CHAPTER VI.
There was one peculiarity about Mizora that I noticed soon after myarrival, but for various reasons have refrained from speaking of beforenow. It was the absence of houses devoted to religious worship.
In architecture Mizora displayed the highest perfection. Their colleges,art galleries, public libraries, opera houses, and all their publicbuildings were grand and beautiful. Never in any country, had I beheldsuch splendor in design and execution. Their superior skill in thisrespect, led me to believe that their temples of worship must be on ascale of magnificence beyond all my conceiving. I was eager to beholdthem. I looked often upon my first journeyings about their cities todiscover them, but whenever I noticed an unusually imposing building,and asked what it was, it was always something else. I was frequently onthe point of asking them to conduct me to some church that resembled myown in worship, (for I was brought up in strict compliance with thecreeds, dogmas, and regulations of the Russo Greek Church) but Irefrained, hoping that in time, I should be introduced to theirreligious ceremonies.
When time passed on, and no invitation was extended me, and I saw nohouse nor preparation for religious worship, nor even heard mention ofany, I asked Wauna for an explanation. She appeared not to comprehendme, and I asked the question:
"Where do you perform your religious rites and ceremonies?"
She looked at me with surprise.
"You ask me such strange questions that sometimes I am tempted tobelieve you a relic of ancient mythology that has drifted down thecenturies and landed on our civilized shores, or else have been giftedwith a marvelous prolongation of life, and have emerged upon us fromsome cavern where you have lived, or slept for ages in unchangedpossession of your ancient superstition."
"Have you, then," I asked in astonishment, "no religious templesdevoted to worship?"
"Oh, yes, we have temples where we worship daily. Do you see thatbuilding?" nodding toward the majestic granite walls of the NationalCollege. "That is one of our most renowned temples, where the highestand the noblest in the land meet and mingle familiarly with the humblestin daily worship."
"I understand all that you wish to imply by that," I replied. "But haveyou no building devoted to divine worship; no temple that belongsspecially to your Deity; to the Being that created you, and to whom youowe eternal gratitude and homage?"
"We have;" she answered grandly, with a majestic wave of her hand, andin that mellow, musical voice that was sweeter than the chanting ofbirds, she exclaimed:
"This vast cathedral, boundless as our wonder; Whose shining lamps yon brilliant mists[A] supply; Its choir the winds, and waves; its organ thunder; Its dome the sky."
[Footnote A: Aurora Borealis]
"Do you worship Nature?" I asked.
"If we did, we should worship ourselves, for we are a part of Nature."
"But do you not recognize an invisible and incomprehensible Being thatcreated you, and who will give your spirit an abode of eternal bliss, orconsign it to eternal torments according as you have glorified andserved him?"
"I am an atom of Nature;" said Wauna, gravely. "If you want me to answeryour superstitious notions of religion, I will, in one sentence,explain, that the only religious idea in Mizora is: Nature is God, andGod is Nature. She is the Great Mother who gathers the centuries in herarms, and rocks their children into eternal sleep upon her bosom."
"But how," I asked in bewildered astonishment, "how can you think ofliving without creeds, and confessionals? How can you prosper withoutprayer? How can you be upright, and honest, and true to yourselves andyour friends without praying for divine grace and strength to sustainyou? How can you be noble, and keep from envying your neighbors,without a prayer for divine grace to assist you to resist suchtemptation?"
"Oh, daughter of the dark ages," said Wauna, sadly, "turn to thebenevolent and ever-willing Science. She is the goddess who has led usout of ignorance and superstition; out of degradation and disease, andevery other wretchedness that superstitious, degraded humanity hasknown. She has lifted us above the low and the little, the narrow andmean in human thought and action, and has placed us in a broad, free,independent, noble, useful and grandly happy life."
"You have been favored by divine grace," I reiterated, "although yourefuse to acknowledge it."
She smiled compassionately as she answered:
"She is the divinity who never turned a deaf ear to earnest andpersistent effort in a sensible direction. But prayers to her must be_work_, resolute and conscientious _work_. She teaches that success inthis world can only come to those who work for it. In your superstitiousbelief you pray for benefits you have never earned, possibly do notdeserve, but expect to get simply because you pray for them. Sciencenever betrays such partiality. The favors she bestows are conferred onlyupon the industrious."
"And you deny absolutely the efficacy of prayer?" I asked.
"If I could obtain anything by prayer alone, I would pray that myinventive faculty should be enlarged so that I might conceive andconstruct an air-ship that could cleave its way through that chaos ofwinds that is formed when two storms meet from opposite directions. Itwould rend to atoms one of our present make. But prayer will neverproduce an improved air-ship. We must dig into science for it. Ourancestors did not pray for us to become a race of symmetrically-shapedand universally healthy people, and expect that to effect a result. Theywent to work on scientific principles to root out disease and crime andwant and wretchedness, and every degrading and retarding influence."
