"Truth," The Christian Recorder, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 2

Title
"Truth," The Christian Recorder, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 2
Date
10-27-1866
Creator
Edmonia Highgate
Description
In this article in The Christian Recorder (the newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church), teacher Edmonia Highgate ruminates on the nature of faith and truth.
Source
Center for Research Libraries
Transcript
Miscellaneous.


TRUTH .
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BY E. GOODELLE HIGHGATE.

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"There is a species of cactus, from whose outer bark, if torn by an ignorant person, there exudes a poisonous liquid; but the nations who know the plant, strike to core, and there find a sweet and refreshing juice that renews life." So wrote one of the most highly gifted beings that ever existed, namely Margaret Fuller Osoli.

Deep in the inner heart of hearts nature holds her secrets of the true. In the lowest and strongest stratum of their foundation nations, if they are to stand the inevitable test, contain the germ of justice. Truth is the core, the heart, the summit, and the foundation. Those who seek for it must throw the plummet with a steady, strong hand, into the middle of the stream depth. It is the keystone of the arch of the eternal. It had no creation; for it is of God. It may lie latent in the soul of a people or individual, but it cannot die. Although nothing can be added to it, yet development makes it more apparent-a bright sinecure for the eyes of its lovers. It has many names. We call it justice-fidelity-sincerity. Solomon says, "The lip of truth is eternal." David hath it; "Truth shall spring out of the earth." Christ said of God, "Thy Word is truth ."
Many latter-day saints seek for it and in so doing commit errors and announce strange theories as being immutable, but they are the ignorant persons who cause the plant "to exude a poisonous liquid." The pith of every motive should be truth . It may have been Sister Simplicity's when she, on her knees, in the midst of her devotions, told Javerb that "Jean Palpeau was not there nor had she seen him." She perhaps spoke from the purity of her being doubly refined in the high spiritual sense, meaning that the inner soul mystery labeled in the upper Beyond, Jean Palpeau, neither she nor any other mortal had seen. This she could religiously utter on her knees. Not that we would defend every maiden who, from an excess of amiable impulse, would be guilty of all sorts of misrepresentations, rather than wound her friends with the truth . But if mortals are not able to receive it in its boldness, let them be prepared by successive shocks, till they shall utter, amid their groans, "I can bear it!"
Whole nations have endeavored to keep back and disguise thee, O Eternal! Till God, in His lacerating punishments, brought purple tides from the sides of the first born throughout the land. Human beings of the highest culture have made a lifetime effort of losing sight of truth . But no description in the Apocalypse can adequately picture their inner bill for this crime,
-"That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace," pray many parents. But do they, from the earliest nursery amusement, cause their children to accept the soul of the true? Do they not rather bring into their young minds rhyming delusions? In our schools where men are being fitted to be God's interpreters to their less favored fellow creatures, are taught dogmas that bear not the light of investigation, which, were their parallels offered in the hall of science, would be proved an absurdity. In mathematics verily would they get the brand, " Reductio ad absurdum."

Nature, all nature, proclaims truth . Her beautiful symbolic forms teach it. Notice with me the doctrine in her consecutive whirls of stars, that are loop-holes in the floor of the Eternal; in those same circles in the layers of the tree trunks; in the corolla; in the arrangement of leaves on the stem and in the leaf-bud; in the wavelets in the stream; in the strata of the various incrustations of the earth; in every stone; in the drops that descend to fertilize the earth; in the formation of the human eye; in magnetism and electricity, and none the less so in the most delicate circlets in the abdominal bud just at a time when the human verges nearest the Divine Creator.

What, we ask, do these whirls and circles teach? These are but symbols of the affectionately clasped arms that speak of love. Nature is too true to do otherwise than repeatedly proclaim the grandest of her laws. Need we recount the names of the martyrs who died kissing the cross for truth ? Victor Hugo emblazons on his pages the name of a nun who was tortured to death, rather than say she was born at Syracuse when another place recorded her nativity, Carlyle, in his History of Frederick the Great, tells us of Sophia Charlotte, the grandmother of that great monarch of Prussia, who so skillfully pointed out the sophisms in the primitive fathers and the Ecumenical Councils, and St. Jerome's fooleries. In the beginning of the seventeenth century she was a grand and firm champion for truth and, in science, made even some of Liebnitz' theories as clear as fog . We have humbler men and women who combat error and seek to make truth' s establishment more apparent. Every one who is forming their characters, and aiding others in the formation of theirs, should worship truth . Sacrifice everything to truth . Seldom, if ever, accept expediency in its place, or consent to evade it, even for an instant, for the sake of effect. After all, the real is enveloped in our own souls. All outside is reflected or shadowed. We can always strike sail to truth and make a reflection that is, or will, ultimately, be bright. All else will be swallowed up in the immensity of eternity; but truth has an individuality, which is changeless.
Any defect in human character can more easily be pardoned than a lack of truth . Therefore, upon all those that preach we pray that such illumination may come, that they may see her as she is, and give to the people no dogmas that have only the merit of being old, and to hungry souls are as stones. Preach only what nature proves, rather than give to the masses the false. Ye, whose lives should and inevitably do teach, be true to your manhood's ideal of the highest purest
standard-even Jesus Christ. Assimilate toward the perfection to which He Invited you when he said, "Be ye perfect even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Woman, be true to your most delicate conception of your mission even if you become a Heloise! Though all the world be false, yet is not the duty of each one to be true in the least diminished. Personal truth would save this nation, and the world.

Part of "Truth," The Christian Recorder, Oct. 27, 1866, p. 2