CHAPTER XII.
"THE WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH."
(By a Member of the Order of The Brotherhood of India.)
Perverse and degenerate Soul: I have heard your cry, and have comeonce more to admonish the wilful and wayward child of evil.
I approach you from a plane of life so far above and beyond thephysical that these children of the flesh neither see my form nor hearmy voice. By the exercise of a power which has been wisely withheldfrom you, I have arrested the forces of nature which have been butclumsily employed to entrap you. For a few fleeting moments of earthlytime I have lulled to harmless sleep the conscious powers of theseearth-bound Souls. My message is for you and for you alone.
Listen: Before you were permitted to open the door of knowledge whichleads to the exalted spheres of spiritual illumination and power, youwere informed by him who held the key, that no man can ever pass thatsacred portal and hope thereafter to evade any of the responsibilitieswhich lie beyond.
Patiently and explicitly you were instructed as to the nature, thescope and the meaning of those responsibilities, and the penaltieswhich nature imposes for their conscious and intentional evasion orviolation were made plain. Of your own free will and accord youelected to enter and assume those responsibilities, well knowing theconsequences of their violation.
When you first entered our sacred Temple of Light, and knelt as avoluntary initiate at our Altar of Truth, you took upon yourself asolemn and binding Obligation. Well you knew its import. You have notforgotten it. Neither can you now evade the penalty of its violation.
That Great One, in the light of whose deific presence all other lightis but a somber shadow, has fixed the seal of his judgment upon it.That judgment is irrevocable. From it there is no appeal. You standcondemned.
Before you were permitted thus to bind yourself to the faithfuldischarge of a sacred trust you were carefully and minutely instructedas to all the principles, forces, activities and processes of natureon which that obligation rests.
That instruction was given to you as the tribute of a higher knowledgeand the dispensation of a higher Power. You knew then, as you knownow, that the only compensation required from you is that which mustflow to all mankind from your right use of the knowledge and powerwith which you were then and there invested.
Under that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Attributewith which the Great Universal Intelligence has invested you as anintelligent Soul. You have not forgotten it.
Under that instruction you learned to know the fundamental Power withwhich you were invested as one of our special messengers of Truth. Bythe development of that power you have opened the door to higher andnobler possibilities of life. You have not forgotten that lesson, northe responsibility it imposes.
Under that instruction you learned to know the meaning and theapplication of the Great Law of Compensation to your own life andintelligence. You accepted the responsibilities which that knowledgeinevitably imposes. Nor have you forgotten.
Under that instruction you learned to know the primary and fundamentalDuty which rests upon one who voluntarily enters the portal of ourvenerable Order, and when that duty is fully performed. Theseconditions you have not forgotten.
Under that instruction you learned to know the great underlying_Purpose_ of your individual being, as well as the ethical effect ofthat purpose accomplished. You have not forgotten them.
From a yet higher Intelligence and an Authority more transcendent youlearned to know the full measure and scope of your own PersonalResponsibility to yourself and to your fellow men. None of thesethings have you forgotten.
Thirteen searching questions were asked you and your answers areinscribed in the records of our Order. You have not forgotten them.
Each question and answer form an immutable link in the chain of yourindividual record. This golden chain of thirteen mighty links of truthwas accepted by you as the rule and guide of your conduct towardyourself and all mankind. Behold it now! Each link is broken into manypieces, and each piece becomes a new link in an unbroken chain ofevidence against you.
You knew then and you know now, that the right application ofknowledge and the right use of power lead upward to the Pathway ofLight and Life; and that the perversion of knowledge and the abuse ofpower inevitably lead downward to the Way of Darkness and Death.
Notwithstanding your knowledge of all these things, you, of your ownfree will and accord, have turned your face from the light of truthand your feet from the pathway of eternal life and infinite joy. Youhave scorned the counsels of the just, ignored the judgments of thewise, defied the immutable an inexorable penalties of broken laws, andhave walked boldly down the broad highway of darkness and death. Yourfeet are now hovering on the brink of despair, and your eyes arepeering over deep down into the blackness of everlasting darkness. Andwhat then?
Ah, yes, what then? Then it is you cry out to the Master whose lovingadmonition you have ignored so often, and you entreat him to save youfrom the doom you so persistently have invited.
