THE HIGHER POWERSOFMIND AND SPIRIT

BYRALPH WALDO TRINE

AUTHOR OF "IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE, " ETC. 

LONDONG. BELL AND SONS, LTD. 1933

First published May 1918Reprinted November 1918. Reprinted 1919, 1923, 1927, 1933. 

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. LTD. THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW

FOREWORD

We are all dwellers in two kingdoms, the inner kingdom, the kingdom ofthe mind and spirit, and the outer kingdom, that of the body and thephysical universe about us. In the former, the kingdom of the unseen, lie the silent, subtle forces that are continually determining, and withexact precision, the conditions of the latter. 

To strike the right balance in life is one of the supreme essentials ofall successful living. We must work, for we must have bread. We requireother things than bread. They are not only valuable, comfortable, butnecessary. It is a dumb, stolid being, however, who does not realizethat life consists of more than these. They spell mere existence, notabundance, fullness of life. 

We can become so absorbed in making a living that we have no time _forliving_. To be capable and efficient in one's work is a splendid thing;but efficiency _can be made_ a great mechanical device that robs life offar more than it returns it. A nation can become so possessed, and evenobsessed, with the idea of power and grandeur through efficiency andorganisation, that it becomes a great machine and robs its people of thefiner fruits of life that spring from a wisely subordinated andcoordinated individuality. Here again it is the wise balance thatdetermines all. 

Our prevailing thoughts and emotions determine, and with absoluteaccuracy, the prevailing conditions of our outward, material life, andlikewise the prevailing conditions of our bodily life. Would we have anyconditions different in the latter we must then make the necessarychanges in the former. The silent, subtle forces of mind and spirit, ceaselessly at work, are continually moulding these outward and thesebodily conditions. 

He makes a fundamental error who thinks that these are mere sentimentalthings in life, vague and intangible. They are, as great numbers are nowrealising, the great and elemental things in life, the only things thatin the end really count. The normal man or woman can never find real andabiding satisfaction in the mere possessions, the mere accessories oflife. There is an eternal something within that forbids it. That is thereason why, of late years, so many of our big men of affairs, so many invarious public walks in life, likewise many women of splendid equipmentand with large possessions, have been and are turning so eagerly to thevery things we are considering. To be a mere huckster, many of our bigmen are finding, cannot bring satisfaction, even though his operationsrun into millions in the year. 

And happy is the young man or the young woman who, while the bulk oflife still lies ahead, realises that it is the things of the mind andthe spirit--the fundamental things in life--that really count; that herelie the forces that are to be understood and to be used in moulding theeveryday conditions and affairs of life; that the springs of life areall from within, that as is the inner so always and inevitably will bethe outer. 

To present certain facts that may be conducive to the realisation ofthis more abundant life is the author's purpose and plan. 

 R. W. T. 

_Sunnybrae Farm, Croton-on-Hudson, New York. _

CONTENTS

Chapter Page

 I. The Silent, Subtle Building Forces of Mind and Spirit 9

 II. Soul, Mind, Body--The Subconscious Mind That Interrelates Them 19

 III. The Way Mind Through the Subconscious Mind Builds Body 37

 IV. The Powerful Aid of the Mind in Rebuilding Body--How Body Helps Mind 50

 V. Thought as a Force in Daily Living 63

 VI. Jesus the Supreme Exponent of the Inner Forces and Powers: His People's Religion and Their Condition 76

 VII. The Divine Rule in the Mind and Heart: The Unessentials We Drop--The Spirit Abides 89

VIII. If We Seek the Essence of His Revelation, and the Purpose of His Life 113

 IX. His Purpose of Lifting Up, Energising, Beautifying, and Saving the Entire Life: The Saving of the Soul is Secondary; but Follows 140

 X. Some Methods of Attainment 152

 XI. Some Methods of Expression 173

 XII. The World War--Its Meaning and Its Lessons for Us 191

XIII. Our Sole Agency of International Peace, and International Concord 213

 XIV. The World's Balance-wheel 231

THE HIGHER POWERS

OF

MIND AND SPIRIT

I

THE SILENT, SUBTLE BUILDING FORCES OF MIND AND SPIRIT

There are moments in the lives of all of us when we catch glimpses of alife--our life--that is infinitely beyond the life we are now living. Werealise that we are living below our possibilities. We long for therealisation of the life that we feel should be. 

Instinctively we perceive that there are within us powers and forcesthat we are making but inadequate use of, and others that we arescarcely using at all. Practical metaphysics, a more simplified andconcrete psychology, well-known laws of mental and spiritual science, confirm us in this conclusion. 

Our own William James, he who so splendidly related psychology, philosophy, and even religion, to life in a supreme degree, honoured hiscalling and did a tremendous service for all mankind, when he soclearly developed the fact that we have within us powers and forces thatwe are making all too little use of--that we have within us greatreservoirs of power that we have as yet scarcely tapped. 

The men and the women who are awake to these inner helps--thesedirecting, moulding, and sustaining powers and forces that belong to therealm of mind and spirit--are never to be found among those who ask: Islife worth the living? For them life has been multiplied two, ten, ahundred fold. 

It is not ordinarily because we are not interested in these things, forinstinctively we feel them of value; and furthermore our observationsand experiences confirm us in this thought. The pressing cares of theeveryday life--in the great bulk of cases, the bread and butter problemof life, which is after all the problem of ninety-nine out of everyhundred--all seem to conspire to keep us from giving the time andattention to them that we feel we should give them. But we lose therebytremendous helps to the daily living. 

Through the body and its avenues of sense, we are intimately related tothe physical universe about us. Through the soul and spirit we arerelated to the Infinite Power that is the animating, the sustainingforce--the Life Force--of all objective material forms. It is throughthe medium of the mind that we are able consciously to relate the two. Through it we are able to realise the laws that underlie the workings ofthe spirit, and to open ourselves that they may become the dominatingforces of our lives. 

There is a divine current that will bear us with peace and safety on itsbosom if we are wise and diligent enough to find it and go with it. Battling against the current is always hard and uncertain. Going withthe current lightens the labours of the journey. Instead of beingcontinually uncertain and even exhausted in the mere efforts of gettingthrough, we have time for the enjoyments along the way, as well as theability to call a word of cheer or to lend a hand to the neighbour, alsoon the way. 

The _natural, normal life_ is by a law divine under the guidance of thespirit. It is only when we fail to seek and to follow this guidance, orwhen we deliberately take ourselves from under its influence, thatuncertainties arise, legitimate longings go unfulfilled, and thatviolated laws bring their penalties. 

It is well that we remember always that violated law carries with it itsown penalty. The Supreme Intelligence--God, if you please--does notpunish. He works through the channel of great immutable systems of law. _It is ours to find these laws. _ That is what mind, intelligence, isfor. Knowing them we can then obey them and reap the beneficent resultsthat are always a part of their fulfilment; knowingly or unknowingly, intentionally or unintentionally, we can fail to observe them, we canviolate them, and suffer the results, or even be broken by them. 

Life is not so complex if we do not so continually persist in making itso. Supreme Intelligence, creative Power works only through law. Scienceand religion are but different approaches to our understanding of thelaw. When both are real, they supplement one another and their findingsare identical. 

The old Hebrew prophets, through the channel of the spirit, perceivedand enunciated some wonderful laws of the natural and normal life--thatare now being confirmed by well-established laws of mental and spiritualscience--and that are now producing these identical results in the livesof great numbers among us today, when they said: "And thine ears shallhear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when yeturn to the right hand and when ye turn to the left. "

And again: "The Lord is with you, while ye be with him; and if ye seekhim, he will be found of you; but if ye forsake him, he will forsakeyou. " "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed onthee; because he trusteth in thee. " "The Lord in the midst of thee ismighty. " "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shallabide under the shadow of the Almighty. " "Thou shalt be in league withthe stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peacewith thee. " "Commit thy way unto the Lord: trust also in him and heshall bring it to pass. " Now these formulations all mean something of a_very definite nature_, or, they mean nothing at all. If they are actualexpressions of fact, they are governed by certain definite and immutablelaws. 

These men gave us, however, no knowledge of _the laws_ underlying theworkings of these inner forces and powers; they perhaps had no suchknowledge themselves. They were intuitive perceptions of truth on theirpart. The scientific spirit of this, our age, was entirely unknown tothem. The growth of the race in the meantime, the development of thescientific spirit in the pursuit and the finding of truth, makes usinfinitely beyond them in some things, while in others they were farahead of us. But this fact remains, and this is the important fact: Ifthese things were actual facts in the lives of these early Hebrewprophets, they are then actual facts in our lives right now, today; or, if not actual facts, then they are facts that still lie in the realm ofthe potential, only waiting to be brought into the realm of the actual. 

These were not unusual men in the sense that the Infinite Power, God, ifyou please, could or did speak to them alone. They are types, they areexamples of how any man or any woman, through desire and through will, can open himself or herself to the leadings of Divine Wisdom, and haveactualised in his or her life an ever-growing sense of Divine Power. Fortruly "God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. " His laws areunchanging as well as immutable. 

None of these men taught, then, how to recognise the Divine Voicewithin, nor how to become continually growing embodiments of the DivinePower. They gave us perhaps, though, all they were able to give. Thencame Jesus, the successor of this long line of illustrious Hebrewprophets, with a greater aptitude for the things of the spirit--thesupreme embodiment of Divine realisation and revelation. With a greaterknowledge of truth than they, he did greater things than they. 

He not only did these works, but he showed how he did them. He not onlyrevealed _the Way_, but so earnestly and so diligently he implored hishearers to follow _the Way_. He makes known the secret of his insightand his power: "The words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself:but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works. " Again, "I canof my own self do nothing. " And he then speaks of his purpose, his aim:"I am come that ye might have life, and that ye might have it moreabundantly. " A little later he adds: "The works that I do ye shall doalso. " Now again, these things mean something of a very definite nature, or they mean nothing at all. 

The works done, the results achieved by Jesus' own immediate disciplesand followers, and in turn their followers, as well as in the earlychurch for close to two hundred years after his time, all attest thetruth of his teaching and demonstrate unmistakably the results thatfollow. 

Down through the intervening centuries, the teachings, the lives and theworks of various seers, sages, and mystics, within the church and out ofthe church, have likewise attested the truth of his teachings. The bulkof the Christian world, however, since the third century, has been soconcerned with various theories and teachings _concerning_ Jesus, thatit has missed almost completely the real vital and vitalising teachings_of_ Jesus. 

We have not been taught primarily to follow his injunctions, and toapply the truths that he revealed to the problems of our everydayliving. Within the last two score of years or a little more, however, there has been a great going back directly to the teachings of Jesus, and a determination to prove their truth and to make effective theirassurances. Also various laws in the realm of Mental and SpiritualScience have become clearly established and clearly formulated, thatconfirm all his fundamental teachings. 

There are now definite and well-defined laws in relation to thought as aforce, and the methods as to how it determines our material and bodilyconditions. There are now certain well-defined laws pertaining to thesubconscious mind, its ceaseless building activities, how it alwaystakes its direction from the active, thinking mind, and how through thischannel we may connect ourselves with reservoirs of power, so to speak, in an intelligent and effective manner. 

There are now well-understood laws underlying mental suggestion, wherebyit can be made a tremendous source of power in our own lives, and canlikewise be made an effective agency in arousing the motive powers ofanother for his or her healing, habit-forming, character-building. Thereare likewise well-established facts not only as to the value, but theabsolute need of periods of meditation and quiet, alone with the Sourceof our being, stilling the outer bodily senses, and fulfilling theconditions whereby the Voice of the Spirit can speak to us and throughus, and the power of the Spirit can manifest in and through us. 

A nation is great only as its people are great. Its people are great inthe degree that they strike the balance between the life of the mind andthe spirit--all the finer forces and emotions of life--and their outerbusiness organisation and activities. When the latter become excessive, when they grow at the expense of the former, then the inevitable decaysets in, that spells the doom of that nation, and its time is tolled offin exactly the same manner, and under the same law, as has that of allthe other nations before it that sought to reverse the Divine order oflife. 

