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GOD: OUTLINES OF THE NEW THEOLOGY.




                                  GOD:

                            OUTLINES OF THE

                             NEW THEOLOGY,

                                BASED ON

                    FACTS, SCIENCE, NATURE, REASON,
                       INTUITION, REVELATION AND
                             COMMON SENSE.

                            BY T. D. CURTIS,
              AUTHOR OF "THE NAZARENE," "CROSS AND CROWN,"
                      "RESURGAM," AND OTHER POEMS.

                                CHICAGO:
                        PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

                                  1889




              COPYRIGHTED BY THE AUTHOR, T. D. CURTIS, OF
                       CHICAGO, IN THE YEAR 1889.




PREFACE.


The New Theology is a gathering up of the fragments, antagonizing none
of the Old Theologies, while harmonizing the essential parts of all,
by omitting excrescences and supplying deficiencies. All others have
failed because they are fragmentary and narrow. They do not recognize
the Female principle of Being and its true relation to the Male. They
do not recognize the results of endless Progression, or the outcome of
an infinite and eternal sexual union of the primal principles Love and
Wisdom, which generates the motive power of Being and causes evolution
and all the innumerable manifestations of progressive existence. They
do not explain the origin of the idea of a personal God, nor of the
doctrine of emanation from Him, or the God-Pair. They do not explain
whence the idea of a non-personal Being, pervading everything. None
of them catch a glimpse of the conjugal pair unfolding and rising to
Godhood, when their sphere becomes the parent of universes, by natural
development, thus completing another of the cycles of Being, as we see
in two infants growing into the adult estate and becoming the parents
of other infants. In place of the rule of Law and Order, rising into
the rule of Equity and Love, they substitute the arbitrary rule of a
monarch, full of partiality, favoritism and vindictiveness. The time
has come for something more humane, consistent and rational, more
progressive, comprehensive and complete. This the New Theology supplies
to the advanced mind. Mankind are sloughing off the Old Theologies, and
coming up higher. We are at the turn of the tide, and the New Theology
is a safe craft on which to ride the spiritual waves, in the light of a
new and better era, to a higher condition.

                                                             THE AUTHOR.




GOD.


    1.

    Of all that is incomprehensible
      The name--in English language known as GOD,
    The Force of which all forms and things are full--
    The Source of Being--otherwise were null
      All things that now exist--at whose great nod
    The Universes come to light--whose will
      Omnipotent rules with Discretion's rod
    Of Love and Mercy, Equity and Skill:--
    Thou art my theme--into my brain thy light instill!


    2.

    Others have speculated on this theme;
      Then why not I, who feel impelled to try
    My feeble power upon the waking dream
    Of all the ages? Though presumptuous seem
      My efforts, there can be no reason why
    The least may not divulge the thoughts that rise
      Within the soul so eager to descry,
    As wide it opes its ever-straining eyes,
    The visions that might daze the more profoundly wise.


    3.

    Throughout all animated nature we
      Behold the presence and the power of Sex;
    From Man to lowest forms of Life we see
    All things are joined together sexually
      For Reproduction; simple or complex,
    'Tis Evolution's ever-acting law;
      We trace through brutal matter the reflex
    Of this all-potent force, and view with awe
    The deep conclusions which from it we're forced to draw.


    4.

    Female and Male all things at last appear;
      Thus Sex thro'out all Nature's realms controls;
    From lowest upward to the highest sphere,
    So far as mortal eye beholdeth here,
      Through Sex conjunction everything unfolds;
    As positive and negative, when met
      In union chemical, the union holds
    True to proportions which the law hath set
    For simples, and they thus new elements beget.


    5.

    Together these two forces act as one;
      Without the one, the other were as nought;
    They are the Heat and Light thrown from the sun
    Which warm and vivify the earth as run
      The planets in their courses; nor is ought
    Upon the face of earth they did not bring;
      Through these life-giving rays to us are brought
    All earthly blessings--Life and every thing
    That blooms and fructifies to which we fondly cling.


