen in His real Divinity, absolutely tran
scending the whole being, regardless of its magnitude.
The absolute oneness, the absolute perfection and
the absolute eternity of God constitute the resound
ing voice of truth in the whole creation.
We are overwhelmed by the grandeur of Divine
creation of which we see only an infinitesimal frag
ment. This overwhelming fragment of creation is the
consequence of only a little motion of the almighty

GOD  19
creativeness of God, the fulness of which is beyond
our human vision.
Truth, being the revelation of Divine holiness,
must be searched for with holy sentiments, with
intense veraciousness and with the sacrificial spirit
which truth itself reveals.
Darkness, confusion and ignorance derive from
the lack of love for holy light.
Divine Omniscience
What is Divine Omniscience?
Divine Omniscience is the application of Divine
Truth to Divine Holiness.
Truth, being inseparable from Holiness, follows
Holiness like a vision that follows each activity.
Truth is the visual attribute of God and the
activity of this visual attribute is omniscience.
God is superconscious of the inexhaustible, ever-
inspiring and beatifying might and treasures of His
dominating holiness as well as of the creative al-
mightiness which derives from His holiness.
God's plan of creation is holy, full of truth and
sacrifice and, accordingly, the whole creation is pre
determined to holiness, to truth and to sacrifice. It
has no other aim.
God calls into life an incalculable number of

20  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
spiritual beings in order to participate in, cooperate
with and affirm His Divinity and to affirm them
selves in His holy, perfect and beatifying eternity.
In order to impart His Divine superspirit, God
creates spiritual beings, endowed with immortal will,
intellect and sentiment, for the purpose of following
His holy Will, of seeing His holy Truth and of
embracing His holy Love.
This is the true reason and destiny of our life,
which accords us the immortal honor of divine child-
ship, which we feel in the depth of our inwardness
and the desecration of which causes our debasement,
falsehood and spiritual misery with its awful con
sequences. This we are told plainly by the immovable, under-
dwelling and everpresent divine superspirit which we
call conscience, on which each soul lives and with
out which no soul can live.
The fact that we have the consciousness of holi
ness, truth and love, and the fact that this trinity of
holy life is the basic form of all righteous and har
monious relations, proves overwhelmingly our direct
relation to the dominating Will of God.
Once this predetermined relation is obscured,
weakened or severed, sins and crimes take hold of
the soul like weeds in uncultivated ground and
establish themselves therein.

GOD 21
Divine omniscience constitutes the superessential
source of Divine predestination and therefore sees
each motion of every soul like an open book.
The soul itself is like a living book, in which all
deeds, thoughts and sentiments are engraved by the
ineffaceable might of divine justice. The form and
face of each being proves this fact plainly.
Divine Omnipresence
What is Divine Omnipresence?
Divine Omnipresence is the continuous manifesta
tion of Divine mights. Our souls and the whole
natural universe live by virtue of Divine mights only.
Nothing can live by virtue of its own force, be
cause this force must be created in order to live.
That it is created is evident in the manifestation of
its fundamental plan of life.
The plan of the soul's life is worthiness, truth and
love. The power of will is for the sake of our worth
iness, which is the chief interest of our lives.
The power of intellect is for the sake of seeing
and understanding the holy truth of God, that we
may be essentially truthful and by this truthfulness
maintain our supreme honor as children of God.
The power of heart is for the sake of preserving,

22  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
guarding and cultivating the sublimest and purest
sentiments, that we may continually have the beati
fying taste and joy of holy life..
The consequences of following this Divine plan
are manifest in the noble achievements of great souls,
and equally manifest in sinfulness and dishonor are
the consequences for those who disregard this holy
plan. This is the omnipresence of the creative plan of
God. But a more tangible omnipresence of God
is in our conscience, where God is not only our
Creator, but also our heavenly Father, Guide and
Savior. In conscience dwells the everpresent contact of
Divine superspirituality with our spiritual essence.
It is a strictly personal contact, by virtue of which
we are uplifted, encouraged, rejoiced and blessed in
our good deeds, and admonished, restrained, threat
ened and punished for our evil deeds.
Thus the attention to the heavenly Voice of God
is of the utmost importance and the object of our
most ardent solicitude.
None can live worthily, maintain his spiritual
honor and grow in worthiness and holy life without
being in continuous contact with the omnipresent
Voice of God.
The first fall of the soul is the result of the in-

 GOD  23
attention to God's holy Voice, and habitual sinful
ness comes from habitual inattention to His holiest
Voice. The Voice of God is the ultimate verdict in all
our decisions, thoughts and sentiments and each im
portant issue is judged by this holy verdict.
The virtuous soul prefers to die rather than be
faithless to the holy Voice of God.
The Almighty Attributes Pertaining to
the Love of God
Divine Love
What is Divine Love?
Divine Love is the giving might of God, the
might of sacrifice.
Holiness is sacrificial in its action, truth is sacri
ficial in its light and love is the divine issue and rev
elation of sacrificial holiness and truth.
Therefore, nothing is worthy unless it is holy and
nothing is true unless the testimony is holy. Evil
deeds and falsehoods are denounced on the ground
that they are neither holy nor true.
Our conscience, our very soul, everything that
lives, indeed the whole creation, is the evident and
universal fact of Divine sacrifice.
Nothing is esteemed unless it has the spirit of sacri-

24  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
fice and nothing is considered unless it has some
sacrificial value.
For this reason the love of God has always and
will always be supremely adored, and for this reason
also each act of human sacrifice is so highly admired
and extolled.
Were it not for the sacrificial sublimity of life,
our soul, driven by the misery of its own selfishness,
would, as a result of utter worthlessness, strive to
destroy itself.
Divine sacrifice is the very love and life of God,
the sole purpose and plan of His Divinity.
Accordingly, all that is made by God is made
for the sake of sacrifice, which is the supreme real
ity of holy life. Therefore, each meritorious deed is
judged by the purity and volume of its sacrificial
motive. As in God, so in each virtuous soul, sacrifice is
the supreme reality of life, and, according to the
measure of this holy reality, each soul obtains its
station in the future life.
Among the countless selfish ambitions of life a
quiet and blessing sacrifice always stands out and
all who have conscience and honor in their inward
ness lift their eyes and hearts to this sacrifice as to
the saving anchor of life.
Divine sacrifice is the holy guide of worthy life,

GOD 25
which insists on the holy life with God and leaves
no alternative but the unholy life without God.
The proofs of holy life are sacrificial deeds and
the proofs of unholy life are selfish ambitions, selfish
mentality and selfish sentiments.
Divine Justice
What is Divine Justice?
Divine justice is the eternal guardian of holy
values. It upholds the righteousness and the dignity
of holy deeds, of holy thoughts and of holy senti
ments. Divine justice is the eternal might of holy execu
tion. No soul, no form of religion, no nation and
no community has an assured station and power with
out the sanction of the justice of God.
The whole activity of our life, our honor, our
rights and our duties, adheres to and depends on the
ruling justice of God.
Were it possible to eliminate justice from our
conscience, the entire humanity would become in
carnate devils.
Our most incessant and most practical work is
the work of justice. All our acts, all our thoughts
and all our sentiments continually stand before this
supreme tribunal from which is proclaimed the ab
solute verdict.

26  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
Divine justice strengthens the virtuous soul in
his earthly suffering and bids him to await in patience
the time of his deliverance. In the same way it fol
lows the criminal soul which searches in vain for a
path of escape.
Divine justice, being the executive might of Divine
love, is supremely charitable. It immediately blesses
and rewards each good deed, thought and senti
ment in our inwardness by imparting greater dig
nity, clearer vision and profounder sentiments and
thus prepares us for higher spheres of beatitude in
our future life.
It also expostulates with and punishes the evil
in our inwardness through the lowering of our sense
of worthiness, through the feeling of shame, through
confused thoughts and through the denunciation of
our selfish sentiments.
This fact is strictly charitable, because its purpose
is to guard and sustain the dignity of the soul, that
it may rise to God and be blessed in His eternity.
All courses of Divine justice are charitable, but
the alternative is inexorable. The one, who, in his
malice and perversity, disdains charity and does not
wish to live in charity, must live beyond the pale
of charity, in the dark and low spheres of animal
life. Even in these low spheres the holy gates of

GOD 27
charity are open, and through these gates the lowest
souls must take their painful course of atonement
Their debts are enormous, and every part of the
debt must be paid.
No soul can escape this inexorable demand of
Divine justice, but the one who performs the act of
restitution receives bountiful assistance from the
goodness of God and every good man.
Thus justice begins and ends in charity, for justice
is the executing motive of the supreme charity of
God. Divine Goodness
What is Divine Goodness?
Divine goodness is the holy sympathy of God
toward His creatures.
This holy sympathy derives from the might of
all Divine perfections; it is their eternal breath and
fragrance. For this reason everything good is so attractive
and beautiful.
In Divine holiness lies the eternal source of good
ness. In Divine truth shines the eternal light of goodness
and in Divine love dwells the eternal warmth and
joy of goodness.
Goodness is the most effective superspiritual might

28  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
of Divinity. Hence each soul, be it superhuman,
human or animal, wants and longs for goodness, it
loves to see goodness and is most strongly attracted
by goodness.
Take away the might, the light and the joy of
goodness from our life and, immediately, we lose
faith in God and man.
Without goodness we become devoted only to
our selfish desires and, such being the result, we be
come devoid of all feeling of gratitude.
The eternal sympathy of God is the holy bond
of all human relations. Its might imparts binding
sympathy. It introduces friendships and love, the
dearest treasures of life. It confounds, shames and
disarms the wicked by the power of its beauty and
innocence. Not only men but even animals are enthralled by
goodness and made better by its might.
For this reason, and particularly in our low world,
goodness has the greatest saving might. It saves
the sinner from habitual trespasses. It paves the
path to heaven, for in itself it is the divine guide to
heaven that gently invites our souls to Divine eternity,
the final goal of our life.
Goodness is the eternal beauty of Divinity. Hence
no man, regardless of fame, is beautiful unless he is
good.

 GOD  29
As in God goodness constitutes the last attribute
of His almighty love, thus in man the test of his true
honor, worthiness and sublimity of character is found
in the degree of his goodness.
Therefore, according to the measure of his good
deeds he receives his deserved station in the future
life.

CONSCIENCE
What is conscience?
Conscience is the living image of Divinity, the
living reflex of Divine life and the sublimest gift
of God.
To "what end does God create conscience?
God creates conscience for the sake of the soul,
that it may participate in divine life, cooperate with
His holy Will and affirm God in its inwardness and
itself in God.
What does conscience effect in our soul?
Conscience effects in our soul its affinity to God,
its affiliation with God and the power of imitating
God's holiest life.
The consequence of this state is that conscience
constitutes the holy form of our soul, which is the
ground, the bond and the might of religion.
For this reason the might of conscience is the
sole urging, enlightening and righteous might of the
soul. Everything sublime and important is performed
through conscience and everything base is performed
without conscience. 30

CONSCIENCE

All great deeds, all profound convictions and all
spiritual sacrifices have their source in the sacredness
of conscience.
Religion in its purity is the simple life of conscience
and the fact that, in our human cults, conscience has
not been propounded and explained as the sole
source and form of religion accounts for the failure
of the living faith in God and for the selfish ambi
tions, envies, jealousies, greed and worldy lust of
men under the cover of religion.
Conscience is the most palpable gift of God.
Everybody refers to conscience, everybody uses
conscience and everybody depends on it, but only
a few love conscience and make it the chief interest
of deeds, thoughts and sentiments.
Where the interest in conscience is tardy and pas
sive, selfish and dishonorable aims become the chief
interest of our lives.
Without conscience, no love of God, no love of
our neighbor, no righteousness, no mutuality among
men, no living religion, no true sense of human dig
nity, no esteem for virtue, no truthfulness and no
pure sentiments can exist. It cannot be otherwise, for
conscience is the sacrificial form of the speaking
Voice of God and the living reflex of His holiest
attributes.

32 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

The Eternal Origin and Form of
Conscience
The manifestation of any power or force of life
is possible only when there is an origin and motive
for its manifestation.
Since conscience is the imperative manifestation
of worthy life, its origin and motive lies in Divine
holiness, the absolute Will of God.
That conscience imparts to and demands from us
worthiness, truth and love is a universally accepted
fact which cannot be denied even by the wicked.
Each soul appeals to the might of conscience though
it does not always follow it.
Conscience, being our supreme law and sole power
of right, can only derive from the holiness of God,
the sole source and might of all laws.
No law is as complete, concrete and consistent as
conscience, for, issuing from the holiness, truth and
love of God, it constitutes the immutable ground,
course and aim of worthy life.
If this holy fact is not clearly understood and not
accepted as the supreme guide of life, the logical and
rightful basis for religion, personal honor, veracity
<uid love of worthy life is impossible.
Conscience is the formal sacrificial emanation of
Divine attributes. Its form is as commanding as the
Divine attributes are majestic.

CONSCIENCE 33

It leads, inspires, enlightens, beatifies and sanctifies
each soul which has not denied its spiritual dignity.
It is the first recourse of the righteous and the last
refuge of the sinner.
All inward and lasting joy derives from the
blessing consecration of good deeds and all inward
wretchedness from the denunciation of conscience
for our evil deeds.
Conscience is the supreme rule of life, because it
represents the holy Will of God. All determina
tions, all visions and all inward convictions are sub
jected to its holy scrutiny. Its verdict is supreme.
Conscience is the most religious fact in our life
and the one who does not adore, contemplate and
love conscience over everything else has no religion
in his inwardness.
True spiritual inwardness consists in the life in
conscience, with conscience and according to con
science, for conscience is the sole living contact, the
indissoluble bond of the soul with God and the
highest title and noblest distinction of our divine
childship. Conscience is the living image of Divine attributes,
the superspiritual ground according to which the soul
is formed and on which the soul essentially lives for
the sake of participating in, cooperating with and
affirming itself in the holiest life of God.

34  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
As the superspiritual reflex of Divine attributes,
it must be absolutely formal, and, being the dominat
ing factor of the soul's life, it is absolutely concrete
and consistent in its order and in its demand.
For this reason conscience is the holy urger of our
wills, the holy torch of our intellects and the holy
guardian of our hearts.
The superspiritual form of conscience follows the
holy mights of God, as each movement follows its
motor. Spiritual worthiness follows superspiritual
holiness, spiritual truthfulness follows superspiritual
truth, and spiritual love follows superspiritual sacri
fice. This trinity of Divine mights is clearly evident in
conscience and everybody appeals to these Divine
mights as to the highest causes of our life. Here
man protests his worthiness or his submission to
worthiness. Here he invokes the holy testimony of
divine truth or is confounded by it, and here he
receives the assurance of worthiness in the perform
ance of virtuous deeds or the condemnation for
unholy and selfish deeds.
In what consists the formality of conscience?
The formality of conscience consists in the formal
reflex of and correspondence with Divine attributes,
which are its eternal prototype.

CONSCIENCE 35

Holiness is the principle of Divinity, Perfection
is its course and Eternity its aim.
Accordingly, worthiness is the superspiritual
principle of conscience, fortitude is its course, and
beatitude its aim.
As the holiness of God inherently possesses per
fection and eternity, thus, in the reflecting form of
conscience, worthiness possesses fortitude and beati
tude. Pertaining to Divine truth, the same threefold
form of conscience is plainly seen.
Divine truth is the contemplating might of God
and, as such, is omniscient and omnipresent, omni
science being the course and omnipresence the aim
of this contemplating Divine might.
Accordingly, the contemplating might of God
reflects divine light, as the principal form of con
science pertaining to truth.
Divine omniscience reflects wisdom in conscience,
as the course of rational understanding of things
divine. And Divine omnipresence reflects simplicity, as
the evident aim of truthful life and truthful state
ments. Pertaining to Divine Love, the threefold form of
conscience is equally clear.
Divine Love is the sacrificial might of God and.

36  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
as such, contains absolute justice and goodness,
justice being the course and goodness its final aim
and revelation.
Accordingly, the sacrificial might of God reflects
sacrifice as the principal form of conscience pertain
ing to love.
Divine justice reflects righteousness in conscience
as the formal course of pure love.
And Divine goodness reveals in conscience the
divine origin of conscience, with its most potent,
beautiful and practical effectiveness of worthy life.
This logical consistency of Divine attributes with
the forms of conscience must be fully understood in
order that we may see clearly the overwhelming im
portance of religious life.
It is through these holy forms of conscience that
we see and feel the mights of God with their un
fathomable profundity, awe inspiring immutability
and incomparable sublimity.
Each of these holy forms of conscience speaks in
our inwardness of God and not only urges our self-
consciousness to seek for God and to contemplate
His holy mights, but it also urges our self-sentiency
to follow Him.
For no other reason except for the sake of fol
lowing God are we endowed with this living reflex

CONSCIENCE1 37

of Divinity, the sublimest and most precious gift of
our souls.
In this holy form of conscience we see the majestic
order of Divine attributes, the real Face of God,
and we hear His absolute and sanctifying Voice as
the eternal oracle of all life.
From this holy source are derived the inspirations
of all great prophecies, great illuminating thoughts
and the profoundest sentiments of holy love.
Thus the Voice of God is the eternal object of
the religious sacramentality of the soul, and the one
who possesses profound love of conscience, possesses
the supreme power of divine sonship.
The Commanding Might of Conscience
Since conscience is the issue of the majestic holi
ness of God, it in itself constitutes the commanding
and sanctifying might of the soul.
Each form of conscience constitutes a command
ment, because each of its dictates is sanctifying.
Each commandment demands the virtue of each
particular form of our spiritual soul, that each form
of our will, intellect and sentiment may be sanc
tified. Therefore, the frame of virtues corresponds with
the frame of conscience, as the frame of conscience

38 RELIGION OFTHE SOUL 
corresponds with the prototype of the holiest at
tributes of God.
All we require to see is the correspondence of the
forms of our soul with conscience and the necessity
of virtues as the ground and aim of existence.
This will give us the clear view of the plan of
the superspiritual and spiritual creation of God, the
understanding of which is absolutely necessary for
every seriously religious man.
There is an absolute order in Divine creation.
This order lies eternally in the Divine attributes,
from which all order derives. And, if this order is
not clearly understood, we can have neither living
faith in nor devotion and gratitude to God.

THE SOUL
What is the soul?
The soul is a spiritual force consisting in self-
conscious and self-sentient autonomic will.
Why is the soul a personal being?
The soul is a spiritual and personal being because
it is the created reflex of the superspiritual and super-
personal Superbeing of God, from Whom it is con
tinually dependent.
Why has the soul a free will?
The soul has a free will in order freely to par
ticipate in, freely to cooperate with and freely to
affirm God, and by so doing affirm itself in God.
If the soul were not free, the spiritual essence of
the soul, could not exist ; it would not be a spiritual
being, but a natural thing ; it could have no personal
responsibility, attain no personal merit and no joy
deriving therefrom. All joy derives from the merit
of a highly accomplished responsibility.
Why is the soul's will self-conscious?
The will of the soul is self-conscious because it
must know its own relative, capacity; it must know
39

40  RELIGION OF THE SOUL
the superspiritual rule of its spiritual life; it must
know the merit of its existential station and the
honor deriving from the choice of good actions as
well as the debasement following the choice of evil
actions. Thus the fundamental meaning of the will's self-
consciousness is the consciousness of conscience. Only
in the eternal mirror of conscience does the self-
conscious will see its actual form and capacity.
The fact that our religious and psychological
sciences have thus far been unable to explain this
essential problem of knowledge accounts for our
failure to understand the first principles of life, and
our consequent inefficiency in religious actions.
Every man, without any exception, has the ex
perience that the oftener he looks into the holy mirror
of conscience, the more plainly he sees the mights of
God and the more palpably he feels the religious
might which holds, enlightens and leads his soul.
Why is the soul's will self -sentient?
The soul's will is self-sentient because it must feel
the delight of its existence for worthiness, the delight
of all its good deeds, thoughts and sentiments, as
well as the shame and depression resulting from
evil deeds, evil thoughts and evil sentiments.
The main interest of the will is in its self-sentiency.

THE SOUL 41

because self-sentiency is the center of the heart, the
fruitional focus of the soul's life.
The chief labor of the will dwells in its self-
sentiency, the sentimental ground in which all senti
ments are implanted and cultivated in order to bear
the sacrificial fruit of holy life.
For this reason the sentiments which the will has
chosen, acquired and placed in its heart constitute
the real property of the soul, which neither God nor
man can destroy without the consent of the soul's
will. In this fact the freedom of the will is seen most
clearly. Sentiments cannot be wholly given away
nor can they be taken away. They constitute the
most deeply inrooted property of the soul. They
can however be uplifted by divine operation or de
based by willful rejection of the divine operation in
conscience. In what relation is consciousness to self -conscious
ness?
Consciousness relates to self -consciousness as does
the movement to the motor. Consciousness is the
course of self-consciousness by which the self-con
scious will obtains general knowledge.
The principle of intellect lies in self-consciousness,
as the integral part of the soul's will, while intellect,

42 RELIGION OF THE SOUL  J '¦
as such, is the process or course of the self-conscious
will through which it obtains general knowledge.
Consequently, religious knowledge always de
pends on the religious self-consciousness of the soul's
will. If the will earnestly wishes to attain religious
knowledge, it can always obtain this sacred pos
session. If however the will does not earnestly wish to do
so, it cannot obtain this knowledge. Religious
knowledge is the most sacred and precious knowl
edge and can be attained only through the most
profound determination. This fact gives us the
psychological insight into the reason why some ob
tain religious vision and education and why others
remain in ignorance of all matters pertaining to re
ligion. The first sign of profound intelligence is the
earnest and intense searching for religion in the soul ;
for the divine purpose in us. The whole formation
of man's character depends on the earnestness of
this search.
One may be ever so learned in many sciences, yet,
if he has neglected religion as the first science of life,
he remains a weak character. There is no science
except religion that can educate a great character.
We see that a child is a practical materialist, be
cause it is too ignorant and selfish to understand the

THE SOUL 43

spiritual values of life. We know that in our
progressing years we begin to philosophize on the
problem of life, either dogmatically or skeptically,
and, in our maturity, we usually decide to cling to
religious and moral values under one form or an
other. What is the relation of sentiment to self-sentiency?
Sentiment is in the same relation to self-sentiency
as is consciousness to self-consciousness. Self-senti
ency is the principle of feeling and sentiment its
process or movement. All sentiments are absorbed
by the self-sentiency of the will into the inwardness
of its heart, the vessel of all its acquisitions.
The will has the power to acquire whatever senti
ments it wants. Its inherent capacity is to seize. Its
self-consciousness furnishes the light with which the
will makes its choice. And self-sentiency is the
place where all the acquisitions of the will are in
stalled and held.
The will is the obtainer and the giver of senti
ments. If the will has acquired good sentiments and
given good sentiments, it has obtained the best it
could obtain and has given the best it could give.
If the will has acquired evil sentiments and imparted
evil sentiments, it has obtained the worst it could
obtain and has given the worst it could give.