The human soul and its welfare is the highest business that any statecan give its attention to. To recognise or to fail to recognise thevalue of the human soul in other nations, determines its real greatnessand grandeur, or its self-complacent but essential vacuity. It ispossible for a nation, through subtle delusions, to get such an attackof the big head that it bends over backwards, and it is liable, in thisexposed position, to get a thrust in its vitals. 

To be carried too far along the road of efficiency, big business, expansion, world power, domination, at the expense of the greatspiritual verities, the fundamental humanities of national life, thatmake for the real life and welfare of its people, and that give also itstrue and just relations with other nations and their people, is bothdangerous and in the end suicidal--it can end in nothing but loss andeventual disaster. A silent revolution of thought is taking place in theminds of the people of all nations at this time, and will continue forsome years to come. A stock-taking period in which tremendousrevaluations are under way, is on. It is becoming clear-cut anddecisive. 

II

SOUL, MIND, BODY--THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND THAT INTERRELATES THEM

There is a notable twofold characteristic of this our age--we mightalmost say: of this our generation. It is on the one hand a tremendouslyfar-reaching interest in the deeper spiritual realities of life, in thethings of the mind and the Spirit. On the other hand, there is amaterialism that is apparent to all, likewise far-reaching. We arewitnessing the two moving along, apparently at least, side by side. 

There are those who believe that out of the latter the former isarising, that we are witnessing another great step forward on the partof the human race--a new era or age, so to speak. There are many thingsthat would indicate this to be a fact. The fact that the _materialalone_ does not satisfy, and that from the very constitution of thehuman mind and soul, it cannot satisfy, may be a fundamental reason forthis. 

It may be also that as we are apprehending, to a degree never equalledin the world's history, the finer forces in nature, and are using themin a very practical and useful way in the affairs and the activities ofthe daily life, we are also and perhaps in a more pronounced degree, realising, understanding, and using the finer, the higher insights andforces, and therefore powers, of mind, of spirit, and of body. 

I think there is a twofold reason for this widespread and rapidlyincreasing interest. A new psychology, or perhaps it were better to say, some new and more fully established laws of psychology, pertaining tothe realm of the subconscious mind, its nature, and its peculiaractivities and powers, has brought us another agency in life oftremendous significance and of far-reaching practical use. 

Another reason is that the revelation and the religion of Jesus theChrist is witnessing a _new birth_, as it were. We are finding at lastan entirely new content in his teachings, as well as in his life. We aredropping our interest in those phases of a Christianity that he probablynever taught, and that we have many reasons now to believe he never eventhought--things that were added long years after his time. 

We are conscious, however, as never before, that that wonderfulrevelation, those wonderful teachings, and above all that wonderfullife, have a content that can, that does, inspire, lift up, and makemore effective, more powerful, more successful, and more happy, the lifeof every man and every woman who will accept, who will appropriate, whowill live his teachings. 

Look at it, however we will, this it is that accounts for the vastnumber of earnest, thoughtful, forward looking men and women who arepassing over, and in many cases are passing from, traditionalChristianity, and who either of their own initiative, or under otherleadership, are going back to those simple, direct, God-impellingteachings of the Great Master. They are finding salvation in histeachings and his example, where they _never could_ find it in variousphases of the traditional teachings _about_ him. 

It is interesting to realise, and it seems almost strange that this newfinding in psychology, and that this new and vital content inChristianity, have come about at almost identically the same time. Yetit is not strange, for the one but serves to demonstrate in a concreteand understandable manner the fundamental and essential principles ofthe other. Many of the Master's teachings of the inner life, teachingsof "the Kingdom, " given so far ahead of his time that the people ingeneral, and in many instances even his disciples, were incapable offully comprehending and understanding them, are now being confirmed andfurther elucidated by clearly defined laws of psychology. 

Speculation and belief are giving way to a greater knowledge of law. Thesupernatural recedes into the background as we delve deeper into thesupernormal. The unusual loses its miraculous element as we gainknowledge of the law whereby the thing is done. We are realising that nomiracle has ever been performed in the world's history that was notthrough the understanding and the use of Law. 

Jesus did unusual things; but he did them because of his unusualunderstanding of the law through which they could be done. _He_ wouldnot have us believe otherwise. To do so would be a distinctcontradiction of the whole tenor of his teachings and his injunctions. Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free, was his ownadmonition. It was the great and passionate longing of his master heartthat the people to whom he came, grasp the _interior meanings_ of histeachings. How many times he felt the necessity of rebuking even hisdisciples for dragging his teachings down through their materialinterpretations. As some of the very truths that he taught are nowcorroborated and more fully understood, and in some cases amplified bywell-established laws of psychology, mystery recedes into thebackground. 

We are reconstructing a more natural, a more sane, a more common-senseportrait of the Master. "It is the spirit that quickeneth, " said he;"the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I speak unto you, _they_are spirit and _they_ are life. " Shall we recall again in thisconnection: "I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have itmore abundantly"? When, therefore, we take him at his word, and listenintently to _his_ words, and not so much to the words of others abouthim; when we place our emphasis upon the fundamental spiritual truthsthat he revealed and that he pleaded so earnestly to be taken in thesimple, direct way in which he taught them, we are finding that thereligion of the Christ means a clearer and healthier understanding oflife and its problems through a greater knowledge of the elementalforces and laws of life. 

Ignorance enchains and enslaves. Truth--which is but another way ofsaying a clear and definite knowledge of Law, the elemental laws ofsoul, of mind, and body, and of the universe about us--brings freedom. Jesus revealed essentially a spiritual philosophy of life. His wholerevelation pertained to the essential divinity of the human soul andthe great gains that would follow the realisation of this fact. Hiswhole teaching revolved continually around his own expression, usedagain and again, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of Heaven, and whichhe so distinctly stated was an inner state or consciousness orrealisation. Something not to be found outside of oneself but to befound _only within_. 

We make a great error to regard man as merely a duality--mind and body. Man is a trinity, --soul, mind, and body, each with its ownfunctions, --and it is the right coordinating of these that makes thetruly efficient and eventually the perfect life. Anything less is alwaysone-sided and we may say, continually out of gear. It is essential to acorrect understanding, and therefore for any adequate use of thepotential powers and forces of the inner life, to realise this. 

It is the physical body that relates us to the physical universe aboutus, that in which we find ourselves in this present form of existence. But the body, wondrous as it is in its functions and its mechanism, isnot the life. It has no life and no power in itself. It is of the earth, earthy. Every particle of it has come from the earth through the food weeat in combination with the air we breathe and the water we drink, andevery part of it in time will go back to the earth. It is the house weinhabit while here. 

We can make it a hovel or a mansion; we can make it even a pig-sty or atemple, according as the soul, the real self, chooses to functionthrough it. We should make it servant, but through ignorance of the realpowers within, we can permit it to become master. "Know ye not, " saidthe Great Apostle to the Gentiles, "that your body is the temple of theHoly Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not yourown?"

The soul is the self, the soul made in the image of Eternal Divine Life, which, as Jesus said, is Spirit. The essential reality of the soul isSpirit. Spirit--Being--is one and indivisible, manifesting itself, however, in individual forms in existence. Divine Being and the humansoul are therefore in essence the same, the same in quality. Theirdifference, which, however, is very great--though less in some casesthan in others--is a difference _in degree_. 

Divine Being is the cosmic force, the essential essence, the Lifetherefore of all there is in existence. The soul is individual personalexistence. The soul while in this form of existence manifests, functionsthrough the channel of a material body. _It is the mind that relates thetwo. _ It is through the medium of the mind that the two must becoordinated. The soul, the self, while in this form of existence, musthave a body through which to function. The body, on the other hand, toreach and to maintain its highest state, must be continually infusedwith the life force of the soul. The life force of the soul is Spirit. If spirit, then _essentially one_ with Infinite Divine Spirit, forspirit, Being, is one. 

The embodied soul finds itself the tenant of a material body in amaterial universe, and according to a plan as yet, at least, beyond ourhuman understanding, whatever may be our thoughts, our theoriesregarding it. The whole order of life as we see it, all the world ofNature about us, and we must believe the order of human life, is agradual evolving from the lower to the higher, from the cruder to thefiner. The purpose of life is unquestionably unfoldment, growth, advancement--likewise the evolving from the lower and the coarser to thehigher and the finer. 

The higher insights and powers of the soul, always potential within, become of value only as they are realised and used. Evolution impliesalways involution. The substance of all we shall ever attain or be, iswithin us now, waiting for realisation and thereby expression. The soulcarries its own keys to all wisdom and to all valuable and usablepower. 

It was that highly illumined seer, Emanuel Swedenborg, who said: "Everycreated thing is in itself inanimate and dead, but it is animated andcaused to live by this, that the Divine is in it and that it exists inand from the Divine. " Again: "The universal end of creation is thatthere should be an external union of the Creator with the createduniverse; and this would not be possible unless there were beings inwhom His Divine might be present as if in itself; thus in whom it mightdwell and abide. To be His abode, they must receive His love and wisdomby a power which seems to be their own; thus, must lift themselves up tothe Creator as if by their own power, and unite themselves with Him. Without this mutual action no union would be possible. " And again:"Every one who duly considers the matter may know that the body does notthink, because it is material, but the soul, because it is spiritual. All the rational life, therefore, which appears in the body belongs tothe spirit, for the matter of the body is annexed, and, as it were, joined to the spirit, in order that the latter may live and perform usesin the natural world. .. . Since everything which lives in the body, andacts and feels by virtue of that life, belongs to the spirit alone, itfollows that the spirit is the real man; or, what comes to the samething, man himself is a spirit, in a form similar to that of his body. "

Spirit being the real man, it follows that the great, central fact ofall experience, of all human life, is the coming into a conscious, vitalrealisation of our source, of our real being, in other words, of ouressential oneness with the spirit of Infinite Life and Power--the sourceof all life and all power. We need not look for outside help when wehave within us waiting to be realised, and thereby actualised, thisDivine birthright. 

Browning was prophet as well as poet when in "Paracelsus" he said:

 Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise From outward things, whate'er you may believe. There is an inmost centre in us all, Where truth abides in fulness; and around Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, This perfect, clear perception--which is truth. A baffling and perverting carnal mesh Binds it, and makes all error: and, to know Rather consists in opening out a way Whence the imprisoned splendour may escape, Than in effecting entry for a light Supposed to be without. 

How strangely similar in meaning it seems to that saying of an earlierprophet, Isaiah: "And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand and whenye turn to the left. "

All great educators are men of great vision. It was Dr. Hiram Corson whosaid: "It is what man draws up from his sub-self which is of primeimportance in his true education, not what is put into him. It is theoccasional uprising of our sub-selves that causes us, at times, to feelthat we are greater than we know. " A new psychology, spiritual science, a more commonsense interpretation of the great revelation of the Christof Nazareth, all combine to enable us to make this occasional uprisingour natural and normal state. 

No man has probably influenced the educational thought and practice ofthe entire world more than Friedrich Froebel. In that great book of his, "The Education of Man, " he bases his entire system upon the following, which constitutes the opening of its first chapter: "In all things therelives and reigns an eternal law. This all-controlling law is necessarilybased on an all-pervading, energetic, living, self-conscious, and henceeternal, Unity. .. . _This Unity is God. _ All things have come from theDivine Unity, from God, and have their origin in the Divine Unity, inGod alone. God is the sole source of all things. All things live andhave their being in and through the Divine Unity, in and through God. All things are only through the divine effluence that lives in them. Thedivine effluence that lives in each thing is the essence of each thing. 

"It is the destiny and life work of all things to unfold their essence, hence their divine being, and, therefore, the Divine Unity itself--toreveal God in their external and transient being. It is the specialdestiny and life work of man, as an intelligent and rational being, tobecome fully, vividly, conscious of this essence of the divine effluencein him, and therefore of God. 

