There
results a pandemonium of hate and fear, of striving to escape, of
agonized, bitter warring to find safety, peace--salvation. The place is
saturated by that appalling stream of thinking--the terror of the
damned. It concentrated upon Mabel, whose negative attitude furnished
the channel of deliverance. You and I, according to our sympathy with
her, were similarly involved. Nothing happened, because no one layer
could ever gain the supremacy."
I was so interested--I dare not say amused--that I stared in silence
while she paused a moment, afraid that she would draw rein and end the
fairy tale too soon.
"The beliefs of this man, of his Society rather, vigorously thought and
therefore vigorously given out here, will put the whole place straight.
It will act as a solvent. These vitriolic layers actively denied, will
fuse and disappear in the stream of gentle, tolerant sympathy which is
love. For each member, worthy of the name, loves the world, and all
creeds go into the melting-pot; Mabel, too, if she joins them out of
real conviction, will find salvation--"
"Thinking, I know, is of the first importance," I objected, "but don't
you, perhaps, exaggerate the power of feeling and emotion which in
religion are au fond always hysterical?"
"What is the world," she told me, "but thinking and feeling? An
individual's world is entirely what that individual thinks and believes
--interpretation.
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