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Wisdom of the Ages

By George A. Fuller

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XIII

Let not thy heart be troubled; thou believest in God, believe also in thyself.

Think not I speak of the outward, the transitory and fleeting, but of that which is as permanent as the Eternal One.

Thine own self is changeless, deathless, and in expression ever new.

The expression is not thyself, more than the coat is the real man.

Yet the coat is impregnated with the individuality of the man.

Likewise the expression hints of that which caused it to be.

Beautiful, indeed, are the clouds at the rising and setting of mighty Tha.

Yet are they but a feeble expression of the ineffable glory that caused them to be.

Beautiful, indeed, may be these temples which are one of the expressions of the inner self, but it is not for mortal pen to portray the beauty and glory that creates.

Infinite are the possibilities of thyself. Dost think the works of art beautiful? Genius has produced them all.

What, then, is genius but the awakening of thyself?

Sleep, and the world sleeps with thee! Awake, and the world echoes and reëchoes the voiceless song of the soul.

Admire the sculptured form, the painted canvas, the evoked harmonies of the musician, and think that these may all come out of thyself, even as they have come out of other selves.

No genius has yet sounded the depths, nor scaled the heights of the soul's possibilities. Say not when ye look at the products of art: [paragraph continues]I would that I had created thee! Rather, become thou the creator, not of what thou seest in the external world, but of that which until thou camest this way had not been given outward expression.

Thyself hast been stultified by the teaching of the ages.

The cry has gone up from valley and mountain top: Conform! Conform! Paint as painted the masters. And even music, the most wayward child of human genius, hath been confined within the narrow walls of man-made rules. Only they who have scorned all rules have reached the heights and ravished the souls of men with celestial harmonies.

Listen well; be sure thou catchest the low-breathed intonations of thyself—and then voice them to the world.

What matters it if thy voice is not heard amid the Babel sounds of earth? If thou art true to thyself, thy voice shall still speak on in the world, and they for whom it hath a message shall hear and receive.

Thyself shalt call to thee thine own.

Be not impatient with others who fail to grasp the import of thy message, but still be true to thyself and speak right on, and thy thought shall yet help to shape the destiny of the world.