    6.

    Our sun, like every other sun we see,
      Is a reflex of its Great Prototype,
    The Spirit Sun, from which perpetually
    Is drawn all that is possible to be--
      That is, all primal principles, when ripe
    Are the conditions for them to descend
      Into this outer sphere, where Pan's rude pipe
    Breaks forth in music, as the forces tend
    To consummate through Nature Being's aim and end.


    7.

    The home of God, as it to me appears,
      Is the Great Spirit Sun, whence emanate
    All things beheld by scientists and seers--
    The births of countless myriads of years
      Wherein the sexual forces procreate
    The suns and universes, and the forms
      That naturally fill each vast estate,
    Preparing, through each sun that lights and warms,
    Abodes for future life's innumerable swarms.


    8.

    God is a highly conjugated Pair,
      Once lowly born and dwelling on some earth
    So far remote that no one may declare
    Or comprehend the stretch of time, or dare
      To picture them at the domestic hearth,
    Where first they felt the flame of love divine
      To which their dawning future gave the birth;
    Then through their consciousness began to shine
    Their vast unfolding, as their lives should intertwine.


    9.

    They too sprang from a God who had before
      Been born as they, and like to them did grow
    A Mutual Pair, unfolding Being's door
    For earthly suns and planets to outpour
      And then become with light and life aglow;
    As closer still their sexual union grew,
      Life and intelligence unfolded more,
    Until the Pair we call our God, with due
    And orderly succession, sprang to earthly view.


    10.

    They lived and died, as men and women now
      Are seen to live and die, in earthly sense;
    They entered spirit life, and then the vow
    Of love renewed was made, and on each brow
      The blazing star of faith shone most intense;
    They rose to higher spheres, and all aglow
      They moved in Love's own aura, issuing hence
    And forming round them in a glorious bow,
    Until a sun began its radiance to throw.


    11.

    The elements of Being evermore
      Joined in a closer union, as they must;
    As they recede, they form a darksome shore
    Like what remained when earthly life was o'er
      And the God-Pair behind them left their dust;
    Upon this outer sphere, surrounding all,
      The only sphere where burneth selfish lust,
    The inner heat of Life began to fall
    And suns to burn and throw off earthly ball on ball.


    12.

    Thus came our universe with all its stars,
      Its suns and planets--all that these contain;
    Our earth rolls on among the planet-cars,
    Freighted with life and death, with peace and wars,
      With all the good and evil in its train;
    And we, the tiny mortals struggling here,
      Hoping and fearing, vexing heart and brain,
    Have much our weary, drooping souls to cheer--
    For what is mystery now will soon be plain and clear.


    13.

    Our destiny is that which is our God's,
      Who has so many ages gone before;
    The heights sublime whence he now smiling nods
    One day we all shall reach, though great the odds
      Now stretching out from hence to that bright shore;
    For time and space are nothing; the same laws
      That governed him, unfolding evermore
    Those sprang from him, still working without pause,
    Must lift us to his plane, as end doth follow cause.


    14.

    Meantime, he will go on as we come up,
      Since our unfolding must depend on his;
    For we must drink from out the self-same cup,
    And at the self-same table we must sup;
      But he, gone on beyond to higher bliss,
    Will be our leader still, above all strife;
      We from his realm, as now we do in this,
    Like branches of the tree with sap grown rife,
    Draw elements of fruit, which sprout new shoots of life.


    15.

    But, did our Heavenly Parents not progress,
      There would be no progression for us here;
    All stagnant would become, and motionless,
    With utter silence and obliviousness
      As infinite as Being's boundless sphere;
    Progress for one involves progress for all,
      As long as Love its mate delights to cheer;
    As long as Love responds to Love's sweet call,
    No cataclysmal force can Being's tide forestall.


    16.