44  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
It is always the choice of the will which makes
its own heart and it is always according to the good
or evil content of the heart that the soul is judged.
The content of the heart is the sole real property
of the soul. Inwardly the soul can do nothing ex
cept to make and to unmake its own sentiments ac
cording to which all external acquisitions and pos
sessions are measured and valued.

The Reason for the Existence of the Soul
Like anything else that exists the soul must be
understood not only according to its intrinsic capacity
for but also according to its intrinsic purpose of
existence. The soul's inward capacity is self-conscious and
self-sentient volition.
The will of the soul is created for a purpose, be
cause its whole capacity consists of purposefulness.
Its self-consciousness is for the purpose of the knowl
edge of its life, and its self-sentiency for the inward
feeling of the necessity of this purpose and the joy
of its possession.
If we do not know the "reason why" of our life
we know nothing real, and any attempted inter
pretation without this fundamental religious under
standing is necessarily futile.

THE SOUL 45

What then is the intrinsic purpose of the existence
of the soul?
Speaking of existence, we must understand that
existence is not a cause but a state which is caused,
and everything that exists is caused with a purpose.
The almightly Causator of all purposes is God.
There is none besides Him who can cause anything
that bears the mark of absoluteness, such as is clearly
manifested in the absolute lawfulness of the soul's
capacity and of the whole natural creation.
Thus the intrinsic purpose of the existence of the
soul is the divine purpose, the purpose of the al
mighty holiness of God, the purpose of the holiest
truth of God and the purpose of the holiest love of
God which lives on Divine sacrifice.
This divine purpose of the creation of the soul
causes the soul's affinity to God, the soul's affiliation
with God and the soul's power of imitating God;
which means, that the soul is created for the partici
pation in Divine life, for the cooperation with Divine
life and for the affirmation of the holy Source of its
life as well as for the affirmation of its own life in
the life of God.
This is the holy and majestic purpose of our
existence. We perceive the urgency of this pur
pose in all worthy decisions, we experience its truth
in the necessity for our truthfulness and we feel the

46 RELIGION OF THE SOUL
joy of this holy purpose in all sacrificial and un
selfish deeds of love.
This holy purpose is the ground on which the
soul marches to its destiny. It is the light through
which all things are seen in their naked truth, and
it is the holy warmth of love which seeks for no ad
vantage over others but is happy to impart its in
ward and outward possessions for the service of its
fellow creatures.
Holy, holy, holy is the resounding hymn of
heaven, where the purity of great purposes, the
brightness of enlightening understanding and the
warmth of love-filled hearts constitute the great
powers of sanctified souls.
Here the affinity to God is realized, the affilia
tion with God attained and the imitation of God
accomplished. Here the Divine purpose of our life
is fulfilled.

The Great Destiny of the Soul
The holy reason and divine purpose of the soul's
life carries the soul's great destiny within itself, be
cause this reason is the first cause, and destiny the
ultimate aim of life.
The creation, as God's sacrificial act, implies His
Divine fatherhood and the inward structure of the

THE SOUL 47

soul, which is the relative image of God, implies our
divine childship. This is the clearly logical, su
premely rational and most profoundly sentimental
relation of the soul to God.
Everything we have comes from God. Our wills,
our minds, our hearts, our bodies and all conditions
of life come from Him, except our willful sins with
their consequent dishonor, falsehood and misery.
This is why we are conscious that everything
worthy, true and lovable is divine, according to the
holy Will of God, and that everything unworthy,
false and hateful is undivine, against the holy Will
of God. Each man, regardless of culture, is con
scious of this plain fact, save only the one who is
morally demented.
Divine fatherhood and divine childship constitute
the real focus of religion, through which God im
parts the gift, the rule and the immortal joy of life.
In this holy gift dwells immortal glory, the
magnificent brightness of truth and the neverceasing
ardor and beatitude of sacrificial love and mutuality.
The soul must be glorious, because by the act of
divine creation it participates in Divinity.
The soul must be true, because it is called to
cooperate with God.
The soul must live on sacrifice, because, being an
issue of divine sacrifice, it must prove its glorious life

48  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
through rendering sacrifice for sacrifice, the supreme
affirmation of the holiest life of God and of our
holy life in Him.
Are our little souls capable of such a great aim of
life?
They are, most decidedly. We have a will for
worthy actions, the mind for truth and a heart for
pure love, and we know that any other purpose
brings dishonor and debasement, and inflicts punish
ment and causes misery.
It is true that our human souls are very little
souls, with only an incipient consciousness and senti
ment of conscience and of our spiritual aim. But it
is equally true that, unless we are awakened to
the understanding of the great cause and destiny
of our spiritual life, we shall be unable to strive for it.
We are fallen souls, far removed from the im
mediate presence of God. We have fallen of our
own will from the heavenly heights of eternity, the
cradle of our holy origin, to incalculably distant
spheres where severe providential conditions urge
us to seek for God, to regain the lost inspiration,
vision and love of our holiest Father and to retrace
our steps to Him.
The soul that disdains the holiness, truth and love
of God cannot live in His proximity. With each in-

THE SOUL 49

creasing distance from God the soul becomes weaker
in worthy actions, more confused in its understand
ing and more deficient in pure and sublime senti
ments. How do we know that we are fallen souls?
From the fact of our sinful state, and from the
particular sinful predisposition of our sentiments.
Predispositions, as proved by psychological facts,
are acquired through particular habits of the will.
Each soul, arriving in this or any other sphere of
existence, has very distinct predispositions and in
clinations which could not be manifested unless
acquired in former phases of life.
Predispositions are the inward sentimental life of
the soul, and sentimental life is an acquisition which
is invariably the result of the soul's endeavor.
Any one who desires to know his past life need
only look at the demand of conscience, and then
at his own relation to and correspondence with the
Voice of God, and soon he will see the main condi
tions of his essential history.
Why does the soul feel the lack of dignity, power
and beatitude, if it has not lost it? Why is it con
scious of its mental inability to understand the so-
called "great mystery" of the whole creation, if it
never had any consciousness of it? And why is the

50 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

soul so conscious of the smallness and perversity of
the human heart, if it has not forsaken the might and
joy of holy love?
Why do We not remember our past lives?
For the simple reason that memory is neither the
cause nor the rule and aim of our existence. The
real cause, however, we remember always.
Other facts are not worth remembering. The
sooner all evils are forgotten the better is our in
ward state. We are not even conscious of the time
and place of our arrival on this earth and the same
ignorance may extend to the beginning of many lives
in the hereafter. Is this evidence that we do not
exist? Assuming the possibility of remembering all of
our innumerable past lives, covering millions on
millions of years, of what avail would this memory
be to us? We should see the indescribable grandeurs
of our past lives and, at the same time, the gradual
fall to our present low state or beneath it. In our
present debasement such recollections would fill our
small souls with inexpressible despondency and lead
many to inevitable despair.
The traditional teaching that of ourselves we are
nothing, or sheer wickedness worthy of eternal
damnation, is only an exaggerated sentiment derived

THE SOUL 51

from the subconsciousness of our fall, even without
remembering historical details.
How would a serious man feel, were he conscious,
through memory, that once he had been a great,
pawerful and beautiful spirit and, through disregard
of his imparted dignity, had gradually lost the great
powers of worthy volition, of high mentality and
sublime sentiments, and through consecutive falls
had descended to the level of an ape or a poison
ous reptile?
Animals are souls. They have self-conscious and
self-sentient volition like our own and all souls above
us. But their evil determinations have filled them
with criminal and frivolous predispositions, and thus
they are formed according to their inward state.
Terrible is the justice of God for those who will
to become and remain wicked. Yet, even in this
dreadful state, God extends His mercy through the
little joys they are allowed to have and through the
opportunity to enter through the ever open gate to
higher spheres.
We shall have the full recollection of our past
lives the moment we reach the state of the utmost
love of our destiny. Then we shall be happy to
forget our falls, as we now vainly strive to forget
our trespasses, even during our short sojourn on this
little earth.

52  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
Partial recollections of past lives may be possible
in the intermediate state of the soul's ascent to or
its recession from God, but they are ony partial
recollections, without any direct value relatively to
our inward state.
The Fulfillment of our Holy Destiny
The fulfillment of our destiny consists in the em
ployment of all our spiritual forces and natural con
ditions for the participation in Divine life, in order
to attain immortal glory, holy light and eternal
beatitude. The more or less conscious feeling of this great
destiny moves our inwardness, and the whole dis
content of our life results from our failure to heed
and follow this holy path.
We receive our wills for the performing of glori
ous deeds, we receive our minds for the understand
ing of absolute truth, and we receive our hearts for
the attainment of the purest and noblest sentiments.
Anything contrary to this holy purpose of our
spiritual forces is wicked, because false and base.
For this reason, the fulfillment of our holy destiny
is imperative. We have no real freedom, except in
God and for things divine. All unholy deeds are
an abuse of sacred freedom and a negation of the
holy cause and aim of life.

THE SOUL 53

No soul can shirk the eternal call of divine destiny
without the inexorable consequences of the debase
ment of character and bitter strife in daily life.
Our whole life consists of plans for the future.
All our decisions, all our thinking and sentiments
are clearly made for the future.
Every conscientious man performs his duties with
a view to his future. The performance of each duty,
as we all know, is a stepping stone to worthy life
and a greater future, and yet we remain dull to
the issue of our great destiny.
There is no sense to duty unless the duty of life
as a holy life is the ground of all daily duties and
the duties of all ages.
The fulfillment of our holy destiny is the com
mandment of life itself and the power through which
all our duties are performed.
Thus, according to the plans of Divine creation, we
must know the plan of our own life in order to be
the true children of God.
We know of God through His holiest attributes.
We know that conscience is the superspiritual reflex
of His holiest attributes. Consequently, conscience
is as formal and commanding as the Divine attributes
are harmonious and majestic.
We must see this holy conscience in its super-
spiritual form, and the corresponding structure of our

54  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
spiritual soul with this form, in order to realize the
necessity of virtues, as the sole worthy power and
rule of religious life.
All complaints pertaining to the inefficiency of
religious teachings arise from the fact that conscience
and virtues are not taught as the real basis of re
ligion. And where conscience and virtues are not
the first issue in religion, a living faith in God and
love of mankind are impossible.

VIRTUES THE ETERNAL VOICE OF
GOD IN CONSCIENCE AND THE
SUBSTANCE OF RELIGION
Holiness, truth and love constitute the eternal
life and dominion of God and, consequently, the
eternal order of the whole creation. The eternal
plan of creation is the Divine life itself.
Will, intellect and sentiment constitute the im
mortal life of the soul and, in consequence of its
dependence from the absolutely dominating life of
God, these spiritual forces adhere to the plan of
Divine life with overwhelming evidence.
Our will is created for holiness, our intellect is
created for truth, and our sentiment is created for
love divine.
Any other interpretation of the aim and purpose
of our spiritual forces and plan of life is false and
wicked and thus it universally proves itself in actual
practice. A will without submission to holiness would be a
purely destructive force, an incarnate evil. An in
tellect without truth would be unimaginable insanity.
And a heart without a trace of pure love the most
execrable thing in creation.
~" 55

5(6  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
Each moment of our life is in continuous con
tact with the commanding mights of Divine holiness,
truth and love in conscience. But we must see this
holy contact formally in order to understand the
grandeur and might of religion.
God is Holiness, Truth and Love.
This is the supreme superspiritual name of God, by
virtue of which the whole creation is called into
being and by virtue of which it is ruled and led to
its eternal destiny.
In human words, holiness is the one, perfect and
eternal will of God. Truth is the Divine mind with
its eternal contemplation, omniscience and omni
presence. And Love is the Divine heart revealing
eternal sacrifice, justice and goodness.
This is the holiest form of the Divine Superper-
sonality, whose reflex constitutes the superspiritual
form of conscience.
Only in conscience can we find, see and feel God
and His holy mights ; and the fact that conscience is
so little heeded, studied and scrutinized, and so
little loved, accounts for the lack of religion in
humanity, for the wretchedness of the human char
acter and for the low standards of honor, truthful
ness and mutual affection.
The most sacred thing that God has given us
is not worshipped, not esteemed and not loved with

 SUBSTANCE OF RELIGION  57
the fullness of our hearts. Consequently, man is
bound to love unsacred things with consequent strife
and abominations.
In terms of Divine mights and with respect to His
Holiness, God is, first, the holiest Oneness, the center
and ground of supreme majesty. Second, God is
holy Perfection, the absolute source of His al-
mightiness. Third, God is holy Eternity, which is
the holy state of His Divine life.
With respect to His holiest Truth, God is, first,
the eternal Contemplation of His Holiness, by virtue
of which eternally issues the Divine revelation and
the plan of His Divine creation. Second, God is
holy Omniscience, by virtue of which everything
that is made by Him is predestined according to His
holy plan to participate in His Divine life. Third,
God is holy Omnipresence, wherefrom issues His
providential might.
With respect to His holiest Love, God is, first,
the supreme Sacrifice, through which He imparts
life to souls for the purpose of participating in His
life Divine, and guides their lives accordingly. Sec
ond, God is supreme Justice, by virtue of which the
holy gifts of life are guarded and providential condi
tions of life allotted to each soul according to its
nearness to or distance from Him. Third, God is
supreme Goodness, the last expression of His Di-

58  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
vinity, by virtue of which all forces of spiritual life
are attracted, blessed and saved from destruction.
Thus in the holiest love of God we see the three
most tangible manifestations of God, relatively to
our own life, with expressions and names universally
invoked by the positive spirit of all religious traditions
and aspirations, namely, God as our holy Father,
Lord and Saviour.
The name of "Fatherhood" means sacrifice, the
might of giving and solicitude. The name "Lord"
conveys justice, the sole means of dominion and
authority. And the name "Saviour" means the beati
fying might of goodness, which imparts itself to the
worthy and unworthy with equal readiness, how
ever varied be its might of distribution. Goodness
follows justice as justice follows love, the sacrificial
focus and momentum of holy life.
From these Divine attributes flows the formal
superspiritual reflex of the mights and life of God.
This living reflex of Divinity we call conscience,
as it is in itself, which constitutes the superspiritual
ground of our spiritual soul.
The soul is not only urged, guided and blessed by
the superspiritual might of conscience, but the very
soul's forces are so formed as to correspond with
conscience.

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  59
What forms constitute the reflex of
Divine attributes pertaining to
the Will of God?
The attributes pertaining to the Will of God are
Holiness, Perfection and Eternity. Consequently
their superspiritual reflexes in conscience are the
virtues of humility, fortitude and beatitude.
The Virtue of Humility
Why is humility the commanding voice of holiness?
Because holiness, being the most adorable ma
jesty of God, demands unreserved submission to
the most adorable and majestic Will of God in
order that the soul may participate in Divine Life.
A relative being, as the soul is, must, by virtue of
this fact, follow the absolute Life of God through
free submission to this holiest life in order to sus
tain the dignity, the truth and the joy of its own
life. Humility is the supreme demand of conscience
and the basic state of the soul's worthiness, the state
of participating in the life of God. Consequently,
humility constitutes the highest attainable reality
and the fundamental virtue of the soul's will.
In humility the soul finds God as the eternal Be-
stower of its life and of its dignity, which is the
dignity of divine childship, the true honor of life.

60  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
What are the main forms of the virtue of humility?
The main forms of humility are faith in and de
votion and gratitude to God.
Faith is the affirmation of our affinity to God,
devotion the offering of our allegiance to God, and
gratitude the blissful state of the fulfilled imitation
of Divine life.
This fundamental virtue, in its three forms, is so
palpable in our whole life that, if only one of these
forms is neglected, disharmony, confusion and bit
terness envelop the soul. We cannot move one
step without faith in worthiness, we are discontented
and bitter without the worthy object of devotion,
and we feel lost without the sentiment of gratitude
for worthy gifts.
We must have faith in the holiest object of life
in order to have an absolute ground and reason for
worthy action.
Whom shall we trust, if we have no trust in
God, the absolute source and prototype of worthy
trust? To whom shall we be devoted, if not to Holi
ness, Truth and Love of God, the superessential
trinity of His Life and the essential trinity of all
worthy deeds, lofty thoughts and worthy long
ings and desires?

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  6|
To whom are we bound with such profound
gratitude if not to God, the eternal Bestower of
immortal gifts of life?
Is participation in God not worthy of supreme
faith in God?
Is cooperation with God not worthy of supreme
devotion to God?
And is the affirmation of God in our inwardness
and of our life in God not worthy of profoundest
and most vivid gratitude?
It is precisely the littleness of our faith in God,
the littleness of our devotion to God and the little
ness of our gratitude to God that make our souls so
miserably little, with no power for great deeds and
no sense for the sublimity of truth and sacrificial
sentiments. Without humility there is no bond with God, and,
consequently, no true religion of the soul.
Humility is the sacrament above all sacraments,
the most solemn act of the soul directly sacrated by
God. The negation of humility is pride, our greatest
and most insidious enemy. Pride is the soul's ten
dency to make itself independent of God.
Through pride the soul becomes egocentric and is
filled with vain and ruthless ambitions, with per
verted mentality and with sentiments of contempt,

62 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

envy, hatred, greed and lust, the sources of all base
ness, crimes and disasters.
Once it becomes detached from its holy source,
there is no limit to the soul's fall. There are no holy
courses without the holy principle of Divinity, and
each man with clear reason is fully conscious of
this patent fact.
Humility and pride are the basic alternatives of
our will, and all its tendencies are directed accord
ing to its free choice. Either the soul lives a life of
divine childship, a life of conscience, honor, sublime
mentality and intensely benevolent sentiments or a
life outside of divine childship, without conscience
or honor, and characterized by cunning mentality
and animal desires.
Humility, owing to its power to partake in the life
of God, is the highest expression of the soul's spir
itual honor; and, likewise pride, owing to its un
willingness to partake in the life of God, is the clear
proof of the soul's spiritual dishonor. In vain cries
the fool, "there is no God," for the God-given sense
of honor clearly contradicts his voice.
Honor is a superspiritual might, caused by God,
which commands and sustains the esteem of worthy
deeds, thoughts and sentiments. Pride on the other
hand, is a false imitation of honor, an assumption

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  63
and a perversion of this divine sense, for the purpose
of personal aggrandisement and profit.
The honorable soul is filled with worthiness. Its
deeds are pure, unselfish and benevolent ; its thoughts
are lofty and truthful, and its heart is full of mag
nanimity and kindness.
In other words, the honorable soul is strictly re
ligious. It carries the holy reflex of Divinity in its
inwardness and never departs from this sublime
standpoint. The dishonorable soul, on the other hand, betrays
itself through unholy motives, moral and material
selfishness and lack of good will, through a low and
cunning mind and through the absence of sublimer
sentiments. It betrays itself through hatred, con
tempt, envy, greed, bitterness and lust, and never at
tempts to lift itself to holy determinations and visions.
Its life is intrinsically irreligious and undivine.
In a practical sense everybody knows the differ
ence between these two characters.
The Virtue of Fortitude
Fortitude is the course of humility, the evolution
of profound faith, devotion and gratitude.
Souls are the greatest beings in God's creation,
and their aim is spiritual greatness.
Greatness demands fortitude; therefore participa-

64 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

tion in Divine life, cooperation with Divine life and
affirmation of Divine life demand the greatest forti
tude. Nothing great is achieved without fortitude.
What are the essential forms of fortitude?
The essential forms of fortitude are energy for
sanctification, perserverance and triumph over the
evil. Psychologically, fortitude is energy of will. But
energy of will must have the worthiest object for its
purpose. Since the worthiest object can be nothing
else than sanctification, which means the life in God,
fortitude is primarily the energy for sanctification.
Nothing less is compatible with the true power of the
soul's will.
Fortitude is a distinct Divine commandment. God
demands that His heavenly offspring be full of holy
power, because His holiness is the supreme and
sublimest might.
God imparts freedom of will for the highest and
best, and each man is conscious in his inwardness
that he must not abuse freedom for the sake of low
and wicked aims.
Abuse of freedom causes violence to holy aims,
truthful thinking and lofty sentiments, and, there
fore, incurs punishment.
Fortitude demands perseverance in virtue. An

VIRTUES OF THE WILL 65

occasional effort for the good is the result of holy
inspiration, but the virtue of fortitude is habitual.
Virtue itself is a holy habit. Hence the effort for
sanctification must be sustained by the habitual ap
plication of our will power to persevere in fortitude.
Perseverance is the logical course in fortitude,
the unwearied carrier of the motive of holy life.
"Until the end" is its urgent call, for the holy end
is worthy of all efforts.
The result of fortitude is the triumph over evil,
the emancipation from passions and sins. Not until
the soul is free from the fetters of ungodly passions
can it obtain the full power and experience of holy
life. In the triumph over evil, the soul begins to feel
its great freedom. Its scope of activity knows no
limitations for the accomplishments of glorious deeds.
Fortitude is the school of will power and he who
does not want to enter this school of life has no right
to complain of the misery he suffers.
The contradiction of the virtue of fortitude is
weakness of character, vacillation in worthy purposes
and inability to conquer the evil in oneself.
Having no living faith in God, no inward devo
tion to His holiness, truth and love, and no gratitude
for our holy origin and aim of life, the soul must
necessarily be weak in its most important purpose,

66  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
in its understanding of the superspiritual reality of
life and in the impulses of its noblest sentiments.
There is nothing to urge the full power of the soul's
will, nothing to lift its intellect and nothing to in
spire its heart to sacrificial deeds, all of which are the
true tests of the soul's inward honor.
Humanity denounces unsacrificial acts as selfish,
because such acts are contrary to conscience, the
Voice of God. It is distressing to observe how the
passions of pride, vanity and sensuality overmaster
so many even among the leaders of human destiny.
It seems as if there were no sense of virtue, no
religion, and no sacred honor in these souls. Con
science and honor are sacrificed to vain ambitions,
usually under the pretense of national, economical
and social exigencies. To these ends their whole
energy is devoted, while the most urgent and the sim
plest purpose to which all energy ought to be de
voted, the education and elevation of the human
conscience, is not even attempted. Why? Because
there is no fortitude in humanity. There is no church
and no educational institution which clearly explains
virtues as the living Voice of God and as the ab
solute condition of human dignity and happiness.
So long as fortitude is not urged by all leading
men, humanity will continue to stumble and fall, as

