THE TEMPLE OF KNOWLEDGE.
By Ruth
ONE day an inquiring soul approached the Temple of Knowledge. He was young and buoyant, and filled with queries of the unanswered "why's" and the mysterious "whence." As he was ascending the preparatory slope, with his eye fixed on the glittering domes of the temple, a passing dove dropped an inscribed feather from her wing, and this was its four-fold inscription:— "Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord. For My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me the Fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." Jer. 2:12, 13. "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of His servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of Mine hand; ye shall lie down in sorrow." Isa. 50:10, 11. "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness." "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men." 1 Cor. 3:19-21. See also 1 Cor. 1:18-31 and chapter 2. "I can of Mine own self do nothing." Halting on the brink of indecision, the soul glanced across a low morass in the direction whence the dove had flown, and saw, rising from a rocky promontory beyond, in fair, white3grandeur, simple and pure, the walls of the Temple of Truth. "This is the source of my warning," he said; "this is the path that I ought to tread." But he looked again toward the world's pavilion, resplendent in the morning sun. A rosy haze seemed to rest upon its splendid heights, and the blood of ardent ambition rose high in his veins. There was a fascination about those untried heights that he could not resist. This new-fledged soul with untried wings could not brook the doctrine of soul-dependency, and the tempter whispered: "You are young. There is plenty of time. You surely are not going to bury your splendid talents and glorious possibilities in that prison. I never knew any one who chose that path that ever amounted to anything. Try for one of my prizes; and you can come back at any time and take this course, when you have had a little experience, and know better what you want." The soul stood hesitatingly where the road branches. The "strait" road led through a small wicket gate, down a slope, across a slippery bog toward the Temple of Truth, while the right-hand road led downward through a magnificent arch—a broad, beaten thoroughfare, over which the great tides of humanity flowed, a continuous, motley throng. In niches on either side of this grand portal, high on their pedestals, sit the twin goddesses, Fortune and Popularity, scattering their gifts and favors among the eager fortune-seekers, as their caprice or cunning dictates. Again a white-winged message came in solemn, tender warning: "Enter ye in at the strait gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat; because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Just then the goddess Fortune turned on him a flattering smile, and dropped a gold medal at his feet, and Popularity also bestowed honors. The tempter triumphed, and as the soul passed under the arched entrance, he read on the keystone, "Excelsior," and above it the legend, "All things are possible to him who wills." Fired with ambition to excel, he looked around for some way to use his youthful ardor and splendid natural gifts. Here Reason met him, and with grave, proud bearing and conceitful flatteries, offered to guide him through Vanity Fair; for he was bewildered by the Babel voices of the champions and the clanging discords of the place. "Surely," thought the soul, "there must be truth somewhere in this confusion, and with Reason for my guide I will try to find it." "Certainly," said the guide; "I can teach you everything that is necessary to life and happiness. Plato, the world's most profound philosopher, lived by my light alone. You want to begin with history. The lives of great men move us to emulate their glorious deeds. Choose your favorite here, and read him until his life and spirit are woven into the very fibers of your being." The soul obeyed, and in spirit soared up the heights that his "hero" had gone, and touching the topmost round of human glory, he beheld a grand mausoleum, a crumbling urn, an obliterated inscription. He descended, faint with soul-hunger and discouraged by the brief limit and scope of human greatness. "Science will satisfy your desire for research," said Reason then. "The world is her workshop; her resources are limitless, and her achievements the marvel of the nineteenth century." So this soul flung himself into the intricacies of scientific investigation. With the keen sight of a fine intelligence focused to intensity, he peered into the mysteries of life and natural law, and by shrewdest experiments he sought to surprise nature, as it were, in her citadel, and wrest from her the key to her mysteries. But she ever eluded his skill, and Reason failed him in his contemplation of the vast unsearchable profound. "O God, this is too wonderful for me!" cried the soul. "O that I might know the Author of this majesty and power! ‘My soul thirsteth for God; for the living God.’" But here a dark temptation overtook him. Having lost faith in Reason, one Fate was assigned him, who thus plied his seductive art: "If God has placed you here amid the unknowable, and has withheld from you the power to comprehend Him and His works, He can not blame you if you do not do what you do not know. Content yourself with doing the best you can, and all will be well. There is much good to be got out of life if you only give yourself up to seek for it and enjoy it. I know a place where you may have a rare experience, and it will cost but a trifle." The discouraged soul consented to be enlivened by the "rare experience," and cast himself on the mercy of Fate, who, with an air of calm assurance and pleased anticipation, strolled into a literary opium-den. There, on a silken cushion, the soul reclined, to draw from the pipe of forgetfulness a solace for his wounded, despairing heart. As he drew on the fatal pipe, he seemed wafted upward in a mist of dreamy delight till his soul seemed to bathe itself in rainbow clouds of ecstasy. All color, light, perfume, and harmony held the enchanted senses by a spell. An enchantress, in the person of a married society queen, wrought her voluptuous charm on him; her glance meets his, and he, notwithstanding a husband is beside her, yields to the seductive witchery of her eyes. More and more he bows to the sensuous charm, until from a height of ecstasy (the bliss of possession) as from a pinnacle, he seemed to fall—down, down, through utter darkness into the abysmal depths of unutterable despair and remorse, while from above pealed forth demoniac laughter, cruel, triumphant, merciless. Hope leaves him; all is lost! A whisper, "Pray." Quick at the straw of faith he snatches, remembering the wonderful mercies of God. "Lord, save; I perish!" Instantly he feels underneath "the everlasting arms." Upward he is borne. Hope returns. The fiends of darkness assail him with all their hellish power, to make him lose his hold on the saving One; but he is held. Up, up above that hell of chaotic discord, blackness, and despair! Up! up! O