    But does it seem too much for mortal hope
      To dream of a career so far above
    And still advancing as conditions ope
    The way of endless progress? Who can cope
      With infinite progression, born of Love,
    And say where it shall end? Our destiny,
      With all eternity in which to rove,
    Must have unbounded possibility;
    Oh! glorious broadening ages that are yet to be!


    17.

    We only have a glimpse, and yet behold
      How vast the scene stretched out before our eyes!
    We start from seeming nothingness of old;
    As we our dawning consciousness unfold,
      What strides we make! How vastly do we rise
    From knowing nought to science quick with sight
      To penetrate the earth and scan the skies,
    So eager is the soul in search of light,
    Full of its destiny to grasp the infinite!


    18.

    Who cannot see eternal progress must
      Have infinite results, and no one can
    E'er be so far advanced beyond the dust
    That, progress ended, he will stop and rust
      Mid Evolution's ever-onward plan?
    If dreams of a progressive life are not
      A vain delusion, then must rising man
    Become more than the mind conceives of what
    Befits a God--beyond all reach of earthly thought.


    19.

    And who shall say it is so very strange
      That suns and systems should be born and reared
    Amid the ceaseless and unfolding change
    Through which evolving souls are made to range
      In their progression, marvelous and weird,
    When mere conjunction of the sexes gives
      To human beings form and life endeared
    To parents and to other relatives--
    The highest type of Being here on earth that lives?


    20.

    The emanations from the wedded Pair,
      When truly wed, forever conjugate;
    In closer union constantly they are
    Combining in the form of substance rare,
      And building of the aura they create
    A sphere around the couple joined as one,
      Which ever is extending as they mate
    In their unending journey here begun,
    Until their sphere is a prolific Spirit Sun.


    21.

    We are unable here to further trace
      Their grand career beyond this Spirit Sun;
    We have no evidence on which to base
    Their further progress, nor a clue to place
      Conjecture or belief upon; but none
    Can doubt the bliss and glory of the vast
      Unfolding of the future here begun;
    It seems impossible for seers to cast
    Their vision farther on; it stops with God, at last.


    22.

    Nor can we farther backward go than this,
      Our earthly plane, which emanates as waste
    From the God-Pair, while every atom is
    Instinct with all that an analysis
      Could find in highest forms of what is chaste;
    Though seeming void, chaotic, without trend,
      As water seeks its level in its haste
    To be at rest, so these rude atoms tend
    To reproduce the human form--their aim and end.


    23.

    But this is clear, what _is_ forever _was_,
      So far as actual substance is concerned;
    We need not look for any primal cause
    Of Being, nor of any of its laws;
      They _were_, and _are_, and _will be_, when is burned
    The last of all we now behold below--
      _Will be_ when countless cycles have returned,
    And countless others shall return and go;
    All _was_, and _is_, and _will be_--more we cannot know.


    24.

    Two Principles we recognize as first;
      These primal principles unite as one;
    All Being dual is; the sexual thirst
    Felt by all sentient beings here is nursed
      By virtue of these Principles, which run
    Each into each as naturally as
      The elements of water run, or sun
    Draws up the waters for the thirsty grass,
    Or streams to join the ocean ripple as they pass.


    25.

    The Swedish Seer went not astray when he
      Named these two Principles Wisdom and Love;
    Their junction formeth all that e'er can be,
    Spirit or substance, matter, all we see,
      Or feel, or think, or hope for from above;
    Their union, growing closer hour by hour,
      Oped infinite conditions when they clove
    Unto each other with resistless power
    That moves all Being--each the other's living dower.


    26.

    To show that Being must be dual, let
      Us for a moment brief only suppose
    One man alone, one sentient being, set
    In utter nothingness, with nought to fret
      Or to disturb the silence and repose--
    He could not even know he lived at all!
      'Tis moving contact that to each one shows
    He has existence. If stark darkness fall,
    One cannot feel his hand without some motion small.


    27.