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  67
it always has, and dearly pay for its unvirtuous crav
ings. Where there is no energy of faith in God and no
strong devotion and gratitude to Him, the soul can
not do other than vacillate in its purposes and in its
mental and sentimental endeavors. Then everything
is uncertain. The fatalistic mood seizes the soul,
with its doubting spirit, by pointing out distressing
facts without explaining the true reason or indicat
ing the true remedy.
Fatalism is the most insidious opiate of con
science. It deprives the soul of the inspiration which
the living faith in God and our holy destiny imparts.
It destroys our best energy and makes us unfit for
great and holy achievements. Where fatalism ex
ercises the dominating influence, there can be no up
lifting progress in our spiritual state, no high vision
amidst the perplexities of life and no sense of that
beautiful joy which is the inward possession of the
true child of God.
As a result, the soul bows its spirit to the earth,
and wastes its little energy in petty selfishness, with
its momentary delights and lasting disillusions and
griefs. Only the one whose death is the happiest moment
in his life gives real proof of fortitude; for, having
achieved a worthy life, he, by implicit faith in

68 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

Divine justice has prepared himself for a much
higher and more beautiful life beyond.
The Virtue of Beatitude
Beatitude is the virtue which follows humility and
fortitude as their inevitable result.
Humility, by virtue of its faith in and devotion
and gratitude to God, is the first determination to
live in the grandeur of the childship of God. Forti
tude is the necessary course of humility, the sublimity
of which demands the application of all spiritual
energy. From these two premises of worthy life, follows
the inevitable result of the worthy state of life which
is beatitude.
What are the essential forms of beatitude?
The essential forms of beatitude are security,
peace and joy in God.
Each of these universal facts is most palpable in
each soul. In all conditions, each living creature
longs and searches for security, peace and joy. They
are the effectual aim and end of all life, for beati
tude is the eternal result of sanctified determinations.
Humility constitutes the ground and source of
absolute security and he who is not willing to de
pend on God must depend on his own limited re-

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  69
sources with their fatalistic promises and disillusions.
There is no possibility for true security without
the whole-souled participation in Divine life, for
participation in the absolute life of God is the ab
solute security of all life.
Fortitude is the course of attaining divine security,
for without cooperation with the Will of God no
path of life is secure.
Thus the virtue of beatitude causes the state of
absolute security and the highest prospects of im
mortal life. It consists in the affirmation of the life
of God in us and of our life in God.
The second form of beatitude is inward peace,
the logical consequence of security in God.
The might of God is so peaceful that only in
the soul's profoundest silence can it be clearly seen
and felt.
There is no clamor in the incessant act of Divine
creation, though countless worlds are constantly
made and unmade by His might.
Silently speaks the Voice of God to us, for His
holy Voice is majestic and calm. It urges peace
fully, it leads peacefully, it admonishes and remon
strates peacefully and its holy breath imparts beati
tude. Only the exited passions of our soul are loud
and noisy.
Examining carefully those who bear a distinct

70  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
evidence of divine childship we notice calm self-
respect and respect for every other soul. We hear
words of deep wisdom. We feel security in their
sincerity, peace in their truthfulness and joy in their
beautiful modesty. We see their spirit of ready
service, of righteousness and unaffected kindness
toward man and all other creatures. In these rare
souls is a distinct reflex of the indwelling peace of
God, deriving from the dependence on Him.
Another aspect presents itself when we are con
fronted with those who have no distinct marks of
divine childship. Here we observe restless haste,
worry and striving for material gain, for mundane
satisfaction and for personal vanities. There is little
or no spirit of amity and true friendship, little good
will toward man, a thoughtless disregard for every
thing holy, a spirit of secrecy, opportune specious-
ness and heartlessness. Indeed, strange and in
comprehensible is the peace of God to worldly souls.
The last form of beatitude is joy in God. This
joy arises from the inward consciousness and senti-
ency of our divine childship, the ground of the ever
lasting joy of life. Nothing can approach the joy of
participating in Divine holiness. Nothing can com
pare with the joy of cooperating with Divine truth.
And nothing can equal the holy joy of imitating

 VIRTUES OF THE WILL  7}
Divine love. It is for the sake of this glorious
heavenly joy that God created our souls.
Our origin is heaven, the place of our immortal
birth. Only the twisted mentality of man, instigated
by perverse sentiments, imagines any other origin.
If there is any value, importance or greatness in
our life, it must be the greatest possible greatness in
existence. This greatness, however, cannot be at
tained on our planet, for its insignificance among the
myriads of suns, which in themselves are only small
specks in the divine universe, plainly indicates the
limitations of our present life.
If there is no eternal cause in our life, then every
thing is senseless, then all achievements of great men,
all the great thoughts and lofty sentiments of human
ity are a passing show for the fool.
It is the glory, the might and the joy of religious
life, a fact so fearfully neglected by all traditional
creeds, which must be made clear to mankind in
order to save it from the debasing tendencies of the
prevalent fatalism.
Humility is the power of faith, devotion and
gratitude to God and man, in which consists the
intrinsic power of honor. If a man does not want
humility, let him frankly state this simple fact and
then hide his face before every man who has not lost

72  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
his conscience. If he is devoid of humility no one
can trust him and no soul can be devoted and grate
ful to him, for he rejects the divine power and law
of binding esteem, responsibility and reciprocity.
Fortitude is essentially the will to holy power,
the will to attain the living sonship of God, in order
to participate in His holiest Divinity, in the majesty
of God's holiest perfection and in His eternal sacri
fice and creational activity. Fortitude imparts pro
fundity, elevation and almost unlimited opportunities
for greater life. It imparts superhuman intelligence
and sentiments which love to adore the "Highest
and Best," to see the fullness of Divine truth, and
to embrace the sacrificial beauty of God.
Thus beatitude is the most effective and palpable
part of the soul's life, and the soul's life is a part of
divine beatitude, which is born in Divine eternity for
the sake of our immortal life with God.
What forms constitute the reflex of
Divine attributes pertaining to
the Truth of GodP
The attributes pertaining to the Truth of God are
Divine contemplation, omniscience and omnipresence.
Consequently, their superspiritual reflexes in con
science are the virtues of divine light, wisdom and
simplicity.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  73
The Virtue of Divine Light
What do we understand by the virtue of divine
light?
By this virtue we understand the will, in the ap
plication of all its mental faculties, to absolute truth,
Absolute truth is a Divine attribute and might.
We do not make truth, nor do we intrinsically pos
sess truth, but we have the power to search for truth
and to participate in its holy might.
Each human statement is either true or false, and
we are fully aware of the consequences of all such
statements. It is not due to our personal authority that a
truthful statement is accepted, but to the objective
superspiritual might of truth, presented by reasoning,
according to conscience.
Reasoning according to conscience is always seri
ous, because it is intrinsically connected with the
superspiritual might and Voice of God. He who
does not want thus to reason, is a trifler, incapable
of serious reasoning. Reasoning is dependent from
the soul's will to attain truth by means of its in
tellectual faculties.
The profundity and elevation as well as the shal
lowness and sophistry of personal reasoning depend
wholly on the attitude which the soul maintains

74  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
toward humility, fortitude and beatitude or toward
pride, weakness and misery.
Where there is humility, the soul eagerly searches
for the Absolute Object of truth. Where there is
fortitude, the soul perseveres in its search until it
finds truth. And where there is beatitude, the soul
understands the exalting importance of worthiness,
truth and love, and sees and loves conscience as the
supreme guide of our life.
In the contrary instance, if there is no humility,
the soul in its pride can have no serious desire for
absolute truth. It wants no divine light or conscience
to rule its mentality. All it desires is the imposition
of its will on others. And, because it does not apply
its mind to divine light, which is the ruling might
of conscience in relation to the mind, the soul must
remain arbitrary and frequently tyrannical and ruth
less. If there is no fortitude, the dictate of conscience
for truth finds no hold on the soul and, though
this dictation appeals to the soul, man is not ready
or willing to apply it to his judgments, and, there
fore, is incapable of great and sublime visions.
Hence, if there is no beatitude in its heart, the
soul is incapable of trust, devotion and gratitude and
advances skeptical and pessimistic theories and con
clusions, the logical consequence of confused visions.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  75
If there is no divine light, spiritual sunshine is im
possible and a dark night, not infrequently bordering
on despair, envelops the self-centered ego.
Divine light is the heavenly brightness of spiritual
riches, the delight of the virtuous and the hope and
desire of the destitute. It shines from the heights of
heaven into the profundity of our inwardness. It
sheds its holy brightness on the performance of our
duties, on serious judgments and all worthy senti
ments, in order to enhance the virtuous sense of
responsibility to God and man. Beyond the light of
God is ignorance and confusion in all our efforts,
knowledge and aspirations.
The supreme science is the science of the light of
God, the absolute science of truth. But it takes a
sincerely truth loving character inwardly to realize
this tremendous fact.
Divine light, like all gifts of God, is sacrificial
and he who wishes to attain divine light must first
attain sacrificial sentiments, sacrificial motives and a
sacrificial heart. Truth, being in itself holy, cannot
enter an unclean spiritual vessel like the average
soul. Truth shines above and around the soul, but
it will not make its habitation in the soul until man
wipes out all selfish passions which, of his free will,
he has selected as the idols of his love.
Truth is the eternal voice of the might and

76  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
splendor of holiness, and he who does not fully real
ize this holy fact knows very little of the might of
truth and can have no due adoration and esteem for
truth. Hence he abuses truth, as he abuses all other
gifts of God, for the mere vanity and lust of mun
dane life.
Adoration of truth is the first commandment for
the mind, for no worthy application is possible with
out profound adoration and love of the light of
God. As humility is the first superspiritual law for
worthy action, thus divine light is the first super-
spiritual law for worthy thinking. Without either
no worthy cause of life can be understood.
Thus it is obvious that the soul must adhere to
divine light and cleave to conscience in order to
understand its immortal dignity and its immortal
rights and duties.
The failure of this vision is the cause of all de
nominational and intellectual confusion and of the
unfortunate and depraving conditions in which
humanity lives.
The Virtue of Wisdom
The virtue of wisdom consists in the knowledge
of the application of our will, mind and heart to con
science.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  77
How do we apply our will to conscience?
We apply our will to conscience by the constant
resolution to be in company with conscience in order
to have its continuous inspiration and support.
There is nothing that inspires and supports our
power of will to good deeds except the Voice of
God. The Voice of God is the will of God in its
application to each soul, in order to strengthen its
faith in and devotion and gratitude to God.
Why must we apply our will to conscience?
We must apply our will to conscience because
the Voice of God is the absolutely dominating, lead
ing and beatifying might of our life.
It is the sole might which imparts to us dignity,
truth and love, without which religious life can be
neither attained nor known.
How do We apply our mind to conscience?
We apply our mind to conscience by constant at
tention of our thoughts to the Voice of God.
In all our undertakings, we have an active, mental
and sentimental problem before us. The solution of
each problem must begin with conscience. Mental
deliberation and scrutiny must proceed according to
conscience and the aim of the undertaking must be

78 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

in strict harmony with conscience in order to be
worthy, true and good.
If this rule of wisdom is not applied, errors creep
in, in spite of original good intentions, and the result
will be more or less unworthy, wrong and false.
It will not bring the great result of honor and blessing
which the implicit faith in the truth of God demands.
Why must we apply our minds to conscience?
We must apply our minds to conscience because
the Voice of God is the profoundest and highest
enlightenment of our life.
Each mental problem refers to reason and each
reasoning act refers to conscience as the highest
tribunal of all judgments.
Each theoretical and practical problem is debated
only by the faculty of reason. Its acceptance, how
ever, depends on the self-conscious and self-sentient
will according to the elevation or debasement of its
individual conscience.
Consequently, it is not reason as such, but the
state of the individual conscience which evokes con
viction. Reason merely elucidates and prepares for
conviction. Reason is only the mental activity of the
will, but self-conscious and self-sentient determina
tion is required in order to accept or reject a con
viction.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  79
How do we apply our hearts to conscience?
We apply our hearts to conscience by loving the
Voice of God as the highest gift of life. Conscience
is the Voice of God speaking to our hearts. It
tells us that holiness, truth and love constitute the
Divine prototype of life, that we must worship, con
template and love them with all our sentiments, in
order to follow this holiest prototype.
Divine love is the fulfillment of worthy life, and
he who does not attempt and strive for this fulfill
ment is bound to love unworthy things. Therefore,
foolish is the heart which does not possess the love
of the Voice of God.
To answer the broad question, what is the best
manner of life, is to counsel the devotion of all ef
forts to the education and elevation of the individual
conscience, for only through this divine means can
immortal honor, power and beatitude be attained.
Why must we apply our hearts to conscience?
We must apply our hearts to conscience, because
it is the urger and guardian of holy sentiments; be
cause the love of conscience opens the gates to di
vine blessings, consisting in the power for glorious
achievements, glorious visions and glorious beatitude.
We must love conscience, because it protects our

80  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
little souls from becoming smaller and inspires and
leads us to greater spiritual manhood; because it
protects the honor of the righteous and in the end
always conquers the depravity of false and base
suspicions and statements.
Conscience is the most intimate temple of the
heart, the source, the glory and the spirit of each
worthy law, the leader to religious elevation, the
sunshine of our visions, the tribunal of all judgments
and the inspiration of all worthy deeds. This is
why we must love conscience.
Where the love of conscience is not the moving
impulse of the heart, there is no wisdom and all is
confusion, as we plainly see in our denominational,
political, social and individual conditions. The ab
sence of the love of conscience is the curse of human
ity, and there will be no relief from these depressing
and dangerous conditions until mankind turns its
heart to the Voice of God.

The Virtue of Simplicity
The virtue of simplicity is the law of conscience
which demands a truthful testimony in all our deeds,
thoughts and sentiments.
Its particular demand is sincerity of will, veracity
of mind and modesty of attitude.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  81^
How is the sincerity of will expressed?
Sincerity of will is expressed by the clear state
ment of the reasons why a certain deed is to be done
or is not to be done.
If the deed which is to be performed is good, the
reason for its performance must be stated with full
sincerity, in order to elicit the sentiment for the ac
complishment of the good deed. Only sincere state
ments cause faith in good deeds, enhance devotion
to good deeds and evoke gratitude for good deeds.
If the deed which is contemplated is evil, the
reason for its baseness must also be stated with full
sincerity in order to move the sentiment against its
performance. Sincere statements prevent faithless
ness, self-devotion and ingratitude, which are the
three cardinal sins of man.
Why is sincerity of will so necessary?
The will, being the principal force of the soul,
must, by the fact of its responsibility, give proof of
its truthful state, in all determinations, for the sake of
its own worthiness and the esteem of others.
A sincere man, by virtue of the sense of his
spiritual honor, strives to manifest his good will, be
cause his predominant interest lies in good and
worthy deeds.
His motives are always alert and sensitive to the

82  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
elevation of the human character and the betterment
of human conditions. He feels this lofty impulse,
deriving from his love of conscience and follows it
with unhesitating determination.
The insincere man deceives himself in order to
deceive others. He has not the will to give testi
mony to truth by his deeds. All that he thinks and
does is so underhanded and tortuous that neither
he nor others can be sure of his precise motive. If
he cannot employ false statements he resorts to vague
or misleading statements in order to justify the con
clusions which enable him to evade the performance
of a good deed.
If he is not utterly base, he avows good inten
tions but indefinitely postpones their fulfillment. If
he is overtaken by some misfortune, he renews his
erstwhile good intentions, only to forget them as
soon as the danger has passed.
The truly religious man is wholly sincere. He
has no motives to hide or to twist. He wants his will
to be truthful before the truth of God.
If he perceives that his religious convictions and
opinions, inculcated by the spirit of ages, are not
strictly truthful, he discards them and searches
earnestly for more light.
If he apprehends that his political and social
habits and tendencies are not strictly consistent with

VIRTUES OF THE MIND  83
the Voice of God, he abandons them and willingly
sacrifices his personal privileges for the honor of
gaining a greater conscience.
This is the truly sincere man, the true man of
God, and if humanity had but a few scores of such
sincere men, all the misery on our earth would vanish
in a few generations.
How is veracity of mind achieved?
Veracity of mind is achieved through strict at
tention and cleaving to the Voice of God.
Conscience is the sole means by virtue of which
truthfulness is expressed, and there is no other means
for compelling man to be truthful. He who adores
and loves the Voice of God adores and loves truth,
and he who does not adore and love truth is de
prived of the ground and aim of truthfulness, re
gardless of his learning or ignorance, and of his re
ligious or irreligious pretenses. Truthfulness is the
personal acceptance and attestation of the truth of
God, and those who do not clearly see and feel this
fact cannot be sincerely truthful in the most vital
affairs of life.
Truth must be searched for and accepted whole
heartedly in order to cause truthfulness in the mind;
because we can never see any object clearly unless
we have a great interest and love for the object.

84  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
The most vital condition of life is the understand
ing of the immutable essence and purpose of life,
without which neither our intrinsic rights nor duties
can be clearly understood.
The understanding of rights and duties is a mat
ter of conscience, which constitutes the sole basis of
responsibility, inherently connected with all our
deeds, thoughts and sentiments and the honor and
value of life.
Why is truthfulness of mind so imperative?
The imperativeness of truthfulness follows from
the absolute importance of truth, and the consequent
necessity for its attestation in all spiritual manifesta
tions. Truth is the divine light of life, and truthfulness
the application of our minds to this holy light. Our
self-consciousness must be true in its principle, that
consciousness may be truthful in all its courses.
Without the will and sentiment for this holy princi
ple, truthfulness of mind is impossible.
Not having truth at the bottom of his heart, man
has no intense desire to make strictly truthful state
ments. Yet, it is on the truthfulness of statements
that we conduct all of life's efforts and we know
the failures and discontent which always follow false
statements.

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  85
This fact applies not only to practical life, but
also to all religious, philosophical and political
theories, which rise and then vanish because of their
lack of complete truthfulness.
There will be no light of God in humanity until
we learn to love His holiest light and resolve to live
accordingly. It is unnecessary for us to reach out
to past ages for this divine light. It is with us now
more than at any former time in the history of
humanity. Never before has the conscience of man
been moved so deeply as it is to-day, and this fact
is the most significant sign of our times.
Conscience claims its supreme right over all other
considerations. The "Higher Law" is imprinted
with divine fire in our souls and, more than ever
before, urges us to better thoughts and motives and
more than ever smites each base and selfish purpose
with its burning flame.
How is modesty of attitude attained?
Modesty of attitude, having its ground in humility,
the principal attitude of the soul before God, can be
attained only by the continuous practice of humility.
Humility is the urger and wisdom the torch of light
by which the modesty of attitude is attained.
Self-respect consists in these two virtues mainly,
and for this reason we never find a self-respecting

86  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
man who is boastful, arrogant or stupid either in
his words or manner.
Modesty of attitude is the last expression of the
soul's simplicity. It compels the soul to acknowledge
the providential conditions in which it is placed, with
the sole aim and purpose of virtuous progress.
No providential condition excludes virtuous ad
vancement. Those with ample possessions can as
sist the destitute, the learned can help the ignorant
and the virtuous man always serves the less virtuous
or unvirtuous.
True assistance is given in a modest manner, be
cause of the virtuous man's consciousness of our ab
solute dependence from God, and of the relative in
terdependence in our contact with others.
If this religious truth and sentiment is not vivid
in our conscience, the pride of man will strive after
ruthless acquisitions and preferments, with their in
herent tendency to human slavery, instead of human
brotherhood. The immodesty of the human mind and heart
causes boastfulness, vanity and sensual indulgence.
Furthermore, it causes the revolt of the common
conscience of the masses against those who, by their
preferred station, are conscience-bound to give proof
of spiritual superiority.
The sense of honor is attained not by insipid

VIRTUES OF THE MIND  87
vanities, but by means of sacrificial deeds and lofty
sentiments, and these are intrinsically modest. Vir
tuous men do not raise their heads above others nor
do they bow before others. They look steadfastly
for the love of God and humanity, in order to render
the greatest possible service. This is the temper of
each soul with a lofty conscience and true religious
attitude. Why is modesty of attitude so necessary?
The necessity for modesty of attitude follows from
the fact that we are the spiritual offspring of God.
Our souls are not made by us or by any other
creature, nor are our bodies and the external condi
tions of life.
Moreover, the soul and body cannot be made by
a blind natural force, as some suggest, because what
does not possess will, intellect and sentiment cannot
cause a planful and purposeful spiritual form, as the
soul is, nor a planful and purposeful physical body
which the soul possesses. Only ignorance of the first
laws of logic, or a perverted sentiment is capable of
suggesting such a patent impossibility.
All the failures to explain the mystery of life
from the so-called scientific viewpoint are the direct
consequence of immodesty of attitude toward God
and His great and holy plan of creation.

