This the best religions have known, and have founded on it a law
that he who loves God must love his brother also. Apprehending this,
Atma grew again in heart to forgive his fellowmen who had so sorely
sinned against him, and, musing on their ways he pitied them, and knew
that the true attitude towards humanity is one of pity. He pitied men in
their crimes, in their unbeliefs, and in their faiths, and presently he
saw in these faiths which he had decried a spiritual beauty. His own
creed, grown hateful to him as the vainest of delusions, reasserted its
claims to reverence, and the voice that had cried to his childhood out
of the desert of silence and mystery that surrounds every human soul
spoke to him again as a voice of inspiration. Every man's faith is the
faith of his fathers, the faith learned on his mother's knee. He, who,
increasing knowledge, discerns the different degrees of darkness that
characterize our religious theories, and chooses for himself one from
among them, increases his soul's sorrow, for our light is darkness, and
God is not to be found for searching. "It is not by our feet or change
of place that men leave Thee nor return unto Thee." The quietness of
habit is more conducive to spirituality than the progress whose gain is
so infinitesimal, and whose heavy price is the destruction of the habit
of faith. It is better to believe a falsehood than to doubt a truth. The
habitual attitude of the soul, its upward gaze is more important than
the quality of the veil through which it discerns the Eternal.
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