Philosophy and religion -- Study and teaching (Secondary) -- United States
“Pain is real,” I said, “but we will not fear to face that, or anything
bitter, when we know it to be a condition of going onward.”
Virginia said I was shaping her thought for her. I reminded her how she
used to be my “little disciple.” All the others, and especially Marian,
said that this meeting was far more satisfying than the last; that we
had reached something definite. Marian said: “I seem to see already what
we will have to say on every subject, but we shall have no end of things
to speak of.”
THIRD MEETING
Florence and Henry were delayed and did not arrive until after four. But
before that we had already gathered about the table, and found it hard
to restrain ourselves from beginning the discussion. I said to the
children that I thought we would not speak of immortality to-day, as
there was too much that came before. I asked them whether they were
anxious to get to it. They were very anxious. Florence said: “It is such
an important subject.” Ruth said: “I believe we will all agree on
immortality.” I answered her that just there I thought we might disagree
most. Marian said she had definite ideas on the subject. I can see that
Henry has indefinite and theological ideas.
I then read aloud the little paper Marian had written on our talk of the
previous week:
“On Sunday, October 18th, our club, the Seekers, held its second
meeting. We first discussed our ideas of God. We reached the conclusion
that God is our divine self, that through God we can perceive, but we
cannot perceive God. This seems to me a very beautiful idea. I think our
discussion on this subject was particularly nice, because we did not try
to limit God by any attributes, for he is infinite. We also discussed
progress. I understood it much better this week than last. The aim of
progress is to reach a clear understanding of our fellow-beings; we hope
that, sometime, there will be sympathy and understanding among all men,
for we each have a divine self, which will not reach perfection until it
is in perfect accord with all the other people’s. We discussed good and
evil, and decided that evil is that which we outgrow, and which might
once have seemed good, but which now seems bad because we have found
something better. Good is the progress that we are making toward our
goal of common understanding. Unhappiness and accidents, etc., are
incidental to progress, and will occur less and less frequently. I
enjoyed this meeting of the club very much.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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