The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 76

"Only Health Puts us Rapport with the Universe

"Only Health Puts us Rapport with the Universe.

They will discern character and ability in every expression: in the head, the face, the hands, more especially. When, for instance, they find the posterior section of the brain unduly developed, they will direct energy to the frontal and coronal regions; knowing, as a scientific fact, that the intellectual and spiritual faculties can be, by such effort, wonderfully enlarged; knowing that construction of the noble proves the only real destruction of the ignoble; and knowing that: "Resist not evil, but overcome all evil with good," is a divinely infallible precept. They will never make suggestions of incapacity or wilfully wrong intention; they will hang no battle scenes on the walls; they will commemorate no ferocities of man or beast; Onward and Upward will be their watchword as they point to the glorious and joyous conquests that await our race in the evolution of its finer forces.

Not in vain does such inspiration as Walt Whitman's proclaim:

"Produce great persons, the rest follows!

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women: The place where a great city stands is not the place of stretched wharves, docks, manufactures,' deposits of produce merely;

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Nor the place of the most numerous population.
Where the city of the faithfullest friends stands,
Where the city of the cleanliness of the sexes stands,
Where the city of the healthiest fathers stands,
Where the city of the best-bodied mothers stands,
Where equanimity is illustrated in affairs,
Where children are taught to be laws to themselves, and to depend on themselves,
There the great city stands!"

In the meantime, parents have almost exclusive privileges as educators in the best sense, though the future is not very remote which will train all its children in self-knowledge, and in the immutability of cause and effect; thus making them laws unto themselves, able to depend on themselves, splendidly eager to become the builders of great cities over the wide and happy earth.

But now, and for all time, the crowning prerogatives belong inalienably to Motherhood. With its divinely creative and formative powers, enlightened Motherhood will bring such great persons into existence that human betterment will be achieved—bright beyond our brightest dreams.

The century just begun has already been named "The Women's Century," and it will abundantly justify its proud designation. Women will prove themselves the regenerators of humankind. They will arise in their righteousness and declare: "There shall be no disease, no poverty, no crime; there shall be no debasement of any appetite; there shall be no war between individuals or between peoples. We say these things shall no longer be. We—mothers of the world, students of the law which rules infinity—affirm that our children and the children of all future times shall be loving, true, wise, brave, strong, and beautiful in the Universal Brotherhood of Divine Harmony."

* * * * * *

I have named Walt Whitman. Because he is a magnificent apostle of causation, of womanhood, and of universal brotherhood I may be allowed to conclude with some of his virile verse. In his "The Song of Prudence" he chants:

"The soul is of itself, all verges to it;
All has reference to what ensues:
page 19 All that a person does, says, thinks, is of consequence;
Not a move can a man or woman make, which affects him, or her, in a day, month, any part of the direct lifetime, or the hour of death,
But the same affects him or her onward, afterward, through the indirect lifetime;
The indirect is just as much as the direct;
The spirit receives from the body just as much as it gives to the body—if not more.
Not one word or deed but has results beyond death as really as before death.
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything:
No specification is necessary; all that a man or woman docs, that is vigorous, benevolent, clean, is so much profit to him or her,
In the unshakeable order of the universe, and through the whole scope of it forever."

Then of the mystery of maternity in his own sonorous way he sings:

"Unfolded out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is always to come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth is to come the superbest man of the earth;
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain come all the folds of the man's brain, duly obedient;
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman all justice is unfolded;
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy;
For a man is a great thing upon the earth, and throughout eternity; but every jot of the greatness of the man is unfolded out of woman;
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in himself."

And, in his "Song of the Universal," he bursts into the glorious pæan:

"All, all for immortality!
Love, like the silent light, enwrapping all;
page 20 Nature's amelioration blessing all:
The blossoms, fruits of ages, orchards divine and certain,
Forms, objects, growths, humanities, to spiritual images ripening.
Give me, O God, to sing that thought!
Give me, give him, or her, I love, this quenchless faith in Thee, in Thee!
Whatever else withheld—withhold not from us
Belief in plan of Thee enclosed in time and space:
Health, peace, salvation universal!
Is it a dream?
Nay; but the lack of it the dream;
And, failing it, life's lore and wealth a dream;
And all the world a dream!"