88  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
However, boastfulness, with its inherent dis
regard, and ruthlessness, are by no means the ex
clusive manifestations of the so-called infidels.
Human history has many black pages, filled with
fiendish cruelty and persecution, perpetrated by the
leaders among nearly all of the most influential
creeds and the "faithful followers of holy scrip
tures." Only since conscience asserted its divine right
among the masses, has this ungodly cruelty come to
an end, though its brutal spirit is not yet wholly ex
terminated. The liberal movement in many creeds endeavors
to supply what it cannot find in its "holy scriptures"
and appeals to profounder religion and inner life in
order to save mankind from the threatening disaster.
So long, however, as this good intention of religious
"liberalism" does not look into the eternal gospel of
conscience and fails to give it at least a small part
of the attention which it has hitherto devoted to the
various interpretations of ancient writers, these ef
forts will be fruitless. Liberalism must learn to plead
with the inveterate sentiments of the unprogressive
masses and strive to show humanity a greater and
more beautiful world of God than that which the
past has left us. The blind and brutal fanatical
spirit with its traditional prejudices and false piet-

 VIRTUES OF THE MIND  89
ism must be removed and new "men of God" must
come forward to save our world from retrogression
to barbarism.
The opportunist, surrounded with wordly means,
may smile at this admonition, but so did many "ex
alted" men of the recent past. They smile no more.
The reign of sincerity, truthfulness and modesty
with its sweet and innocent spirit of religion will
not be introduced and the blessing of God brought
to us until the spirit of pride, falsehood, vanity and
lust, with its boisterous pretenses, is subdued. There
is no law to curb this wicked spirit save the law of
simplicity in conscience.
Simplicity is the great harmonizer of life. It ex
presses not only the true capacity of every man but
also the true willingness of each capacity for worthy
service. The simple soul is always the best servant
of the human race, just as the soul filled with
duplicity is always the destroyer of the little happi
ness which humanity possesses.
He who wants to be earnestly religious must cling
to heavenly simplicity, and soon he will find him
self nearer to God and will clearly understand his
station of sacrificial service.
Simplicity is the true refinement of the soul. Every
noble man loves a sincere and truthful soul, for it
can always be implicitly trusted, and its modesty is

90  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
so attractive that it evokes admiration and gratitude
without the slightest effort. Even the wicked have
trust in such a soul, if for no other reason, because
the sense of fear is absent.
Thus it becomes evident how necessary this virtue
is in order to prove the religious character of man.
It is the general absence of this proof which gives
the deriders of the faith in God the opportunity to
attack the very veracity of religion.
What Forms Constitute the Reflex of
Divine Attributes Pertaining to
the Love of God?
The attributes pertaining to the Love of God are
Divine sacrifice, justice and goodness. Consequently,
their superspiritual reflexes in conscience are the
virtues of love, righteousness and goodness.
The Virtue of Love
The motive of pure love is sacrifice, the imitation
and affirmation of love Divine.
The virtue of love lives on the adoration of the
most adorable, on the love of truth and truthfulness,
and on the intense desire to realize the glory and
truth of life in sacrificial motives, charitable senti
ments and in universal sympathy and chastity.

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART  9J
Any other love is unclean, selfish or criminal and
leads to disillusion, bitterness and self-imposed suf
fering, the unavoidable result of ungodly life.
How are sacrificial motives attained?
Sacrificial motives are attained by the continuous
consciousness that the soul is of Divine issue, for the
sake of the participation in Divine life. The ever-
present consciousness that the will and mind are
created for worthiness and truth, and the profound
sentiency that the heart is created for pure love con
stitute the essential and most direct path for attain
ing sacrificial motives in our deeds.
This consciousness and sentiment is the inward
proof that we must have faith in and devotion and
gratitude to God, and he who does not heed and
cherish this great purpose of life has little or no true
interest in religion.
Why must sacrificial motives be attained?
Sacrificial motives must be attained, because they
are the sole proof of religious life and inward dig
nity. Faith in God1 is the most sacred trust of holy
mutuality, the focus of divine childship, in which the
Fatherhood of God is supremely adored and loved.
Faith in God means faith in His holiness, and the

92  RELIGION OF THE SOUL. 
revealing might of holiness is sacrifice, on which
each creature lives.
Sacrifice is the living motive and the holy rhythm
of life and each act which does not comply with
this divine order is worthless and dangerous.
Devotion to God is the true power of life. He
whose life is not devoted to the holiest cause of all
life is not a true child of God.
Devotion, in the sacrificial sense, is the inspirer of
worthy action, the course of true heroism and the
path of immortal glory. Each soul lives on more or
less pronounced human devotion, but it is the devo
tion to sacrifice which imparts sublimity to life and
which decrees its future station.
Everybody knows the perverted and unvirtuous
devotions to vanity, greed and sensuality and every
serious man has the righteous feeling that misery
must follow such a course.
Whoever has squandered his spiritual forces on
ruthless self-indulgence cannot expect divine blessing
and, in his conscience, he has no such expectation.
He prefers to believe in the mortality of his soul,
in order to destroy the last vestige of his immortal
responsibility. Gratitude is the heavenly fruition and fragrance
of sacrifice. It is both the appreciation and the joy
of sacrifice. Only profound souls are capable of pro-

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART  93
found sacrifice; souls of great faith and devotion to
the holy cause of sacrificial life.
All sins and transgressions are the direct con
sequences of the disregard and lack of the sacrificial
spirit that derives from faith, devotion and gratitude
to God.
How are charitable sentiments attained?
Charitable sentiments are attained through con
tinuous recourse of our thoughts and sentiments to
the fact that we are the children of God and, there
fore, are bound by the holy bond of superspiritual
and spiritual mutuality.
That we are fallen souls makes the practice of
charity all the more necessary, because we must
have charity for the sake of our virtuous growth and
the great life that is waiting for us.
All our aims and efforts must be performed in
the spirit of charity, in order that we may obtain
divine blessing. Nothing else thrives before the Face
of God, because charity is the course of sacrifice.
Why are charitable sentiments so necessary?
Because they are the living imitation of the most
charitable operation of God, relatively to all souls.
Imitation of the best is affirmation of the best;
the affirmation of the sacrificial spirit, which is

94 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

charity. Thus charity must be the most effectual
part of our life. A soul devoid of the sentiment of
charity is full of ruthlessness, heartlessness and the
potentiality for all possible crimes.
We must give the best that is in us to God, to
all human and sub-human creatures ,and never cease
giving, for such is the life of God.
Why must We have universal sympathy?
Because universal sympathy is a holy law of life.
It is the sentimental necessity which brings heavenly
harmony and joy into our life. Nothing is well
understood unless one is in full sympathy with the
object of his understanding.
No principle of life can be logically conceived,
no process consistently surveyed and no effect of
life fully appreciated unless divine sympathy is the
impulse of understanding.
No cause, no man and no creature can be rightly
estimated unless the divine warmth of sympathy
leads us to the appreciation of each being and of
each thing. The lack of this virtuous sympathy
causes pride, conceit, contempt and hate, with their
disastrous consequences. Let us put a final question.
What kind of man is he who has no sympathy with
the highest values of spiritual life? Has he religion
in his heart? Never!

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART . 95
Why is chastity so indispensable to religious life?
Religious life consists in following the holy Will
of God for the sake of our sanctification, that we
may attain heaven with its eternal glory, power,
light and love; that we may live in the nearness to
God and partake in His Divinity.
The body is the providential instrument of the
soul for the purpose of holy aims. There is no other
worthy reason for its existence. Consequently, the
body cannot be used for arbitrary ends of sensual
delight. Chastity binds with equal force each single or
married person. In either state there is no escape
from its commandment.
Sensual delight has only one worthy reason and
this reason is procreation. Beyond this exclusive
aim, indulgence in sensual delight is a sinful act,
unworthy of sacramental matrimony or of any pro
foundly religious soul.
There is no more insisting inclination in the aver
age man than the craving after the flesh, and every
dietetic and social precaution ought to be applied
in order to avoid the sensual lure.
There is nothing more disturbing and weakening
to the soul's energy, the mind and the heart, and
nothing more enervating to the body than the in-

96  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
dulgence in sensuality. The mediocrity and weakness
of the human character, its low mental and senti
mental capacity, and the lack of the strict sense of
righteousness, are consequences mainly of sensual
life. The cause of this debasement lies in the lack of
love for conscience and the consequent lack of de
light in great spiritual visions and sentiments.
The soul must have delight in its life. If it has
no delight in holy glory, truth and love, it will reach
out for the evanescent delights of nature at the cost
of its debasement and suffering.
The Virtue of Righteousness
Righteousness is the reflex of Divine justice in
conscience. Its might consists in the guardianship of
holy values and the eternal support and rule of holy
order. All right actions, right thinking, and right senti
ments follow the law of righteousness, which applies
with equal force to all theoretical and practical
questions. There is nothing in our spiritual Hfe in which
righteousness is not concerned. The slightest omis
sion or neglect of its commanding power is im
mediately followed by disturbing consequences.

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART  97
Righteousness, in all social and personal relations,
is more exacting than any other virtue, because it is
the most permeating and practical virtue. The value
of each deed, thought and sentiment can always be
seen in the mirror of righteousness.
How can righteousness be attained?
There is only one way to attain righteousness and
that is through constant association with conscience
and the strict heeding of its dictates. No written
law is inwardly compelling unless the motive to fol
low that law is sustained by the active impulse and
sentiment for righteousness.
The righteous man constantly nurtures the disposi
tion of generous mutuality in his heart. He never
forgets a kind act and anxiously awaits the oppor
tunity to serve those who have served him righteously.
Thus the profounder the virtue of gratitude, the
readier and more effective is the spirit of righteous
ness. Why is righteousness so indispensable to our spiritual
honor and progress?
Because it is the way of the sacrificial spirit and
the most tangible commandment of justification, fair-
mindedness and honesty.
Because it is the sole protector against unholy

98 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
aggression and the infallible guide to worthiness,
spiritual elevation, true happiness and joy.
Because it is the law and order of true mutuality
and the holy executor of the Will of God.
Righteousness constitutes the most visible and ef
fective test of true religion in the soul. Everything
that is not strictly righteous is irreligious, regardless
of pietistic presumption.
God does not hear the prayers of unrighteous
souls, because they pray unrighteously. Conse
quently, no man of conscience gives assistance to an
unrighteous cause.
Righteousness is the indelible mark of the true
religious spirit and everything beyond it is hypocrisy,
simulation and common deceit.
There are two leading indictments against the
human character, untruthfulness and unrighteousness,
the former manifesting the lack of the right mind
and the latter the lack of the right heart in man.
Lies and deceit form a large part of our life and
yet we are astonished at the helplessness, ignorance
and perplexity of our leaders and the confusion of
the masses.
Nothing can be expected without righteousness.
If the upper stratum of human society will not make
a greater effort for a more righteous social order,
then sooner or later the distrusting and suffering

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART  99
masses will tear down this order through hate and
contempt. The masses need and want leadership, but they
want at least as much righteousness in this leader
ship as is necessary to insure greater spiritual and
material mutuality, the inborn right of each living
being. Unrighteousness is the most corrupting and de
structive element in the soul. It is devoid of all feel
ing of holiness, of truth and love, and thrives on the
violation of faith, honor, innocence and righteous
means in order to attain dishonorable vainglory and
base material gain.
The lack of righteousness causes false ideals and
fanaticism with their ruthless and brutal con
sequences. If this Divine law is not heeded with
that unwavering firmness which is the inherent char
acter of this law, all sinful and criminal aims are
undertaken under its cover and pursued in the name
of God. Hence the general lack of profound esteem
and sentiment for the establishment of the righteous
spirit of laws.
Employment of unrighteous means in order to at
tain righteous aims is essentially unrighteous. Thou
shalt be righteous is the clear Voice of God, and
this means under all conditions and circumstances.
The necessity for this virtue in the will, intellect

100 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
and sentiment is so great that it ought to be con
stantly held before our eyes and inculcated in our
hearts. Humanity is one of the innumerable families in
our existential sphere. If the righteous bond of re
ligion is not strictly applied in our human relations,
we forfeit the holiest bond with God and through
godless obduracy, ignorance and ruthlessness become
the destroyers of that most intimate sense of human
brotherhood by virtue of which alone true progress
is possible. Righteous life is worthy of all human sacrifices,
for it constitutes the heart's inward nobility, the
power and joy of immortal friendship, the proof of
honor, clear judgment, true affection, the spirit of
universal order and the unfailing path to immortal
glory, power, wisdom and beatitude.
The Virtue of Goodness
Goodness is the last, the most effective and the
most expressive virtue. Its power consists in crown
ing all preceding virtues with heavenly attraction.
Since attraction is a very vital sentimental part
of our life, goodness furnishes that heavenly sweet
ness and beauty for which all souls are so hungry.
It is the gentlest of all virtues, because, in itself,
being the efflorescence of all virtues, it attracts and

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART 101
overwhelms more by its inherent beauty than by the
intensity of power which all other virtues demand.
Its intrinsic forms are benevolence and magna
nimity, earnestness and enthusiasm, and spiritual
grace and beauty.
In all these forms we see the greatness of re
ligious beauty and, at the same time, where this
virtuous beauty is not distinctly visible, we observe
the lack of the true religious spirit.
Goodness is the living sympathy with the life of
God, and with all other lives according to the life
of God. It is the gentlest, most benevolent and
magnanimous conqueror of fallen souls. Its earnest
ness permeates everyone with respect, without the
use of effort. Its enthusiasm strikes the latent senti
ments in the deepest recesses of the heart and reveals
the fact that in each soul is some part of the
spiritual grace and beauty which everybody is so
eager to see and to sense.
How is the virtue of goodness attained?
This virtue is attained through the cultivation and
application of sacrificial sentiments. Sacrifice, being
the effectual form of holy life, insists on the mani
festation of its holy might for the sake of mutual
elevation and the joy of its purity.
The benevolent will must be continually exercised,

1 02 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
in order to attain sacrificial power and the con
sequent rise to a holier life in the hereafter.
Good deeds must be highly esteemed and pro
foundly loved, for good deeds are the stepping
stones of our spiritual rise to the grandeur of heavenly
life. Therefore, nothing in life is either esteemed
or loved that has no clear mark of this expressive
virtue. We need goodness not only in order to enjoy the
respect of others, but also for our own self-respect —
the consciousness and feeling of our personal worthi
ness. The most miserable soul is the one that is incap
able of good deeds and it always feels and manifests
this misery in its inveterate suspicions, discontent and
grumbling. The heavenly sun of goodness does not
shine in such a heart.
The heart's dispositions and impulses must be
carefully guarded by the ever-conscious will to con
science, that no selfish and impure motive may mis
lead us to our inward dishonor and resulting re
morse, with the inevitable necessity of reparation and
rehabilitation. The best deed is the one which is well done from
the start. Its effect is always blessing and satisfy
ing, regardless of whether or not it is known by
others.

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART 103
The first witness of our deeds is God and each
man with conscience and self-respect is duty-bound
not to let this fact escape his memory. Only the
wicked soul does not want this Eternal Witness.
All deeds which do not possess the power of
goodness are, to say the least, a waste of time. Time
is given for glorious deeds and the attainment of high
mentality and profound sentiments.
Waste of time takes vengeance on the whole
value and destiny of our life. Instead of becoming
powerful spiritual beings, full of vibrant good will,
clear and lofty thoughts, and replete with the noblest
enthusiasm and joy of virtuous life, we grow into
spiritual cripples, deprived of great will power, with
beclouded minds and contracted hearts, into which
nothing lofty and great can enter. From three-
fourths to ninety-nine hundreths of our human life is
a waste, and severely speaking, a criminal waste.
In view of this fact how can we expect greater
spiritual progress, for which the whole humanity is
crying? The privileged classes amuse themselves with
petty ambitions, ostentatious vanity and concealed
sensuality. And the lower classes, seeing this glaring
spectacle of stupidity and heartlessness, organize
themselves not only for self-defense, but also for
common revenge.

1 04 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
In the middle stand the small number of good
preachers and teachers, pleading with the one and
the other side for greater mutuality. Weak, through
the lack of clear understanding of the soul and con
science, and entangled by a mass of contrary inter
pretations and antiquated traditions, their appeal
fails to strike the conscience and intrinsic honor of
man. They do not use the Voice of God as the supreme
oracle of religion, and, consequently, cannot prove
the inward bond of the soul with God. They do not
teach virtues as the fundamental essence of religion,
but offer vague promises of vicarious salvation
through blind faith.
They do not speak of the eternal grandeur and
beauty of Divine perfections and thus fail to present
the real inward attraction of a religious life.
The clear motive and plan of Divine creation
is not explained, and, consequently, no man really
knows what he is and for what he exists; he has
no clear vision of the great purpose of his life. And
the future life is described as if for unthinking
children who expect nothing but mere rest and com
mon joys.
To most spiritual teachers the natural world is
rather a threatening spectre than the truthful illustra
tion of our existential conditions. The explanation

 VIRTUES OF THE HEART 105
of nature has been left to so-called unbelievers and
"atheists," as if nature were created by some evil
spirit. In view of these pertinent and poignant facts, how
is it possible to expect religious progress in human
ity? The sustaining of religious enthusiasm needs a
constantly increasing spiritual fuel. Enthusiasm will
not thrive on what has already been absorbed in the
course of past ages. All the good that traditions
have done is merely the preparation in our souls of
a larger heart for sublimer religious life.
To achieve this end we must look more frequently
into conscience and then into our hearts, in order to
see the exact growth of our personal goodness. For
the first and last question to each soul on the passage
from one life to another, is, what good hast thou
done during thy past course of life?
Why is the virtue of goodness so essential to our life?
Because it is the final expression of true humility
and the incontestable characteristic of the religious
soul. Because it is the virtuous manifestation of inward
honor, truth and love, the one worthy aim of our life
and the ineffaceable sign of our divine childship.

106 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
Because it nurtures the fortitude of our wills and
leads us to the triumph over all evil.
Because its origin is heavenly life and thus it is
the carrier and distributor of the beautifying purity
of life. Everything yields before its might and it
covers every wickedness with shame.
Because goodness is the incontestable interpreta
tion of all truth and the victorious weapon of holiness
against falsehood.
Because all its deeds lead to and manifest wis
dom. Hence no act is wise unless goodness is the
aim of the act.
Because sincerity of will, truthfulness of mind
and modesty of heart are the essential conditions
through which true goodness is manifested. Good
ness always has these divine characteristics in its
expressions. Goodness consists of greater or less sacrifices and
frees the soul from egocentric tendencies and com
mon selfishness. It obtains its virtuous power from
sacrifice, the true sense and proof of worthy life.
For this reason everything that is not truly good is
under the ban of condemnation.
The executive might of righteousness is per
meated with and surrounded by goodness. Thus
nothing is good that is not righteously executed. The
guardianship of righteousness is the best protector of

THE RELIGIOUS SOUL  107
such worthy life as we possess and the disregard of
this holy protection causes the whole misery of man
kind. Finally, goodness is so essential, because it is the
heart of benevolence, that knows no ill will or wish.
It is the builder of magnanimity, that sees and feels
everything in the grandeur of the Divine plan of
life, and the bestower of true, imperishable cheer
fulness and beauty of the soul.
The Inward Likeness of the
Religious Soul
The inwardly religious soul is determined to be
conscious and sentient of the might of God and of
His holy Voice, which speaks in conscience. In his
inwardness he constantly protests to God his humble
allegiance through faith in, devotion to and gratitude
for the heavenly bond of religion, which imparts to
him the most glorious title of divine childship.
He is consummately conscious that this holy bond
and title is the immutable ground of his worthiness
and personal honor, for the full attainment of which
he works with all his forces.
In this wprk consists his participation in, his co
operation with and his affirmation of the divine life
within himself, for this life constitutes the eternal
focus of his immortal greatness and beatitude.

1 08 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
From the living faith in God and devotion and
gratitude to God, the manifest trinity of humility,
flows the virtue of fortitude, transforming debasing
weakness into glorious power, darkness into clear
light and low and morbid sentiments into exaltation
and joy. j j j
The joy of heavenly beatitude becomes the per
manent effect in him and the spirit of its power, wis
dom and goodness imparts itself to those who are
fortunate enough to' be near him.
With this inward attitude of will, he applies all
his mental faculties to the cognition of God and of
His holiest attributes, in order to understand and
delight in the grandeurs of the prototypical plan
of God, and in order to guide his visions according
to this divine plan, without the understanding of
which no law and no act or fact of life can be
clearly understood. The purpose and importance of
life must be seen in the absolute plan of life.
From this eternal ground of vision emanates wis
dom, the power of estimating all things according to
the holy plan of God. The slightest oversight of this
insistent truth causes endless confusion, both in
theoretical and practical spheres.
Thus to be wise means to be determined to act, to
see and to love everything according to the eternal
plan of God. All other human wisdoms are only

THE RELIGIOUS SOUL 109

fragmentary and relative expressions of true wis
dom, which are frequently abused for ruthless and
selfish aims. Of this unfortunate fact the inwardly
religious soul is well aware and accepts nothing that
manifests the slightest inconsistence with the eternal
plan of God. Necessary evils exist only for the evil
minded, but not for the wise and righteous. He
neither accepts nor defends them. He combats them
with all the power of his conscience.
Only through this course of life is he able to at
tain the great virtue of simplicity, which consists in
the sincerity of will, truthfulness of mind and
modesty of attitude.
This trinity of mental dispositions is the irrefut
able proof of the worthiness of his character and
intellect. Everyone with any degree of conscience
always looks for and depends on the sincerity, truth
fulness and modesty of him with whom he comes
in contact. And nothing fills a conscience loving soul
with more abomination than insincerity, falsehood
and boastfulness. The uprightness and rectitude of
the human character can be easily recognized by this
unfailing test of truth.
The inwardly religious man never allows a selfish
motive to dominate his heart. By all means of edu
cation and experience he never ceases in his efforts
to attain a greater content of sacrificial sentiments.

10 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

They grow with him, that he may grow on them
to spiritual greatness.
Sacrifice must be known as the eternal effluence of
Divine life and it must be loved in order to be
known. Conscience, religion, honor, wisdom,
righteousness and goodness are rooted in the ground
of sacrifice.
The greatness and merit of the individual life is
invariably judged by the volume of its sacrificial
achievements, and the littleness and unworthiness
of the individual life is always measured by the ab
sence of these same sacrifices. Justice stands on the
eternal ground of sacrifice and, in itself, is the holy
guardian of sacrificial values.
With all his heart the inwardly religious man
embraces this holy guardianship, whereby the worth
iness of his religious character is maintained. Under
this guardianship he progresses, irrespective of all
hindrances, with unflinching courage, to the gates
of eternal life.
Sacrifice becomes the vision, the impulse and
sphere of his life. Then all he does, thinks and feels
is pure, good and beautiful. All virtues attained
through inward humility attain the manifest form
of the heavenly power of goodness.
Benevolence, with its might to attract, magna
nimity with its might to conquer, earnestness with its

THE RELIGIOUS SOUL 111

power of conviction, enthusiasm with its power of
overwhelming, and spiritual grace and beauty, the
incentives of pure and lasting joy, all of these are
given by God to the truly religious soul, that the like
ness of God in the soul be fulfilled.
These virtuous forms are the divine paths over
which humanity is slowly climbing to greater in
ward heights and this labor constitutes the immortal
history of all souls.

