Mysticism and its Results

"The word was God." That "word is Truth." Truth can never change, or it would contradict itself. Past, present, and future, must be governed by immutable laws. Experience is acquired by the careful study of history, and the present condition of all things.

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All is governed now by that same law of truth, which was from the beginning of the world, and ever shall be. What serious lessons, then, may be learned by a careful examination of past ages; and how useful may they not be to us and our children for future ages? We can only judge of that which is to come hereafter, by studying the past, and carefully noting the present.

This little book has collated some facts, perhaps, somewhat out of the usual range of reading; but which it is sincerely trusted may be of practical utility. If it only induces thought, study, or research, by intellectual and honest minds, its object will have been attained. The writer can only claim the indulgence of the reader to consider the essay suggestive-not didactic. Many a far abler pen may enlarge upon and carry out the ideas presented. May it be.

It is not true, as has been sometimes said, that wherever there is secrecy there is error. Secrecy, like most all else, hath its uses and abuses: its uses, as developed in modesty and domestic virtue, in religious meditation, self-examination, and prayer, and in prudence in the affairs of life: its abuses, in prudery, asceticism, superstitious awe, undue veneration of power, and when used as a cloud to conceal crime so hideous that nothing but the truth of God, vindicated by human laws founded thereon, directed by wisdom, can dispel it.

Virtue and modesty shrink from public gaze. Each looks alone to its innate sense, the gift of God, and to the sole approval of the great "I AM."

The hidden sincere aspirations of the heart are known only to Him who "breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul." These are a secret between the created being and its Almighty Father. At the lonely hour, when the burdened soul, knowing no earthly refuge from overwhelming troubles, but a mightier Hand than that of man, seeks on bended knee and with penitential tear, a blessing from on high, no word is spoken, no sound uttered save the sob from a contrite heart. The aspiration has gone forth inaudibly to Him who said to all mankind, then and for future ages, "Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest."

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire,
Uttered or unexpressed,
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.
It is the burden of a sigh,
The falling of a tear,
The upward glancing of an eye
When none but God is near."

What knoweth the outer world of this? Yet wrong can not exist in such secret communion between a penitent heart and its Maker. Pure religious meditation, leading us from earth to heaven, is only promoted by secret study and reflection in solitude. Neither philosophy nor religion can be cultivated in the midst of the vortices of commerce or other business requiring constant intercourse with hundreds of men during the day, nor in the whirl of fashion in the evening.

Thus, then, do we trace one of the uses of secrecy. Both its use and its abuse we shall hereinafter find exemplified in marked effects not only on individual minds, but also on the masses of mankind in past history: its use, in the development of true piety: its abuse, in asceticism, superstition, and overweening spiritual power resulting in crimes, which were "a sin unto death." Another abuse of secrecy has been manifested in means heretofore employed in the constant effort to obtain and maintain worldly power.