THE NEW WINE
289
of invoking the Visible
Image of the
Invisible .
Thus by a
living chain religion lived-in the Mysteries of Eleusis .I
Thus
true
religion
consists
in
a spontaneous
out
burst of passionless illuminism
, and not in the regular
ranting of the boundless buncombe of a bawdy book .
Better
be a Shaker , or a camp -meeting
homunculus
, or
a Chatauqua gurl, or a Keswick
week lunatic , or an Evan
Roberts revivalist , or even a common maniac , than a smug
Evangelical
banker's clerk , with a greasy wife , and three
gifted children
to be bank clerks after him !
That is , if religion is your aim : if you are spiritually minded . ?
.
Go out one night to a distant and lonely heath , if no moun
tain summit
is available : then at midnight repeat
the Lord's
Prayer , or any invocation with which you happen
to
be
familiar , or one
made
up by yourself , or
one
consisting
wholly of senseless
and barbarous words . Repeat it solemnly
and aloud , expectant of some great and mysterious result.
I pledge myself , if you
have
a spark of religion
in you ,
that
is , if you are properly a human
being, that you will (at
the very least ) experience a deeper
sense
of spiritual com
munion
than you have
ever obtained by a course
of church
going ,
The
Irishman
whose first question
on
landing
at
New
York
was
“ Is
there
a
Government
in
this
country ? ”
and
on
being told
“ Yes,”
instantly
re
plied :
“ Then I'm agin it , '
must have travelled many
a league along the road to adeptship , and if ten such
men
be found
in any State at the
same
time , then a
period of decadence
may
be said to have
begun ; but
it is not
every
day that
ten
righteous
men
can
be
found in Sodom ;
for
the
inhabitants
of that city of
1 Eleusis , vol.
iii,
p
.
225
.
2
Ibid
.
3
Ibid
.
vol
.
iii
,
p
.
224
.
4
The Sword
of
Song
,
vol
.
ii,
p
.
206
.
U