08 Monday Feb 2016
Posted in A Tribute to Walt Whitman
05 Friday Feb 2016
When the day is done – when the work of a life is finished – when the gold of evening meets the dusk of night, beneath the silent stars the tired laborer should fall asleep. To outlive usefulness is a double death. “Let me not live after my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff of younger spirits.”
When the old oak is visited in vain by Spring – when light and rain no longer thrill – it is not well to stand leafless, desolate, and alone. It is better far to fall where Nature softly covers all with woven moss and creeping vine.
How little, after all, we know of what is ill or well! How little of this wondrous stream of cataracts and pools – this stream of life, that rises in a world unknown, and flows to that mysterious sea whose shore the foot of one who comes has never pressed! How little of this life we know – this struggling ray of light ‘twixt gloom and gloom – this strip of land by verdure clad, between the unknown wastes – this throbbing moment filled with love and pain – this dream that lies between the shadowy shores of sleep and death!
We stand upon this verge of crumbling time. We love, we hope, we disappear. Again we mingle with the dust, and the “knot intrinsicate” forever falls apart.
But this we know: A noble life enriches all the world.
In the drama of human life, all are actors, and no one knows his part. In this great play the scenes are shifted by unknown forces, and the commencement, plot and end are still unknown – are still unguessed. One by one the players leave the stage, and others take their places. There is no pause – the play goes on. No prompter’s voice is heard, and no one has the slightest clue to what the next scene is to be.
Will this great drama have an end? Will the curtain fall at last? Will it rise again upon some other stage? Reason says perhaps, and Hope still whispers yes.
– RGI
02 Tuesday Feb 2016
Posted in A Tribute to Courtland Palmer
Tags
Science, the Savior of our race – the religion that conquers prejudice and hatred, that drives all superstition from the mind, that ennobles, lengthens and enriches life, that drives from every home the wolves of want, from every heart the fiends of selfishness and fear, and from every brain the monsters of the night.
– RGI
28 Thursday Jan 2016
Posted in A Tribute to Courtland Palmer
Tags
Truth, when found, should be welcomed by every human soul.
Truth has no fear of investigation – of being understood.
Truth loves the day – its enemies are ignorance, prejudice, egotism, bigotry, hypocrisy, fear and darkness; intelligence, candor, honesty, love and light are its eternal friends.
– RGI
25 Friday Dec 2015
Posted in An Essay On Christmas
My family and I regard Christmas as a holiday – that is to say, a day of rest and pleasure – a day to get acquainted with each other, a day to recall old memories, and for the cultivation of social amenities. The festival now called Christmas is far older than Christianity. It was known and celebrated for thousands of years before the establishment of what is known as our religion. It is a relic of sun-worship. It is the day on which the sun triumphs over the hosts of darkness, and thousands of years before the New Testament was written, thousands of years before the republic of Rome existed, before one stone of Athens was laid, before the Pharaohs ruled in Egypt, before the religion of Brahma, before Sanskrit was spoken, men and women crawled out of their caves, pushed the matted hair from their eyes, and greeted the triumph of the sun over the powers of the night.
There are many relics of this worship – among which is the shaving of the priest’s head, leaving the spot shaven surrounded by hair, in imitation of the rays of the sun. There is still another relic – the ministers of our day close their eyes in prayer. When men worshiped the sun – when they looked at that luminary and implored its assistance – they shut their eyes as a matter of necessity. Afterward the priests looking at their idols glittering with gems, shut their eyes in flattery, pretending that they could not bear the effulgence of the presence; and today, thousands of years after the old ideas have passed away, the modern parson, without knowing the origin of the custom, closes his eyes when he prays. There are many other relics and souvenirs of the dead worship of the sun, and this festival was adopted by Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and by Christians. As a matter of fact, Christianity furnished new steam for an old engine, infused a new spirit into an old religion, and, as a matter of course, the old festival remained.
For all of our festivals you will find corresponding pagan festivals. For instance, take the Eucharist, the communion, where persons partake of the body and blood of the Deity. This is an exceedingly old custom. Among the ancients they ate cakes made of corn, in honor of Ceres and they called these cakes the flesh of the goddess, and they drank wine in honor of Bacchus, and called this the blood of their god. And so I could go on giving the pagan origin of every Christian ceremony and custom.
The probability is that the worship of the sun was once substantially universal, and consequently the festival of Christ was equally wide spread. As other religions have been produced, the old customs have been adopted and continued, so that the result is, this festival of Christmas is almost world-wide. It is popular because it is a holiday. Overworked people are glad of days that bring rest and recreation and allow them to meet their families and their friends. They are glad of days when they give and receive gifts – evidences of friendship, of remembrance and love. It is popular because it is really human, and because it is interwoven with our customs, habits, literature, and thought. For my part I am willing to have two or three a year – the more holidays the better. Of course, I am in favor of everybody keeping holidays to suit himself, provided he does not interfere with others, and I am perfectly willing that everybody should go to church on that day, provided he is willing that I should go somewhere else.
– RGI
