Page:Democratic Ideals (Olympia Brown).djvu/93

This page needs to be proofread.

The Radiant Center


our potential divinity we must find our inspiration not in ourselves but in that Radiant Center which is at the very heart of Being.

It was a doctrine of Plato that the heavens are always in motion seeking the Soul of the World. We are always restless and unsatisfied until we find the Soul of the World and find our own soul in it. It is natural for the soul to aspire; ever to seek to break away from the paralysis of world environment; the limitations of the flesh and the devil of separateness; to unite itself consciously with the Source of its being. As the poet Mathilda Blind has said:

"As compressed within the bounded shell Boundless oceans cease to surge and swell, So haunting echoes of an infinite whole Moan and murmur through man's finite soul."

That there is this universal longing is sufficient demonstration that that exists which meets this need. Every age and every faith has had a name and many names for that which I am at this time calling the Radiant Center because the idea which that suggests seems to accord with the highest discoveries of science, the deepest thought of philosophy and the most imperative demand of the soul.

Sir Oliver Lodge, known as an eminent scientist and philosopher, says: "We are