Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1926-02-21

T CANNOT remember the time
when | did not have a conviction
of divine goodness at work in
l the world. The core of my re-
ligion has always been an inward
certainly that the central principle OF
things is beneticent. This conviction
, has held in spite of the succession of
rude jolts that it has received from
growing familiarity With the opera
tons of life.
AS a child | suppose myself the
center of things. with a good God
ready to give me what | wanted. j
found from experience that that was
not true. but the good God remained,
, and I reconstructed my notion of the
nature of His relation to me.
Later / found myself struggling
under the discovery that l had been
preceded on the earth by countless
generations of men and women and
| that the civilization of which l heard
so much boasting was simply the last
of succession and that it probably
in certain respects was less fine than
some of its predecessors.
!: i: !:
The knowledge that l lived in a
universe and not merely a world be-
wildered me. but that which shocked
me hardest was n continuous series
of discoveries about human sufferingS,
| inequalities. greed, ignorance. all SO
Inconsistent with the notion of a
merciful force active in the universe.
Yet l never lost my sense that this
force was at work. and I never ceased
to readjuSt the disturbing outside to
the serene. stable inside.
1t is true that the divine spirit
which as a child | had visuaized lost
its human outline; it became more
and more spirit. and l realize now
that as the outline disappeared the
hold the spirit had on me became
, , more powerful.
1t was while was seeking desper-
ltely to understand and square up this
| divinity-from which l could not es-
cape-with what l met in life, that
/ made my first acquaintance with
the doctrine of evolution. 1t was re-
garded as blasphemy. a denial of re-
ligion by many of those who surround
ed me, but to me it was a revelation
the divine method or process by
which the bene1icent spirit in the uni
verse was to work out its intent. Evo-
luton has never ceased to be a funda-
mental element in my religion.
x x K X
, The Slowness of the process does
not disturb me. for my religion eman-
cipateS me from time. 1t has come
to be literally with me as the Psalmist
puts il: "A thousand years in Thy
sight are but as yesterday when it is
past and as a watch in the night
OF course this leaves me a tiny
atom in the universe but, as a matter
of fact. that is what | am. my only
business beinG to be sound atom, one
that works with and not against the
beneticent spirit in things-there lies
my Immortality.
How keep in touch with the divine
and let it work it's way with me?
That is my most important business
also the one which I have most neg
lected. 1t has always seemed clear
to me that it was only by some form
of very personal communion-worshi
in its purest form-that I could hope
for any degree of understanding of
the divine. But If you are to have
worship there can be no outside in
terruption or distractions: real wor-
ship requires silence and solitude.
The longer / live the more convinced
I have become that when l first laid
hold of the relation of silence to gen
uine communion with the divine, /
struck a great spiritual truth.
Miss Best in her stimulating and
illuminating stories of Rebel Saints"
as she characteriZeS certain early
Quakers. quotes Thomas Lurting's
comment that "as silence Is the first
word Of command in martial disci-
pline, so it Is in spiritual for until
that is come unto, the will and mind
Of God concerning us cannot be
known, much less done"
Even primitive religions provided
for silent meditation, solitary COM
munion. 1t has not always been easy