THE CULT OF GOD
The object and essence of worship lies in the holi
est attributes of God, which, in themselves, are the
absolutely adorable mights.
Conscience, being the holy reflex of Divine at
tributes, and, in itself, the superspiritual subsistence
of the soul, clearly reveals the inherent plan of the
worship of God.
The supremely adorable object is the Holiness,
Truth and Love of God.
Holiness, the determining might of God, reveals
His majestic oneness, omnipotent perfection and
superspiritual eternity as His determining attributes.
Consequently, these attributes are the first form of
worship. Truth, the visual might of God, reveals His crea
tive contemplation, omniscient predestination and
omnipresent providence as His visual attributes.
Hence, these attributes are the second form of Di
vine worship.
Love, the sentimental might of God, reveals sacri
ficial guidance, charitable justice and beatifying and
saving goodness as His sentimental attributes. Ac-
112

 THE CULT OF GOD  U3
cordingly, these attributes constitute the third form
of Divine worship.
These forms of worship are neither arbitrary nor
artificial. They are strictly logical, as is evidenced by
their intrinsic order and conformity with the soul's
will, mind and heart, all of which possess adoring
forces. All other forms of religious worship are imperfect
attempts to follow this holy plan. Because they are
not distinctly grounded on the eternal forms of Di
vine Holiness, Truth and Love, they obscure the
Face of God with anthropomorphic estheticism and
make religious cults more human than divine.
Traditions have succeeded one another, each with
a greater or less content of the religious spirit, but if
humanity is to progress onward, all human tradi
tions, venerable as they are, must be superseded by
the eternal tradition of the living Voice of God in
the soul.
The establishing of the great cult of God, which
all serious souls expect and demand, cannot come
too soon. On its coming depends the great progress
of humanity.
Cults of wordly riches, vanity and sensuality have
always made debasing inroads on the weak charac
ter of man, but never have they been more widely
spread, conspicuous and infectious than in recent

1 14 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
times. So long as these base and destructive cults
continue to exist, the necessity for the divine cult is
all the more evident.
Moreover, this particular necessity is supported
by the logical necessity that our highest aspirations
and efforts must have a collective form in order to
prove and manifest the inward conviction of our
divine childship and the true religious brotherhood.
No race is excluded from and no social and in
tellectual distinction is made in this cult. The ad
vantages are equal to all.
The outer forms of the public cult consist in
praise, offering, invocation, petition and thanksgiv
ing, expressed in solemn and simple art.
Religious life is the supreme art of the soul and
collective expressions ought to be sublime, impres
sive and elevating. The greatest immediate need
of man is more religious profundity and elevation, in
order to be moved to the active realization of his
final destiny, consisting in the participation in Di
vine glory, might and beatitude.

SACRAMENTAL CONFESSION OF THE
CHURCH OF GOD
I believe in the Holiness, Truth and Love of
God, which constitute His Divine Superpersonality.
I believe that the determining might of the Holi
ness of God is absolute, perfect and eternal, and,
therefore, constitutes the supreme majesty, almighti-
ness and superspirituality of God.
I believe that the visual might of the Truth of
God is the contemplating, omniscient and omni
present light of His Holiness, and, therefore, con
stitutes the holiest plan of His eternal creation, pre
destination and providence.
I believe that the sentimental might of the Love
of God is the eternal sacrifice, charity and goodness,
and, therefore, constitutes the holiest revelation of
His eternal guidance, justice and salvation.
I believe that conscience is the eternal and formal
reflex of Divine attributes, the living Voice of God
and the immutable ground and plan of the soul.
I believe that conscience is the superspiritual form
through which God reveals His holiest will, the
eternal law and formal commandment of virtuous
life. I believe that the soul's forces of will, intellect
115

1 1 6 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
and sentiment are created for the sole purpose of fol
lowing, of knowing and of loving God as our eternal
Creator, Lord and Father.
Therefore, I believe in our affinity and allegiance
to God and in the imitation of God, in order that we
may participate in, cooperate with and affirm the
eternal grandeur of His holiest Life, for the sake of
His Holiness and our sanctification, for the sake
of His Truth and our truthfulness, and for the sake
of His eternal Love, the source, sublimity and true
joy of our life.
And I believe in the virtue of humility, consist
ing in faith, devotion and gratitude to God, and
in the virtues of fortitude, beatitude, divine light,
wisdom, simplicity, pure love, righteousness and
goodness, as the sole path of sanctification and
ascent to the heavenly life of glory, light and beati
tude. So help me God! Amen.

THE DECALOG OF RELIGIOUS LIFE
Thou shalt love God, thy eternal Lord and
Father, with all the forces of thy soul, that thou
mayest follow His holy Will, the law of all laws.
Thou shalt praise the Holiness, Truth and Love
of God in profound humility, through faith, devotion
and gratitude, that thou mayest be worthy of the
holy gift of immortal life.
Thou shalt grow in fortitude and steadfastness,
that thy duties to God and man be the greatest things
in life, and that thou mayest be ready for still
greater duties.
Thou shalt live in purity, trust and peace, in labor
and in prayer, that thou mayest be assured of salva
tion and the eternal blessing of God.
Thou shalt seek for the truth of God, that thou
mayest see His eternal light which leads thee to thy
holy destiny.
Thou shalt be guided by wisdom in all thy deeds,
in all thy thoughts and in all thy affections, that
thou mayest choose the worthiest and be shielded
against sin, error and the temptations of evil.
Thou shalt be truthful in thy whole mind, that
117

118 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
thy conscience be not defiled by falsehood and
that truth bear witness of thy integrity.
Thou shalt follow the sacrificial spirit of Divine
Love, that thy heart be pure before God, with love
toward mankind and benevolence toward lower
creatures. Thou shalt be ruled by justice to God and to
each living being, that thou mayest be justified by
heaven and by earth and that righteousness be thy
eternal crown of honor.
Thou shalt fill with goodness all thy motives, all
thy thoughts and all thy longings, that nothing un
worthy enter thy heart and that the kingdom of God
be thy eternal reward.

PASSIONS OF THE SOUL
All men know passions in their effects, but few
know the real source of passions.
What is the essential meaning of "passion" in a
religious sense?
Passions are the sufferings of the soul, caused by
lack of godliness and, consequently, they are the
actual opposition to virtues and the real evil of life.
Being the exact contradiction of virtues, passions
follow the same logical order, although in the nega
tive sense. Thus they are the source of everything
unholy, untruthful, and selfish and of all human
wretchedness. Following the order of virtues, there are passions
oi the will, of the mind and of the heart.
PASSIONS OF THE WILL
The chief passions of the will are pride, religious
indolence and religious misery.
Pride
What constitutes the pride of the soul?
Pride consists in the attitude of more or less active
independence from God and His holy Voice. It
119

120 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
is the first act of faithlessness to God, with the con
sequence of faithlessness to man and other creatures.
Where the spiritual power of unconditional faith
in God is not the most vital function of our life, the
assurance of faith in relative beings is destroyed at
the very inception of its power.
Faith constitutes the greatest superspiritual power
of the soul and the clear proof of its honorable
tendency. Therefore, lack of faith leads to low-
mindedness and confusion, and the denial of faith to
iniquity and crime. Faithlessness displaces the power
of esteem, which each soul ought to possess in its in
wardness, and fills it with its opposite, the destructive
power of contempt.
The humble man has a living faith in God. The
proud man has a living faith in himself. He measures
everything, not according to conscience, but accord
ing to his haughty will, with its narrow visions and
heartlessness. His motive power is not that of respect
but of contempt, and "under me" is his temper.
Whether his station be high or low, essentially
he is the real anarchist among men. The history of
humanity is filled with such characters, and every
conceivable condition, religious, political and social,
is the field of their ungodly activity. The number
of these men exceeds by far the humble and vir
tuous souls, hence the fact that sin rules our world.

 PASSIONS OF THE WILL  \2A_
Devotion is the profound and soul-inspiring power
of the humble, and vanity the shallow and soul-be
sotting weakness of the proud.
The proud man does not believe in building an
altar for the worship of God in his inwardness, but
he believes in building fleeting altars of self-admira
tion and self-indulgence. He does not search for
the spiritual incense of virtuous inspiration, but for
the pomp and show of luxury, with which he may
adorn himself.
He has no sense and no regard for great virtuous
manifestations, for there is nothing virtuous in him
that is worthy of such manifestation. And, since
the tendency to the manifestation of the soul's spir
itual content is inborn, he displays the achievements
of his vanity, with greater or less dissimulation.
The vain man is sometimes ashamed of his ma
terial wealth, yet he does not know how to use it
to the advantage of immortal honor. By continuous
habit, his motives, mind and heart are so strongly
attached to self-devotion, that with the loss of this
infatuation his own life seems lost. He loves ob
sequiousness and flattery so much that he cannot
dispense with them for the sake of divine devotion,
in which he has no faith. Esteem is a demand of
conscience, but his conscience is too small to afford
any scope for rejoicing in virtuous honor.

122 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
In addition to this common vanity, are the subtle
vanities of political, financial and social leadership,
enhanced by material means. None of them, as we
know, depends on virtuous principles of life.
There are also vanities in the intellectual and
artistic fields which strive more for self -magnification
and glorification or mere material gain than for
higher aims. It is true that this form of vanity is
rarer and less conspicuous than the gross vanity dis
played by material power. The sensibility of intel
lectual and artistic dignity is a restraint against pas
sions. It is for this reason that literature and art have
given the absolute majority of honorable characters.
Moreover, and contradictory as it seems, many
religious creeds are as vain and proud as the rest of
our world. "We are the chosen people!" — "Our
creed is the only true creed!" — "Our sacraments
are indispensable to attain heaven!" — And now
more timidly "All the rest of men are damned!"
are the ungodly expressions of those who pretend to
teach the word of God. Of all the vanities, this
vanity is the most dangerous, because it perverts re
ligious truth at its very roots and causes more so-
called atheists than all natural sciences put together.
Gratitude is the immortal effluence of the self-
sentiency of divine childship, while ingratitude is the
logical effect of self-centered and self-devoted pride.

 PASSIONS OF THE WILL  123
For what should the godless soul be grateful?
He does not know whence he came, or why he ex
ists, and cares little for such knowledge. His belief
in personal immortality is uncertain and, hence, im
mortal responsibility is still less certain, and of little
or no interest to him. Intrinsically fatalistic in his
mentality and sentiments, he believes more in ac
cidents or mere facts than in laws. And, if he be
lieves in laws, it is more for the sake of his external
safety than because of gratitude.
In his obscured mentality he does not discriminate
between superspiritual, spiritual and natural laws,
each of which constitutes such a distinct and vital
part of our life. Everything is "nature" and "nat
ural" to him, a sort of a vague fatalistic generation.
Moreover, to him all sublime things in life are not
realities but mere ideals, at which, without individual
effort or responsibility, our world may eventually
arrive. This characterization does not pertain merely to
educated naturalistic radicals but to humanity at
large. The average man has more intense faith in
and devotion to nature, than faith in and devotion
to God. It is so much easier to satisfy the undiscrim-
inating, cloudy and irresponsible human spirit with
natural effects, even at the loss of virtuous values.
In the proud soul there is no substantial ground

124 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

for profound and life-permeating responsibility and
consequent gratitude. Yet he may casually feel
gratitude to the one who serves his personal ambi
tions, only to dismiss and forget him when another
renders greater service to his selfish plans.
Human gratitude oscillates according to the in
tensity of personal satisfaction. Few are grateful for
material assistance and still fewer for spiritual help,
which is the greatest help in our life. Workers in
behalf of profit are more readily followed than
workers in behalf of the spirit, who may be dis
tantly respected but rarely loved. The power of
gratitude, which, in the will, is the main motive
power of sacrifice, is absent.
The virtuous man delights in gratitude, but to the
proud it is a burden and a mortification. He fears
to lower his captious honor by honoring a truly
honorable deed. Surely, where gratitude does not
flow with full power from the holy source of divine
faith and devotion, its action cannot be otherwise
than brief, timid and ineffective, in any bond of
friendship and human sympathy.
Nothing is more sympathetic than a living grati
tude, and nothing more unsympathetic than ingrati
tude. The virtuous soul works for the sake of
gratitude, as an indispensable power of his dignity.

 PASSIONS OF THE WILL  125
The unvirtuous shuns this holy work with the super
cilious excuse that all men are ungrateful.
Religious Indolence
Fortitude is the virtue which sustains the energy
for sanctification, for perseverance in holy life, and
which imparts triumph over evil.
The unvirtuous man has no interest in sanctifica
tion, hence all his energies are applied to purely
selfish aims, to unrestrained independence and the
power of ruling others by his will. "The will to
power" is his sole aim and motive.
Lacking faith in and devotion and gratitude to
God, he strives with all the power of his psychic
forces to lift himself above the servile and helpless
masses, for the sake of mere gain and vanity.
The Voice of God is of little or no concern to
him, except as expressed in publicly established laws,
which he frequently circumvents. He appreciates the
spirit of law for the compulsion of others, but not
for himself. His will is obstinately set for dishonor
able self-gratification. Vanity and lust are his
greatest delights.
On those who thwart his will be wreaks ven
geance. Having faith only in his ego, devoted to his
personal lusts and with no religious sense of honor,

1 26 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
one can easily imagine his corrupting character. Re
ligiously indolent and irreligiously active, substitut
ing his little voice for the Voice of God, such a
man, irrespective of confessional pretenses, is the real
atheist and the cause and abetter of all moral and
social anarchy.
While perseverance in virtue is followed by a
gradual uplift of the soul to holy life, the obstinate
and capricious activity of the unvirtuous soul mani
fests more and more clearly the utter lack of the
religious substance of honor, highmindedness and
frankness. His assumed honor is staged artificially
by external display. There is a selfish bargain in
every mental process and a disguised motive in every
aim. Lofty deeds, righteous thoughts and loving kind
ness are displaced by selfish stratagems, artifices and
a casual comfortable generosity. What kind of
leadership can humanity expect if the time and
means of their accepted leaders are not employed
for the installation of the highest principles of life?
Surely, there are in this class many well meaning
men, who would be happy to aid in the establish
ment of better human conditions, but they have no
character of virtuous fortitude. All their organized
efforts have a selfish aim. And the masses, learning

PASSIONS OF THE WILL 127

more by imitation than by other means, are infected
by this spirit of religious indolence, which is the
most prolific ground for hate and vengeance.
Thus, instead of rising through the virtuous tri
umph over the evil, humanity is reaping helplessness,
its logical antithesis.
It is inherent in the power of the will to attain,
through personal conquest, the will's inmost life and
joy. If the conquest is not virtuous, it must, regard
less of all extenuation, be wicked. There is no al
ternative. Wickedness is the most insidious force, the most
deceitful condition, and the most thoroughly con
cealed liar of the soul and, consequently, the con
temner of divine laws, and pride in its true garb.
Accordingly, if there is no virtue in the soul,
wickedness becomes rampant, and it is more through
sheer defense against wickedness than through al
legiance to the laws of God that humanity sustains
its weak fabric of laws. Not only is this terrible fact
proved by the protective spirit of our legal institu
tions but also by the fact that almost every stranger
we meet is regarded more with suspicion than with
confidence. This fear of wickedness is the con
sequence of our unvirtuous state and plainly in
dicates the necessity for the war on all evil.

128 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
The individual soul is the ground of all battles.
All virtuous means must be employed for this con
quest. And the only effective and lasting means is
fortitude and perseverance in the allegiance to the
Voice of God, the sole might of virtuous life.
No one fears a man with a great conscience, for
it is known everywhere that he is the only one who
can be implicitly trusted, and that the best help
comes from him who faithfully and simply represents
the divine spirit in his soul.
Spiritual Misery
The logical contradiction of the virtue of beati
tude is spiritual misery, which manifests itself
through insecurity, unrest and infelicity.
How can a spiritual being feel secure without a
profoundly grounded faith in and devotion and
gratitude to the superspiritual source of his life,
which is God?
How can a will be powerful and firm without the
title of divine childship? The title of the unvirtuous
soul is his own will and almost everybody claims the
right to this title. Hence the field for strife is always
prepared by willful men.
Their conception of security consists in despoiling
others by legal or illegal means, in order to obtain

 PASSIONS OF THE WILL J29
that security which is common to all rapacious ani
mals. Their whole mentality runs in underground
channels of cunning, unable to lift its eyes to the
sun of conscience. Conscience is no more a security
than is holiness. Neither is believed in by them.
Their hearts are not vessels of sacrificial love, as
God demands, but gaudy nests for themselves and
their intimate associates.
The providential history of Divine operation has
always ground these fortresses of human selfishness
and heartlessness into dust, but the proud being never
learns. He fears everything, man, animals, his own
shadow and the very thought of Divine justice.
Thus imbued with this cowardly spirit, without
trust in God and no trust in man, and restless through
the lack of religious security, he continues to chase
after the fleeting idols of his unvirtuous imagina
tion until the end of his earthly days.
How happy he would be could he only substitute
some of his past intentions for many of his past
deeds! How restful and contented he would feel!
Others do not even have that much feeling of re
pentance. They consciously have nothing to repent.
To them life is a mere natural fact which is fateful
in its very nature and such is their death. Immortal
responsibility often lurks in their minds, but is never
admitted into their hearts. To such souls death

130  RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
is a disaster and life a patent nonsense. They live
in order to die.
The happiness of unvirtuous souls consists in pas
sions for vain ambitions, greed and lust, none of
which can be satisfied without violation of con
science. And they are fully conscious that this sort of
happiness is as brief as is its dishonorable motive.
Not having any divine interest in his heart, the
passionate being longs for material and physical in
toxication, and, instead of devoting his life to the
highest spiritual dignity, he bows down to the low
est animal indulgence, and, for the fleeting morsels
of external joy, reaps self-condemnation, bitterness
and despair, the logical consequence of unvirtuous
conduct. The testaments of great souls never vanish. They
constitute the indestructible testimony of the might
of conscience, by virtue of which humanity is slowly
rising from its spiritual misery. They have left en
lightenment and encouragement to godly life and,
above all, the example of sacrifice and the spirit of
eternal beatitude, which they have sealed with their
lives. The testaments of the worldly mighty have all
vanished and owing to their ungodly spirit always
do and must vanish without leaving the slightest trace
of gratitude behind them.

 PASSIONS OF THE WILL  [3|
Religious misery is the direct result of our sinful
state, of faithlessness, impiousness and ingratitude to
God. A spirit closely bound to earth is unable to lift
itself to divine spheres. The yoke which holds it to
the earthly level is its own conscienceless will, and
regardless of all grumbling and cavilling, it has only
itself to blame.
In each moment of his life man's inward attitude
is the outcome of his self-chosen aims. He always
is what he wants to be.

PASSIONS OF THE MIND
The habitual practice of pride darkens the con
science and intellect of the soul. Without the clear
light of God, it sees little or nothing of the holy,
true and lovable purpose of universal life. It sees
merely its own selfish sentimental and material inter
est and perceives its own ego as the outstanding fact
in the midst of a vast, mysterious world.
The three distinct passions of this state are con
ceit, ignorance and duplicity.
Conceit
Egocentric in his will, the unvirtuous soul cannot
be otherwise than egocentric in his mind, for thoughts
always follow the tendency of the will.
It is true that desire is the father of our thoughts,
but it is equally true that the will is the maker of
all desires. Desires are the effectual and not the
original power of the soul. It is precisely this
psychological fact which the unvirtuous soul is
loath to acknowledge, for this fact spells innate re
sponsibility for all our sentiments.
In order to avoid this psychological fact, logically
so true and practically so patent, the tortuous mind
132

PASSIONS OF THE MIND 1 33

of man invents all possible and impossible theories,
extenuations and palliations in order to escape the
innate responsibility for the God-given dignity of
our divine childship.
The soul is essentially a religious being and each
man of honor ought to engrave this most rational truth
in his mind with flaming letters. It is the lack of the
vision and sense of responsibility to God and every
creature which causes all wickedness and the ap
palling conceit and blindness of man.
Conceit is blindness in relation to the light of
God. Where the soul is determined to be inde
pendent from the Will of God, it cannot be de
pendent from the light of God. Since the soul must
have some light for its vision, it takes its own limited
reason as the infallible standard of views without
responsibility to God.
Conceit lies mainly in the irresponsibility of
thought. Indeed, the conceited being wants respon
sibility for others, but not for himself. He does not
love responsibility as the great, underlying power of
our mutual relations, except when it favors his selfish
aim. This passion indicates clearly the reason for
human falsehoods, for falsehood is the logical course
of pride in the mental attitude of the independent,
self-centered will.

1 34 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

Due to this cause, human visions in all fields of
knowledge are prejudiced and confused. Dogmas
battle with dogmas and philosophical theories, which
again combat dogmas and other theories. And
political, social and experimental sciences are in a
continuous vortex of perplexity.
In this spiritual fermentation is more conceit and
assumed authority than truth and love. This strife
itself plainly indicates the unholy motive of those
who claim to be the heralds of truth. In each direc
tion conceit rends apart every better effort, because
blindness is essentially discord.
Everybody speaks of principles, causes and aims,
but only a few take these important terms into seri
ous consideration. These terms are not often ap
plied to the dignity and aim of our life, but merely
to selfish ends.
The principles of conscience and honor are neither
taught nor known in any creed or theory of morals.
Yet is there anything more important in our whole
life than these two divine factors?
Without a highly educated conscience and honor
we cannot but remain blind to the sublimity of our
spiritual inwardness and the true knowledge of life.
Eliminate the will to holiness, the mind to truth and
the heart to love, and what remains of the human
being? An unspeakable horror.

PASSIONS OF THE MIND 1 35

We do not need to reach back into history for
human horrors. We have them before us now. And
what is the cause? Wickedness of will and conceit
and blindness of mind, due to ruthless pride and
religious ignorance.
Divine light needs no historical dogmas for its
support. On the contrary, creeds need the support
of divine light. The fact that they became so unin
spiring proves their lack of divine light. Were the
creeds as true as they all claim to be, all denomina
tional disputes and hostilities would vanish and the
most inspiring revival of religion which humanity has
ever witnessed would take place on this earth.
But to accomplish this world-reforming task will
require far more self-denial, a profounder spirit of
truth, an elimination of prejudices, a greater vitality
of virtuous life and above all a greater heart than is
possessed by the majority of those who preach the
various gospels of religion. Only then will the true
reformation of mankind take place.

Religious Ignorance
As wisdom is the course of our practical activity
according to divine light and conscience, thus ignor
ance is the course of the practical activity according
to conceit and religious blindness.

