American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1863-12-23
Let the Soul Assert Itself.

Let the Soul Assert Itself.
There are no divinities among us. The
most fnely-touched spirit in our midst is
only spark of the Divine, struggling up
to its source through the Opaque wrap
pings of mortality. Our prelates are hui
man, and our prophets are fallible. The
most they can give us is here and there a
glimpse and suggestion; for the rest we
must lift up our eyes and stretch forth
our hands, standing fast by the oracles OF
God and the voice within us.
But we have fallen upon days of auda-
city and assumption. Grave doctors roll
nm their ithical, esthetical and theological
pills, and sagely count them out-so many
sugar-coated, blue, and belladonna to be
taken every hour till thoroughly indoctrin-
ated To make answer: 81 have meat
that ye know not Of" or, " | see light
yonder," is rank heresy If they cannot
dispel the illusion with any crow-bar of
logic, or battering-ram of rhetoric, we are
given over to the father of lies with an unc-
tious anathama.
To what purpose, then, are our strong
instincts and full-voiced souls F.? We go
forth with our destinies in our hands 1t
is not Paul, nor Apollos, nor Cephas we
seek, but an answer from the Infinite with
out to the infinite within. No man of
true magnanimity will use the prestige of
his genius, the magnetism of his person
ality, nor even the fine threads of intui-
tion and prophecy, to compel another from
his convictions. To great, reliant soul,
there is something pitiable in the sight of
personality blown away and merged by a
power that it does not acknowledge, yet
cannot resist.
There hath been appointed under heav-
en-, no moral, intellectual, or religious
monarchy. The newborn babe is a self
asserter, in spite of swathing bands. The
blue-eyed boy of six summers will startle
the deepest philosopher with his innocent
questioning, and sometimes leap at once
to the solution of problem, which the
most sapient research had failed to COM
pass.
Every home should be the fostering
place of those qualities which make self
sustained men and women; but it is too
often kind of mint, whose copper, silver
and gold coin are all stamped alike with
the ancestral arms. Away with the num-
merry of hereditary opinion-political, re-
ligious, or any other To fasten the faith
of developing soul to the skirts of your
own creed, is wrong to that soul, to your
self, and to your creed. Sooner or later,
the knowledge will come to him that your
light is his darkness. The heavens have
not opened to him; he has been walking
blindly in your footsteps, with no revela-
ton. The rays of the Godhead may
stream upon your upturned gaze, but his
eyes follow the trail of your garments; he
sees no glory-hears no wel-beloved"-
feels no inspiration and, at last, enfeebled
with spiritual vassalage, and disheartened
by the gloom, he looses his hold, and is
tossed about helplessly. Let the glow of
your faith and the might of your prayers
surround suhc soul like an atmosphere !;
but wait patiently till it thrills to the still
voice of the Revealer.
And ye weary-hearted-vexed and be-
wildered with the counter teachings of
good and evil spirits, who come alike with
white wings and soft-pleading whispers,
pointing diverse ways to truth; ye mis-
guided, with the demon of unbelief crouch
ing.darkly and heavily upon the beautiful
faith of your childhood; ye self-distrust-
ful-despising the oracle within, so un-
blessed of the oracle without-be silent
o, be SILENT and the voice of the outer
Jove shall stir the soul of the inner Jove
to a glad Eureka p