Inner Temple

“ Why," he continued, bitterly, "why hast thou come to break my peace--to poison my happiness in the very temple which I have erected to the Deity? Mean and polluted it may be, but still it hath been raised to his honour."
"Is God then enthroned in this temple?" replied Truth. "It cannot be, or the presence of divine purity would have purified even it. Self-deceiver! thou standest now in the centre of the temple--thou standest at the foot of the shrine; lift up thine eyes and behold the object of thy worship--behold the Idol which thou hast adored all thy days!" ”

“ Its great beauty has captivated and allured you, but though it is displayed before you in its whole strength you stand before it as if you were standing in a square room from which you can see the temple being built, in all its immensity and beauty. But it is being built quietly and evenly day by day, and if you are not familiar with the whole plan, the sublime temple will disappear and vanish from your vision, and the vision, which was not deep in your soul, will vanish and the labor of building will seem beyond your strength. ”

“ And when we contemplate the tiny vehicle of life under the microscope we may well close-to the doors of the senses, take off the sandals and worship, for are we not at the very altar of the Temple—the temple of the Almighty; are we not face to face with the Creators? ”

“ In thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous with suns, thy worshipers stand erect. They do not bow or cringe or crawl or bend their foreheads to the earth. Thy dust hast never borne the impress of lips, upon thy sacred altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes, nor men their rights. Thou askest naught from man except the things that good men hate, the whip, the chain, the dungeon key. ”

“ Ay, they do say so, the hirelings that foul with their feet the water whence the flock should drink: ‘we are the people, and wisdom shall die with us!’ ‘The Temple of the Lord are we!’ But the Temple of the Lord is larger, and wider, and higher, than their poor narrow souls. ”

“ And thus we wander on, the sights and sounds of God's world without attract us no longer, we see nothing but the sacred representations which encompass us so closely, feel only the solemnity of the temple in which we stand. And the consecrated walls embrace us ever more and more closely, until at last we reach the lonely, resonant chamber occupied by the divinity himself, and entered by no human being save his priest. ”

“ Wondering she gazed, until, penetrating further and further through the light, she saw in the depths of heaven a Temple like her own, only perfect, glorious beyond comparison, [Pg 105] and full—full of worshippers robed and singing like herself, and full of that wondrous radiance which streamed from the heavenly form she had seen. She laid her harp upon the shrine, and to her surprise the strings began to quiver of their own accord! An electric current united them to the harps in the heavenly temple, and they vibrated in exquisite harmonies the echo of the harmonies above. ”

“ The Temple itself, that fair incarnation of the soul of an unconquerable Faith, and the first fruit of the Plan now set in motion, stands in its silent beauty, ready to reinforce the strenuous endeavors of its prosecutors. Towering in grandeur and resplendent in its majesty it calls aloud incessantly for a greater, a far greater number of pioneers who, both at home and in foreign fields, will scatter to sow the Divine seeds and gather the harvest into its gates. ”

“ From its central sanctuary in which He, the unseen, dwells, this temple projects, extending itself in space in every direction; but by an opposite movement all its parts, closely united, converge to the sanctuary, gravitating toward the central point where their Head, their essential and primordial Reason, dwells; they struggle to penetrate its mystic veil, to mingle with it, to have their being in it, in order to accomplish the perfect union of variety with unity, of the finite with the infinite.
'The art temple struggles to develop itself by a process analogous to that of creation. ”

“ Thus Really-Is and Seemsto-Be learned that the dwellers in Sometime were unlike the people of Daybyday in many ways, but in no way more than this, that they worshiped one god only, only one. The temple sacred to this god stood in the very heart of the city, which is the very heart of the land, and it was this temple, blazing like a ruby flame high above the shining city walls, the princes had seen from the tower of their palace home. ”

“ We desire, our Father, that we may do this work with holiness of heart, that we may have the Spirit of the Lord our God to rest upon us, that we may dedicate and consecrate this place to be most holy—a sacred and holy place unto thee, whereon may be erected a Temple that shall be acceptable in thy sight. ”