"The precept for life in general and for every one is: _Exhibit only thyspiritual, thy life, in the external, and by means of the external inthy actions, and observe the requirements of thy inner being and itsnature. _"

Here is not only an undying basis for all real education, but also thebasis of all true religion, as well as the basis of all idealphilosophy. Yes, there could be no evolution, unless the essence of allto be evolved, unfolded, were already involved in the human soul. Tofollow the higher leadings of the soul, which is so constituted that itis the inlet, and as a consequence the outlet of Divine Spirit, CreativeEnergy, the real source of all wisdom and power; to project its leadingsinto every phase of material activity and endeavour, constitutes theideal life. It was Emerson who said: "Every soul is not only the inlet, but may become the outlet of all there is in God. " To keep this inletopen, so as not to shut out the Divine inflow, is the secret of allhigher achievement, as well as attainment. 

There is a wood separated by a single open field from my house. In it, halfway down a little hillside, there was some years ago a spring. Itwas at one time walled up with rather large loose stone--some three feetacross at the top. In following a vaguely defined trail through the woodone day in the early spring, a trail at one time evidently considerablyused, it led me to this spot. I looked at the stone enclosure, partlymoss-grown. I wondered why, although the ground was wet around it, therewas no water in or running from what had evidently been at one time awell-used spring. 

A few days later when the early summer work was better under way, I tookan implement or two over, and half scratching, half digging inside thelittle wall, I found layer after layer of dead leaves and sediment, deadleaves and sediment. Presently water became evident, and a little laterit began to rise within the wall. In a short time there was nearly threefeet of water. It was cloudy, no bottom could be seen. I sat down andwaited for it to settle. 

Presently I discerned a ledge bottom and the side against the hill wasalso ledge. On this side, close to the bottom, I caught that peculiarmovement of little particles of silvery sand, and looking more closely Icould see a cleft in the rock where the water came gushing and bubblingin. Soon the entire spring became clear as crystal, and the waterfinding evidently its old outlet, made its way down the little hillside. I was soon able to trace and to uncover its course as it made its way tothe level place below. 

As the summer went on I found myself going to the spot again and again. Flowers that I found in no other part of the wood, before the autumncame were blooming along the little watercourse. Birds in abundance cameto drink and to bathe. Several times I have found the half-tame deerthere. Twice we were but thirty to forty paces apart. They have watchedmy approach, and as I stopped, have gone on with their drinking, evidently unafraid--as if it were likewise their possession. And so itis. 

After spending a most valuable hour or two in the quiet there oneafternoon, I could not help but wonder as I walked home whetherperchance the spring may not be actually happy in being able to resumeits life, to fulfil, so to speak, its destiny; happy also in the serviceit renders flowers and the living wild things--happy in the service itrenders even me. I am doubly happy and a hundred times repaid in thelittle help I gave it. It needed help, to enable it effectively to keepconnection with its source. As it became gradually shut off from this, it weakened, became then stagnant, and finally it ceased its activelife. 

Containing a fundamental truth deeper perhaps than we realise, are thesewords of that gifted seer, Emanuel Swedenborg: "There is only oneFountain of Life, and the life of man is a stream therefrom, which if itwere not continually replenished from its source would instantly ceaseto flow. " And likewise these: "Those who think in the light of interiorreason can see that all things are connected by intermediate links withthe First Cause, and that whatever is not maintained in that connectionmust cease to exist. "

There is a mystic force that transcends any powers of the intellect orof the body, that becomes manifest and operative in the life of man whenthis God-consciousness becomes awakened and permeates his entire being. Failure to realise and to keep in constant communion with our Source iswhat causes fears, forebodings, worry, inharmony, conflict, conflictthat downs us many times in mind, in spirit, in body--failure to followthat Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, failureto hear and to heed that Voice of the soul, that speaks continuallyclearer as we accustom ourselves to listen to and to heed it, failure tofollow those intuitions with which the soul, every soul, is endowed, andthat lead us aright and that become clearer in their leadings as wefollow them. It is this guidance and this sustaining power that allgreat souls fall back upon in times of great crises. 

This single stanza by Edwin Markham voices the poet's inspiration:

 At the heart of the cyclone tearing the sky, And flinging the clouds and the towers by, Is a place of central calm; So, here in the roar of mortal things I have a place where my spirit sings, In the hollow of God's palm. 

"That the Divine Life and Energy _actually lives in us_, " was thephilosopher Fichte's reply to the proposition--"the profoundestknowledge that man can attain. " And speaking of the man to whom thisbecomes a real, vital, conscious realisation, he said: "His wholeexistence flows forth, softly and gently, from his Inward Being, andissues out into Reality without difficulty or hindrance. "

There are certain faculties that we have that are not a part of theactive thinking mind; they seem to be no part of what we might term our_conscious intelligence_. They transcend any possible activities of ourregular mental processes, and they are in some ways independent of them. Through some avenue, suggestions, intuitions of truth, intuitions ofoccurrences of which through the thinking mind we could know nothing, are at times borne in upon us; they flash into our consciousness, as wesay, quite independent of any mental action on our part, and sometimeswhen we are thinking of something quite foreign to that which comes to, that which "impresses" us. 

This seems to indicate a source of knowledge, a faculty that is distinctfrom, but that acts in various ways in conjunction with, the activethinking mind. It performs likewise certain very definite and distinctfunctions in connection with the body. It is this that is called the_subconscious mind_--by some the superconscious or the supernormal mind, by others the subliminal self. 

Just what the subconscious mind is no man knows. It is easier to defineits functions and to describe its activities than it is to state inexact terms what it is. It is similar in this respect to the physicalforce--if it be a physical force--electricity. It is only of late yearsthat we know anything of electricity at all. Today we know a great dealof its nature and the laws of its action. No man living can tell exactlywhat electricity is. We are nevertheless making wonderful _practicalapplications_ of it. We are learning more _about it_ continually. Someday we may know what it _actually is_. 

The fact that the subconscious mind seems to function in a realm apartfrom anything that has to do with our conscious mental processes, andalso that it has some definite functions as both directing and buildingfunctions to perform in connection with the body, and that it is at thesame time subject to suggestion and direction from the active thinkingmind, would indicate that it may be the true connecting link, the mediumof exchange, between the soul and the body, the connector of thespiritual and the material so far as man is concerned. 

III

THE WAY MIND THROUGH THE SUBCONSCIOUS MIND BUILDS BODY

When one says that he numbers among his acquaintances some who are asold at sixty as some others are at eighty, he but gives expression to afact that has become the common possession of many. I have known thosewho at fifty-five and sixty were to all intents and purposes reallyolder, more decrepit, and rapidly growing still more decrepit both inmind and body, than many another at seventy and seventy-five and even ateighty. 

History, then, is replete with instances, memorable instances, ofpeople, both men and women, who have accomplished things at an age--whohave even begun and carried through to successful completion things atan age that would seem to thousands of others, in the captivity of age, with their backs to the future, ridiculous even to think ofaccomplishing, much less of beginning. On account of a certain law thathas always seemed to me to exist and that I am now firmly convinced isvery _exact_ in its workings, I have been interested in talking withvarious ones and in getting together various facts relative to thisgreat discrepancy in the ages of these two classes of "old" people. 

Within the year I called upon a friend whom, on account of living in adifferent portion of the country, I hadn't seen for nearly ten years. Conversation revealed to me the fact that he was then in hiseighty-eighth year. I could notice scarcely a change in his appearance, walk, voice, and spirit. We talked at length upon the various, so-called, periods of life. He told me that about the only differencethat he noticed in himself as compared with his middle life was that nowwhen he goes out to work in his garden, and among his trees, bushes, andvines--and he has had many for many years--he finds that he is quiteready to quit and to come in at the end of about two hours, andsometimes a little sooner, when formerly he could work regularly withoutfatigue for the entire half day. In other words, he has not the samedegree of endurance that he once had. 

Among others, there comes to mind in this connection another who is alittle under seventy. It chances to be a woman. She is bent and decrepitand growing more so by very fixed stages each twelvemonth. I have knownher for over a dozen years. At the time when I first knew her she wasscarcely fifty-eight, she was already bent and walked with anuncertain, almost faltering tread. The dominant note of her personalitywas then as now, but more so now, fear for the present, fear for thefuture, a dwelling continually on her ills, her misfortunes, hersymptoms, her approaching and increasing helplessness. 

Such cases I have observed again and again; so have all who are at allinterested in life and in its forces and its problems. What is the causeof this almost world-wide difference in these two lives? In this case itis as clear as day--the mental characteristics and the mental habits ofeach. 

In the first case, here was one who early got a little philosophy intohis life and then more as the years passed. He early realised that inhimself his good or his ill fortune lay; that the mental attitude wetake toward anything determines to a great extent our power inconnection with it, as well as its effects upon us. He grew to love hiswork and he did it daily, but never under high pressure. He wastherefore benefited by it. His face was always to the future, even as itis today. This he made one of the fundamental rules of his life. He washelped in this, he told me in substance, by an early faith which withthe passing of the years has ripened with him into a demonstrableconviction--that there is a Spirit of Infinite Life back of all, working in love in and through the lives of all, and that in the degreethat we realise it as the one Supreme Source of our lives, and whenthrough desire and will, which is through the channel of our thoughts, we open our lives so that this Higher Power can work definitely in andthrough us, and then go about and do our daily work without fears orforebodings, the passing of the years sees only the highest goodentering into our lives. 

In the case of the other one whom we have mentioned, a repetition seemsscarcely necessary. Suffice it to say that the common expression on thepart of those who know her--I have heard it numbers of times--is: "Whata blessing it will be to herself and to others when she has gone!"

A very general rule with but few exceptions can be laid down as follows:The body ordinarily looks as old as the mind thinks and feels. 

Shakespeare anticipated by many years the best psychology of the timeswhen he said: "It is the mind that makes the body rich. "

It seems to me that our great problem, or rather our chief concern, should not be so much how to stay young in the sense of possessing allthe attributes of youth, _for the passing of the years does bringchanges_, but how to pass gracefully, and even magnificently, and withundiminished vigour from youth to middle age, and then how to carry thatmiddle age into approaching old age, with a great deal more of thevigour and the outlook of middle life than _we ordinarily do_. 

The mental as well as the physical helps that are now in the possessionof this our generation, are capable of working a revolution in the livesof many who are or who may become sufficiently awake to them, so thatwith them there will not be that--shall we say--immature passing frommiddle life into a broken, purposeless, decrepit, and sunless, and onemight almost say, soulless old age. 

It seems too bad that so many among us just at the time that they havebecome of most use to themselves, their families, and to the world, should suddenly halt and then continue in broken health, and in so manycases lie down and die. Increasing numbers of thinking people the worldover are now, as never before, finding that this is not necessary, thatsomething is at fault, that that fault is in ourselves. If so, thenreversely, the remedy lies in ourselves, in our own hands, so to speak. 

In order to actualise and to live this better type of life we have gotto live better from both sides, both the mental and the physical, thiswith all due respect to Shakespeare and to all modern mentalscientists. 

The body itself, what we term the physical body, whatever may be thefacts regarding a finer spiritual body within it all the time givingform to and animating and directing all its movements, is of materialorigin, and derives its sustenance from the food we take, from the airwe breathe, the water we drink. In this sense it is from the earth, andwhen we are through with it, it will go back to the earth. 

The body, however, is not the Life; it is merely the material agencythat enables the Life to manifest in a material universe for a certain, though not necessarily a given, period of time. It is the Life, or theSoul, or the Personality that uses, and that in using shapes and moulds, the body and that also determines its strength or its weakness. Whenthis is separated from the body, the body at once becomes a cold, inertmass, commencing immediately to decompose into the constituent materialelements that composed it--literally going back to the earth and theelements whence it came. 

It is through the instrumentality or the agency of thought that theLife, the Self, uses, and manifests through, the body. Again, while itis true that the food that is taken and assimilated nourishes, sustainsand builds the body, it is also true that the condition and theoperation of the mind through the avenue of thought determines into whatshape or form the body is so builded. So in this sense it is true thatmind builds body; it is the agency, the force that determines theshaping of the material elements. 

Here is a wall being built. Bricks are the material used in itsconstruction. We do not say that the bricks are building the wall; wesay that the mason is building it, as is the case. He is using thematerial that is supplied him, in this case bricks, giving form andstructure in a definite, methodical manner. Again, back of the mason ishis mind, acting through the channel of his thought, that is directinghis hands and all his movements. Without this guiding, directing _force_no wall could take shape, even if millions of bricks were delivered uponthe scene. 

