Page:Essays and phantasies by James Thomson.djvu/223

 Rh the high and solemn businesses of life does so in destitution of this genius plenipotential.

The loftiest member of this Open Secret Society familiar to us, familiar to us if we can read the story of his actions and his words aright, was a poor carpenter's son who seems to have had no other learning than such knowledge of the sacred books of his people as any frequenter of the synagogues of his people might easily have acquired, who we are told could read (Luke iv. 16, 20), but who perhaps could not write. When the theological scaffolding which has been reared around the image of this man shall have altogether fallen away, and the lineaments can be seen in broad daylight, we shall discover that he reigns over us by the power and prerogative of his divine mysticism.

Such are a few of the loftiest Open Secret Societies, these organisations of Nature so perfect and enduring, so superior to the most subtle organisations elaborated by man. And in all of them, I think, we find that the poor and the mean and the ignorant and the simple have their part no less—nay, have their part even more—than the rich and the great and the learned and the clever. Let us praise the impartiality of our Mother Nature, the most venerable, the ever young, the fountain of true democracy, the generous annunciator of true liberty and equality and fraternity; who bestoweth on all her children alike all things most necessary to true health and wealth, the sunshine, the air, the water, the fruits of the earth; and opens to rich and poor alike the golden doors of enfranchisement and initiation into the mysteries of heroism, purity, wisdom, beauty, and infinite love.

Were I required to draw a practical moral, I should say that all proselytism is useless and absurd. Every human being belongs naturally, organically, unalterably, to a certain species or society; and by no amount of repeating