AE in the Irish TheosophistRussell, George William
Religion
AE in the Irish Theosophist
Russell, George William
Theosophy
In hoping for such another day I do not of course mean the renewal
of the ancient order, but rather look for the return of the same
light which was manifest in the past. For so the eternal Beauty
brings itself to the memory of man from time to time brooding over
nations, as in the early Aryan heart, suffusing life and thought
with the sun-sense of pervading Deity, or as in Greece where its
myriad rays, each an intuition of loveliness, descended and dwelt
not only in poet, sage and sculptor, but in the general being of
the people. What has been called the Celtic renaissance in
literature is one of the least of the signs. Of far more
significance is the number of strange, dreamy children one meets,
whose hearts are in the elsewhere, and young people who love to
brood on the past, I speak of which is all the world to them.
The present has no voice to interpret their dreams and visions,
the enraptured solitude by mountain or shore, or what they feel
when they lie close pressed to the bosom of the earth, mad with
the longing for old joys, the fiery communion of spirit with spirit,
which was once the privilege of man. These some voice, not
proclaiming an arid political propaganda, may recall into the
actual: some ideal of heroic life may bring them to the service
of their kind, and none can serve the world better than those who
from mighty dreams turn exultant to their realisation: who bring
to labour the love, the courage, the unfailing hope, which they
only possess who have gone into the hidden nature and found it
sweet at heart.
So this Isle, once called the Sacred Isle and also the Isle of
Destiny, may find a destiny worthy of fulfilment: not to be a
petty peasant republic, nor a miniature duplicate in life and aims
of great material empires, but that its children out of their faith,
which has never failed may realise this imemorial truth of man's
inmost divinity, and in expressing it may ray the light over every
land. Now, although a great literature and great thought may be
part of our future, it ought not to be the essential part of our
ideal. As in our past the bards gave way before the heroes, so
in any national ideal worthy the name, all must give way in its
hopes, wealth, literature, art, everything before manhood itself.
If our humanity fails us or become degraded, of what value are
the rest? What use would it be to you or to me if our ships
sailed on every sea and our wealth rivaled the antique Ind, if
we ourselves were unchanged, had no more kingly consciousness of
life, nor that overtopping grandeur of soul indifferent whether
it dwells in a palace or a cottage?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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