So it is with the body. We take the food, the water, we breathe the air;but this is all and always acted upon by a higher force. Thus it is thatmind builds body, the same as in every department of our being it is thegreat builder. Our thoughts shape and determine our features, our walk, the posture of our bodies, our voices; they determine the effectivenessof our mental and our physical activities, as well as all our relationswith and influence or effects upon others. 

You say: "I admit the operation of and even in certain cases the powerof thought, also that at times it has an influence upon our generalfeelings, but I do not admit that it can have any direct influence uponthe body. " Here is one who has allowed herself to be long given togrief, abnormally so--notice her lowered physical condition, her lack ofvitality. The New York papers within the past twelve months recorded thecase of a young lady in New Jersey who, from _constant_ grieving overthe death of her mother, died, fell dead, within a week. 

A man is handed a telegram. He is eating and enjoying his dinner. Hereads the contents of the message. Almost immediately afterward, hisbody is a-tremble, his face either reddens or grows "ashy white, " hisappetite is gone; such is the effect of the mind upon the stomach thatit literally refuses the food; if forced upon it, it may reject itentirely. 

A message is delivered to a lady. She is in a genial, happy mood. Herface whitens; she trembles and her body falls to the ground in a faint, temporarily helpless, apparently lifeless. Such are the intimaterelations between the mind and the body. Raise a cry of fire in acrowded theatre. It may be a false alarm. There are among the audiencethose who become seemingly palsied, powerless to move. It is the stateof the mind, and within several seconds, that has determined the stateof these bodies. Such are examples of the wonderfully quick influence ofthe mind on the body. 

Great stress, or anxiety, or fear, may in two weeks' or even in twodays' time so work its ravages that the person looks ten years or eventwenty years older. A person has been long given to worry, or perhaps toworry in extreme form though not so long--a well-defined case ofindigestion and general stomach trouble, with a generally lowered andsluggish vitality, has become pronounced and fixed. 

Any type of thought that prevails in our mental lives will in timeproduce its correspondences in our physical lives. As we understandbetter these laws of correspondences, we will be more careful as to thetypes of thoughts and emotions we consciously, or unwittingly, entertainand live with. The great bulk of all diseases, we will find, as we arecontinually finding more and more, are in the mind before being in thebody, or are generated in the body through certain states and conditionsof mind. 

The present state and condition of the body have been produced primarilyby the thoughts that have been taken by the conscious mind into thesubconscious, that is so intimately related to and that directs all thesubconscious and involuntary functions of the body. Says one: It may betrue that the mind has had certain effects upon the body; but to be able_consciously_ to affect the body through the mind is impossible and evenunthinkable, for the body is a solid, fixed, material form. 

We must get over the idea, as we quickly will, if we study into thematter, that the body, in fact anything that we call material and solid, is really solid. Even in the case of a piece of material as "solid" as abar of steel, the atoms forming the molecules are in continual actioneach in conjunction with its neighbour. In the last analysis the body iscomposed of cells--cells of bone, vital organ, flesh, sinew. In the bodythe cells are continually changing, forming and reforming. Death wouldquickly take place were this not true. Nature is giving us a new bodypractically every year. 

There are very few elements, cells, in the body of today that were therea year ago. The rapidity with which a cut or wound on the body isreplaced by healthy tissue, the rapidity with which it heals, is anillustration of this. One "touches" himself in shaving. In a week, sometimes in less than a week, if the blood and the cell structure beparticularly healthy, there is no trace of the cut, the formation of newcell tissue has completely repaired it. Through the formation of newcell structure the life-force within, acting through the blood, is ableto rebuild and repair, if not too much interfered with, very rapidly. The reason, we may say almost the sole reason, that surgery has madesuch great advances during the past few years, so much greatercorrespondingly than medicine, is on account of a knowledge of theimportance of and the use of antiseptics--keeping the wound clean andentirely free from all extraneous matter. 

So then, the greater portion of the body is really new, therefore young, in that it is almost entirely this year's growth. Newness of form iscontinually being produced in the body by virtue of this process ofperpetual renewal that is continually going on, and the new cells andtissues are just as new as is the new leaf that comes forth in thespringtime to take the place of and to perform the same functions as theone that was thrown off by the tree last autumn. 

The skin renews itself through the casting off of used cells (those thathave already performed their functions) most rapidly, taking but a fewweeks. The muscles, the vital organs, the entire arterial system, thebrain and the nervous system all take longer, but all are practicallyrenewed within a year, some in much less time. Then comes the bonystructure, taking the longest, varying, we are told, from seven andeight months to a year, in unusual cases fourteen months and longer. 

It is, then, through this process of cell formation that the physicalbody has been built up, and through the same process that it iscontinually renewing itself. It is not therefore at any time or at anyage a solid fixed mass or material, but a structure in a continuallychanging fluid form. It is therefore easy to see how we have it in ourpower, when we are once awake to the relations between the consciousmind and the subconscious--and it in turn in its relations to thevarious involuntary and vital functions of the body--to determine to agreat extent how the body shall be built or how it shall be rebuilt. 

Mentally to live in any state or attitude of mind is to take that stateor condition into the subconscious. _The subconscious mind does andalways will produce in the body after its own kind. _ It is through thislaw that we externalise and become in body what we live in our minds. Ifwe have predominating visions of and harbour thoughts of old age andweakness, this state, with all its attendant circumstances, will becomeexternalised in our bodies far more quickly than if we entertainthoughts and visions of a different type. Said Archdeacon Wilberforce ina notable address in Westminster Abbey some time ago: "The recentresearches of scientific men, endorsed by experiments in the Salpétrièrein Paris, have drawn attention to the intensely creative power ofsuggestions made by the conscious mind to the subconscious mind. "

IV

THE POWERFUL AID OF THE MIND IN REBUILDING BODY--HOW BODY HELPS MIND

"The body looks, " some one has said, "as old as the mind feels. " Byvirtue of a great mental law and at the same time chemical law we arewell within the realm of truth when we say: The body ordinarily is asold as the mind feels. 

Every living organism is continually going through two processes: it iscontinually dying, and continually being renewed through the operationand the power of the Life Force within it. In the human body it isthrough the instrumentality of the cell that this process is going on. The cell is the ultimate constituent in the formation and in the life oftissue, fibre, tendon, bone, muscle, brain, nerve system, vital organ. It is the instrumentality that Nature, as we say, uses to do her work. 

The cell is formed; it does its work; it serves its purpose and dies;and all the while new cells are being formed to take its place. Thisprocess of new cell formation is going on in the body of each of us muchmore rapidly and uniformly than we think. Science has demonstrated thefact that there are very few cells in the body today that were theretwelve months ago. The form of the body remains practically the same;but its constituent elements are in a constant state of change. Thebody, therefore, is continually changing; it is never in a fixed statein the sense of being a solid, but is always in a changing, fluid state. It is being continually remade. 

It is the Life, or the Life Force within, acting under the direction andguidance of the subconscious or subjective mind that is the agencythrough which this continually new cell-formation process is going on. The subconscious mind is, nevertheless, always subject to suggestionsand impressions that are conveyed to it by the conscious or sense mind;and here lies the great fact, the one all-important fact for us so faras desirable or undesirable, so far as healthy or unhealthy, so far asnormal or aging body-building is concerned. 

That we have it in our power to determine our physical and bodilyconditions to a far greater extent than we do is an undeniable fact. That we have it in our power to determine and to dictate the conditionsof "old age" to a marvellous degree is also an undeniable fact--if weare sufficiently keen and sufficiently awake to begin early enough. 

If any arbitrary divisions of the various periods of life wereallowable, I should make the enumeration as follows: Youth, barring theperiod of babyhood, to forty-five; middle age, forty-five to sixty;approaching age, sixty to seventy-five; old age, seventy-five toninety-five and a hundred. 

That great army of people who "age" long before their time, thatlikewise great army of both men and women who along about middle age, say from forty-five to sixty, break and, as we say, all of a sudden goto pieces, and many die, just at the period when they should be in theprime of life, in the full vigour of manhood and womanhood and ofgreatest value to themselves, to their families, and to the world, issomething that is _contrary to nature_, and is one of the pitiableconditions of our time. A greater knowledge, a little foresight, alittle care in _time_ could prevent this in the great majority of cases, in ninety cases out of every hundred, without question. 

Abounding health and strength--wholeness--is the natural law of thebody. The Life Force of the body, acting always under the direction ofthe subconscious mind, _will build, and always does build_, healthilyand normally, unless too much interfered with. It is this thatdetermines the type of the cell structure that is continually beingbuilt into the body from the available portions of the food that wetake to give nourishment to the body. It is affected for good or forbad, helped or hindered, in its operation by the type of consciousthought that is directed toward it, and that it is always influenced by. 

Of great suggestive value is the following by an able writer andpractitioner:

"God has managed, and perpetually manages, to insert into our nature atendency toward health, and against the unnatural condition which wecall disease. When our flesh receives a wound, a strange nursing andhealing process is immediately commenced to repair the injury. So in alldiseases, organic or functional, this mysterious healing power setsitself to work at once to triumph over the morbid condition. .. . Cannotthis healing process be greatly accelerated by a voluntary and consciousaction of the mind, assisted, if need be, by some other person? Iunhesitatingly affirm, from experience and observation, that it can. Bysome volitional, mental effort and process of thought, this sanativecolatus, or healing power which God has given to our physiologicalorganism, may be greatly quickened and intensified in its action uponthe body. Here is the secret philosophy of the cures effected by JesusChrist. .. . There is a law of the action of mind on the body that is nomore an impenetrable mystery than the law of gravitation. It can beunderstood and acted upon in the cure of disease as well as any otherlaw of nature. "

If, then, it be possible through this process to change physicalconditions in the body even after they have taken form and have becomefixed, as we say, isn't it possible even more easily to determine thetype of cell structure that is grown in the first place?

The ablest minds in the world have thought and are thinking that if wecould find a way of preventing the hardening of the cells of the system, producing in turn hardened arteries and what is meant by the generalterm "ossification, " that the process of aging, growing old, could begreatly retarded, and that the condition of perpetual youth that we seemto catch glimpses of in rare individuals here and there could be made amore common occurrence than we find it today. 

The cause of ossification is partly mental, partly physical, and inconnection with them both are hereditary influences and conditions thathave to be taken into consideration. 

Shall we look for a moment to the first? The food that is taken into thesystem, or the available portions of the food, is the building material;but the mind is always the builder. 

There are, then, two realms of mind, the conscious and thesubconscious. Another way of expressing it would be to say that mindfunctions through two avenues--the avenue of the conscious and theavenue of the subconscious. The conscious is the thinking mind; thesubconscious is the doing mind. The conscious is the sense mind, itcomes in contact with and is acted upon through the avenue of the fivesenses. The subconscious is that quiet, finer, all-permeating inner mindor force that guides all the inner functions, the life functions of thebody, and that watches over and keeps them going even when we areutterly unconscious in sleep. The conscious suggests and givesdirections; the subconscious receives and carries into operation thesuggestions that are received. 

The thoughts, ideas, and even beliefs and emotions of the conscious mindare the seeds that are taken in by the subconscious and that in thisgreat _realm of causation_ will germinate and produce of their own kind. The chemical activities that go on in the process of cell formation inthe body are all under the influence, the domination of this greatall-permeating subconscious, or subjective realm within us. 

In that able work, "The Laws of Psychic Phenomena, " Dr. Thomas J. Hudsonlays down this proposition: "That the subjective mind is constantlyamenable to control by suggestion. " It is easy, when we once understandand appreciate this great fact, to see how the body builds, or rather isbuilt, for health and strength, or for disease and weakness; for youthand vigour, or for premature ossification and age. It is easy, then, tosee how we can have a hand in, in brief can have the controlling handin, building either the one or the other. 

It is in the province of the intelligent man or woman to take hold ofthe wheel, so to speak, and to determine as an intelligent human beingshould, what condition or conditions shall be given birth and form toand be externalised in the body. 