1 36 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

What worth have deeds, thoughts and sentiments
which have no intrinsic and permanent relation to
our religious destiny? There is a striking irration
ality in the whole human system. Religious lead
ers are conspicuously discordant among themselves.
Political leaders are still more discordant and al
ways intent on material gain and vain ambition.
Statesmen and legislators with great hearts and con
sciences are as rare as great prophets. The rich hold
firmly to their legally privileged station and, dis
dainful of the masses, enjoy themselves according to
their own fancies, as if there were no God, no con
science and no self-respect on this earth. The poor,
who comprise the masses of humanity, live in ig
norance, helplessness and misery, crying to God for
mercy or threatening the temporary owners of this
world with vengeance. And the few with virtuous
insight are the voices in the wilderness. This is the
image of our present world.
True, this image has always been thus and has
never undergone a radical change save in one sig
nificant development. The spirit of vengeance is
becoming more strongly organized. This spirit may
cause the destruction of our modern civilization, un
less a heavenly ray of divine light inspires the small
group of nobler souls to avert the greatest calamity
which has ever threatened the human family.

 PASSIONS OF THE MIND  [37
Fortunes are spent daily on every possible whim
but not for the education of the human character.
Educational institutions teach everything except the
necessary attainment of religious- worthiness. And
the average man strives and thinks without the
knowledge and love of his real destiny.
Can one imagine a more absurd situation? Does
not conscience tell us that this situation should not be
tolerated? Yet, where ignorance and not the light
of God in conscience is the leader in our inward
ness, we are unable to live any other life than that
of sheer absurdity.
How big the proud man considers himself in the
moment of his success and how that bigness deflates
during his disappointment or in the last hours of
his earthly life. He never thinks in terms of eternity
and, like every fool, strives only for momentary suc
cess. How helpless is the tiller of the soil or the worker
in the factory. Everything that technical skill can
furnish is provided to increase the productive ef
ficiency of his muscles, with too little provision
for the higher efficiency of his life. What is the
purport of his labor? Is it merely the sustenance of
his bodily needs? This would place him on a par
with animals, who labor only to supply their im
mediate physical wants.

1 38 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

We are told that fields and factories are not
educational institutions. If they are not educational,
what are they? Is not labor ennobling and idleness
degrading ? Why is the ultimate motive and purpose
of labor not made clear in our factory organizations?
Because there is no godly purpose in these establish
ments. The beneficial effect of such establishments
derives more from providential conditions than from
the good motives of men.
The stronger rarely makes it the issue of his life
to help his weaker brethren. Ignorant, through pride
and conceit, he fails in his destiny. He fails to build
better human relations and to reap immortal honor
and gratitude.
Ignorance is the result of ignoring conscience and
no soul is released from the responsibility for its con
sequences.
Duplicity
Simplicity is the last virtue of the high mentality
of the virtuous soul and duplicity the passion of the
low mentality of the unvirtuous soul. Its specific
features are insincerity, untruthfulness and immod
esty of attitude.
How is it possible for a man without a living religi
ous faith, devotion and gratitude, which means,

PASSIONS OF THE MIND 139

without the religious bond of lofty and pure mental
ity, to be sincere?
Not being faithfully attached to the light of God
and religious wisdom, he cannot see sincerity as the
necessary manifestation of his good will. Thus, in
order to cover the weakness of his will, he employs
affectation, speciousness and cautious reserve. He
seldom asks a direct question or gives a direct an
swer. His whole mentality is crooked, tortuous and
confused. His motives are timid and insensitive with regard
to good actions and rather alert to everything com
mon or low. Hence the usual manifestation of sus
picion instead of trust and faith.
His energy for the good being small or wholly
absent, the insincere man lives on motives of self-de
fense, just as all animals do. The plan of holy life
never enters his mind and, being inwardly distrust
ful, owing to lack of religious faith, he trusts nobody
and nothing except his will to attain an immediate,
transient aim. If he fails in this selfish trust, which
so frequently happens, his distrust becomes deeper
and more firmly entrenched.
Sincerity is practically the good, open will, as
God wants us to be, and insincerity the exact reverse.
The sincere soul has nothing to conceal, even if it
has sinned. We are all sinners.

140 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

This fateful state ought to bind us with all the
more mutual compassion and help. We need more
encouragement, enlightenment and inspiration than
condemnation. But only men with great sincerity of
religious character are able to infuse into humanity
these heavenly powers.
Sincerity or insincerity constitute the first test of
man's character and the second test is truthfulness or
untruthfulness. In these two unconcealable mani
festations each soul lays bare the power or the
weakness of its character.
Sincerity is the volitional and truthfulness the
mental expression of the virtuous character, while
insincerity is the volitional and untruthfulness the
mental expression of the unvirtuous character.
Truthfulness always follows sincerity and untruth
fulness insincerity. The insincere motive may be
more or less cleverly concealed, but never can un
truthfulness. For this reason the cunning mind of
the untruthful is always prone to indistinct and two-
sided statements, that, in the event of exposure, there
may remain a loop hole of escape from the indict
ment of malice.
This practice in human life is too common to need
further explanation. Yet, when we consider its
presence in the structure of religious doctrines and
in international and social covenants, we must not

PASSIONS OF THE MIND 141

wonder that humanity has no faith in what it is
taught to believe.
Humanity is faithless because those who should
lead us to truth and give the living example of truth
fulness are themselves either powerless or unwilling
to believe in truth. They are not virtuous as leaders
ought to be. How can we expect sincere devotion
from mankind to ideals which benefit more the few
than the many?
Truthfulness is the ideal bond of esteem and love,
and untruthfulness is the disruption of this bond.
Untruthfulness is a living lie, a crime against God
and man, the denial of each righteous expectation
and the breeding source of all disasters. It is the dis
regard of holy testimony which causes the character
istic of deceit so common to all cunning brutes. It
creeps into all human relations, into all stations of
life, and even vaunts its cleverness.
In his irreligious ignorance, the passionate soul
realizes neither the terrible dishonor of false and
evasive statements nor the fact that all crimes begin
with a lie. The untruthful standpoint toward God
can bear no other fruit.
The last expression of the passion of duplicity is
the immodesty of the soul's inward attitude.
Being detached from the eternal principle of Di
vine holiness, truth and love, one can easily imagine

142 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

the fate which befalls the unvirtuous man. Floating
on the restless waves of passion, the boastful man
vaunts himself, that others may see and admire his
position and his attainments. But when submerged
in the depths and buried by the never-ceasing volume
of nameless other passions, he cries to God for mercy
or to man for help.
This is the inward image of the boastful man.
He is always immodest in success and correspond
ingly dejected in failure or disappointment in the
pursuit of idols. There is no virtuous weight to his
will, no balance to his mind, and his sentiment, bored
by its own emptiness, flutters from one external
thing to another.
Where the soul's spiritual forces are not closely
allied with the Voice of God and where His holi
ness, truth and love are not the eternal types of our
life, man conceives all sorts of pitiful types of
human vanity, hypocrisy, arrogance and shameless-
ness, the destroyers of the sublime sense of divine
adoration. The boastful man always lays bare the barren
ness of his proud and empty soul, the hypocrite
his sanctimonious artificiality, the arrogant his rude
ness, and the shameless the total absence of inward
honor. Sham is the intrinsic tendency of each pas
sion, and it cannot fail to delude itself.

PASSIONS OF THE MIND 143

Consequently, no man is so greatly mortified as
he who suffers the consequences of his immodest
attitude and standpoint of life. His self-made
heaven has disappeared. His purchased friends
have gone. The bright world of his selfish optimism
becomes dark. His dull mind broods and sees noth
ing but the crushing of all his hopes and sentiments.
Fortunate is he who, in this fearful extremity, can
raise his voice to God and plead for mercy. But
the unvirtuous soul is often so full of falsehood
that he rather gives himself to despair than seeks
for the gate of repentance and rehabilitation. He
blames everybody and everything except himself.
Even now he does not permit conscience to speak
to him, for he knows that conscience is true and
that he is not true. He feels what he has never felt
before, his torturing unimportance, and often resorts
to suicide as his sole deliverance.
The supreme law of God for man is divine child-
ship, and this means to be inwardly humble, true
and full of love. Religious simplicity of character
is the affirmation of divine childship, and duplicity
its denial.

PASSIONS OF THE HEART
The heart is the spiritual vessel in which all
habitual determinations are placed and kept as the
fruitional achievement of the will and the intrinsic
property of the soul. The life of the will consists
in living on its own sentiments, because these con
stitute its real wealth or poverty and the power and
flavor of its being.
The heart is the infallible image of the soul's
inwardness, in which image is engraven the truthful
record of its good or evil sentiments. No step or
thought is taken without the soul's heart. Instinct,
impulse, aspiration, all of these come from the heart,
which burns like a spiritual furnace.
Sentiments are the heat of spiritual life, but it is
the self-conscious will that produces the spiritual
heat. Some sentiments incline toward a certain
object with more intensity than others, for the will,
by continuous habit of its determination in a par
ticular direction, makes them more intense.
Thus each soul is responsible for its sentimental
complex as well as for the intensity or passiveness
of each particular sentiment. 144

PASSIONS OF THE HEART 145

The soul has the freedom to choose such senti
ments as it desires to possess. Associations merely
influence the sentimentality of spiritual beings, but
they have no compulsive or coercive power. The
will is intrinsically free. It cannot be compelled
without its own consent. Environments are only
conditions for expressing its freedom.
There are three cardinal passions in the evil sen
timental complex of the soul; hate, unrighteous
ness and selfishness.
Hate
Hate is the spiritual opposite of love.
Love consists in adoring the might and truth of
worthiness and of the profound desire to possess
worthiness, while hate lives on uncontrolled con
tempt, irrespective of actual conditions and without
any sense and aim of worthiness. In other words,
love constitutes the sacrificial tendency of worthiest
adoration, consisting in the constant willingness to
offer its sentiments to the highest, the holiest and
the truest reality of life.
Hate has no such purpose. Proud, self-willed
and self-centered in its determination, and conceited
and assuming in its mentality, all that it wants is
independent self-assertion. Hate is the spirit of

146 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
vanity, of self-contemplation, self-indulgence and of
the scorn of and apathy toward everything above
its unworthy standpoint.
Hating souls are out of all bonds of allegiance
to holiness, truth and love, and the fact that many
crimes and sins are committed in moments of hate
proves the absence of these holy bonds.
Hate is full of falsehood, because its very sen
timent is false. It never estimates men or facts
according to the Divine law of love and conscience,
but according to the degree of the intensity of
strictly personal feeling and the habit of its pride.
Thus it always exaggerates the faults of others
in order to inflate its own vanity. It criticizes and
cavils without constructive intentions and belittles
or forgets the merits of others in order to avoid the
acknowledgment of its own baseness. It is always
noisy and destructive in its motive, and, conscious
of the great weakness of the human character, it
makes use of this weakness for its own ends.
Like an infectious pestilence, hate penetrates
religious denominations, nations, classes, families
and individuals.
Its evil spirit is cruel. It knows no sacrifice and
no charity. Conscience is not its rule. Thus, if
hate cannot subdue everything within its reach, it
seeks to destroy. All ungodly conquests are insti-

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 1 47
gated by hate and achieved by the wicked means
of destruction.
The wicked and dishonorable standpoint toward
God and His sacrificial plan of creation is the actual
cause of all human hatred.
The hating soul has no faith in divine participa
tion, cooperation and affirmation. It does not
believe in divine childship and human brotherhood
and wants no Voice of God as the rule of its life.
All it wants is self-willed pride, vanity and lust.
Toward the weaker it displays contempt and
toward the stronger envy, the secret abetter of all
malice. Devoid of inward self-esteem, which flows
from the living faith in God", the hater has no power
for the worthy appraisal of life. Therefore he
stoops to the adoration of the flesh in order to satiate
his craving desires.
The heart is full of desires. They are the very
life of the heart. Hence, if the heart is not virtuous,
its desires must be unworthy.
Sensual delight, which is merely a providential
means of procreation and permissible only in life
long bonds of mutual unselfish love for the exclusive
aim of rearing virtuous children, becomes the devour
ing passion of the soul.
Legal and illegal means are widely employed in
order to indulge in this destructive idol of sensuality.

148 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
Conscience, honor, faithfulness, the energy of will,
the cultivation of high mentality and sacrificial sen
timents, even health and means, are thrown to the
winds in this animal devotion to lust.
This world-wide calamity, unrestrained by pub
lic educational methods, accounts for the stupendous
lack of great thinkers, preachers, artists and great
leaders of humanity.
Accumulation of wealth and sensual luxuries
always have and always will paralyze and cripple
the divine sense of sacrifice in man.
Not possessing sacrificial sense in his heart, and
devoted not to the worthiness but to the lust of
life, the passionate soul always searches for those
means which enhance sensual luxuries.
Wealth has only one intrinsic value, and this
value lies in its material power as a means for the
education of the human character. No other value
can be conscientiously attributed to wealth, as is
evidenced by the injustice and inefficiency of its
distribution and by its corrupting effects.
If this intrinsic value of material means is not
taken into serious account, as it rarely is, the soul,
intent on luxury, devotes its energy to greed.
Envy is the instigator of hate, and greed is its
executor. Greed is cruel in all its motives. To grab,
regardless of conscience, sacrificial feeling, righteous

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 1 49
insight, and contempt of human necessities, is its
very life. All legal and illegal means, alluring
promises and false pretenses are employed in order
to satiate its devouring spirit.
Economy, competition, progress and patriotism
are the vehicles on which the moloch of greed rides
to its goal of vanity and luxury and boastfully pro
claims its achievements to be the result of superior
energy and intelligence. The power of personal
energy serves as a pretext with which to conceal
the motive to crush the ignorant and the weak.
Greed is not interested in the elevation but the
exploitation of the masses. It gives as little as pos
sible for the crying educational needs of man and
keeps as much as possible for the ill-gotten privilege
of its station.
Intrinsically heartless and ignorant, the greedy
soul looks like a combination of a rat and a wolf,
the former working underground and the other
above the ground in order to appease its abysmal
hunger for wordly riches. Greed is a passion fit
only for the lowest animals, and not for those who
have conscience and honor in their souls.
Envy, greed and sensuality are the trio on which
hate, with its inward pride and vanity, lives. They
are the supporters of the concealed hate of every
thing divine, of everything that is glorious, true and

150 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
sacrificial. The degrees of the intensity of this hate
and its application in life are innumerable, and
innumerable are its daily manifestations.

Unrighteousness
Righteousness is the holy guardian of sacrificial
and worthy values, and unrighteousness the violator
and abuser of these sacred values.
The inherent tendency of unrighteousness is to
corrupt, betray or appropriate everything in the
spiritual and material spheres of life that oppor
tunely presents itself as an object of prey and malice.
Its malicious and predatory spirit is conscious of
the general trustfulness of mans- and it is this trust
fulness which unrighteousness undermines and
destroys. With envy, mendacity, avarice and sen
suality as its main motives, it spreads calumny, dis
regards truth and honesty and indulges in carnal
appetites, resulting in assaults on honor, benevo
lence and innocence.
Unrighteousness is the temper of wickedness,
capable of attuning itself to every human emotion
in order to obtain a selfish satisfaction or profit. Its
force of conviction is strictly personal interest, with
out God and conscience. Its forces of persuasion
are cunning and embellished lies, and its force of

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 151
sentiment an assumed and elaborated sympathy in
order to attain its base aims and purposes.
Perverted in his motives and sentiment, the
unrighteous man can use no other representation
than false pretexts and ungrounded assumptions. If
his promise fails, he, with feigned regret, offers the
excuse that he, too, is deceived.
He always begins with a lie and ends with a lie.
When exposed and condemned, he still endeavors
to palliate his crimes, and, if unsuccessful, appeals
to mercy — he who had no compassion for the
righteously earned honor, means and innocence of
his fellow-beings.
Even his remorse is insincere, for, if it were sin
cere, he would use all his efforts to repair the com
mitted wrong. He grieves far more over his own
immediate misfortunes than for those who through
long periods of time have suffered through his
wickedness. Unrighteousness is so insidious that the clever
criminal usually evades the weak fabric of estab
lished laws and is even able to sustain a superficial
respectability, supported by an occasional display of
benevolence from his ill-gotten gains.
If his astuteness fails him and his crime is
revealed, he often strives to avail himself of cor
ruptive means with those who are conscience-bound

152 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
to be the faithful interpreters and defenders of
human justice. Nothing is holy, nothing is true,
and nothing is sacrificial to the unrighteous.
Our world suffers from the disregard and laxity
of justice and is ruled not by righteousness, but by
schemes of inflated vanity cloaked in a thin garb
of justice. There is an unrighteous competition of
creeds, nations, classes, corporations, families and
individuals under the name or without the name
of God, with little or no spirit of God in the hearts
of men.
It is this fact which fills the religious soul with
anxiety for the future of humanity. That humanity
has survived more than one disaster is no consola
tion, but a fatalistic statement. Such statements
overlook the tremendous spiritual losses and suffer
ing which these disasters have caused and, with
each recrudescence, are bound to cause again.
Surely, the privileged classes always suffer less
than the unprivileged ones. Hence their optimistic
oracles are no safe gauge for security and progress.
Spiritual progress, moreover, rarely comes from these
quarters. It has come mainly from those who suf
fered crucifixion, burning, prisons, calumnies, starva
tion and all sorts of persecution, but with the burn
ing love of God in their righteous hearts. Nothing
has been too difficult for them to surmount and

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 153
endure in order to render the greatest possible serv
ice to humanity; that very humanity which is so
passive to the religious sublimity of our life.
Are there better fields of glory than the fields of
righteousness? Is the better half of mankind pre
pared for the most decisive battle of our life? God
demands righteousness to prove the esteem and love
of conscience. Man demands righteousness in order
to have faith in and respect for his fellow-beings.
Even animals expect righteousness from man in
order to feel his superiority over themselves.
But the unrighteous soul considers neither the
Voice of God nor faith and respect. All he does
consider is his own ungodly selfishness. He steals
the divine sanction of honor and considers it his own
property. He assumes power without the divine
title of sacredness. He feels that he owes nothing
to anybody except to himself. He lives in order
to dictate his arbitrary will, and not in order to
render worthy service, as" all righteous and mighty
spirits do.
He wastes his life on egotistic nothingness and
on those he gratuitously favors. No sacred merit
is ever seriously considered. He leaves behind
him no clear marks of honorable deeds, no ideas
which are the products of high and worthy intellect,
and no sentiments that awaken immortal gratitude.

1 54 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
God and humanity, not to speak of the higher and
lower creatures in God's universe, are of no living
interest to him; therefore it is just that he should
be forgotten.
Thus millions of souls pass through the shadow
of our sphere without ever concentrating their atten
tion upon the justice of God. They see His holy
justice in many incidents of individual and collective
life. They sometimes feel justice in their inward
ness, for they must consider it in their daily activ
ities, but they have no living love for it.
The worth of each soul is adjudicated according
to the degree of its intrinsic righteousness or unright
eousness, and accordingly the soul receives its prov
idential station in another life.

Selfishness
Goodness is the collective expression of all vir
tues, and selfishness the collective expression of all
passions. Selfishness is inherent in pride, with its vanity
and ingratitude. Here the personal self makes itself
the object of self-adoration, pretentiousness and
self-fruition. Here he demonstrates his failure of immortal
power and, being in continuous strife with other

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART  [55
self-adoring souls, he cannot reap anything but
religious misery and discontent.
Not having the divine ground as the source of
his motives, the selfish man is unable to cause
heavenly harmony, and encounters continuous obsta
cles in his achievements, which, if attained, give
only momentary satisfaction.
The human self is always bored by its own
selfishness and continually chases after external
impressions, excitements and indulgences, only to
feel the disappointment of their uselessness and
instability. He knows no mental and sentimental
discipline and culture, and his heart is obdurate and
insensitive to spiritual dignity and refinement. Intox
ication with vanity and sensuality are of very short
duration and leave disillusion and suffering as the
enduring mark of their visit.
Thus, if the self-conscious and self-sentient will
of man searches for such idols only, his intellect
must necessarily remain shallow and shortsighted.
His mind always dwells on surfaces and never
remains long enough with any worthy object to con
centrate for profounder scrutiny.
Owing to his untrained motives and ideas, his
memory Qflflgpt hold profounder. thoughts, of which
he has a capal glimpse, but of which he is unable
to avail himself for his own spiritual benefit. This

156 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
state causes his skeptical fatalism, in which he finds
the incentive and the excuse to care chiefly for
himself. Self-sympathetic for himself and what pleases
him, and indifferent or antipathetic to anything above
or beneath him, all his feelings circle around his
own ego, as the ground and aim of all his aspirations.
Selfishness is the logical result of all passions,
the inward unwillingness, inattention and apathy to
our glorious and immortal predestination.
The mass of men believe in God more out of
fear and the hope of unmerited blessing than because
of sincere adoration, knowledge and love of God.
Only the few have profounder religious sentiments.
There is a deeply inrooted selfish undercurrent,
inculcated by traditional pride and prejudice, in all
religious creeds. Their paramount teaching is not
Divine Fatherhood and, consequently, they do not
preeminently insist on our divine childship and
divine brotherhood, all of which constitute the real
and actual essence of religion.
By reason of this fact the gates of hypocrisy and
fanaticism are broadly open, resulting in mutual
disrespect, hatred, persecution and the fiendish con
demnation to "eternal" torture. A confession with
out regard to the Voice of God, despite its wish
to the contrary, can be nothing else but a mental

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 157
and sentimental distortion of the divine spirit of
religion. This selfish standpoint, together with the want of
knowledge of the divine cause and aim of our exist
ence, is responsible for the general religious confusion
and inertness.
Many great names have been written on the ban
ners of religion in the effort to further its mission
and, while many of them produced a temporary
awakening, religious progress is slow and still
remains far from its ultimate aim.
The very grandeur of religion demands a great
world vision. It cannot be confined, as it always
has been, to local or temporary sources. We must
know the might of God in all its manifestations.
We must know the very essence and purport of our
souls. We must know at least the general structure
and significance of the whole universe before we
shall be able to recognize the futility, ignorance and
shame of our selfish life.
Selfishness brings us down to the comparison with
animals. The selfish soul never compares himself
with the great spirits above or the best spirits among
us, in order to profit by their experience. In his
spiritual littleness he compares himself with his
equals or, more frequently, with those who to him

