AN EIGHTH ARMY SOLDIER WANTS TO KNOW

AN EIGHTH ARMY SOLDIER WANTS TO KNOW

    A SOLDIER of the Eighth Army came home on leave—a young Fleet Street journalist who had wanted for years to talk with Silver Birch. He had read every word said by the guide. He has argued about Spiritualism with his comrades on troopships, in camps, and on battlefields.

　He was invited to attend the Hannen Swaffer Home Circle and talk to the guide himself. When he had asked his questionsーsome of them complicated and dealing with such matters asinfinityーthe spirit guide in his utter simplicity said:

　"You are a soldier, but there is a greater war for you to fight, and there are great hosts of mighty battalions who will be behind you if you will take your stand and play your part in fighting this war which has been raging for centuries. The call is to service. There are no medals, no badges, no stripes, no ranks, but we can promise victory will come if there is faithfulness and unremitting devotion. Help us to drive out all these evils that afflict the world of matter. Offer us your own life so that we can use you as one more instrument, and if by virtue of what you do one soul is helped, then your life will not have been in vain. That is how we work.”

　"One individual seems to do so little," said the soldier. "In the Army we can only talk."

　"But one individual with the power of the spirit behind him can do a great deal," was the guide's reply. "I speak in no vain-glorious spirit, for I am still filled with humility and with pity. I was given what seemed an insuperable task, to find my way, unknown, with no asset but a voice and some simple teachings, to your world, to seek out an instrument and to win by love and reason.

　"Yes, one man; it is one man, but with the self-same power of the spirit that is available to all who desire to serve. And despite hardship and difficulties and obstacles of all kinds, I found an instrument. I trained him to my purpose and gradually, by devious means, with patience, I gathered together those who could help me, winning each in turn, not by any offer of a reward, but merely inspiring them with the desire to serve. And see, in a few years, the truths of which we are the instruments, the proud instruments, have encircled the whole world.

　"There was one man, and his name was Jesus of Nazareth, and he brought a new standard of religion, based on love, to your world.

　"There was one man, and his name was Lincoln, and he freed slaves and united a continent.

　"Do you want me to cite more examples of what one man can do? Do not despair. Those who are joined with us in this great battle will not lose. There will be occasional reverses, but we are advancing all the time as knowledge chases away ignorance and light drives out the darkness.

　"I am an old soulーso it is said. I know what can be done. Let me then speak words of encouragement to you, to drive away any thoughts of despair. Yes, there is work to be done, great work, the labour for which we require willing hands and hearts and minds. Come and work with us. Be tolerant, help others to see and prize the truth which you have gained, and then let the power of the spirit work its potency on them, and you will see the transformation gradually taking place.

　"That is the way it must be doneーno mass conversions, no spell-binding evangelism, but truth winning devotees by reason, wisdom, logic, common sense, and, above all, by love. That, in the end, is the only way. Do you not agree?"

　"I agree," said the soldier, “but it is going to take a long, long time."

　"Somebody has said," remarked Silver Birch, "the world was here before you came and the world will still be here when you have left it. The most that you can do is to make your passage through it worth while. If you help one soul, then you have not failed."

　"But, think of all those who go through life and give no service at all," said the visitor.

　"All young men are impatient, but the law is evolution, norevolution," replied Silver Birch. "I never curb zeal or enthu-siasm, but I do point to the facts as I have found them. Let experience be your guide. That is how and why we can help you. And the truth is that we have made more progress than many realise.

　"The power of the spirit is at work all over your world. Lives are being transformed, knowledge is spreading and knowledge is the most potent influence that we can bring to bear. Help to make the children of the Great Spirit free by teaching them to sever the bonds that keep them in prison.

　"Do not despair. We will never fail you. That is no boast. With all the knowledge of spiritual law we will bring to bear all the resources of spirit power, which are infinite. And no matter what circumstance may avail you, we will strive to guide and uphold and to sustain you so that you will learn how to over-come them, to tread that path which will lead you to give the greatest service of which you are capable.

　"Service is the coin of the spirit. The only religion which I preach isーgive service wherever you can. Never mind theology, or creeds, or rituals, or ceremonies, or doctrines. Never mind altars or steeples, the stained glass windows, the vestments; never mind all those things, they are of no account.

　"Give service, that is religion. Help the world in which you live, help to enlighten it; be tolerant, kindly, sympathetic; but at the same time fight all evil wherever it rears its head.

　"Those are the simple truths which I have returned to enun-ciate, and as long as you hold on to those simple truths you will not go wrong. Offer knowledge wherever you can. Sometimes it will be rejected and you will be met with scoffing, with ridicule, with mockery. That does not matter. It should not touch you. Those who are unready are perforce unreceptive, but you have done your task.

　"But you will meet many, to whom this will be precious drops of water when their souls are parched. Those are the ones that matter, and, if you help them, then at least you have justified your existence.

　"I want you to take from me the knowledge of what goes on behind physical life, all that vast power of the spirit which is surging around you, of the many influences for good which strive to use you. I want you to try to understand the poten-tialities of your own self so that you can have access to the vast armouries and riches of your own spiritual nature. I want you to realise that wisdom, divine wisdom, is inexhaustible, that the treasuries of the Great Spirit are infinite.  

　"We cannot bring you gold, silver or precious stones, but we can bring you the infinitely richer jewels of spiritual truth. They will be untarnished, they will endure for ever. With this to guide you, you have a shining illumination to direct you throughout all life.”