A noted thinker and writer has said: "Whatever the mind is set upon, orwhatever it keeps most in view, that it is bringing to it, and thecontinual thought or imagining must at last take form and shape in theworld of seen and tangible things. "

And now, to be as concrete as possible, we have these facts: The body iscontinually changing in that it is continually throwing out and off, used cells, and continually building new cells to take their places. This process, as well as all the inner functions of the body, isgoverned and guarded by the subconscious realm of our being. Thesubconscious can do and does do whatever it is _actually_ directed todo by the conscious, thinking mind. "We must be careful on what we allowour minds to dwell, " said Sir John Lubbock, "the soul is dyed by itsthoughts. "

If we believe ourselves subject to weakness, decay, infirmity, when weshould be "whole, " the subconscious mind seizes upon the pattern that issent it and builds cell structure accordingly. This is one great reasonwhy one who is, as we say, chronically thinking and talking of hisailments and symptoms, who is complaining and fearing, is never well. 

To see one's self, to believe, and therefore to picture one's self inmind as strong, healthy, active, well, is to furnish a pattern, is togive suggestion and therefore direction to the subconscious so that itwill build cell tissue having the stamp and the force of healthy, vital, active life, which in turn means abounding health and strength. 

So, likewise, at about the time that "old age" is supposed ordinarily tobegin, when it is believed in and looked for by those about us and thosewho act in accordance with this thought, if we fall into this samemental drift, we furnish the subconscious the pattern that it willinevitably build bodily conditions in accordance with. We will then findthe ordinarily understood marks and conditions of old age creeping uponus, and we will become subject to their influences in every departmentof our being. Whatever is thus pictured in the mind and lived in, theLife Force will produce. 

To remain young in mind, in spirit, in feeling, is to remain young inbody. Growing old at the period or age at which so many grow old, is toa great extent a matter of habit. 

To think health and strength, to see ourselves continually growing inthis condition, is to set into operation the subtlest dynamic force forthe externalisation of these conditions in the body that can be evenconceived of. If one's bodily condition, through abnormal, false mentaland emotional habits, has become abnormal and diseased, this sameattitude of mind, of spirit, of imagery, is to set into operation _asubtle and powerful corrective agency that, if persisted in, willinevitably tend to bring normal, healthy conditions to the front again_. 

True, if these abnormal, diseased conditions have been helped on or havebeen induced by wrong physical habits, by the violation of physicallaws, this violation must cease. But combine the two, and then give thebody the care that it requires in a moderate amount of simple, wholesomefood, regular cleansing to assist it in the elimination of impuritiesand of used cell structure that is being regularly cast off, anabundance of pure air and of moderate exercise, and a change amountingalmost to a miracle can be wrought--it may be, indeed, what many peopleof olden time would have termed a miracle. 

The mind thus becomes "a silent, transforming, sanative energy" of greatpotency and power. That it can be so used is attested by the fact of thelarge numbers, and the rapidly increasing numbers, all about us who areso using it. This is what many people all over our country are doingtoday, with the results that, by a great elemental law--Divine Law ifyou choose--_many_ are curing themselves of various diseases, _many_ areexchanging weakness and impotence for strength and power, _many_ areceasing, comparatively speaking, are politely refusing, to grow old. 

Thought is a force, subtle and powerful, and it tends inevitably toproduce of its kind. 

In forestalling "old age, " at least old age of the decrepit type, it isthe period of middle life where the greatest care is to be employed. If, at about the time "old age" is supposed ordinarily to begin, the "turn"at middle life or a little later, we would stop to consider what thisperiod really means, that it means with both men and women a period oflife where some simple readjustments are to be made, a period of alittle rest, a little letting up, a temporary getting back to theplaytime of earlier years and a bringing of these characteristics backinto life again, then a complete letting-up would not be demanded bynature a little later, as it is demanded in such a lamentably largenumber of cases at the present time. 

So in a definite, deliberate way, youth should be blended into themiddle life, and the resultant should be a force that will stretchmiddle life for an indefinite period into the future. 

And what an opportunity is here for mothers, at about the time that thechildren have grown, and some or all even have "flown"! Of course, Mother shouldn't go and get foolish, she shouldn't go cavorting aroundin a sixteen-year-old hat, when the hat of the thirty-five-year-oldwould undoubtedly suit her better; but she should rejoice that thegolden period of life is still before her. Now she has leisure to domany of those things _that she has so long wanted to do_. 

The world's rich field of literature is before her; the line of study orwork she has longed to pursue, she bringing to it a better equipped mindand experience than she has ever had before. There is also an interestin the life and welfare of her community, in civic, public welfare linesthat the present and the quick-coming time before us along women'senfranchisement lines, along women's commonsense equality lines, ismaking her a responsible and full sharer in. And how much more valuableshe makes herself, also, to her children, as well as to her community, inspiring in them greater confidence, respect, and admiration than ifshe allows herself to be pushed into the background by her own weak andfalse thoughts of herself, or by the equally foolish thoughts of herchildren in that she is now, or is at any time, to become a back number. 

Life, as long as we are here, should mean continuous unfoldment, advancement, and this is undoubtedly the purpose of life; butage-producing forces and agencies mean deterioration, as opposed togrowth and unfoldment. They ossify, weaken, stiffen, deaden, bothmentally and physically. For him or her who yearns to stay young, thecoming of the years does not mean or bring abandonment of hope or ofhappiness or of activity. It means comparative vigour combined withcontinually larger experience, and therefore even more usefulness, andhence pleasure and happiness. 

Praise also to those who do not allow any one or any number ofoccurrences in life to sour their nature, rob them of their faith, orcripple their energies for the enjoyment of the fullest in life whilehere. It's those people _who never allow themselves in spirit to bedowned_, no matter what their individual problems, surroundings, orconditions may be, but who chronically bob up serenely who, after all, _are the masters of life_, and who are likewise the strength-givers andthe helpers of others. There are multitudes in the world today, thereare readers of this volume, who could add a dozen or a score ofyears--teeming, healthy years--to their lives by a process ofself-examination, a mental housecleaning, and a reconstructed, positive, commanding type of thought. 

Tennyson was prophet when he sang:

 Cleave then to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith! She reels not in the storm of warring words, She brightens at the clash of "Yes" and "No, " She sees the Best that glimmers through the Worst, She feels the sun is hid but for a night, She spies the summer through the winter bud, She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls, She hears the lark within the songless egg, She finds the fountain where they wailed "mirage. "

V

THOUGHT AS A FORCE IN DAILY LIVING

Some years ago an experience was told to me that has been the cause ofmany interesting observations since. It was related by a man living inone of our noted university towns in the Middle West. He was awell-known lecture manager, having had charge of many lecture tours forJohn B. Gough, Henry Ward Beecher, and others of like standing. Hehimself was a man of splendid character, was of a sensitive organism, aswe say, and had always taken considerable interest in the powers andforces pertaining to the inner life. 

As a young man he had left home, and during a portion of his first yearaway he had found employment on a Mississippi steamboat. One day ingoing down the river, while he was crossing the deck, a sudden stingingsensation seized him in the head, and instantly vivid thoughts of hismother, back at the old home, flashed into his mind. This was followedby a feeling of depression during the remainder of the day. Theoccurrence was so unusual and the impression of it was so strong thathe made an account of it in his diary. 

Some time later, on returning home, he was met in the yard by hismother. She was wearing a thin cap on her head which he had never seenher wear before. He remarked in regard to it. She raised the cap anddoing so revealed the remains of a long ugly gash on the side of herhead. She then said that some months before, naming the time, she hadgone into the back yard and had picked up a heavy crooked stick having asharp end, to throw it out of the way, and in throwing it, it had strucka wire clothesline immediately above her head and had rebounded withsuch force that it had given her the deep scalp wound of which she wasspeaking. On unpacking his bag he looked into his diary and found thatthe time she had mentioned corresponded exactly with the strange andunusual occurrence to himself as they were floating down theMississippi. 

The mother and son were very near one to the other, close in theirsympathies, and there can be but little doubt that the thoughts of themother as she was struck went out, and perhaps _went strongly out_, toher boy who was now away from home. He, being sensitively organised andintimately related to her in thought, and alone at the time, undoubtedly got, if not her thought, at least the effects of herthought, as it went out to him under these peculiar and tenseconditions. 

There are scores if not hundreds of occurrences of a more or lesssimilar nature that have occurred in the lives of others, many of themwell authenticated. How many of us, even, have had the experience ofsuddenly thinking of a friend of whom we have not thought for weeks ormonths, and then entirely unexpectedly meeting or hearing from this samefriend. How many have had the experience of writing a friend, one whohas not been written to or heard from for a long time, and within a dayor two getting a letter from that friend--the letters "crossing, " as weare accustomed to say. There are many other experiences or facts of asimilar nature, and many of them exceedingly interesting, that could berelated did space permit. These all indicate to me that thoughts are notmere indefinite things but that thoughts are forces, that they go out, and that every distinct, clear-cut thought has, or may have, aninfluence of some type. 

Thought transference, which is now unquestionably an established fact, notwithstanding much chicanery that is still to be found in connectionwith it, is undoubtedly to be explained through the fact that _thoughtsare forces_. A positive mind through practice, at first with verysimple beginnings, gives form to a thought that another mind open andreceptive to it--and sufficiently attuned to the other mind--is able toreceive. 

Wireless telegraphy, as a science, has been known but a comparativelyshort time. The laws underlying it have been in the universe perhaps, orundoubtedly, always. It is only lately that the mind of man has beenable to apprehend them, and has been able to construct instruments inaccordance with these laws. We are now able, through a knowledge of thelaws of vibration and by using the right sending and receivinginstruments, to send actual messages many hundreds of miles directlythrough the ether and without the more clumsy accessories of poles andwires. This much of it we know--_there is perhaps even more yet to beknown_. 

We may find, as I am inclined to think we shall find, that thought is aform of vibration. When a thought is born in the brain, it goes out justas a sound wave goes out, and transmits itself through the ether, makingits impressions upon other minds that are in a sufficiently sensitivestate to receive it; this in addition to the effects that various typesof thoughts have upon the various bodily functions of the one with whomthey take origin. 

We are, by virtue of the laws of evolution, constantly apprehending thefiner forces of nature--the tallow-dip, the candle, the oil lamp, yearslater a more refined type of oil, gas, electricity, the latest tungstenlights, radium--and we may be still only at the beginnings. Our finestelectric lights of today may seem--will seem--crude and the quality oftheir light even more crude, twenty years hence, even less. Many otherexamples of our gradual passing from the coarser to the finer inconnection with the laws and forces of nature occur readily to the mindsof us all. 

The present great interest on the part of thinking men and womeneverywhere, in addition to the more particular studies, experiments, andobservations of men such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Ramsay, andothers, in the powers and forces pertaining to the inner life is anindication that we have reached a time when we are making great stridesalong these lines. Some of our greatest scientists are thinking that weare on the eve of some almost startling glimpses into these finerrealms. My own belief is that we are likewise on the eve of apprehendingthe more precise _nature_ of thought as a force, the methods of itsworkings, and the law underlying its more intimate and everyday uses. 

Of one thing we can rest assured; nothing in the universe, nothing inconnection with human life is outside of the Realm of Law. The elementallaw of Cause and Effect is absolute in its workings. One of the greatlaws pertaining to human life is: As is the inner, so always andinevitably is the outer--Cause, Effect. Our thoughts and emotions arethe silent, subtle forces that are constantly externalising themselvesin kindred forms in our outward material world. Like creates like, andlike attracts like. As is our prevailing type of thought, so is ourprevailing type and our condition of life. 

The type of thought we entertain has its effect upon our energies and toa great extent upon our bodily conditions and states. Strong, clear-cut, positive, hopeful thought has a stimulating and life-giving effect uponone's outlook, energies, and activities; and upon all bodily functionsand powers. A falling state of the mind induces a chronically gloomyoutlook and produces inevitably a falling condition of the body. Themind grows, moreover, into the likeness of the thoughts one mosthabitually entertains and lives with. Every thought reproduces of itskind. 