1 58 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
appear less important than himself, in order to enjoy
his self-satisfaction.
He is nearly as self-centered in his little heart,
as self-willed, suspicious, cunning, vain, greedy and
sensual as animals are. His spirit knows no broader
harmonies of life, but is tribal and gregarious. He
never attempts to search for better associations in
order to attain greater spiritual tastes and visions.
And, if he finds such associations, they do not
respond to his arbitrary will and wishes.
His senses are mainly concentrated on things
material, and not on spiritual honor and conscience.
Yet he always appeals to conscience for the sake
of his selfish aims. He makes conscience the instru
ment of his selfishness. If he is cultured, in the
worldly sense, he becomes all the more dangerous,
for his superficial amenities are more enticing and
the object of his prey more easily caught.
Our world is full of tacticians of selfishness.
They assume the garb of respectability. They speak
deliberately and cautiously. They not only appeal
to the sentiment of profit but also to the sentiment
of happiness. The whole human weakness is care
fully studied and, by means of clever ingratiation
and flattery, conquered for his selfish ends. "I have
got him," is his triumphant sentiment. And, just
as he deceives others, he himself is deceived, and

PASSIONS OF THE HEART 1 59

ultimately believes that no man can live without
deceit and be materially successful. This conclu
sion, based on human experience, reveals the obvious
indictment of the selfishness of the human race.
Material objects have only instrumental value.
If instruments are mistaken for the aim of life, then
our inner sense of worthiness and of our divine voca
tion must suffer.
It is the suffering from the want of this divine
power which causes our passions and the ungodly
disorder among us. In a vortex of passions it is
impossible to have clear visions of our sublime des
tiny and a heart with pure sentiments. It is impos
sible to have motives which reach out beyond our
little ego unless the practice of goodness is more
encouraged. Goodness, being the general expression of vir
tuous life, by virtue of this fact becomes the intro
duction and inducement to virtues. In itself the most
patient virtue, all it demands is little acts of benevo
lence and kindness frequently repeated. A little
good deed which any child can perform, a good,
sincere counsel which every man ought to be able
to give, a little encouragement and cheer to every
body, is an enjoyment of the goodness of life itself.
In order not to fail in these acts, greater restraint
of our passionate impulses, a gradual abatement of

160 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
the mere lust of life and of the most insisting passions
must be applied, that our hearts may attain purer
and sublimer sensibilities.
Furthermore, the virtuous spirit must be gradually
fostered until it penetrates into the deepest recesses
of the heart, becomes the root of all sentiments, and
until it bears the heavenly fruit of greater sacri
fices. Only then will our souls rejoice in true
happiness. The intellectually gifted man ought to turn his
mind toward his own inwardness and apply intro
spection and self-observation of his spiritual forces,
in order clearly to see in them the shining might of
conscience and in this conscience the eternal work
of God, full of ineffable majesty, truth and love.
Here he will find all the proofs his heart desires,
not only convincing proofs but the dominating and
insisting proofs of his human dignity, profound men
tality and that great and ravishing love which knows
no other bounds than the absolute might and beauty
of God.
The strong of will, even if he is a great sinner,
has every motive to become a great saint. Nothing
has been too difficult for him in order to attain selfish
aims. Why should it be so difficult for him to
attain the eternal aim of his life? He has a stronger
determination and greater endurance and persever-

PASSIONS OF THE HEART 161

ance in the face of obstacles. He is able to suffer
more than others and has no need to show his suffer
ing. None needs to know his bleeding heart except
God and himself. All he has to do is to change his
selfish motives into unselfish motives, and live them,
in order to insure the glory and greatness of his soul.
In order to eliminate selfishness from the human
heart, the education in goodness must begin from
the cradle and never cease. Worthy life consists
in the continuous performance of good deeds. If
we miss one day in performing some good deed
we ought to weep from remorse. It is a lost and
worthless day.
Parents who do not inculcate goodness in the
hearts of their children are bad parents. The
spiritual treasures of their characters is the worthiest
inheritance. Teachers who do not explain the value
of their instruction cannot expect due reverence.
The spirit of teaching flows from sacrificial motives,
and these motives must be instilled in every learner.
Preachers who in their sermons do not hold the
esteem and necessity of goodness before their hear
ers are poor missionaries. Goodness is the most
effective mark of the divine spirit. Friends whose
first and last impulse and sentiment is not the out
flow of pure goodness are mere traders in selfish
sentiments.

1 62 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

Fortunately, not all human souls are wholly sel
fish. There are many who do a little good, but
there are too few who do much good.
If the broad spirit of goodness is not assiduously
encouraged and fostered in the human heart, little
or nothing divine can be perceived and sensed, leav
ing humanity without the spiritual remedy which
alone is able to suppress and eliminate the most com
mon ailment of our hearts.
Selfishness is the most widespread ailment and
ugliness of the soul. It clouds the conscience,
weakens the good-will, obscures the mind, chills
the heart and, if ambitious and ruthless, becomes
the wicked destroyer of that little divine sense by
virtue of which humanity barely holds its head above
the sea of sins and passions.
The destruction of passions cannot be accom
plished by the mere knowledge of the fact that we
are so full of them. We must know their psycho
logical reason in order to reach the root of all pas
sions. The cure of symptoms is not a cure of the
disease. Suppressed in one place, it affects other
vital parts until it finally accomplishes its work of
destruction. The competent diagnostician always searches for
the cause of the disease in order to attack it in its
secret habitation. He who does not thoroughly

 PASSIONS OF THE HEART 163
know the healthful structure of the body cannot
find the hidden place. Hence, unless we under
stand the divine structure of conscience, and the
structure of the soul, the elimination of passions out
of the human heart cannot be successfully achieved.
As in diet and exercise lies the secret of physical
health, so in spiritual food and work lies the secret
of the purity and sublimity of human character.

THE BODY OF THE SOUL
What is the body of the soul?
Existentially, the body of the soul is a fragment
of the universal substance of nature, created by
virtue of Divine extramanence, which constitutes the
outward might of God.
What is the purpose of the existence of the phys~
ical form of the soul?
The essential purpose of everything physical, or
nature in general and of the physical body in par
ticular, is the instrumental, illustrative and useful
manifestation of spiritual activity and value.
Why do We call bodies instrumental forces and
forms ?
Because, as facts prove, the material body has
no autonomic spiritual forces; it has neither will
nor intellect nor sentiment, but is adaptable only as
an instrument for the spiritual expression of volun
tary, intelligent and sentimental forces. It has no
autonomic, but only automatic potentiality. The
164

 THE BODY OF THE SOUL 165
human body executes all physical expressions, yet
it is the soul that plans and leads its body to this
execution. It is always the spiritual substance or
soul which controls and uses the form of the phys
ical substance or body, a fact which is proved in
our daily experience.
Why is instrumentality the first force of the body?
Because instrumentality is the means and condi
tion of outward activity, and activity is the first
spiritual form of the soul. Phvsical forces are
invariably concomitant and correspond with the
spiritual forces.
Thus the brain is only the instrument of think
ing, but not the thinking force. An architect or
builder may have many structural ideas, yet he can
not execute them concretely in order to convey them
to the vision of others without structural means.
Man cannot convey his thoughts without speech
or signs, which are essentially instrumental.
The brain is the physical instrument through
which the complex of knowledge is held and accord
ing to which the soul defines its thoughts. This,
however, by no means proves that the self-conscious
and self-sentient will is part of the brain. On the
contrary, with a little thought, everybody can see
that it is not the brain which controls the spiritual

1 66 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
forces of man, but that the soul always controls
its brain. The soul directs the brain in any direc
tion it wishes. It cultivates it morally and phys
ically, or weakens it by distractions and dissipations.
The weak human intellect is always prone to take
the instrument for realities or effects for causes of
life, a fact which clearly manifests the childishness
of the human mind and the lack of the power of
profounder insight.
The heart is the instrument for the sustaining of
physical life, just as sentiments are the actuating
and sustaining forces of our spiritual life. Like
the blood in the body, these sentiments circulate
through all parts of the soul's life. And, like the
pure blood which obtains its force from pure
atmosphere and pure and simple food, thus also
great sentiments obtain their power from the pure
spiritual atmosphere and pure, unselfish objects of
fruitional life.
The second feature of the body is its force of
illustration. Each soul, whether superhuman, human
or animal, is clearly illustrated by its body, not
only in its generic and racial but even in spe
cifically psychological features.
At the first sight of anybody we perceive the
general expression of the soul's inwardness. In
man we see the various degrees of volitional, intel-

THE BODY OF THE SOUL 167

lectual and sentimental powers, their deficiency or
their almost total absence. We see the particular
moral or immoral tendencies; also various talents
and aptitudes. We feel the moral sympathy or its
absence in the whole external attitude. We see the
influence of racial traditions and of mental and sen
timental culture, or the distinct want of culture.
The face of every man and animal is the plastic
image of the soul. Its habitual tendency and par
ticular emotions are illustrated in the form and
motions of the face and other parts of the body.
We call these expressions spontaneous, but spon
taneity is the inherent attribute of the will. Spon
taneity does not exist in a physical body. It only
expresses it, plastically and formally. The body of
the soul is merely a physical mechanism through
which the soul acts and expresses itself externally.
Each body is a mere physical instrument for the
purpose of the illustration and utility of spiritual
life. In itself it possesses neither virtue nor passion.
It only illustrates virtues and passions physically as
an external concomitant of life.
The whole nature is the external concomitant of
spiritual life. Creationally and providentially it
adheres to every spiritual being in each sphere of
existence. The highest as well as the lowest spirits
have physical bodies, each corresponding with and

1 68 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
appropriately defining the inward state of the soul.
The forms of bodies are as various as are the col
lective and particular states of souls. Since the
collective and particular states of souls are numer
ically infinite, the forms of bodies must be infinite
in their expressions. Our sphere of life furnishes
us only a very limited number of these forms,
though even these are too numerous for any human
being to know.
The evidence of the utility of bodies, and of
nature in general, is obvious and needs no further
explanation. The whole external life of nature
expresses itself most forcibly through its utility,
which adds greatly to the instruction and joy of all
good deeds, while its abuse justly punishes all who
live as if nature and body and not the great spiritual
destiny were the sole aim of life.
Is it possible to visualize the soul and its body
in their substantial form and inseparable relation?
Yes, it is not only possible but also necessary to
see this psycho-physical form, which constitutes our
personal being, in order to understand the absolute
necessity of our inward and outward relation to
God and the holy purpose of our life. This subject
is explained in the last chapters of the work "The
Face of God and the Plan of Divine Creation."

 THE BODY OF THE SOUL 169
Has the body of the soul a religious value?
Indeed it has. Like everything material in the
universe, being strictly instrumental, illustrative and
useful in its essence, thus also the body of the soul
is the external personal form of this physical
essence. Through this form the soul performs all its out
ward activities, reveals its own spiritual content, and
realizes its sentimental life of fruition, either worthily
or unworthily.
The body must be used as a skilled mechanician
uses his best instrument. It should always be ready
for constructive accomplishments. It ought to be
esteemed as a gift of God and, irrespective of its
natural deficiencies and ailments, regarded as the
providential means for the fulfillment of our holy
destiny. Material joys must be looked upon from the
standpoint of conscience, worthiness and the great
aim of our life, and accepted and conducted accord
ingly. All other material joys are selfish and thus
not only impede the progress of mankind, but also
contaminate and destroy the virtuous sensibilities and
refinement of the soul.

THE FUTURE LIFE
Life in its spiritual and physical singularity, by
the fact of its inherent definition, is immortal.
The pessimistic term death is not annihilation,
as it superficially appears, but a process of spiritual
transition and physical transformation of life.
As the potentiality of material elements dwells
in each natural fragment, thus the potentiality of
volitional, mental and sentimental expressions dwells
in each spiritual being.
The self-conscious and self-sentient will, which
constitutes the personality of the soul, can no more
disintegrate or its forces be separated from each
other than the natural units of fire, light and heat,
except in relative discriminations and applications.
In both instances the substantial spiritual and nat
ural units forever retain their existential forms. None
can conceive or has ever experienced a will without
thought and sentiments, a thought without will and
sentiments, or sentiment without will and thought.
Nor has anyone ever conceived fire without light
and heat, light without fire and heat, or heat with
out fire and light. 170

THE FUTURE LIFE 171

This orientation demonstrates immortality only
from the existential standpoint. There yet are two
more important standpoints from which immortality
must be considered, the spiritual and superspiritual
standpoints. Spiritual life, in its principle and evolution, has
more existential importance than natural life. The
spiritual substance, being volitional, intelligent and
sentimental, possesses a greater degree of dignity
than a mere instrumental, illustrative and utilitarian
substance. The idea and sentiment of spiritual
immortality is far more insisting than material inde
structibility. The human sense of dignity vehe
mently rejects the comparison of its essence with
matter. Every self-respecting man sacrifices all mate
rial means before he yields a moral point of his
spiritual life.
But above these demonstrations of immortality
stands the superspiritual evidence that our spiritual
forces, in order to sustain their dignity, continuously
aim at superspiritual dignity and honor as the
supreme value of their life. The human being dis
dains to be called base, false and wicked.
Dignity, wisdom and love are not integral forces
of the soul, but the ruling mights of the soul. We
attain dignity through the application of our will
to the dignity of our character. We attain wisdom

I 72 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

through thinking of what is superspiritually and
objectively true and right. And we obtain love
through the cultivation of sacrificial sentiments in
our hearts. True love demands pure and unselfish
sentiments and gives proof of the greatness and lofti
ness of the religious character.
To assert that ideas, sentiments and heroism are
immortal, and that the personal source and powei
which produces immortal ideas, sentiments and
heroism is mortal, reveals ignorance of the first prin
ciples of logic.
By what means are we best able to understand
the course of our future life?
By means of the superspiritual might and form of
justice. All religious traditions and all inward
feeling pertaining to future life are established on
the more or less profound sense of this Divine might.
In this instance, as in many other religious
instances, the anthropomorphic spirit of man casts its
shadows. Thus far we have had mainly idealistic
visions, consisting in a general promise of the con
templation of God as the ultimate aim of our life.
We have purgatories, with a final but indistinct
release to heaven. We have horrible hells in which
no consolation or salvation beckons to those who
are doomed to eternal torture. There are presenta-

THE FUTURE LIFE 173

tions of joy and punishment in the future life which
are very human and garbed in anthropomorphic
crudeness. The eschatological problem of all. creeds reflects
the lack of greatness in their proclaimed tenets and
the impotence of their invitation to the future life.
All their views are geocentric and almost domestic
in general concept and too cruel in their negative
features to cause inspiration and living interest in
our future life.
Fear has only an accessory educational value and,
if constantly exaggerated, causes servile submission,
dullness of mind and fatalistic or desperate predis
positions. Unprogressiveness and revolutions always
thrive on tyrannies.
True education consists in causing understanding
and love for the immortal grandeur of our life. If
the grandeur of our future life is not considered an
integral part of religious education, and is treated
superficially, no man can expect a living interest in
religion. All our life's efforts are consciously devoted to
the future. If it is only a matter of one future
moment, it is this future moment which constitutes
the incentive of our activity. Our whole life con
sists of a continuous chain of future moments,
because the future is the real process of our aim and

1 74 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
of life itself. What is progress or evolution if not
the inherent tendency to attain our ultimate aim?
And what is this ultimate aim if not the attainment
of the "Highest and Best," which is holiness, truth
and love, the eternally urging trinity of our life?
Indeed, we do consider our steps from the past
into the present, but we do not consider them as
diligently and as arduously as our steps from the
present into the future. The goal of our life, and
this means the goal of our dignity, understanding
and love, is always immediately before us. Either
in life or death this goal never leaves our thoughts
and sentiments.
Each accomplished individual or collective prog
ress is nothing else but a renewed fulfillment of jus
tice. But the relative justice of incidental facts
must not be confounded with the absolute justice,
which involves the whole complex of our determina
tions, ideas and sentiments, which involves the
esteem or disregard of holy bonds of fulfilled or
unfulfilled promises and the care or neglect of the
religious culture of mind and the sacrificial motives
of sentiments.
It is from this standpoint of absolute justice that
the soul which comes into and leaves our sphere of
life must be judged in order to obtain a general
insight into its past and future life.

THE FUTURE LIFE 175

Worlds and innumerable spheres of worlds are
mere providential conditions for souls which in each
instant of their lives are essentially what they have
made themselves. Thus, according to their self-
determined worthiness or unworthiness, they receive
the just and charitable conditions in which to fulfill
their destiny.
Everything existential, spiritual as well as natural,
lives in time and space. There are no planes or
states without the natural forms of time and space,
as some, in their misunderstanding of and incon
sistent aversion to nature, maintain.
God is not a mere existence, but a Superexistence
from which all existences creationally derive. His
eternity is not a part of time, however superior, but
it causes time as a natural means for the participa
tion of souls in His eternity. God is not a locality,
however spacious His extramanent or outer might
may be, but the eternal source of universal space
and the center around which all space extends.
The universe is essentially theocentric. It is
continually created by the eternal sun of Divine
extramanence, the absolute might of outward man
ifestation. Thus the universe is a great, magnificent
sphere surrounding the central sun of God.
This fact by no means intimates that God dwells
in time and space, for time and space are relative

1 76 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

to His creative might. God is not dependent from
time and space, as is a creature, because he pos
sesses the principle of both in His creative might,
a thing of which a creature is absolutely incapable.
To God, time and space are no conditions of
existence, as they are to us. He wields and rules
time and space absolutely in order to condition the
spiritual and natural existence for the cooperation
with His Divine plan, which is essentially superspir
itual. Time and space are mere natural quanti
tative conditions of relative life.
The prevalent idea that God exists somewhere
beyond the universe does not alter this so far per
plexing question. The "somewhere" cannot be
eliminated. All principal spiritual powers and natural forces
are central. This is their logical structure, reflecting
the absolute structure of Divine life and extram
anence. The spiritual will is the center of all mental
and sentimental activity. All electromagnetic or
radioactive forces have their relative centers. And
all these relative centers are held and caused to move
and circle by the absolute center of Divine extram
anence from which the all moving substance of
nature derives.
God must not be visualized from the standpoint
Df a proud aloofness, as is customary with man.

THE FUTURE LIFE 177

He is the center and the heart of the "Highest and
Best," which our poor souls are constantly using
and abusing.
The whole universe is one immense order of spir
itual spheres which, by virtue of their cooperating
intensity or passivity, are placed in corresponding
nearness to or distance from God.
In this universal sphere, incalculable to us in its
immensity, reigns the perfect order of repelling and
gravitating forces, thus forming equilibria of forces
on which are maintained the circular courses of the
groups of solar and planetary bodies.
There are many equilibria of forces, beginning
from the central sun of God and succeeding one
another at tremendous distances until they reach the
extreme outwardness, where there is neither light,
warmth nor life.
On each of these equilibrious courses travel the
innumerable solar groups like our Milky Way,
various in sizes and constellations, yet mere little
spots in the divine universe.
The greatest force is at its central issue and grad
ually diminishes with each distance. The inward
equilibria, with their groups of stellar bodies, contain
the greatest force and purity, which, with each
distance, diminishes in its power of function. There
fore, all stellar bodies coursing on the inward equi-

1 78 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

libria have far greater natural power and beauty
than have those on the outward courses.
Owing to the prevailing geocentric sense, we
employ the terms "upward" and "downward."
These terms are correct only when they mean spir
itual elevation and debasement. Yet, from the view
point of existence, they are not correct. There is
no existential "upward" and "downward," but an
inward and outward.
Souls, as well as all forces constituting the sub
stance of nature, move both inwardly and outwardly.
This is the logical circle of all movements of life.
Each volition, thought and sentiment returns to the
source of its issue in order to be reaffirmed or
rejected. Thus does each so-called element or atom.
They are produced and consumed by the substance
of nature. All processes and effects of life are in
a continuous flux of mutability, but the producing
principle remains unchangeable.
When the soul reaches the absolute principle of
its spirituality, then it lives in the principal creative
act of God, full of power, understanding, magnifi
cence and beauty. And thus does physical phenom-
enality. By the creational law of concomitance it,
too, becomes powerful, bright, magnificent and
beautiful. Souls are attracted by free and profound sym-

THE FUTURE LIFE 179

pathy with the mights of God and His ineffable holi
ness, truth and love. There is nothing in universal
life that bears any comparison with these Divine
sublimities and grandeurs. Even the wickedest soul
could not live without possessing or appropriating
at least a small part of this divine expression.
Thus, according to the degree of its religious
sympathy and intensity, the final sum of virtuous
Hfe, or according to the degree of its lack of religious
sympathy and interest, the final sum of unvirtuous
content, the soul receives its corresponding existen
tial station on the equilibrium and planet for which,
out of its own free will, it has prepared itself to
continue the course of its elevation or debasement.
Consequently, there are two distinct courses of
life which each soul is pursuing — the inward, or
generally called the upward course, and the out
ward or downward course, the former being the
course of divine approach and reconciliation and
the latter that of removal and estrangement.
The Ascent or Inward Course of Life
Participation in, cooperation with and affirma
tion of the holiness, truth and love of God is the
immutable aim and supreme justice of our life.
There is nothing comparable with the aim of the

180 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

creational act of God. Its sublimity is so patent
and its sacrificial motive so great that the first reflex
of the worthiness of our life appals and overwhelms
each thinking soul.
Even in our dreadful religious ignorance we
instinctively feel this importance of life and avail
ourselves of all possible spiritual and physical pro
tection in order to insure the continuance of the
intrinsic purpose of life itself. There is no sense
of self-preservation without the motive of the spir
itual purpose.
The divine purpose of sacrifice constitutes the
source and ground of our life. Religious cults
reveal the might of sacrifice more or less adequately,
and every man of conscience feels the value of sac
rifice in his inwardness, irrespective of culture and
traditional belief. Religious life means the life of
virtue, consisting in the following of the most sac
rificial- attributes of God.
Values of life are estimated according to their
virtuous content, and all souls, despite the claims
of various religious cults, rise by the increase, or
fall by the decrease of this virtuous content. Vir
tue is the sole divine test of personal dignity, and
the growth in virtue the sole path to divine approach
and reconciliation.
Accordingly, souls which, from their coming on