“ After groping about for an hour and a half by torchlight through those mysterious chambers sacred to the generative power of nature, of which beauty has always been one of the principal symbols, from the sting which its appearance infixes in the human soul, he issued forth filled with enthusiasm, under the influence of which he attempted to climb up to the apex of the temple. ”

“ When we compare the temple which we call Nature, built of sights and sounds by memory and understanding, with all the wonderful worlds evocable by the magician's wand, may we not prefer the humbler and more lasting edifice, not only as a dwelling, but even as a house of prayer? It is not always the loftiest architecture that expresses the deepest soul; the inmost religion of the Pagan haunted his hearth as that of the Christian his catacombs or his hermitage. ”

“ It seems as if human art had outdone itself in producing this temple—the grandest which the world ever erected for the worship of the Living God! The awe felt in looking up at the giant arch of marble and gold, did not humble me; on the contrary, I felt exalted, ennobled—beings in the form I wore planned the glorious edifice, and it seemed that in godlike power perseverance, they were indeed but "a little lower than the angels!" I felt that, if fallen, my race was still mighty and immortal. ”

“ But I have found that it is but ‘a name to live.’ You sinfully ignore ‘the weightier matters of the law, judgment, justice, and mercy!’ You call out as you tread that gorgeous fane—‘The Temple of the Lord! The Temple of the Lord! The Temple [Pg 199] of the Lord are we!’ You forget that your hearts are the Temple I prize! Holiness, the most acceptable incense—love to God, and love to man, the most pleasing sacrifice. All that dead and torpid formalism—that mockery of outward foliage—is to me nothing. ”

“ I can see the great and holy temple, and the many hundreds that stand within, waiting the coming of Belit Istar. I see the steps ascending to the holy shrine all carpeted with stiff gold. At last I behold her coming radiantly into the dusky temple-room. Her tresses float lightly behind her; her tresses, like spun silk, hang as a veil about her shoulders. Falsely now she moves between the rows of kneeling men and women. Falsely she glides up the holy steps, and, profaning all holiness, draws aside the curtain of the sanctuary and enters alone into the little room. ”

“ Haunting foreshadowings of the temple appear in the realm of imagination, in music, in architecture, in the untroubled kingdom of reason, and in the golden sunset magic of lyrics, where beauty shines and glows, remote from the touch of sorrow, remote from the fear of change, remote from the failures and disenchantments of the world of fact. ”

“ This temple is an image of the infinite, and there is no limit to the sentiments to which it gives birth—to the ideas which it revives—to the immense quantity of years which it recalls to our reflection, either of past or future ages; and on quitting its walls we seem to pass from celestial thoughts to worldly interests, from the eternity of religion to the atmosphere of time. ”

“ Once arrived at this place, the clouds of driving spray are a little thinner, and, though it is still very difficult either to see or breathe, the magnificence of the temple, which is here formed by the natural bend of the cataract and the backward shelve of the precipice, makes a lasting impression on the mind. The temple seems a fit and awful shrine for Him who "rides on the wings of mighty winds," and, completely shut out from man's puny works, the mind rises naturally in adoring contemplation to Him whose voice is heard in the "thunder of waters." ”

“ The sages have seer, and said that this entire creation is indwelt and inspired by God; and we have been taught, it has been brought home to us, that this wide-spread universe is the sacred temple of the supreme Deity. When exalted to this blessed consciousness, wherever we be, we stand on the holy ground of His temple, we are always and everywhere in the sanctifying presence of our God. ”

“ It is in this vast temple, where he unveils his glory, that I offer up my orisons and my incense; and not on altars built by human hands, or within temples consecrated by priestly incantations."
"I agree with you, that power, and wisdom, and goodness, are displayed in the works of God, and that we may worship him either in the glen or on the mountain top, beside the running stream or within the recesses of pathless woods; but, as we are sinners, can we indulge any hope of mercy, unless he condescend to promise us forgiveness? ”