Says an authoritative writer in dealing more particularly with theeffects of certain types of thoughts and emotions upon bodilyconditions: "Out of our own experience we know that anger, fear, worry, hate, revenge, avarice, grief, in fact all negative and low emotions, produce weakness and disturbance not only in the mind but in the body aswell. It has been proved that they actually generate poisons in thebody, they depress the circulation; they change the quality of theblood, making it less vital; they affect the great nerve centres andthus partially paralyse the very seat of the bodily activities. On theother hand, faith, hope, love, forgiveness, joy, and peace, all suchemotions are positive and uplifting, and so act on the body as torestore and maintain harmony and actually to stimulate the circulationand nutrition. "

The one who does not allow himself to be influenced or controlled byfears or forebodings is the one who ordinarily does not yield todiscouragements. He it is who is using the positive, success-bringingtypes of thought that are continually working for him for theaccomplishment of his ends. The things that he sees in the ideal, hisstrong, positive, and therefore creative type of thought, is continuallyhelping to actualise in the realm of the real. 

We sometimes speak lightly of ideas, but this world would be indeed asorry place in which to live were it not for ideas--and were it not forideals. Every piece of mechanism that has ever been built, if we traceback far enough, was first merely an idea in some man's or woman'smind. Every structure or edifice that has ever been reared had formfirst in this same immaterial realm. So every great undertaking ofwhatever nature had its inception, its origin, in the realm of theimmaterial--at least as we at present call it--before it was embodiedand stood forth in material form. 

It is well, then, that we have our ideas and our ideals. It is well, even, to build castles in the air, if we follow these up and give themmaterial clothing or structure, so that they become castles on theground. Occasionally it is true that these may shrink or, rather, maychange their form and become cabins; but many times we find that anexpanded vision and an expanded experience lead us to a knowledge of thefact that, so far as happiness and satisfaction are concerned, thecontents of a cabin may outweigh many times those of the castle. 

Successful men and women are almost invariably those possessing to asupreme degree the element of faith. Faith, absolute, unconquerablefaith, is one of the essential concomitants, therefore one of the greatsecrets of success. We must realise, and especially valuable is it foryoung men and women to realise, that one carries his success or hisfailure with him, that it does not depend upon outside conditions. There are some that no circumstances or combinations of circumstancescan thwart or keep down. Let circumstance seem to thwart or circumventthem in one direction, and almost instantly they are going forward alonganother direction. Circumstance is kept busy keeping up with them. Whenshe meets such, after a few trials, she apparently decides to give upand turn her attention to those of the less positive, the less forceful, therefore the less determined, types of mind and of life. Circumstancehas received some hard knocks from men and women of this type. She hasgrown naturally timid and will always back down whenever she recognisesa mind, and therefore a life, of sufficient force. 

To make the best of whatever present conditions are, to form and clearlyto see one's ideal, though it may seem far distant and almostimpossible, to believe in it, and to believe in one's ability toactualise it--this is the first essential. Not, then, to sit and idlyfold the hands, expecting it to actualise itself, but to take hold ofthe first thing that offers itself to do, --that lies sufficiently alongthe way, --to do this faithfully, believing, knowing, that it is but thestep that will lead to the next best thing, and this to the next; thisis the second and the completing stage of all accomplishment. 

We speak of fate many times as if it were something foreign to oroutside of ourselves, forgetting that fate awaits always our ownconditions. A man decides his own fate through the types of thoughts heentertains and gives a dominating influence in his life. He sits at thehelm of his thought world and, guiding, decides his own fate, or, through negative, vacillating, and therefore weakening thought, hedrifts, and fate decides him. Fate is not something that takes form anddominates us irrespective of any say on our own part. Through aknowledge and an intelligent and determined use of the silent butever-working power of thought we either condition circumstances, or, lacking this knowledge or failing to apply it, we accept the rôle of aconditioned circumstance. It is a help sometimes to realise and to voicewith Henley:

 Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. 

The thoughts that we entertain not only determine the conditions of ourown immediate lives, but they influence, perhaps in a much more subtlemanner than most of us realise, our relations with and our influenceupon those with whom we associate or even come into contact. All areinfluenced, even though unconsciously, by them. 

Thoughts of good will, sympathy, magnanimity, good cheer--in brief, allthoughts emanating from a _spirit of love_--are felt in their positive, warming, and stimulating influences by others; they inspire in turn thesame types of thoughts and feelings in them, and they come back to usladen with their ennobling, stimulating, pleasure-bringing influences. 

Thoughts of envy, or malice, or hatred, or ill will are likewise felt byothers. They are influenced adversely by them. They inspire either thesame types of thoughts and emotions in them; or they produce in them acertain type of antagonistic feeling that has the tendency to neutraliseand, if continued for a sufficient length of time, deaden sympathy andthereby all friendly relations. 

We have heard much of "personal magnetism. " Careful analysis will, Ithink, reveal the fact that the one who has to any marked degree theelement of personal magnetism is one of the large-hearted, magnanimous, cheer-bringing, unself-centred types, whose positive thought forces arebeing continually felt by others, and are continually inspiring andcalling forth from others these same splendid attributes. I have yet tofind any one, man or woman, of the opposite habits and, therefore, trendof mind and heart who has had or who has even to the slightestperceptible degree the quality that we ordinarily think of when we usethe term "personal magnetism. "

If one would have friends he or she must be a friend, must radiatehabitually friendly, helpful thoughts, good will, love. The one whodoesn't cultivate the hopeful, cheerful, uncomplaining, good-willattitude toward life and toward others becomes a drag, making lifeharder for others as well as for one's self. 

Ordinarily we find in people the qualities we are mostly looking for, orthe qualities that our own prevailing characteristics call forth. Thelarger the nature, the less critical and cynical it is, the more it isgiven to looking for the best and the highest in others, and the less, therefore, is it given to gossip. 

It was Jeremy Bentham who said: "In order to love mankind, we must notexpect too much of them. " And Goethe had a still deeper vision when hesaid: "Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own. "

The chief characteristic of the gossip is that he or she prefers to livein the low-lying miasmic strata of life, revelling in the negatives oflife and taking joy in finding and peddling about the findings that heor she naturally makes there. The larger natures see the good andsympathise with the weaknesses and the frailties of others. They realisealso that it is so consummately inconsistent--many times even humorouslyinconsistent--for one also with weaknesses, frailties, and faults, though perhaps of a little different character, to sit in judgment ofanother. Gossip concerning the errors or shortcomings of another isjudging another. The one who is himself perfect is the one who has theright to judge another. By a strange law, however, though by a naturallaw, we find, as we understand life in its fundamentals better, such aperson is seldom if ever given to judging, much less to gossip. 

Life becomes rich and expansive through sympathy, good will, and goodcheer; not through cynicism or criticism. That splendid little poem ofbut a single stanza by Edwin Markham, "Outwitted, " points after all toone of life's fundamentals:

 He drew a circle that shut me out-- Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout, But Love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!

VI

JESUS THE SUPREME EXPONENT OF THE INNER FORCES AND POWERS: HIS PEOPLE'SRELIGION AND THEIR CONDITION

In order to have any true or adequate understanding of what the realrevelation and teachings of Jesus were, two things must be borne inmind. It is necessary in the first place, not only to have a knowledgeof, but always to bear in mind the method, the medium through which theaccount of his life has come down to us. Again, before the real contentand significance of Jesus' revelation and teachings can be intelligentlyunderstood, it is necessary that we have a knowledge of the conditionsof the time in which he lived and of the people to whom he spoke, towhom his revelation was made. 

To any one who has even a rudimentary knowledge of the former, itbecomes apparent at once that no single saying or statement of Jesus canbe taken to indicate either his revelation or his purpose. These must bemade to depend upon not any single statement or saying of his own, muchless anything reported about him by another; but it must be made todepend rather upon the whole tenor of his teachings. 

Jesus put nothing in writing. There was no one immediately at hand tomake a record of any of his teachings or any of his acts. It is now wellknown that no one of the gospels was written by an immediate hearer, byan eye-witness. 

The Gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel, or in other words the one writtennearest to Jesus' time, was written some forty years after he hadfinished his work. Matthew and Luke, taken to a great extent from theGospel of Mark, supplemented by one or two additional sources, werewritten many years after. The Gospel of John was not written until afterthe beginning of the second century after Christ. These four sets ofchronicles, called the Gospels, written independently one of another, were then collected many years after their authors were dead, and stilla great deal later were brought together into a single book. 

The following concise statement by Professor Henry Drummond throws muchlight upon the way the New Testament portions of our Bible took form:"The Bible is not a book; it is a library. It consists of sixty-sixbooks. It is a great convenience, but in some respects a greatmisfortune, that these books have always been bound up together andgiven out as one book to the world, when they are not; because that hasled to endless mistakes in theology and practical life. These books, which make up this library, written at intervals of hundreds of years, were collected after the last of the writers was dead--long after--byhuman hands. Where were the books? Take the New Testament. There werefour lives of Christ. One was in Rome; one was in Southern Italy; onewas in Palestine; one in Asia Minor. There were twenty-one letters. Fivewere in Greece and Macedonia; five in Asia; one in Rome. The rest werein the pockets of private individuals. Theophilus had Acts. They werecollected undesignedly. In the third century the New Testament consistedof the following books: The four Gospels, Acts, thirteen letters ofPaul, I John, I Peter; and, in addition, the Epistles of Barnabas andHermas. This was not called the New Testament, but the ChristianLibrary. Then these last books were discarded. They ceased to beregarded as upon the same level as the others. In the fourth century thecanon was closed--that is to say, a list was made up of the books whichwere to be regarded as canonical. And then long after that they werestitched together and made up into one book--hundreds of years afterthat. Who made up the complete list? It was never formally made up. Thebishops of the different churches would draw up a list each of the booksthat they thought ought to be put into this Testament. The churches alsowould give their opinions. Sometimes councils would meet and talk itover--discuss it. Scholars like Jerome would investigate theauthenticity of the different documents, and there came to be a generalconsensus of the churches on the matter. "

Jesus spoke in his own native language, the Aramaic. His sayings werethen rendered into Greek, and, as is well known by all well-versedBiblical scholars, it was not an especially high order of Greek. The NewTestament scriptures including the four gospels, were then many hundredsof years afterwards translated from the Greek into our modernlanguages--English, German, French, Swedish, or whatever the language ofthe particular translation may be. Those who know anything of the matterof translation know how difficult it is to render the exact meanings ofany statements or writing into another language. The rendering of a_single word_ may sometimes mean, or rather may make a great differencein the thought of the one giving the utterance. How much greater is thisliability when the thing thus rendered is twice removed from itsoriginal source and form!

The original manuscripts had no punctuation and no verse divisions;these were all arbitrarily supplied by the translators later on. It isalso a well-established fact on the part of leading Biblical scholarsthat through the centuries there have been various interpolations in theNew Testament scriptures, both by way of omissions and additions. 

Reference is made to these various facts in connection with the sayingsand the teachings of Jesus and the methods and the media through whichthey have come down to us, to show how impossible it would be to baseJesus' revelation or purpose upon any single utterance made or purportedto be made by him--to indicate, in other words, that to get at his realmessage, his real teachings, and his real purpose, we must find thebinding thread if possible, the reiterated statement, the repeatedpurpose that makes them throb with the living element. 

Again, no intelligent understanding of Jesus' revelation or ministry canbe had without a knowledge of the conditions of the time, and of thepeople to whom his revelation was made, among whom he lived and worked;for his ministry had in connection with it both a time element and aneternal element. There are two things that must be noted, the moral andreligious condition of the people; and, again, their economic andpolitical status. 

The Jewish people had been preeminently a religious people. But a greatchange had taken place. Religion was at its lowest ebb. Its spirit waswell-nigh dead, and in its place there had gradually come into being aPharisaic legalism--a religion of form, ceremony. An extensive system ofecclesiastical tradition, ecclesiastical law and observances, which hadgradually robbed the people of all their former spirit of religion, hadbeen gradually built up by those in ecclesiastical authority. 