    Love sleeping all alone could never wake;
      Wisdom in lone repose could give no light;
    The two brought into contact, Love would quake
    With thrilling tremor that would warm and wake
      Wisdom to knowledge and a joyous sight
    Of his companion blushing to be seen;
      The mutual recognition would be quite
    A startling revelation in the sheen
    Of Light and Life gendered by touch the two between.


    28.

    Then think with what attractive force the two
      Great Principles of Being would be drawn
    Together, with no other thing in view
    To militate against the union true
      Of every eager atom, which would yawn
    With the intensest hunger to be wed
      To its twin atom, waiting in the dawn
    Of resurrection from the rayless dead,
    To thus be on its everlasting journey sped!


    29.

    An illustration feeble this of how
      The Principles of Love and Wisdom blend
    In mutual accord, and thus endow
    The Pair with the capacity to grow
      Into a fonder union without end,
    Evolving from their conscious being all
      The forms and forces which forever send
    The tide of Life through all that soar or crawl,
    Wherever the conditions infinite may call.


    30.

    It matters not what we may choose to name
      The element which we now contemplate;
    It is the all-pervading vital flame
    And moulding force that from the union came
      Of Love and Wisdom, which forever mate;
    If we so will, we may suppose it Mind,
      And all things manifold and correlate
    So many thoughts projected and defined
    For use and contemplation of our human kind.


    31.

    So far as we can see, the moving force
      Comes through and issues from a Human Pair
    Who lived long ages since, and in the course
    Of Evolution, have become the source
      Of our vast universe, and to it are
    As parents to their children, by a law
      Of higher, broader scope, that may compare
    With procreation here, but which may draw
    From deeper source than even Gods themselves e'er saw.


    32.

    Man is the aim and end of what exists;
      As forces at his earthly birth prepare
    For him the needed food, and he subsists
    Within the womb as kindly Nature lists,
      So Love and Wisdom, present everywhere,
    Provide the suns and earths for his abode
      While, all unconscious, he is unaware
    Of his condition, or whence leads the road
    That he henceforth must tread, as others erst have trode.


    33.

    What Love suggests Wisdom is prone to do,
      As far as laws eternal will permit;
    Pervading all and ever working to
    Whatever object seen they can pursue,
      They find the highest form and type most fit
    In Man and Woman, whom they ever aim
      To reproduce and then unfold to sit
    In higher realms, with Love and Light aflame,
    Whence they survey new fields and those through which they came.


    34.

    The emanations from the Parent Pair
      At first take forms of very low degree,
    According to conditions, to prepare
    The way for higher forms, which ever are
      Ascending toward the human, as we see;
    The motion of the atom designates
      Condition and its due activity;
    Sub-union of the elements creates
    Varieties of forms and motions, and of states.


    35.

    Though Being is but one, within its scope
      It takes on countless forms, ascending still
    To higher harmonies, where new fields ope
    To higher beauties and to brighter hope;
      As music's octaves rise, progressive will
    Ascends from sphere to sphere, thro' endless range;
      The higher motion makes each sphere to thrill
    With higher Life and glories new and strange,
    Perfection nearing through an everlasting change.


    36.

    "Is this the lot of all?" some one may ask;
      "If so, how can there be the room for each
    To thus unfold eternally and bask
    In glory e'er increasing, with the task
      Of guiding all in such a boundless reach?"
    Do _my_ thoughts clash with yours, or yours with mine?
      Have you not room to think, and act, and teach,
    Because the world is full of thoughts that shine
    In other brains or firmaments, which them enshrine?


    37.

    In spirit, there is room enough to think;
      The mental realm has no material bound;
    To space there is no all-confining brink,
    Or wall of adamant against which clink
      The thoughts of men and useless fall to ground;
    Yet thoughts are things substantial as the rock,
      But only tho'ts from higher source are crowned
    Supreme and lasting; these, as real, knock
    Against our weaker conscious being, shock on shock.


    38.

    Well the psychologist knows how he can
      Create what seem material things unto
    The sensitive whom he controls, and plan
    Surroundings real to him as God's to Man;
      His thoughts, more positive, come into view
    As actual objects to the subject's mind;
      So in our little realm, by law as true
    As Life, our consciousness is all confined,
    And we behold God's thoughts in matter's form designed.


