Your Affectionate Godmother. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ defile the soul are in shocking taste also. Don Quixote was infinitely nearer a true knowledge of the obligation entailed by the possession of this loan than any of us modern people!

      John: Oh, heavens! are you going to drag in fictional characters to illustrate your tirade? I feel the yawn coming.

      Elinor: Then I will state what to me are the facts of religion. I believe that I personally, and each one of us, have received from God, for the term of our sojourn on earth, a spark of Himself, and, since He has had the intelligence to construct this planet and a number of others, He cannot be so wholly wanting in logic as deliberately to throw this spark of Himself into temptation, and then deliberately to punish it for falling. If I believed God capable of that I should utterly despise Him.

      John: It sounds mean.

      Elinor: Of course. Now think a moment. Each unit being a part of the eternal scheme, the soul of each unit being a spark of the Divine Consciousness, it follows surely that the basis of all religion is that we must not soil our souls – not from the fear of hell or hope of heaven, but because they, being lent by God, must return to Him untarnished. The law of cause and effect takes care of the punishments or rewards. We bring each upon ourselves by our own actions; setting in motion an inevitable machinery producing consequence, as surely as when we thrust our hand into the fire it is burnt.

      John: That sounds all right; go on!

      Elinor: You see, then, our setting in motion this law can have nothing to do with the anger or approval or complacency of God. “Be good, and you will go to heaven: behave evilly, and you will go to hell” – one was taught. Reward and punishment – personal gain or personal pain – which gets it back to pure selfishness.

      John: Then you would take away these strong motives to influence human conduct? You are getting on to a high plane!

      Elinor: I began by saying we were talking of religion; you seem to consider we are discussing a business concern.

      John: So it is – put it how you will.

      Elinor: I deny that from my point, but I admit it if you are going to traffic with rewards and punishments.

      John: Then you mean to tell me that each unit is always to behave in the purest manner and do his level best simply to return to God at death an untarnished soul?

      Elinor: Certainly.

      John: But you would do away with all priestcraft, all politics, all society! ’Pon my word, this is worse than Socialism. You know I never bargained for that!

      Elinor: Nothing of the kind! The basic principle is that God is omnipotent. Granted this, and the poorest intelligence might then credit Him with having the best of all the attributes with which He has endowed mankind, whom he created – chief of these being common sense.

      John: Go on.

      Elinor: It is hardly likely, then, that He is perpetrating a colossal joke upon His creation by making the whole system experimental. It is conceivable that a brain which could evolve the intricate organism of a minute ant might be far-seeing enough to devise an immutable law which, when our evolution is sufficiently advanced, we shall be able to perceive, and to fall in with its action.

      John: We are all as yet struggling in the dark, then?

      Elinor: More or less. You see time is no object to God – these cycles which to us mean so much may be no more than a day to Him. I think you will admit we have let in a good deal of light in the last hundred years or so.

      John: Well, yes. But just think, then, of the waste of time all the religions and conventions and superstitions have entailed in the past. It makes one giddy to realize it! Where would we be if we had always understood your basic principle?

      Elinor: Nowhere. The evolution of the world has been perfectly necessary, my good John – you don’t ask children to play golf before they can walk.

      John: No – but now I gather from your remarks that you would sweep away the incumbrances and restrictions of orthodox religions.

      Elinor: Not at all! In a large family everyone cannot be grown up at the same time; the little ones have still to be thought of.

      John: I think we are getting a bit out of our depths – had we not better get back to your muttons – in this case your idea of religion?

      Elinor: But I have stated it plainly; it is simply to endeavor to keep the soul untarnished so as to return it to God – as a good butler keeps his employer’s silver under his charge highly polished, even though it is not all used every day.

      John: Then what is the first step to this end?

      Elinor: To think out the reason why of things, to try to see the truth in everything.

      John: Good Lord! A fine task! Are you aware, my good woman, that this has been the modest ambition of several million of philosophers and theologians and metaphysicians before your day, and that none of them have altogether succeeded? If I did not mind being rude, I might say, “I like your cheek!”

      Elinor: Oh, say what you please! Your words cannot alter my basic principle, which you will find very sound, if you care to apply to it the test of common sense.

      John: You mean, to bring it to ordinary facts, that when I can get the better of a friend by a bit of sharp practice and make a pot of money without the risk of anyone’s finding me out, I am to refrain from doing so because of this soul business? I do call that hard! considering I go to church every Sunday, and subscribe to all the charities liberally – and to the football clubs.

      Elinor: Yes, I mean that.

      John: And when you are jealous of a woman you are not to set about a vile, false insinuation against her, even though it could never be traced to your door?

      Elinor: Certainly not.

      John: But, my poor child, that would produce a universal state of brotherly love. You had not suggested that before as one of your component parts of religion!

      Elinor: John, when God made man I do believe He left out one colossal quality in him – the faculty of seeing the obvious. Women can see it sometimes, but men! – almost never! So I shall have to tell it to you in plain words. God is love!

      HERE ENDS THE DIALOGUE

      Now, when you have digested all this, Caroline, I want you to think what that sort of religion really means – and how it must elevate its believers into great broad aims and ends. How it must destroy all paltry meannesses, because, once a person realized that, even if no one on earth could ever know of his small action, his own soul would be aware of it, and become tarnished in consequence – then surely he would hesitate to commit that which would injure his own self-respect.

      There is another point to be considered: how best to arrive at what is actually right or wrong. And this can only be done by psychological deduction, through effect back to cause. If the results of an action produce pain and sorrow and evil, then the action – which is cause – must be bad. And, as there is nothing new under the sun – and all actions you would be likely to commit have already been committed by others in the past – you can get a general idea as to their probable result. But, above all other sides, the one to be examined is the effect upon the community. If the result of the action can only affect yourself, then you have the right to consider whether or no you will be prepared to pay the price of it before you commit it. But if there is plain indication that it can degrade or injure others who are near to you, or СКАЧАТЬ