e will always be an unvarying round of tearing down
and upbuilding in the whole wide realm of nature. Nothing, not the
tiniest grain or the most ponderous production of skilled hands, ever
stands still. All things are in vibration, and their permanency
depends wholly upon the rate of vibratory motion. Here and there all
the way along, from the earliest times of which there has been any
record, great souls have blossomed out, and have carried aloft the
God-given light of intelligence and culture. These inspired minds,
great souls, have persisted in announcing their message to a darkened
world, often in the face of direct want and persecutions; misunderstood
and maligned, they were and are the saviors of the people of this
undeveloped planet. Even yet, they are known and valued by but a
limited number of supposedly intelligent people. While these inspired
light-bringers were seeking to shed abroad in the minds of men the
truths that shall make men free, the Church was devoted to closing, and
holding fast shut every avenue of the human mind that might have a
tendency to teach the people anything outside of their tenets which
were the outcome of their weird imaginations. If anything could cause
a doubt to arise in the Creative Mind as to the wisdom of letting loose
on this small planet the pestiferous peoples that have swarmed over and
possessed it, it must have been aroused by their demoniacal
performances in the name of religion, that have disgraced the nature of
man from the beginning of our knowledge of the world. While a
perception of beauty and harmony is latent in the minds of men, it is
the last of the attributes of the soul to develop. The figured
semblances of God, hewn out of stone or wood by the primitive races,
are mostly hideous inventions of the evil thoughts of evil minds. From
the terrifying African God, "Mumbo-Jumbo," to the artistic bronze
representations of the Deity of the nations of the East all are marked
with awe-enforcing ferocity and ugliness, instead of by the
soul-inspiring lineaments of love and beauty. Tremblingly the minds of
men have groped their way along through the mazes of ignorance and
enforced darkness to a degree of personal liberty; and every picture
painted, every bit of sculpture achieved in the interest of harmony and
beauty is testimony to the persistency of the inspiration vouchsafed to
man of the Creator's love of beauty, and of the final state of harmony
to be reached