The Higher Powers of Mind and SpiritTrine, Ralph Waldo
Religion
The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit
Trine, Ralph Waldo
Mind and body; New Thought
Every neutral nation has suffered tremendously by the war. Every neutral
nation will suffer until a new world-order among nations is projected
and perfected.
We owe a tremendous duty to the world in connection with this great
world crisis and upheaval. Diligently should our best men and women,
those of insight and greatest influence, and with the expenditure of
both time and means, seek to further the practical working out of a
World Federation and a permanent World Court. Public opinion should be
thus aroused and solidified so that the world knows that we stand as a
united nation back of the idea and the plan.
The divine right of kings has gone. It holds no more. We hear now and
then, it is true, some silly statement in regard to it, but little
attention is paid to it. The divine right of priests has gone except in
the minds of the few remaining ignorant and herdable ones. The divine
right of dynasties--or rather of dynasties to persist--seems to die a
little harder, but it is well on the way. We are now realising that the
only divine right is the right of the people--and all the people.
Never again should it be possible for one man, or for one little group
of men so to lead, or so to mislead a nation as to plunge it into war.
The growth of democracy compelling the greater participation of all the
people in government must prohibit this. So likewise the close
relationship of the entire world now must make it forever impossible for
a single nation or a group of nations for any cause to plunge a whole
world or any part of it into war. These are sound and clear-visioned
words recently given utterance to by James Bryce: "However much we
condemn reckless leaders and the ruthless caste that live for war, the
real source of the mischief is the popular sentiment behind them. The
lesson to be learned is that doctrines and deep-rooted passions, whence
these evils spring, can only be removed by the slow and steady working
of spiritual forces. What most is needed is the elimination of those
feelings the teachings of which breed jealousy and hatred and prompt men
to defiance and aggression."
Humanity and civilisation is not headed towards Ab the cave-man,
whatever appearances, in the minds of many, may indicate at the present
time. Humanity will arise and will reconstruct itself. Great lessons
will be learned. Good will result. But what a terrific price to pay!
What a terrific price to pay to learn the lesson that "moral forces are
the only invincible forces in the universe"! It has been slow, but
steadily the world is advancing to that stage when the individual or the
nation that does not know that the law of mutuality, of cooperation, and
still more the law of sympathy and good will, is the supreme law in real
civilisation, real advancement, and real gain--that does not know that
its own welfare is always bound up with the welfare of the greater
whole--is still in the brute stage of life and the bestial propensities
are still its guiding forces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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