Page:Randolph, Paschal Beverly; Eulis! the history of love.djvu/92

Rh he knows not anything; and that it is not only possible to reach those centers, and obtain those knowledges, but that it is achievable by a vast number, who now drone and doze away life, die half ripe, and wake up, when too late, to find out what fouls they have been, necessitating what it is not the present purpose to reveal. In the present instance it only remains for the purposes of this Declaration of Principles, to draw a brief comparison between my system and the very best that can possibly, truthfully be said of any single one of all the others now extant anywhere. They are divided into two parts, one of which proceeds to totally ignore the body, mortifies the flesh, and renders life truly a semi-graveyard operation from birth to baptism, from that to death. The other allows the utmost limit to lust and license to the elect, and roundly berates all others outside. Vide Mormonism, Perfectionism, and Islamism, and contrast them with their opposites in belief, as the Shakers. But current systems, as a general thing, bend all their energies toward the salvation of men's souls, and, in spending time in trying to get souls into heaven, lose sight of the bodies, which, practically, may go to the other place, of so little account are they. They believe in crucifying the flesh altogether, and generally effect that very thing for the soul. They wholly lose sight of a fundamental principle of human nature, which is to take delight in doing the very thing it is sternly forbidden to.

The people of a town might not, if let alone, leave its boundaries once in ten years; but you just make a law that they shall not leave it, and that town will be empty in less than a single day. Again: Said landlord Boniface, "Traveller, you must go further to pass the night, for my house is full, and I have no place to put you." Says weary traveller, "Don't say so; don't say no; poor me! How can you serve me so? I'm so fagged out I can't walk another step. I'll put up with anything rather than go on." Says Boniface, "Poor, weary man, I pity you, and on one condition you can stay; there is one room with two beds. The one nearest the door you can sleep in; the other—at the far corner—is occupied by a lady, who must not be disturbed in any way. You must enter it on tiptoe, without a light, go quietly to bed, and at daybreak quit it in the same manner.