Part 25 (2/2)
The line of work marked out for the teachers was as follows: First, to locate themselves in the largest city in the country to which they are sent.
To make themselves thoroughly familiar with the writings and teachings of the founders of the predominant religion of the country to which they are sent.
To find out all that is known of the leading saints and sages who have lived in their lives the prevailing religion of the country in which they lived.
To study thoroughly the habits, customs and bondages of the people of the country to which they are sent. Then to cultivate the acquaintance of the most intellectual and spiritually inclined native men and women and get them interested in the work of the Reform Forces. To appeal to them, and reach them through the teachings of the founders of their own religion, as well as by what has been written and said by their own saints and sages. Get the intelligent natives of both s.e.xes to become the leaders and teachers to their people. Get the native teachers to work to strike at some of the bondages which they think the people are ready to free themselves from first, and when the people have thrown off one bondage then to work to get them to be free from other bondages.
After the teachers have got a group of intelligent native workers in the line of the Reform Forces in one city, they are to go to another city and do the same till the whole country has native workers in every part working along the line of the Reform Forces.
From Penloe's remarks before the Congress, concerning the religions of other nations, we will copy the following extract. ”If any one will study the teachings of the saints and sages of other religions, he will find that the essence of spiritual thought contained in them all is about the same as that contained in Christianity. The mistake which has been made by missionaries and others lie in thinking that the ritual and practices of the ma.s.ses represent the thoughts of the great spiritual luminaries of those religions. The ma.s.ses of the Oriental countries no more represent the real thoughts of the great spiritual teachers of those countries than the commercial cannibalism of the West represents the teachings of Christ. In fact, the ma.s.ses of the Oriental countries are in ignorance of the real spiritual thought of their own religion, as much as the ma.s.ses of the Western World are of theirs, and the teachers who are sent out by the West would help forward the work of the Reform Forces by showing the natives that the ideas of the reform forces are in the line of thought of their own great saints and sages. There is not a delegate present who is not able to show that the work of the Reform Forces is in accordance with the teachings of Christianity. I can also clearly show to you from the teachings of the Zendavesta, of the Koran, of Buddha, of Krishna, of Lord Gauranga, of Seyed, Mohammed Ali, and of Rama Krishna, that the spiritual thought of the Reform Forces is in accordance with those teachings. Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Gauranga, and Rama Krishna, were all the manifestation of G.o.d in the flesh. They towered head and shoulders above all others in the manifestation of the Divine.
”Supposing I was a true follower of Buddha and a person who was a true follower of Jesus spoke to me about the grand life and teachings of Jesus, what would his opinion of me be if he saw that I was jealous because he said nothing about Buddha, or because I thought the more beauty and glory he saw in Jesus it lessened and belittled the character of Buddha. Would he not be right in thinking I was ignorantly and foolishly jealous, and that that feeling ought not to exist in a true follower of Buddha? What then when you speak to a follower of Jesus about the divine life of Buddha or Krishna, if he should become incensed in manner and speech and manifest a feeling of jealousy, acting as it were that in seeing the Divine in Buddha or Krishna made you think less of Jesus. And yet that is a common experience which one meets with among very many of the followers of Jesus. No, for in proportion as you live the true Buddha life or Krishna life, so do you live the true Christ life, and if I have imbibed the spiritual thought of Jesus, I have also imbibed the true spiritual thought of Buddha and Krishna. Thinking that the Divine was manifested in Buddha or Krishna, does not lessen the exalted conception which one may have of the Divine manifested in Jesus.
_The Divine is in all_, but is manifested in some persons to a much greater degree than in others.”