"Prayer never saved one of my ancestors from premature death," shecontinued, with a resolution that seemed determined to tear from my mindevery fabric of faith in the consolations of divine interposition thathad been a special part of my education, and had become rooted into mynature. "Disease, when it fastened upon the vitals of the young andbeautiful and dearly-loved was stronger and more powerful than all theagonized prayers that could be poured from breaking hearts. But science,when solicited by careful study and experiment and investigation,offered the remedy. And _now_, we defy disease and have no fear of deathuntil our natural time comes, and _then_ it will be the welcome restthat the worn-out body meets with gratitude."
"But when you die," I exclaimed, "do you not believe you have an afterlife?"
"When I die," replied Wauna, "my body will return to the elements fromwhence it came. Thought will return to the force which gave it. Thepower of the brain is the one mystery that surrounds life. We know thatthe brain is a mechanical structure and acted upon by force; but how toanalyze that force is still beyond our reach. You see that huge engine?We made it. It is a fine piece of mechanism. We know what it was made todo. We turn on the motive power, and it moves at the rate of a mile aminute if we desire it. Why should it move? Why might it not standstill? You say because of a law of nature that under the circumstancescompels it to move. Our brain is like that engine--a wonderful piece ofmechanism, and when the blood drives it, it displays the effects offorce which we call Thought. We can see the engine move and we know whatlaw of nature it obeys in moving. But the brain is a more mysteriousstructure, for the force which compels it to action we cannot analyze.The superstitious ancients called this mystery the soul."
"And do you discard that belief?" I asked, trembling and excited to hearsuch sacrilegious talk from youth so beautiful and pure.
"What our future is to be after dissolution no one knows," repliedWauna, with the greatest calmness and unconcern. "A thousand theoriesand systems of religion have risen and fallen in the history of thehuman family, and become the superstitions of the past. The elementsthat compose this body may construct the delicate beauty of a flower, orthe green robe that covers the bosom of Mother Earth, but we cannotknow."
"But that beautiful belief in a soul," I cried, in real anguish, "Howcan you discard it? How sever the hope that after death, we are againunited to part no more? Those who have left us in the spring time oflife, the bloom on their young cheeks suddenly paled by the cold touchof d
eath, stand waiting to welcome us to an endless reunion."
"Alas, for your anguish, my friend," said Wauna, with pityng tenderness."Centuries ago _my_ people passed through that season of mental pain.That beautiful visionary idea of a soul must fade, as youth and beautyfade, never to return; for Nature nowhere teaches the existence of sucha thing. It was a belief born of that agony of longing for happinesswithout alloy, which the children of earth in the long-ago ages hopedfor, but never knew. Their lot was so barren of beauty and happiness,and the desire for it is, now and always has been, a strong trait ofhuman character. The conditions of society in those earlier agesrendered it impossible to enjoy this life perfectly, and hope andlonging pictured an imaginary one for an imaginary part of the bodycalled the Soul. Progress and civilization have brought to us the idealheaven of the ancients, and we receive from Nature no evidence of anyother."
"But I do believe there is another," I declared. "And we ought to beprepared for it."
Wauna smiled. "What better preparation could you desire, then, than goodworks in this?" she asked.
"You should pray, and do penance for your sins," was my reply.
"Then," said Wauna, "we are doing the wisest penance every day. We arestudying, investigating, experimenting in order that those who comeafter us may be happier than we. Every day Science is yielding us somenew knowledge that will make living in the future still easier thannow."
"I cannot conceive," I said, "how you are to be improved upon."
"When we manufacture fruit and vegetables from the elements, can you notperceive how much is to be gained? Old age and death will come later,and the labor of cultivation will be done away. Such an advantage willnot be enjoyed during my lifetime. But we will labor to effect it forfuture generations."
"Your whole aim in life, then, is to work for the future of your race,instead of the eternal welfare of your own soul?" I questioned, insurprise.
"If Nature," said Wauna, "has provided us a future life, if thatmysterious something that we call Thought is to be clothed in anetherealized body, and live in a world where decay is unknown, I have nofear of my reception there. Live _this_ life usefully and nobly, and nomatter if a prayer has never crossed your lips your happiness will beassured. A just and kind action will help you farther on the road toheaven than all the prayers that you can utter, and all the pains andsufferings that you can inflict upon the flesh, for it will be that muchadded to the happiness of this world. The grandest epitaph that could bewritten is engraved upon a tombstone in yonder cemetery. The subject wasone of the pioneers of progress in a long-ago century, when progressfought its way with difficulty through ignorance and superstition. Shesuffered through life for the boldness of her opinions, and twocenturies after, when they had become popular, a monument was erected toher memory, and has been preserved through thousands of years as a mottofor humanity. The epitaph is simply this: 'The world is better for herhaving lived in it.'"