394 
LITERARY PAPERS 
Again he spoke: “The world is full of sin and sorrow, 
because it is full of error. Men go astray because they think 
the delusion is better than truth. Rather than truth they fol¬ 
low error, which is pleasant to look at in the beginning, but 
causes anxiety, tribulation, and misery. . . . The truth is 
the end and aim of all existence, and the worlds originate so 
that the truth may come and dwell therein. . . . Those who 
fail to aspire to the truth have missed the purpose of life.” 
“ Truth is the essence of life. Truth cannot be fashioned. 
Truth is one and the same; it is immutable. Truth is above 
the power of death; it is omnipresent, eternal, and most glo¬ 
rious.” Numerous passages of the “Dharma” are of the 
same purport. “And again I would say, Truth sweeps the 
world of error; its breath scorches the false and untrue. It 
is the great Agni, — the fire god, — whose emblematic flames 
point heavenward.” 
The religious writers denounce the liar and the lying fife: 
“A false balance is abomination to the Lord; but a just 
weight is his delight.” 
The teachings of Christ and his apostles battle against 
falsehood in the relations of man to man; and in the account 
of Ananias and Sapphira, his wife, for an illustration, the 
lie and fraud which stand for lying and perjury against our 
own higher nature and the God within us are justly punished 
by death, — the figurative total extinction of all progressive 
powers. 
The lode-star of philosophy is Truth: Truth the unified 
principle through all and in all. From Truth our being 
emanates and returns by Truth to its source. Truth is thus 
glorified by its transitions, defeats, and victories. At each 
tone of Truth’s gamut rests Browning, who emphasizes as 
no one else its beauty and power. 
A rapid mental survey seems to show that the writings of 
the past lead in a direct line to Robert Browning; in none 
of these writings, epics though they be in Truth’s cause, 
does the Truth obtain in such a marked degree, under so 
many aspects and varieties of conditions, as in our poet’s 
works. In every state and degree Truth is studied from its 