 THE FUTURE LIFE  UH
this earth until their departure, have gained in vir
tuous predisposition, as most souls are gaining, pass
to spheres which are more adequate and favorable
for further rise than ours.
There the spiritual and natural conditions are
more inspiring and beautiful and the associations
more respectful, beneficial and beatifying. As these
souls become inwardly purified from their grossest
passions, their bodies become cleaner and of a finer
form. But, above all, the will for virtuous deeds is
stronger, the intellect profounder, brighter and more
harmonious, and the sentiments loftier and more
tender to others. There is a greater spirit of divine
worship, truth and love and greater willingness for
mutual concord and soulful cordiality.
That phase of life may be of longer duration
than ours and it may repeat itself under various con
ditions until the soul makes itself ready for the next
step toward the divine approach. But not until the
next inward sphere is reached does the soul notice
the great transformation of its life. For the count
less souls living in the same sphere of suns differ
from each other only slightly, as compared with
the souls that have attained the next inward sphere.
In the stellar groups of the next inward sphere —
unattainable by our vision — the conditions of life
differ very distinctly. We know that where the

182 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

radioactive force is by thousands of light years
nearer to its radioactive center, its force is markedly
more powerful, thus causing tremendous transforma
tions and purity in natural effects.
Only souls intensely determined to live a strictly
virtuous life reach such a sphere. Compared with
our earthly life, it appears like a heaven, though
it is only the next great step in that direction. Very
few souls from this earth pass directly to those
spheres. It would take volumes to describe, how
ever imperfectly, the life in this and the following
spheres. And to describe such a life would require
a lofty and strictly logical imagination, animated
by the spirit of all virtues and an intellectual power
thus far possessed by no human being. Our world
is waiting for the great eschatological genius who
will give us the image of thousands of better lives
than ours.
Very little has been written of the future life,
and this little is very unsatisfactory. The serious
soul wants to see distinctly the justice of his future
as well as of his present life ; and he cannot see this
justice unless the great might and magnificence of
virtues are made clear to him.
The study of the power of virtues is the abso
lute condition of the understanding of the true mean
ing of our life. This study demands a strictly

 THE FUTURE LIFE 183
religious self-observation, which seems to be of so
little interest to the average man. Where this self-
observation from the standpoint of conscience is not
practiced, man will never be prepared to see and
love and can have neither interest in nor devotion
to the justice of the highest and best in life.
Thus, if justice is not the most palpable power
of our dignity and character, it cannot become the
living motive of our aims. We may more or less
willingly submit to it, but we shall have no implicit
trust in its world-embracing might.
We do not endeavor to see the justice of every
living object, nor even the justice of our own being,
but we are inclined to see everything as objects of
our selfish desires. Conscience and dignity are not
the moving factors of our life. We appeal to them
for our own sake, but we do not live them, and we
submit to them rather through necessity than through
love. Conscience and dignity are impossible without the
soul-permeating justice of God. Justice is the most
insisting and penetrating fact in the whole creation.
We see and feel its universal might from the cradle
to the grave. Each rise and fall of man is a his
tory of justice. Worthy determinations, thoughts
and sentiments are the logic of justice, for logic is
idealized justice. No science has a permanent basis

184 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
without logic, and no logic has a permanent ground
without justice. Justice reigns supreme in all man
ifestations of life. The religious instinct of justice
in the soul, however unclear and erroneous in its
conceptual applications, is intrinsically right.
In order to present a clearer view of the great
ness of the future life, let us imagine the spiritual
force of a score of the greatest religious, philosoph
ical, poetical and artistic geniuses and natural sci
entists combined in one personality. Such a
supergenius, as we may call him, having such tre
mendous knowledge under his personal control,
would, by the fact of superior consciousness of the
interrelation of all these mental branches, be far
more powerful than the original score of geniuses
combined. If we further imagine that all mental and senti
mental defects, which even our greatest geniuses pos
sess, are replaced by profounder insight and love,
the greatness of this collective power would surpass
the expectation of the best and most hopeful intel
lects of man.
Great as this attainment appears, it is only the
beginning of a greater life, a beginning which each
soul must attain in order markedly to approach God.
In this attainment alone the average human soul
consumes centuries, not because he is not spiritually

THE FUTURE LIFE 185

adaptable or incapable of rising, but because of his
religious slothfulness and degrading self-indulgence
and egoism. Only those who are animated with
the ardor of divine allegiance and the burning con
sciousness of their eternal indebtedness and grati
tude for the divine sacrifice of their life make rapid
strides toward eternity. No volitional power is too
distant for them to attain, no suffering too painful
to endure, no apex of light too high to reach and
there is no profundity of love and sacrifice for which
their souls do not long with great intensity.
The soul must exert all its virtuous powers before
it can reach half way between our spheres and the
inward heavens. It must possess unabated energy
for sanctification, a mentality surpassing the com
bined minds of the greatest spirits and scholars of
our earth, and a sentiment full of burning love for
everything divine.
In these middle spheres the transformation of life
is already so great that our earthly knowledge
embraces too few objects to furnish an approximate
illustration. We shall see far more beautiful suns than those
in our own sphere. Because they are much nearer
to God, these suns are filled with overwhelming
expression of divine significance. Each observation
of these great suns evokes a deeply moving inspira-

1 86 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
tion. Their radiance illustrates the history of the
creative might of God. Each ray of their light is
full of ravishing wonder, permeating the outer
spheres with its beatifying might.
The atmosphere of these spheres is filled with
ecstatic fragrance. The light of truth and warmth
of love form the daily bread of spiritual fruition.
Heavenly harmonies from the inward heavens reach
these spheres and reverberate with the joy of the
ultimate promise, the relative union of the soul with
God. The bodies of the great souls resident in these
spheres are like beams of light, shining with the
peculiar hues of the soul's virtuous powers. These
souls still vary in the magnitude of their light and
the intensity of various colors which as yet are not
fully transparent. They have large freedom, and
the beautiful formations of their bodies are entirely
unlike our own dense and spiritually unappealing
forms. The power of their bodies corresponds with the
attained spiritual splendor and beauty of their souls.
By the mere effect of their tremendous wills they
control large parts of the very substance of nature
and, by means of their wonderful intellects, they
produce effects, of which the least are greater than
the greatest miracles of which man can conceive.

THE FUTURE LIFE 187

Their knowledge of nature is so surpassing that our
greatest scientists would appear beside them like
little children that have just begun to learn the
A B C of natural science.
From this station the purified and highly exalted
soul sees with great clearness the outer spheres of
worlds surrounding the sphere in which he lives.
He understands everything in all these tremendous
spheres and innumerable worlds of life, every motive
and every station of each spiritual being, and each
unit and compound of the forces and formation
of nature.
This station constitutes the first degree of univer
sal knowledge, with the corresponding power of
cooperation with the dominating and creational might
of God.
Divine justice becomes the consuming ardor of
the soul, and its activity in the outward spheres is
one of the chief tasks of life. Surely, God has
His holy heralds cooperating as urgers, guardians
and judges. Even in our distant world many of
us receive inspiration and enlightenment by virtue
of their mediation.
These great souls have learned to live under the
continuous inspiration of God, and they impart this
inspiration to their weaker brethren as an old and
virtuous friend does with a younger friend. Those

188 RELIGION OF THE SOUL
who have never experienced distinct virtuous inspira
tions are not only religiously, but also intellectually
and sentimentally, impotent and must depend on
some human testimony for their spiritual sustenance.
The divine testimony in their hearts is so weak that
they fear to trust it. This spiritual calamity is due to
the fact that they have never seriously searched for
the divine testimony in themselves.
But above all is the indescribable grandeur and
beauty of the saintly characters of these great souls
and their profoundly respectful associations. Each
collective tendency flows from a deeply grounded
brotherhood. To give the most is their life.
Here begins the great concourse for the holy pro
cession to the realms of the inward heavens. Here
the highly sanctified souls shine with ever greater
intensity of virtues and, like streams of light, each
movement a beatifying harmony, they go onward
to the profoundest source of Divine life.
The movement from the middle spheres to the cen
ter of the divine heaven is the most intense process
of life. With each approach to the most inward
spheres grows the power of the soul, and with
each degree of increased power its responsibility
before God. The neglect of this sacred trust causes
the more or less gradual fall of the great souls above
us. Great dignity involves the task of great respon-

 THE FUTURE LIFE  [89
sibility. Souls not inclined to undertake great
responsibilities must remain small, and it is this
smallness which causes the fatalistic mood in their
mentality and sentiments.
The sense of justice is sustained and developed
through great responsibilities. Hence, if the soul is
endowed with such tremendous power as it has in
the nearness to God, its responsibility grows to the
height of dignity which is inconceivable to the human
mind. We can only have a vague and subconscious
feeling of this power.
Planets, solar systems, all groups of solar systems
and the incalculable spheres, with their infinite inten
sities of life, all these are the field of their activity.
With each approach to God, the imparting of
divine power becomes greater, until the final and
supreme likeness of God is reached.
In those heavens the hierarchy of Divine holiness
is established and the perfect participation in, coop
eration with and affirmation of the ineffable and
almighty attributes of God is realized. Perfectly
sanctified souls are God-like, endowed with the
magnificence of the mights of God. Their life con
sists in the holy dominion with God and in the per
fect, though dependent, association with Him.
It requires a tremendous and accurate insight into
and a profound experience of the heavenly power of

190 RELIGION OF THE SOUL _
virtues in order to attain only an imperfect under
standing of the reality of this great life. It so
greatly transcends the power of human imagination
that only through inductive logic are we capable
of its apprehension.
The great aim of our life, however, is clear, and
each nobler soul feels this fact in his conscience and
in his heart.

The Fall or Outward Course of Life
The experience of our present life unfolds a great
variety of spiritual lapses resulting from a more or
less distinct devotion to passions.
These lapses are judged according to the
accepted standard of life. And standards of life
are caused by the more or less active power of col
lective conscience.
Thus, where the standard of life is high, indi
vidual lapses are rarer and generally less important.
In the opposite case, individual lapses are more fre
quent, graver and, if not conspicuously criminal,
they are usually considered as common occurrences.
Since the real standard of life consists intrinsically
in the virtuous dignity of life, life in all its activity,
mentality and sentimentality cannot be rightly esti
mated save from the standpoint of its highest spir-

 THri FUTURE LIFE  19[
itual dignity. All other standards are vague,
desultory and fail to lead us to the serious and right
understanding of the real value of social and indi
vidual life.
All deeds, however important or inconspicuous,
are the result of free determination, the activity of
our self-conscious and self-sentient will. Uncon
scious and unsentient deeds do not exist. Conse
quently, each unworthy deed is a clear lapse from
the worthiness, wisdom and love for which our self-
conscious and self-sentient will is created, and there
fore constitutes the intrinsic sin and dishonor of the
soul and the real evil of our life.
The whole individual and collective evil derives
from our wicked determinations, ignorance and sel
fishness, the direct consequence of the absence of
humility, wisdom and love.
There are no other evils except those deriving
from wicked determinations. All so-called natural
evils are merely the concomitant expressions or illus
trations of spiritual evils. In themselves natural
evils are no evils, for nature has neither the capacity
for nor the form of responsibility.
Spiritual life consists principally in the accumula
tion of virtuous or unvirtuous sentiments. Conse
quently, as each accumulation of and perseverance

192 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
in virtuous sentiments adds force to the ascent or
inward course, thus each accumulation of and per
sistence in unvirtuous sentiments adds force to the
fall or outward course of the soul. In each instance
the spiritual being stands before this alternative. It
either rises in power of conscience and consequent
dignity, or lowers its power of conscience and falls
beneath its attained worthiness.
The justice of the rise and fall is immediate, for
the justice of the intrinsic capacity of the soul pre
cedes all its deeds. All human deeds are invariably
preceded by the just or unjust predisposition accord
ing to which they unfold themselves. The average
human intellect is too weak to have a clear under
standing of the soul's inward standpoint of justice.
In order to conceive the just value of each soul we
must know the history of its past determinations,
the result of which invariably lies in the complex of
its sentiments.
Sentiments do not come of themselves, imper
sonally or unconsciously. They are the fruitional
result of our determinations, a fact which is evident
in all our psychological processes. Hence the state
of our sentimental complex is clearly indicative of
past determinations.
To maintain or even to consent to the opinion

THE FUTURE LIFE  1 93
that this life is our first life in the history of Divine
creation is an insult to reason, conscience, religion
and the justice of God.
The belief in an incidental creation in time and
space is one of the most debasing of all religious
opinions. No wonder, when such views are accepted,
that the thoughtful man cannot see the justice of
Divine creation and hence cannot believe in God,
much less have faith in Him.
The history of souls reaches back into Divine
eternity, which cannot be logically defined in terms
of time and space. Time and space are not eternal
attribues of the Absolute, but creational relative
forms in which the whole creation lives. They are
only the natural reflex of eternity and as such the
existential measure of life. Thus time is the inten
sive and space the extensive measure of life. All
spiritual and natural life needs time for its chang
ing growth and decline, and space for the external
manifestation of its inherent content and force.
In the religious view, all facts of life must be
demonstrable from the absolute standpoint of the
holiness, truth and love of God, and His perfect
almightiness of sacrificial creation, in order to impart
conviction. The slightest failure in this effort breeds
skepticism, fatalism and fanaticism.

194 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
Wherein consists the fall of the soul?
The fall of the soul consists in its alienation from
the Voice of God and in its consequent following
of the impulses of passions.
Each passion impedes the operation of conscience
and debases the soul's character. If obstinately and
intently pursued, it not only impedes but disdains
conscience, in which event, under the pressure of
the insult to Divine majesty, the Voice of God
becomes silent.
The silence of the Voice of God is the most
fearful instant in spiritual life. This just silence is
not yet a condemnation, but a waiting for the return
of the soul into the sphere of Divine operation,
which accounts for the Divine magnanimity and
generally incomprehensible patience toward so many
wicked souls.
If the sinfulness of the soul is not intense, it merely
loses its favorable station and is relegated to severer
conditions of life, where it will be more palpably
taught that higher aims must be maintained with pro
found respect and gratefulness.
If, however, the soul obdurately persists in its
debasing sinfulness, it falls by the weight of its inhu
manity into the animal spheres, where the light of
conscience is reduced to a mere instinctive feeling

THE FUTURE LIFE 195

of the right and wrong, and where the sense of adora
tion, esteem, truth and love is replaced by fear, con
tempt, cunning and hatred.
Many souls are moving outward from better
worlds than ours. They may be identified through
the possession of a certain degree of refinement and
greater alertness of mind, and such souls usually
acquire the most favorable stations in the human
community. But, since the tendency of most of
them is toward vanity and self-gratification, and not
toward the growth in virtue, by which force alone
the unintelligent and helpless mass of humanity can
be efficiently served, their pitiful future is inevitable.
The sphere of animal souls is altogether too little
understood. They must be viewed from the same
standpoint as the human soul. Each spiritual being,
whether human or animal, must be estimated generi-
cally, collectively and individually by the power of
its virtues and passions. For virtue and passion is
the sole measure and test of life. Any other test
is superficial and intrinsically groundless.
To each animal a due amount of kindness must
be applied in order to make it serviceable to our
own Hfe and by this service raise it to the dignity
of worthy cooperation. There are animals which
render more service to humanity than many human
beings. Why should man retain the appearance of

196 RELIGION OF THE SOUL 
a human being if he has forfeited his human dignity ?
The concept that animals have no immortal souls
grew out of the bottomless conceit of the human
mind without conscience.
Who creates those animal souls? Do they create
themselves? Or were they created by the devil,
as one orthodox writer unguardedly suggested?
Do thoughtless and merciless men believe that
God looks on the indiscriminate killing of animals
with indifference? Does it not occur to the so-called
sportsman that, according to the law of justice, he
makes himself liable to the charge of debasing
cruelty? Indeed, there is cruelty in our low world
and particularly among animals. But this cruelty
is the manifest consequence of cruel dispositions, of
the low, sinful state into which depraved souls have
fallen. They have practiced cruelty on others and
reciprocally cruelty is practiced on them.
Cruelty is the distinct feature of the lowest degra
dation of souls. Hence their monstrously ugly
bodies, the natural instrument and expression of
their hideous lives. We have had cruel men who
by sheer physical force have tortured and destroyed
thousands of lives. What are such men to become
in the future life, if not incarnate brutes and mon
sters who by incessant hatred destroy each other?

THE FUTURE LIFE 197

The proud will of such a soul, snarling with hatred,
becomes a force of destruction which, in the event
of brutal victory, is always filled with vaunting
superiority. It is the same "I have got him" of the
minor selfish performances of the dishonorable human
will. "Right or wrong," he shows his force, and
this is all he wants to accomplish.
Countless are the degrees of the fall of the souls.
Each positive value which the soul has retained in
its complex of sentiments is guarded in its tem
porary course by the justice of providential
conditions. From each station of debasement the soul is capa
ble of retracing its inward or upward course and of
regaining a worthier station. But if the soul obsti
nately determines itself to remain in its wicked state,
there is only one way to bring it to the consciousness
of its wretchedness, and this way is through the
inexorable justice.
Yet, even in this horrible state of ruthless pas
sions, providential conditions in themselves are by
no means cruel. On the contrary, they are mild
and merciful. Each animal soul loves its life and
lives with many little joys.
It is the loss of the consciousness and distinct feel
ing of the holy dignity of life which causes their
spiritual wretchedness and the consequent limitations

198 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

of providential conditions. And this patent fact
constitutes the radical difference between the human
and the animal soul.
The objection that it is impossible to accept the
animal soul as the "image of God" arises from the
misconception of this image. It is only the super-
spiritual ground of the soul or conscience which is
the real image of God. Neither the superhuman,
human or animal soul per se is the image of God,
but a spiritual adaptation made to follow this image
or a spiritual reflex of this image.
This misconception is due to the general lack of
discrimination between the superspiritual ground and
the intrinsic spiritual force ofthe soul. The soul and
conscience have thus far been erroneously regarded
as an integral spiritual unit, conscience being merely
the moral quality of reason. From the standpoint
of this premise, so utterly untrue in theory and actual
practice, no religious fact can be explained either
logically or psychologically. And this is precisely
the failure of all traditional creeds and moral
theories. With the exception of those who still believe in
an ev.il principle, all creeds claim the harmony of
the universe with the creative will of God. But
their narrow standpoint of religious ideas and the
consequent lack of mental elevation prevents them

THE FUTURE LIFE 199

from substantiating that claim and compels them to
seek for refuge in mystery, as if mystery were the
last beam of divine light. Mystery is always the
final refuge of all who have little or no knowledge
of God and of religion.
The sacred science of religion demands the full
explanation of the universal facts of life, but only
a few have the intense desire to devote their whole
energy to this sublime cause.
The life and value of each soul consists in its
freely acquired complex of sentiments. Sentiments,
in either the worthy or unworthy direction, have,
humanly speaking, an infinite scale of degrees of
intensity. Each degree consists of a definite quan
tity of worthy or unworthy sentiments. And it is
according to this qualitative and quantitative achieve
ment of sentiments toward God or against God that
each soul receives its just providential form and
station. Worthy souls concentrate their energies of will
on the acquisition of virtues, and continue to grow
in this acquisition, until they reach the most inward
or highest spheres of life, called heaven. Unworthy
souls, on the other hand, concentrate their energies
on the acquisition of passions, and continue to grow
in this acquistion, until they reach the most distant
spheres from God, called hell.

200 RELIGION OF THE SOUL

Our whole life is a divine process of justice.
Those who ardently desire and want to be with
God are near Him and partake in the eternal life
of His holiness, truth and love. Here the full power,
vision and fruition of life are consummated. And
those who do not desire and want to be with God
are removed from His nearness to the most out
ward spheres of creation, there to partake in the
undivine life of passions, full of strife and ignominy,
until, crushed by the abomination of their wretched
state, they decide to retrace their steps to God.
Our souls, living in the outer spheres of creation,
see much debasement, because the mass of men are
habitually guilty of debasing deeds. Our will is
far more efficient in matters of common profit, vanity
and sensual delight than in virtuous achievements.
The confusion of the human mind is distressing,
even among our intellectual leaders. The masses
are led like a flock to all sorts of ideals, except such
as awaken conscience, self-respect and responsibility
before God and our fellow-beings. The human
heart is more anxious for its own satisfaction than
for the welfare of the rest of the world. It has little
or no sympathy for others. Men more readily spend
millions on luxuries than thousands for the edifica
tion of the human soul. These undeniable facts

THE FUTURE LIFE 201

constitute the collective testimony concerning the
value of the human race.
What we most need is a profounder awakening
of justice in our souls, but to accomplish this abso
lute necessity the human conscience must be stirred
and cultivated by better educational means than
those in common practice.
Above all, our churches must have more con
science, our educational institutions and leaders of
man must have more conscience, and in all our rela
tions conscience must be the supreme arbiter and
bond of life. Then we shall clearly hear the Voice
of God and attain the true religion of the soul.

THE LAST WORD OF CONSCIENCE
I am the living Voice of God that dwelleth
in thy inwardness.
I am the dominating might and rule of
worthy life, the sole path of sanctification,
immortal glory, light and beatitude.
I inspire and fortify thy will, I enlighten
thy thought and I warm thy heart, for the
sake of participation in the holiness of God,
for the sake of cooperation with His al-
mightiness, and for the sake of affirming thy
life in His ever blessing and beatifying
eternity. I am the leader of worlds and souls, the
divine oracle of justice, the faithful path
finder of light and love, the uplifter from
sins and the sole consolation in misery and
suffering. I am the proclaimer of thy divine child-
ship, thy most intimate and faithful guide,
the life of exalted friendship and spiritual
brotherhood, the protector of innocence and
the sole might that never yields to wicked
ness and sin.
I am the living Voice of God, which for
ever resounds in every place and creature.
202

LAST WORD OF CONSCIENCE 203

Thou canst not close thy soul to my Voice.
I am with thee in every moment of thy life,
for I am the eternal urge to great and lofty
deeds, the verdict of righteous judgment
and the blessing of all sacrifices.
I am the eternal teacher of sacrifice, for
my Voice is the eternal message from the
profundity of sacrificial Divinity.
The praise of God is the eternal object of
my speaking power. My Voice pleads and
invites thee to praise and love with me the
holiness, truth and love of God, that thou
mayest partake in and be blessed by these
Divine mights and their imperishable glories.
The sooner thou f ollowest my Voice, the
sooner wilt thou be free from the danger
of unrighteous and debasing passions, the
sooner thy determination will be pure and
strong, thy mind clear and lofty and thy
heart filled with joy everlasting. For I am
the unfailing promise of the everlasting life
of glory, light and beatitude.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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