Just before the Congress closed Mr. Rattenbury, one of the delegates from California, rose to make a statement. He said: ”Since the Congress had a.s.sembled he and the lady delegate from California had been in the receipt of numerous telegrams from persons living in different parts of the State they represented, to the effect that California did not wish to take the Philippine Islands, but they would take the other islands of the Pacific, and also they would send Penloe and Stella to make a tour through the Oriental countries to help forward the work of the Reform Forces as they saw best. The delegation from California has made arrangements with the delegation from New Zealand and Australia, so that the latter take the Philippine Islands as their field of labor, as those islands are near to them. Therefore the delegation from England and the other countries who have taken Europe as their field of work, have kindly consented to release Australia and New Zealand from helping them, so that they might take the Philippine Islands. It might be well for me to state that the delegation from California has waited on Penloe and Stella, to ask them if they would go East, and I am pleased to say that they have consented.”
He added, further: ”It is with mingled feelings of pride and pleasure that I stand to-day as one of the delegates from California. I am proud to represent that grand State, with its past achievements. Her boast before has always been of her fertility and marvelous resources, such as her rich mines, her large wheat fields, her prolific orchards, bearing fruits belonging to many climes, her fine vineyards, with cl.u.s.ters of luscious grapes, superior to those of Eschol, her grand floral display, her great forests, and her oil wells. But now we can boast that in its genial climate, surrounded by its grand scenery and its lofty peaks, which lift their heads to heaven, that Stella, the pearl of womanhood, should be born. It was under these influences, surrounded by advanced liberal thought that she grew up. On the soil that she was born did she consecrate herself and all that was dear to her to liberating humanity from its many bondages. Starting out with the idea of helping those of her own s.e.x to throw off a bondage which has held them in superst.i.tion and ignorance, and which also has been the cause of untold suffering and misery as well as millions of deaths, she labored heroically under social persecution and ostracism. But when the purity and n.o.bility of her grand character was fully known, those obstacles to her work disappeared as snow does before the heat of the sun, for her whole nature being of intense love, its heat melted all prejudices before it.
All of you are familiar with the grand work in her own State. I need not touch on her work in other States, for you all know it so well. I am glad to state that California which has always been so proud of her material resources is now far prouder of the fact that on its soil was born '_The Coming Woman_,' '_The Ideal Woman_,' '_The Glory of California_,' and that her sh.o.r.es attracted the great Yogi Penloe.
California having already given Penloe and Stella to the Nation, now bestows them to the World. When they travel through many countries scattering light and knowledge wherever they go, they will always know that wherever they are, even in the furthest corner of the earth, that back of them, in all their travels, are the wealth and great hearts of the people of the Golden State.”
Two days before Penloe and Stella left San Francisco for j.a.pan, I was seated in the parlor of Treelawn, in front of the large bay window. On my right was Penloe and on my left was Stella. The windows were raised and a gentle breeze wafted the fragrant odors from the flower beds into the room, filling the parlor with perfume. At times the muslin curtains puffed out gracefully by the gentle breeze, and the external atmosphere was like the internal of my companions' sweetness and harmony. The other members of the company were Mr. and Mrs. Wheelwright and Mr. and Mrs.
Herne. Many reminiscences were gone over. Penloe in a very nice way spoke of the influence on owners of ranches, through Mr. Herne's n.o.ble example of the treatment of his men, and there was a great improvement in the treatment that ranchers gave to their hired help, and the ranches became more profitable accordingly.
Clara Herne expressed her thoughts and feelings in regard to how different the world and herself looked to her now, to what it did when she first entered her home as a bride. She added: ”The world within me has become so beautiful, so bright, and so very large. How lovely life has become, what a pleasure it is _to live_.”
It did me good to look into the faces of Stella's parents. That grand old couple who had lived a life of purity under marriage, and who gave to the world, Stella, ”The Pride of California.”
EPILOGUE.
I must now part with two very dear friends, two whom I have known so well, two whom I have loved with all the warmth of an intense nature, two who have been an inspiration to my life.
The consoling thought I have in taking leave of them is, that though visibly they are not with me, yet they are always with me in proportion as I manifest the same spiritual life which has made them so dear to me.
May they both be to you, dear reader, what they are to me.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE END]
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