The voice of that illustrious line of Hebrew prophets had ceased tospeak. It was close to two hundred years since the voice of a livingprophet had been heard. Tradition had taken its place. It took the form:Moses hath said; It has been said of old; The prophet hath said. Thescribe was the keeper of the ecclesiastical law. The lawyer was itsinterpreter. 

The Pharisees had gradually elevated themselves into an ecclesiasticalhierarchy who were the custodians of the law and religion. They had cometo regard themselves as especially favoured, a privileged class--notonly the custodians but the dispensers of all religious knowledge--andtherefore of religion. The people, in their estimation, were of a lowerintellectual and religious order, possessing no capabilities inconnection with religion or morals, dependent therefore upon theirsuperiors in these matters. 

This state of affairs that had gradually come about was productive oftwo noticeable results: a religious starvation and stagnation on thepart of the great mass of the people on the one hand, and the creationof a haughty, self-righteous and domineering ecclesiastical hierarchy onthe other. In order for a clear understanding of some of Jesus' sayingsand teachings, some of which constitute a very vital part of hisministry, it is necessary to understand clearly what this condition was. 

Another important fact that sheds much light upon the nature of theministry of Jesus is to be found, as has already been intimated, in thepolitical and the economic condition of the people of the time. TheJewish nation had been subjugated and were under the domination of Rome. Rome in connection with Israel, as in connection with all conqueredpeoples, was a hard master. Taxes and tribute, tribute and taxes, couldalmost be said to be descriptive of her administration of affairs. 

She was already in her degenerate stage. Never perhaps in the history ofthe world had men been so ruled by selfishness, greed, military powerand domination, and the pomp and display of material wealth. Luxury, indulgence, over-indulgence, vice. The inevitable concomitantfollowed--a continually increasing moral and physical degeneration. Anincreasing luxury and indulgence called for an increasing means tosatisfy them. Messengers were sent and additional tribute was levied. Pontius Pilate was the Roman administrative head or governor in Judea atthe time. Tiberius Cæsar was the Roman Emperor. 

Rome at this time consisted of a few thousand nobles and people ofstation--freemen--and hundreds of thousands of slaves. Even hercampaigns in time became virtual raids for plunder. She conquered--andshe plundered those whom she conquered. Great numbers from among theconquered peoples were regularly taken to Rome and sold into slavery. Judea had not escaped this. Thousands of her best people had beentransported to Rome and sold into slavery. It was never known where theblow would fall next; what homes would be desolated and both sons anddaughters sent away into slavery. No section, no family could feel anysense of security. A feeling of fear, a sense of desolation pervadedeverywhere. 

There was a tradition, which had grown into a well-defined belief, thata Deliverer would be sent them, that they would be delivered out of thehands of their enemies and that their oppressors would in turn bebrought to grief. There was also in the section round about Judæa abelief, which had grown until it had become well-nigh universal, thatthe end of the world, or the end of the age, was speedily coming, thatthen there would be an end of all earthly government and that the reignof Jehovah--the kingdom of God--would be established. These two beliefswent hand in hand. They were kept continually before the people, and nowand then received a fresh impetus by the appearance of a new prophet ora new teacher, whom the people went gladly out to hear. Of this kind wasJohn, the son of a priest, later called John the Baptist. 

After his period of preparation, he came out of the wilderness of Judæa, and in the region about the Jordan with great power and persuasiveness, according to the accounts, he gave utterance to the message: Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Forsake all earthly things; theywill be of avail but a very short time now, turn ye from them andprepare yourselves for the coming of the Kingdom of God. The old thingswill speedily pass away; all things will become new. Many went out tohear him and were powerfully appealed to by the earnest, ruggedutterances of this new preacher of righteousness and repentance. 

His name and his message spread through all the land of Judea and thecountry around the Jordan. Many were baptised by him there, he makinguse of this symbolic service which had been long in use by certainbranches of the Jewish people, especially the order of the Essenes. 

Among those who went out to hear John and who accepted baptism at hishands was Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, whose home was at Nazareth. It marks also the beginning of his own public ministry, for which heevidently had been in preparation for a considerable time. 

It seems strange that we know so little of the early life of onedestined to exert such a powerful influence upon the thought and thelife of the world. In the gospel of Mark, probably the most reliable, because the nearest to his time, there is no mention whatever of hisearly life. The first account is where he appears at John's meetings. Almost immediately thereafter begins his own public ministry. 

In the gospel of Luke we have a very meagre account of him. It is at theage of twelve. The brief account gives us a glimpse into the lives ofhis father and his mother, Joseph and Mary; showing that at that timethey were not looked upon as in any way different from all of theinhabitants of their little community, Nazareth, the little town inGalilee--having a family of several sons and daughters, and that Jesus, the eldest of the family, grew in stature and in knowledge, as all theneighbouring children grew; but that he, even at an early age, showedthat he had a wonderful aptitude for the things of the spirit. Ireproduce Luke's brief account here:

"Now, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of thepassover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem, after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, asthey returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem: and Josephand his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been inthe company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among theirkinsfolk and acquaintances. And when they found him not, they turnedback again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that afterthree days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of thedoctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heardhim were astonished at his understanding and answers. 

"And when they saw him they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I havesought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye soughtme? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And theyunderstood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went downwith them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but hismother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased inwisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man. "

Nothing could be more interesting than to know the early life of Jesus. There are various theories as to how this was spent, that is, as to whathis preparation was--the facts of his life, in addition to his workingwith his father at his trade, that of a carpenter; but we know nothingthat has the stamp of historical accuracy upon it. Of his entire life, indeed, including the period of his active ministry, from thirty tonearly thirty-three, it is but fair to presume that we have at best buta fragmentary account in the Gospel narratives. It is probable that manythings connected with his ministry, and many of his sayings andteachings, we have no record of at all. 

It is probable that in connection with his preparation he spent a greatdeal of time alone, in the quiet, in communion with his Divine Source, or as the term came so naturally to him, with God, his Father--God, ourFather, for that was his teaching--my God and your God. The many timesthat we are told in the narratives that he went to the mountain alone, would seem to justify us in this conclusion. Anyway, it would beabsolutely impossible for anyone to have such a vivid realisation of hisessential oneness with the Divine, without much time spent in such amanner that the real life could evolve into its Divine likeness, andthen mould the outer life according to this ideal or pattern. 

VII

THE DIVINE RULE IN THE MIND AND HEART: THE UNESSENTIALS WE DROP--THESPIRIT ABIDES

That Jesus had a supreme aptitude for the things of the spirit, therecan be no question. That through desire and through will he followed theleadings of the spirit--that he gave himself completely to itsleadings--is evident both from his utterances and his life. It was thiscombination undoubtedly that led him into that vivid sense of his lifein God, which became so complete that he afterwards speaks--I and myFather are one. That he was always, however, far from identifyinghimself as equal with God is indicated by his constant declaration ofhis dependence upon God. Again and again we have these declarations: "Mymeat and drink is to do the will of God. " "My doctrine is not mine, buthis that sent me. " "I can of myself do nothing: as I hear I judge; andmy judgment is righteous; because I seek not mine own will, but the willof him that sent me. "

And even the very last acts and words of his life proclaim thisconstant sense of dependence for guidance, for strength, and even forsuccour. With all his Divine self-realisation there was always, moreover, that sense of humility that is always a predominatingcharacteristic of the really great. "Why callest thou me good? There isnone good but one--that is God. "

It is not at all strange, therefore, that the very first utterance ofhis public ministry, according to the chronicler Mark was: The Kingdomof God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. And while this wasthe beginning utterance, it was the keynote that ran through his entireministry. It is the basic fact of all his teachings. The realisation ofhis own life he sought to make the realisation of all others. It was, itis, a call to righteousness, and a call to righteousness through theonly channel that any such call can be effective--through a realisationof the essential righteousness and goodness of the human soul. 

An unbiased study of Jesus' own words will reveal the fact that hetaught only what he himself had first realised. It is this, moreover, that makes him the supreme teacher of all time--Counsellor, Friend, Saviour. It is the saving of men from their lower conceptions andselves, a lifting of them up to their higher selves, which, as hetaught, is eternally one with God, the Father, and which, when realised, will inevitably, reflexly, one might say, lift a man's thoughts, acts, conduct--the entire life--up to that standard or pattern. It is thusthat the Divine ideal, that the Christ becomes enthroned within. TheChrist-consciousness is the universal Divine nature in us. It is thestate of God-consciousness. It is the recognition of the indwellingDivine life as the source, and therefore the essence of our own lives. 

Jesus came as the revealer of a new truth, a new conception of man. Indeed, the Messiah. He came as the revealer of the only truth thatcould lead his people out of their trials and troubles--out of theirbondage. They were looking for their Deliverer to come in the person ofa worldly king and to set up his rule as such. He came in the person ofa humble teacher, the revealer of a mighty truth, the revealer of theWay, the only way whereby real freedom and deliverance can come. Forthose who would receive him, he was indeed the Messiah. For those whowould not, he was not, and the same holds today. 

He came as the revealer of a truth which had been glimpsed by manyinspired teachers among the Jewish race and among those of other races. The time waited, however, for one to come who would first embody thistruth and then be able effectively to teach it. This was done in asupreme degree by the Judæan Teacher. He came not as the doer-away withthe Law and the Prophets, but rather to regain and then to supplementthem. Such was his own statement. 

It is time to ascend another round. I reveal God to you, not in theTabernacle, but in the human heart--then in the Tabernacle in the degreethat He is in the hearts of those who frequent the Tabernacle. Otherwisethe Tabernacle becomes a whited sepulchre. The Church is not a building, an organisation, not a creed. The Church is the Spirit of Truth. It musthave one supreme object and purpose--to lead men to the truth. I revealwhat I have found--I in the Father and the Father in me. I seek not todo mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me. 

Everything was subordinated to this Divine realisation and to his Divinepurpose. 

The great purpose at which he laboured so incessantly was the teachingof the realisation of the Divine will in the hearts and minds, andthrough these in the lives of men--the finding and the realisation ofthe Kingdom of God. This is the supreme fact of life. Get right at thecentre and the circumference will then care for itself. As is theinner, so always and invariably will be the outer. There is an innerguide that regulates the life when this inner guide is allowed to assumeauthority. Why be disconcerted, why in a heat concerning so many things?It is not the natural and the normal life. Life at its best is somethinginfinitely beyond this. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and Hisrighteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. " And ifthere is any doubt in regard to his real meaning in this here is hisanswer: "Neither shall they say, 'Lo here' or 'Lo there' for behold theKingdom of God is within you. "

Again and again this is his call. Again and again this is hisrevelation. In the first three gospels alone he uses the expression "theKingdom of God, " or "the Kingdom of Heaven, " upwards of thirty times. Any possible reference to any organisation that he might have had inmind, can be found in the entire four gospels but twice. 

It would almost seem that it would not be difficult to judge as to whatwas uppermost in his mind. I have made this revelation to you; you mustraise yourselves, you must become _in reality_ what _in essence_ youreally are. I in the Father, and the Father in me. I reveal only what Imyself know. As I am, ye shall be. God is your Father. In your realnature you are Divine. Drop your ideas of the depravity of the humansoul. To believe it depraves. To teach it depraves the one who teachesit, and the one who accepts it. Follow not the traditions of men. Ireveal to you your Divine birthright. Accept it. It is best. Behold allthings are become new. The Kingdom of God is the one all-inclusivething. Find it and all else will follow. 

"Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparisonshall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when itis sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth;but when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodgeunder the shadow of it. " "Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? Isit like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened?" Seek ye first the Kingdom, and the HolySpirit, the channel of communion between God your source, andyourselves, will lead you, and will lead you into all truth. It willbecome as a lamp to your feet, a guide that is always reliable. 

To refuse allegiance to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is thereal sin, the only sin that cannot be forgiven. Violation of all moraland natural law may be forgiven. It will bring its penalty, for theviolation of law carries in itself its own penalty, its ownpunishment--_it is a part of law_; but cease the violation and thepenalty ceases. The violation registers its ill effects in the illness, the sickness, of body and spirit. If the violation has been longcontinued, these effects may remain for some time; but the instant theviolation ceases the repair will begin, and things will go the otherway. 