You cry for help, but what is the motive that prompts your cry? Is ithumility? No. Is it love? No. Is it any motive which could possiblyinspire an honest prayer? Alas, no. It is, instead, the lowest andmeanest impulse that ever moves the springs of human action--theimpulse of Fear. And fear of what? Fear of Justice. Fear of theinevitable penalties which you so deliberately and persistently haveinvited; penalties which your own conscience recognizes and yourreason approves. Fear of the operation of nature's most beneficentlaw, the Law of Compensation.
Oh, selfish lover! false friend! unworthy student! obdurate sinner!unconscionable outlaw and indefensible miscreant! Where now is allyour boasted power? Why do you cringe and writhe in an agony of fear?Why are you here, the helpless plaything of forces under the controlof this witless child of earth?
Listen, and I will tell you: The Law of Retributive Justice is but asingle phase of the great Law of Compensation. That Law is immutable,irrevocable and inexorable. Whosoever invites its judgments mustsuffer its penalties. Under its inevitable and relentless decree youstand a guilty and condemned Soul.
You have violated the most sacred law of your being--the Law of Love.Neither time, place, circumstance, duty nor responsibility hasdeterred you from your unholy purpose to wreck the happiness andfortunes of a defenseless home.
You have betrayed the trust of a faithful friend. You have abused hisgenerous hospitality, and violated the sanctity of his household.
You have permitted your own degenerate and selfish desires andpassions to override every principle of Equity, Justice and Right.
To accomplish an ignoble purpose you have employed all your littleknowledge of our noble science in conscious and deliberate violationof a most sacred and binding obligation; and I am come to behold younow, a blackened and perjured Soul, expiating your crimes andsuffering a self-invoked and righteous penalty.
Nay, more: It is you and such as you who have made it possible foroffended ignorance to travesty our noble science, misinterpret ourexalted philosophy, bring our ancient and honored Order into ignominyand shame, and all our beneficent instructions under the blighting andhumiliating ridicule of this Occidental world.
It is you and such as you who have made it necessary for us once moreto shut the doors of our sacred Temple of Light against all who shallcome to us from your western shores.
It is you and such as you who have furnished the inspiration whichprompts the vulgar wit of your overfed, western semi-civilization toamuse itself in derisive ridicule and mockery of the splendid legacywhich our Oriental civilization is but waiting to bequeath to yourpeople.
It is you and such as you who furnish the plots and dramatic settingsfor your literary travesties; and because of your trivial anddegrading uses of magical powers, our august Fraternity becomes thetarget of your caustic, western wits and merciless satirists.
It is you and such as you who deliberately, persistently andflagrantly violate and misrepresent the most beneficent
and sacred lawof life--the Law of Affinity and Love--and by your wicked perversionsand vicious subversions fix upon our noble Order a burden of cruel andunjust criticism, in the presence of which we who are thus malignedand misrepresented bow our heads in humiliation, in sorrow and inshame.
It is you and such as you who knowingly and intentionally substitutesensuality for affinity, lust for love, license for law, and by yourbrazen and shameless disregard of noble principles and benignteachings, say to the world, "Thus saith our Ancient Order of Light."
You cringe and writhe in double agony, and well you may, as you lookupon the picture in all its hideous deformity; but your punishment isnot yet completed.
Listen yet further to the voice of one who would have spared you thisunhappy hour. You were informed by one whose words you can not doubt,that no man can apply his knowledge of our higher science to selfishor ignoble purposes without himself, sooner or later, falling a victimto the forces and processes he thus employs.
Had you been true to yourself, true to your friends, true to yourinstructors, true to the obligation which God or Nature fixes uponevery intelligent Soul, this would have been the day of your triumphand joy. Instead of this you have made it the dark and gloomy hour ofyour humiliation and exile, and in the records of our Order it marksthe closing earthly scene of one more dismal and ignominious failure.
When this sleeping child of the flesh shall awaken and once more shallset in motion the forces which hold you in their relentless grasp,what then? Ah, yes, what then? I will tell you.
The vital element which still binds your spiritual body to itsfar-away physical counterpart will soon be dissipated. Nature'smagnetic chain which heretofore has enabled you to return to thephysical body will be broken. Physical death will have overtaken you.The element which enables you to manifest yourself to these childrenof earth no longer will be at your command. You will pass from theirvision and their knowledge for time, and who knows but for eternity.
In the realm of spiritual darkness you will be left to wander alone,and alone to expiate your crimes.
As it has been here, so will it be there, for you and you alone todetermine whether you will follow the path which leads onward andupward to infinite light, perfect happiness and eternal life; orbackward and downward along the pathway of deepest darkness todisintegration, dissolution, individual extinction, and a resolutionback into nature's elements. Farewell.