　Here the Eighth Army soldier said to Silver Birch: “When we were abroad, we were fighting an enemy who, we thought, was wrong. We found that the men who constituted the enemy, the individual soldier, believed in the ideal that he was fighting for. How would he be dealt with as far as laws of retribution are concerned? We believe that he is doing wrong, he believes that he is doing right."

　The guide replied: "You must always remember that we do not look on your world through the eyes of your world, that we do not judge according to earthly standards of judgment, that we are not involved in your hatreds and your passions and that we are not subjected to the temporary blindness that so often beclouds your judgment.

　"Further, that with some experience of the workings of the law in the world we inhabit, we do not have the same regard for the problems that afflict you, nor do we see them in the same perspective as you do.

　"With that very necessary preamble, I must say to you that the overwhelming consideration is the one of motive. He who honestly thinks that he is doing right has committed no offence against his soul. He who knows he is doing wrong and persists, obviously commits that offence because he is cramping his own spirit and affecting its own evolution. We do not see a world of nationalities as you do, we see a race of spiritual beings and we know that each is judged, not by national, but by natural laws.”

　The soldier's next question was: “How can we decide right from wrong? Is it a matter for the individual or a matter laid down in spiritual laws?"

　Silver Birch replied: "It is for the individual, for each one possesses the infallible monitor within his own being. I have had this point presented to me on many occasions and always have I refused to budge one iota from the stand I have adopted.

　"I say, with all my knowledge of spiritual law, that every normal individual, that is one who is not deranged or afflicted by mental disease, every normal individual has an infallible index to his own thinking and behaviour; that is his conscienceーhis inexorable guide to all that he thinks, says and does, and auto-matically, instinctively, on every occasion, whatever your problem or perplexity, your own conscience unhesitatingly tells you whether you are right or wrong.

　"Sometimes you strive to stifle it, sometimes you seek to argue it away by temporising and by discussion, but always, within yourself, you know."

　Silver Birch commented, after a discussion of a complex problem:

　"I am a very practical being. I always refuse to be led on to intricate paths which I think will not help your world in its present plight. I see that it requires fundamental knowledge, the knowledge that will enable it to reshape the whole of its systems so that it can get rid of all the present squalor and dirt and slums and inequality and injustice, all of which are preventing the spirit of man from finding expression.

　"When I look around your world and see what could be a wondrous garden choked with all the dirty, dank weeds that prevent any flower from finding its expression of beauty, then I say to you, attack these fundamental problems, wage your war on the enemy which is much stronger than any foe you have at present met on fields of warfare.

　"Fight the enemy who keeps the human spirit in subjection; fight the enemy who oppresses the human spirit and keeps the soul in bondage. Fight all those who deny man his elementary rights to have the sunshine, to have the freedom which is part of his divine heritage. 

　"These are the first problems that await your attention. And if you can inspire that zeal and enthusiasm in all those whom you know and who think that this knowledge can help them, then tell them that its primary purpose is not to satisfy philosophical speculation, but to make your world a kingdom of heaven on earth, so that man learns his lessons there and does not come to us in that dreadful condition in which many are arriving today."

　The soldier commented: “I agree, but when you look at places like India and see people there with not enough food or clothing, it is rather bewildering. How are we going to reshape India? The task seems terrific.''

　Silver Birch answered: "No, it is not so terrific, if you will allow the voice and the power of the spirit to guide and uphold you, if you will rid your world of the curse of creedalism which holds so many in chains, which encourages rancour and bitter-ness and hatred, which defeats the children of the Great Spirit, which makes them live in the foul, inky blackness of superstition and prejudice and ignorance.

　"If you will teach them how to be free and banish all those ancient myths and fables which have been called religion for too long and tell them how they can have the sunlight of spiritual truth; if you will drive away all that falsity and error that has come in the name of religion, you will begin to solve many of the problems of your world. I tell you with all the solemnity of which I am capable that your world has been cursed by creedal-ism."

　Here the soldier asked: "How about the economic side?"

　And the guide replied: “It is all part of the same problem. I am a disturber. I am told that I preach doctrines which are not in accordance with the tenets of Christianity, and yet I think I know more about Christianity than those who criticise me. All your problems resolve themselves into the one simple factーman is a spiritual being and by virtue of his heritage possesses certain fundamental rights.

　"Those rights are that the spirit shall find the richness of expression in an earthly world to qualify it for its next stage of life. Anything which stands in the way must be overthrown; that is all. You may call it whatever name you choose. I am not concerned with labels or with parties. I am concerned with truth.

　"If you were to see, as I do, day after day, souls arriving in our world stunted, thwarted, misshapen, unevolved, unready, then you would be filled, as I am, with the desire to so transform the whole of your world so that it should not happen again.

　"Rejoice that, at so young an age, you have found knowledge to guide you. Many others regret that this knowledge came to them in the winter of their earthly lives and you are but at the spring. You have yet to attain the summer of your fulfilment."

　And with these words the guide ended the interview:

　"Let us pause to remember the power which is round and about each one of us, a power guided by love and wisdom that sustains us and wraps us in its garment.

　"Let us strive by our actions to be worthy of the trust reposed in each one of us and do nothing to dishonour the mission on which we are engaged.

　"Let us always determine to be valiant soldiers for truth, determined to fight wherever we can give service.

　"Let us never be weary in well-doing and strive to offer our-selves as instruments for that power which is always at work, striving to spread truth wherever it can."