“ The Saints of these valleys have grown in riches, and abundance of the comforts of life, in a manner hitherto unparalleled on the page of history, and if they will do by their Heavenly Father as He has done by them, soon will this Temple be inclosed. But if you go in for a speculation with passers by, as many have hitherto done, you will not live to see the Topstone of this Temple laid; and your labors and toils for yourselves and, friends, dead and alive, will be worse than though you had had no existence. ”

“ The dingy low walls, the glass-less windows, the tobacco besmeared floor, become transformed to a holy temple, where God deigned to make visible His presence, and it has been a sacred place. Our hope of this people centres largely in the young. ”

“ The luxurious emotion increases, despite nirvanic chastening, and among the serene images of the higher terraces, who can remain unmoved in contemplation of the ancient temple lifting its dagob to the blue heaven, of its hoary walls touched by the golden light, quivering in desire of sacred communion! ”

“ The call has sounded through the universe, and those who are true to their own higher principles have surrounded the sacred chest. Those who have sworn alliance to their own higher being are following the priests and their sacred burden, and a beautiful mystery temple is being built in this beautiful land of ours, loved and guarded by those who are laboring for humanity. ”

“ He has built the true Temple, in that His body is the seat of sacrifice and of revelation, and the meeting-place of God and man, and inasmuch as through Him we are built up into a spiritual house for an habitation of God. ”

“ As with the sun, so it is with God. Each man wants to have a special God of his own, or at least a special God for his native land. Each nation wishes to confine in its own temples Him, whom the world cannot contain.
'Can any temple compare with that which God Himself has built to unite all men in one faith and one religion?
'All human temples are built on the model of this temple, which is God's own world. Every temple has its fonts, its vaulted roof, its lamps, its pictures or sculptures, its inscriptions, its books of the law, its offerings, its altars and its priests. ”

“ This is to be a temple of universal religion, symbolizing in its architecture the unities of faith and humanity. "The temple with its nine doors will be set in the center of a circular garden symbolizing the all-inclusive circle of God's unity; nine pathways will lead to the nine doors and each one coming down the pathway of his own sect or religion or trend of thought will leave at the door the dogmas that separate and, under the dome of God's oneness, all will become one.... ”

“ I went through a wood, where there are some mournful groups of graves on the hillside, and from the temple came the sweet sound of the great bronze bell and the beat of the big drum, and then, more faintly, the sound of the little bell and drum, with which the priest accompanies his ceaseless repetition of a phrase in the dead tongue of a distant land. There is an infinite pathos about the lonely temple in its splendour, the absence of even possible worshippers, and the large population of Ainos, sunk in yet deeper superstitions than those which go to make up popular Buddhism. ”

“ Raise up, then, from this Temple, the temples of the Oneness of God, that they may tell out, in the kingdom of creation, the tidings of their Lord, the Most Exalted, the All-Glorious, and be of them that are illumined by His light.
13 We, verily, have ordained this Temple to be the source of all existence in the new creation, that all may know of a certainty My power to accomplish that which I have purposed through My word “Be”, and it is! Beneath the shadow of every letter of this Temple We shall raise up a people whose number none can reckon save God, the Help in Peril, the Self-Subsisting. ”

“ If they are entering the city for the first time and crave exceeding virtue, they approach the great temple on the hill by lying face down at every step and beating their foreheads upon the ground. Wooden shrines of dazzling whiteness stand in quiet streets or cluster by themselves behind the temples. ”

“ Brethren, we have accomplished the design of our hearts, that we listed to accomplish. And really, this thought inadvertently rushes upon my mind—Wherein have we not accomplished all we have listed to do? not only in excavating the earth, and laying down the Corner Stones in the centre of the main body of the building we shall rear for the Temple, but wherein have we contemplated doing one thing we have not done, to build up the Kingdom of God? If there has been a failure, it does not occur to my mind at present. ”

“ As we observe its incessant activity in the depths of our heart, the only temple where it can truly be active: as we watch it blending with all that we think, and feel, and do, we shall quickly discover which are the things that throw light upon it, and which those that plunge it in darkness ”