For the glory of Lord Sartan, and the wisdom to be found in His words.

The following text is a sermon that I delivered before assembled
Mhaldorians at the Gates of Mhaldor. This sermon is posted with the
express permission of my guild authorities.

May this call to worship bring you suffering and strength as it furthers
your religious education.






Religion is too rich and multifaceted to be reduced to any one act, or
approach, or aspect of life. As the Lord commands absolute devotion, our
faith should touch, heighten, and transform every feature of our
existence - it is impossible to separate out one aspect and say here or
nowhere the burning heart of devotion is to be found.

However, there is one action which does bring us into a special
communion with the Lord Sartan - a crucial act without which our mortal
faith will always remain withered and unfulfilled. This central act is
worship.

By worship, I mean the act of coming into a personal consciousness of
the burning presence of the Lord which sears the soul with pain and
strengthens our inner spirit with the power of suffering. Never to have
felt that, never to have surrendered to His malevolent energy, never to
have experienced the blistering fire of personal communion with the God
of Evil, is to have missed the most profound power of our faith.

A weakness which we must avoid at all costs is that of making religion
consist of words, words, words. Talking about the Lord Sartan,
recounting the experiences of prophets past, offering up hosannas to our
faith, these activities take up much of our time together, with good
cause. But to what purpose do we "talk about the Lord Sartan" if none of
us can pause in our inward rush and find His message burning within our
very core? These appropriate, praising words regarding our faith have
place and meaning only if they create in us the passion and motivation
to contemplate His fire and malice in our daily walk.

Religion is primarily, at its heart, this excruciating meeting of the
soul with our Lord. If that experience ceases, we are doomed. There can
be living religion only so long as our mortal soul is capable of drawing
upon the searing heat of His fires within. Though we may conduct
glorious warfare, design arcane rituals, and deliver stirring sermons,
if we lose this power to discover and burn with the true presence of the
Lord within, we have made a poor exchange and have dropped from a
stronger to a weaker faith.

There is no doubt that, as with all supremely powerful things, the act
of true worship calls for intense devotion, unusual concentration, and
long-continued spiritual preparation. If it is, as I believe, the
highest goal and deepest desire of the faithful - then we must expect
that this goal will require suffering and be inaccessible through the
lines of least resistance. The Lord has always demanded the absolute
price. There is no strength without suffering, no power without pain,
and no living without dying.

For a few sovereigns you can purchase a tract on religion; for a few
sovereigns more you can hire someone to speak to you about religion; but
what you cannot buy with gold, however high you heap it, is this
experience of the burning heart of our faith, this experience of the
Lord's fire within, this practice of His divine presence, and the power
of drawing personally upon His burning malice every day so long as your
soul exists.

Penned by my hand on the 7th of Aeguary, in the year 373 AF.