Outside, the air was cold with gusts of wind and lowering clouds.
Inside, the room was cosy and warm. A few of the old man's hardiest
flowers were still in pots on the table where the failing eyes could see
them. That evening Mrs. Trent had tidied up the room and had left Dorian
to spend the night with the sick man. The tea-kettle hummed softly on
the stove. The shaded lamp was turned down low.
"Dorian."
"Yes, Uncle Zed."
"Turn up the lamp a little. It's too dark in here."
"Doesn't the light hurt your eyes!"
"No; besides I want you to get me some papers out of that drawer in my
desk."
Dorian fetched a large bundle of clippings and papers and asked if they
were what he wanted.
"Not all of them just now; but take from the pile the few on top. I want
you to read them to me. They are a few selections which I have culled
and which have a bearing on the things we have lately been talking
about."
The first note which Dorian read was as follows. "'The keys of the holy
priesthood unlock the door of knowledge to let you look into the palace
of truth'."
"That's by Brigham Young. You did not know that he was a poet as well as
a prophet," commented the old man. "The next one is from him also."
"'There never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when
men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing
through. That course has been from all eternity and it is and will be to
all eternity'."
"Now you know, Dorian, where I get my inspiration from. Read the next,
also from President Young."
"'The idea that the religion of Christ is one thing, and science is
another, is a mistaken idea, for there is no true science without
religion. The fountain of knowledge dwells with God, and He dispenses it
to His children as He pleases, and as they are prepared to receive it;
consequently, it swallows up and circumscribes all'."
"Take these, Dorian; have them with you as inspirational mottoes for
your life's work. Go on, there are a few more."
Dorian read again: "'The region of true religion and the region of a
completer science are one.'--Oliver Lodge."
"You see one of the foremost scientists of the day agrees with Brigham
Young," said Uncle Zed. "I think the next one corroborates some of our
doctrine also."
Dorian read: "'We do not indeed remember our past, we are not aware of
our future, but in common with everything else we must have had a past
and must be going to have a future.'--Oliver Lodge."
Again he read: "'We must dare to extend the thought of growth and
progress and development even up to the height of all that we can
realize of the Supreme Being--In some part of the universe perhaps
already the ideal conception has been attained; and the region of such
attainment--the full blaze of self-conscious Deity--is too bright for
mortal eyes, is utterly beyond our highest thoughts.'--Oliver Lodge."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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