    39.

    We nothing add and nothing do we take
      By our unfolding, which but changes what
    Already has existence, as we wake
    From our unconscious state and slowly shake
      The sleep of ages from our eyes, our lot
    To find ourselves upon a higher plane
      Of active life, which we had heeded not,
    Because we had not risen yet, through pain,
    Unto the higher level it was ours to gain.


    40.

    Our life henceforth is one eternal _Now_,
      Based on the Past, with all it has achieved,
    And looking to the Future with a brow
    Beaming with keen anticipation's glow;
      However in the past we may have grieved,
    Now comes a state where grief is all unknown;
      We rise above the brutal plane, relieved
    From its relentless rule; we gladly own
    Affection's sweeter sway, and ever cease to moan.


    41.

    As the conditions change, we rise to higher
      Enjoyment of the life which they unfold;
    We are not torn by false or vain desire,
    Nor tortured with the slow but cleansing fire
      That burns the dross and purifies the gold;
    But calmly and serenely on we keep
      Our course to beauties and to joys untold;
    No more our eyes are called upon to weep,
    No more we sink in dull and all-unconscious sleep.


    42.

    Our life, as then we find it, still unfolds
      Through the resistless tide or undertow
    Of an involuntary force, which holds
    Us in the true unerring course--controls
      The flow of voluntary, as below,
    Yet gives a sense of acting from free will;
      But well we know the power to will must flow,
    With all our opportunities, from still
    Profounder prior source, whence we derive all skill.


    43.

    'Twas always so, and will be without end;
      We cannot pierce eternity of Past
    To find beginning, nor the future rend
    To find the final goal to which we tend,
      But be content to know that, first and last,
    All was and will be as we find it now,
      Changed only in condition, which is fast
    Revolving the kaleidoscope to show
    How multiform the Being first on earth we know.


    44.

    Mankind are Gods in embryo, and Gods
      Are wedded Pairs advanced to higher life;
    All are one substance, and the seeming odds
    Are in conditions; he who patient plods
      Through this dull sphere of ever-active strife,
    Where hope and doubt a balance keep with fears,
      Will one day join his true allotted wife,
    And they together rise, as blend their spheres,
    To God's estate and its unfolding lapse of years.


    45.

    All the surrounding vast array we meet,
      The sphere of God and present home of Man,
    Is part and parcel needed to complete
    The home that every conscious life must greet--
      As in the womb the infant but a span
    Has there prepared a world to meet its needs
      Till Nature has completed every plan
    For its reception, and where too she breeds
    All things required to aid the destiny that leads.


    46.

    Behold, oh! Man, how glorious a thing
      It is to be! Thou art the type supreme
    Of all that is; and couldst thou only bring
    Thine eyes to see the grandeur which I sing,
      Thou wouldst not grovel in thy waking dream,
    But rise to higher, nobler, juster aims,
      And make the very vaults of Heaven gleam
    With smiles of angels, whose prolonged acclaims
    Would shake the earth, aglow with their ethereal flame.


    47.

    But now my task is done. I drop the pen
      And turn to earth, where bodily affairs
    Call me to tussle with my fellow men
    For my small share of sustenance, and then
      Essay to help the weaker gather theirs;
    Would that I had the power to clearer make
      The meaning of my theme; but all my prayers
    Are vain to help my cause, or even wake
    One echo in the mind that feels no thirst to slake.


    48.

    Perhaps some day some abler hand will string
      The lyre to loftier, clearer, sweeter tones,
    And of Man's joyous destiny will sing,
    And o'er the earth its thrilling echoes fling,
      Waking responsive feeling in the zones,
    While listening from my spirit mansion I--
      Who long since in the ashes left my bones--
    Will smiling hear the notes that rise on high,
    And fill with rapturous music the o'ervaulting sky.