joy, thanksgiving! his heart is bursting with praise as he opens his eyes and realizes that life, hope, and opportunity are his once more. "Here," cried Christian Science, "here is nepenthe for the heart-sick. All is good. There is no evil. Come and drink of the true ‘water of life;’ only believe, and all is yours—life, health, happiness, love." "Here," cried Spiritualism, "here is power undeniable. What more evidence can you ask than the signs and wonders I can show you? Seeing is believing. Come and see for yourself." "What’s the matter with you, man?" sneered Universalism. "Do you think God is such a monster as to burn His children up in unquenchable fire? A human father would not do that. All will be saved in His own good time. What’s the use to worry yourself? Let God take care of you." "Here," cried Masonry, "here is the broad and liberal platform of the universal brotherhood and the common fatherhood. Here are honors, and emoluments, and religion enough to get through on, and not enough to be troublesome; come with us." "Here," shouted a black-robed priest, "know you not that there is no salvation outside the heart of the holy mother? We have the keys of heaven and hell, and God Himself dare not revoke the decrees of our authoritative head. All power is given to us in heaven and in earth, and whom we will we bind, and whom we will we loose. Submit to the authority of the Mother Church and all will be well; but dread her anathema." "Here!" "here!" "here!" "here!" cried harlot daughters. But he put his fingers in his ears, and ran, crying, "Life, love, joy, peace, O Lord, they are not in this place." As if by instinct his feet carried him back to the place of his first warning. There, looking across the dark morass, he saw the divine glory of the Temple of Truth. Now the Temple of Truth is built on a mighty Rock in an exposed inlet of the great sea (Rev. 17:15), where for ages it has been buffeted by tempests of persecution and hurricanes of wrath, stirred up by the great wizard, the presiding genius of the Temple of Knowledge, who is the mortal enemy of the Prince of Truth, and loses no opportunity of venting his spite on the Prince’s subjects; and the causeway to the Temple of Truth leads, as I have said, across the low-tide flats, where for ages have been cast up by the great sea the spume and filth of shame, humiliation, and ill-repute, so that the approach has come to be called "the valley of humiliation." And so, as the soul stood the second time at the crossroads of decision and choice, amid the ruins of his youthful hopes and ambitions—bursted bubbles of rainbow promise—the pure white temple of light seemed to his heart like a great safe haven of refuge. He had known what it is to "be horribly afraid" and "very desolate." He had lain down in sorrow, and now the valley of humiliation had no terrors for him. The favor of the world and its scorn were alike to him if only he might enter the service of the One who had revealed Himself as a Saviour, Helper, and Friend, and had opened his eyes to the hypocrisy of the deceiver and his deadly purpose; and as he looked back on the Temple of Knowledge, scintillating from pit to dome with its myriad colored lights, he could more clearly see its unstable "sand" foundation and its perishable structure. A voice to his heart whispered, "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls." He put out his hand to open the gate, when "a horror of great darkness" fell about him, and hellish doubt crept into his unwilling heart and seemed to take possession. Faith departed, and the friends of darkness gathered round to snatch him back from the gates of life, and hope, and joy. They scoffed at his presumption and ridiculed his unworthiness. They pierced him with remorse and shame, and heaped on him a mountain of condemnation for past sins. They branded him a deserter, milk-sop, woman-heart, taunted him of lost honors, and tempted his racking thirst with a tantalizing goblet of sensual pleasure. But his soul was steadfast, tho racked with doubt and tried by the old appetite for the lusty wine. "Tho I die, I will never drink the accursed draught again," he cried; "Lord, help mine unbelief." Then the pressure gave way, and faith, hope, and love once more claimed their own. This great spiritual victory brought down a whirlwind of satanic wrath which well-nigh took his life; but faith and love quickly drew him through the little gate, and attended him over the awful quag, where at every step there seemed to be no bottom, yet when it was taken he felt the everlasting Rock beneath. Faith helped him take each trembling step, and Love’s strong arms were round him, while Hope flew on before, to point out the way, and cheer his fainting spirit with her promised joys. The fiends of temptation had left him, tho Shame and Scorn dogged him all the way. But on the defeated tempter’s informing their chief of the deserter’s escape, he stirred up a most tempestuous sea against this soul, so that before he could reach the Rock, he was well-nigh overwhelmed with wave after wave of persecution and trouble. Everything he possessed was washed away—home, property, favor of friends, family, love—all, all were swept away by the besom of destruction that flooded his soul, till he could make no headway against it, and could only cling to the Rock and pray. Ps. 69:1, 2. Faith, Hope, and Love never left him, but bade him be patient and "wait on the Lord," assuring him that all the powers of hell could not wrest from that Rock the weakest soul that will hold on by faith; for no man is able to "pluck them out of My hand," saith the Lord. Thus comforted, he clung close to the Rock, tho the waves dashed him sore. His life was almost gone when a strong hand of help lifted him bodily onto the Rock above, and the voice of Father-love spoke to his trembling heart:— "Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be not dismayed; for I am thy God; I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of My righteousness." "For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee." Isa. 41:10-13. "I have put My words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of Mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art My people." Isa. 51:16. Then was he glad in the Lord, and worshiped at the feet of Jesus. And he took up this psalm of thanksgiving from an overflowing, grateful heart:— "Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord," "when my spirit was overwhelmed." "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." "I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a Rock, and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God." "If it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when men rose up against us; then they had swallowed us up quick, when their wrath was kindled against us; then the waters had overwhelmed us, the stream had gone over our soul; then the proud waters had gone over our soul. Blessed be the Lord, who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we are escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth." Ps. 124:2-8. See also Ps. 121; 119:67, 72, 75; 18:5, 6, 16-19.