Learn from this experience, however, that there can be no deliberateviolation of, or blaspheming against any moral or natural law. Butdeliberately to refuse obedience to the inner guide, the Holy Spirit, constitutes a defiance that eventually puts out the lamp of life, andthat can result only in confusion and darkness. It severs the ordainedrelationship, the connecting, the binding cord, between the soul--theself--and its Source. Stagnation, degeneracy, and eventual death ismerely the natural sequence. 

With this Divine self-realisation the Spirit assumes control andmastery, and you are saved from the follies of error, and from theconsequences of error. Repent ye--turn from your trespasses and sins, from your lower conceptions of life, of pleasure and of pain, and walkin this way. The lower propensities and desires will lose their holdand will in time fall away. You will be at first surprised, and thendumfounded, at what you formerly took for pleasure. True pleasure andsatisfaction go hand in hand, --nor are there any bad after results. 

All genuine pleasures should lead to more perfect health, a greateraccretion of power, a continually expanding sense of life and service. When God is uppermost in the heart, when the Divine rule under thedirection of the Holy Spirit becomes the ruling power in the life of theindividual, then the body and its senses are subordinated to this rule;the passions become functions to be used; license and perverted use giveway to moderation and wise use; and there are then no penalties thatoutraged law exacts; satiety gives place to satisfaction. It was EdwardCarpenter who said: "In order to enjoy life one must be a master oflife--for to be a slave to its inconsistencies can only mean torment;and in order to enjoy the senses one must be master of them. To dominatethe actual world you must, like Archimedes, base your fulcrum somewherebeyond. "

It is not the use, but the abuse of anything good in itself that bringssatiety, disease, suffering, dissatisfaction. Nor is asceticism a trueroad of life. All things are for use; but all must be wisely, in mostcases, moderately used, for true enjoyment. All functions and powers arefor use; but all must be brought under the domination of the Spirit--theGod-illumined spirit. This is the road that leads to heaven here andheaven hereafter--and we can rest assured that we will never find aheaven hereafter that we do not make while here. Through everything runsthis teaching of the Master. 

How wonderfully and how masterfully and simply he sets forth his wholeteaching of sin and the sinner and his relation to the Father in thatmarvellous parable, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. To bring it clearlyto mind again it runs:

"A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth _to me_. And hedivided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger songathered all together, and took his journey to a far country, and therewasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he senthim into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled hisbelly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of myfather's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! Iwill arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I havesinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to becalled thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose andcame to his father. 

"But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and hadcompassion, and ran, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the sonsaid unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to hisservants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring onhis hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, andkill it; and let us eat, and be merry; for this my son was dead, and isalive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Nowhis elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to thehouse, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother iscome; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hathreceived him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in:therefore came his father out, and entreated him, and he answering saidto his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neithertransgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest mea kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thyson was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hastkilled for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art everwith me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should makemerry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again;and was lost, and is found. "

It does away forever in all thinking minds with any participation ofJesus in that perverted and perverting doctrine that man is by natureessentially depraved, degraded, fallen, in the sense as was given to theworld long, long after his time in the doctrine of the Fall of Man, andthe need of redemption through some external source outside of himself, in distinction from the truth that he revealed that was to make menfree--the truth of their Divine nature, and this love of man by theHeavenly Father, and the love of the Heavenly Father by His children. 

To connect Jesus with any such thought or teaching would be to take theheart out of his supreme revelation. For his whole conception of God theFather, given in all his utterances, was that of a Heavenly Father oflove, of care, longing to exercise His protecting care and to give goodgifts to His children--and this because it is the _essential nature_ ofGod to be fatherly. His Fatherhood is not, therefore, accidental, notdependent upon any conditions or circumstances; it is essential. 

If it is the nature of a father to give good gifts to his children, soin a still greater degree is it the nature of the Heavenly Father togive good gifts to those who ask Him. As His words are recorded byMatthew: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, willhe give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? Ifye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, howmuch more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to themthat ask him?" So in the parable as presented by Jesus, the father'slove was such that as soon as it was made known to him that his son whohad been lost to him had returned, he went out to meet him; he grantedhim full pardon--and there were no conditions. 

Speaking of the fundamental teaching of the Master, and also inconnection with this same parable, another has said: "It thus appearsfrom this story, as elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus, that he did notcall God our father because He created us, or because He rules over us, or because He made a covenant with Abraham, but simply and only becauseHe loves us. This parable individualises the divine love, as did alsothe missionary activity of Jesus. The gospels know nothing of a nationalfatherhood, of a God whose love is confined to a particular people. Itis the individual man who has a heavenly Father, and this individualisedfatherhood is the only one of which Jesus speaks. As he had realised hisown moral and spiritual life in the consciousness that God was hisfather, so he sought to give life to the world by a living revelation ofthe truth that God loves each separate soul. This is a prime factor inthe religion and ethics of Jesus. It is seldom or vaguely apprehended inthe Old Testament teaching; but in the teaching of Jesus it is centraland normative. " Again in the two allied parables of Jesus--the Parableof the Lost Sheep, and the Parable of the Lost Coin--it is his purposeto teach the great love of the Father for all, including those lost intheir trespasses and sins, and His rejoicing in their return. 

This leads to Jesus' conception and teaching of sin and repentance. Although God is the Father, He demands filial obedience in the heartsand the minds of His children. Men by following the devices and desiresof their own hearts, are not true to their real nature, their Divinepattern. By following their selfish desires they have brought sin, andthereby suffering, on themselves and others. The unclean, the selfishdesires of mind and heart, keep them from their higher moral andspiritual ideal--although not necessarily giving themselves to grosssin. Therefore, they must become sons of God by repenting--by turningfrom the evil inclinations of their hearts and seeking to follow thehigher inclinations of the heart as becomes children of God and thosewho are dwellers in the Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, his openingutterance: "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand;repent ye, and believe the gospel. "

Love of God with the whole heart, and love of the neighbour, leading tothe higher peace and fulfilment, must take the place of these moreselfish desires that lead to antagonisms and dissatisfactions bothwithin and without. All men are to pray: Forgive us our sins. All menare to repent of their sins which are the results of following their ownselfish desires, --those of the body, or their own selfish desires to thedetriment of the welfare of the neighbour. 

All men are to seek the Divine rule, the rule of God in the heart, andthereby have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is the Divinespirit of wisdom that tabernacles with man when through desire andthrough will he makes the conditions whereby it can make its abode withhim. It is a manifestation of the force that is above man--it is theeternal heritage of the soul. "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where theSpirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. " And therein lies salvation. Itfollows the seeking and the finding of the Kingdom of God and Hisrighteousness that Jesus revealed to a waiting world. 

And so it was the spirit of religion that Jesus came to reveal--the realFatherhood of God and the Divine Sonship of man. A better righteousnessthan that of the scribes and the Pharisees--not a slavish adherence tothe Law, with its supposed profits and rewards. Get the motive of liferight. Get the heart right and these things become of secondaryimportance. As his supreme revelation was the personal fatherhood ofGod, from which follows necessarily the Divine sonship of man, so therewas a corollary to it, a portion of it almost as essential as the maintruth itself--namely, that all men are brothers. Not merely those of onelittle group, or tribe or nation; not merely those of any one little setor religion; not merely those of this or that little compartment that webuild and arbitrarily separate ourselves into--but all men the worldover. If this is not true then Jesus' supreme revelation is false. 

In connection with this great truth he brought a new standard by virtueof the logic of his revelation. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hateyou, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. "Struggling for recognition all through the Old Testament scriptures, andbreaking through partially at least in places, was this conception whichis at the very basis of all man's relationship with man. 

And finally through this supreme Master of life it did break through, with a wonderful newborn consciousness. 

The old dispensation, with its legal formalism, was an eye for an eyeand a tooth for a tooth. The new dispensation was--"But I say unto you, Love your enemies. " Enmity begets enmity. It is as senseless as it isgodless. It runs through all his teachings and through every act of hislife. If fundamentally you do not have the love of your fellow-man inyour hearts, you do not have the love of God in your hearts and youcannot have. 

And that this fundamental revelation be not misunderstood, near theclose of his life he said: "A new commandment I give unto you, that yelove one another. " No man could be, can be his disciple, his follower, and fail in the realisation of this fundamental teaching. "By this shallall men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another. " Andgoing back again to his ministry we find that it breathes through everyteaching that he gave. It breathes through that short memorable prayerwhich we call the Lord's Prayer. It permeates the Sermon on the Mount. It is the very essence of his summing up of this discourse. We call itthe Golden Rule. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do yeeven so to them. " Not that it was original with Jesus; other teacherssent of God had given it before to other peoples--God's other children;but he gave it a new emphasis, a new setting. _He made it fundamental. _

So a man who is gripped at all vitally by Jesus' teaching of thepersonal fatherhood of God, and the personal brotherhood of man, simplycan't help but make this the basic rule of his life--and moreover findjoy in so making it. A man who really comprehends this fundamentalteaching can't be crafty, sneaking, dishonest, or dishonourable, in hisbusiness, or in any phase of his personal life. He never hogs thepenny--in other words, he never seeks to gain his own advantage to thedisadvantage of another. He may be long-headed; he may be able to sizeup and seize conditions; but he seeks no advantage for himself to thedetriment of his fellow, to the detriment of his community, or to thedetriment of his extended community, the nation or the world. He isthoughtful, considerate, open, frank; and, moreover, he finds great joyin being so. 

I have never seen any finer statement of the essential reasonableness, therefore, of the essential truth of the value and the practice of theGolden Rule than that given by a modern disciple of Jesus who left usbut a few years ago. A poor boy, a successful business man, straight, square, considerate in all his dealings, --a power among his fellows, alamp indeed to the feet of many--was Samuel Milton Jones, thrice mayorof Toledo. Simple, unassuming, friend of all, rich as well as poor, pooras well as rich, friend of the outcast, the thief, the criminal, lookingbeyond the exterior, he saw as did Jesus, the human soul always intact, though it erred in its judgment--as we all err in our judgments, each inhis own peculiar way--and that by forbearance, consideration, and love, it could be touched and the life redeemed--redeemed to happiness, tousefulness, to service. Notwithstanding his many duties, business andpolitical, he thought much and he loved to talk of the things we areconsidering. 

His brief statement of the fundamental reasons and the comprehensiveresults of the actual practice of the Golden Rule are shot through withsuch fine insight, such abounding comprehension, that they deserve tobecome immortal. He was my friend and I would not see them die. Ireproduce them here: "As I view it, the Golden Rule is the supreme lawof life. It may be paraphrased this way: As you do unto others, otherswill do unto you. What I give, I get. If I love you, really and trulyand actively love you, you are as sure to love me in return as the earthis sure to be warmed by the rays of the midsummer sun. If I hate you, ill-treat you and abuse you, I am equally certain to arouse the samekind of antagonism towards me, unless the Divine nature is so developedthat it is dominant in you, and you have learned to love your enemies. What can be plainer? The Golden Rule is the law of action and reactionin the field of morals, just as definite, just as certain here as thelaw is definite and certain in the domain of physics. 

"I think the confusion with respect to the Golden Rule arises from thedifferent conceptions that we have of the word love. I use the wordlove as synonymous with reason, and when I speak of doing the lovingthing, I mean the reasonable thing. When I speak of dealing with myfellow-men in an unreasonable way, I mean an unloving way. The terms areinterchangeable, absolutely. The reason why we know so little about theGolden Rule is because we have not practised it. "

Was Mayor Jones a Christian? you ask. He was a follower of theChrist--for it was he who said: "By this shall all men know ye are mydisciples, if ye love one another. " Was he a member of a religiousorganisation? I don't know--it never occurred to me to ask him. Thinkingmen the world over are making a sharp distinction in these days betweenorganised Christianity and essential Christianity. 

The element of fear has lost its hold on the part of thinking men andwomen. It never opened up, it never can open up the springs ofrighteousness in the human heart. He believed and he acted upon thebelief that it was the spirit that the Master taught--that God is a Godof love and that He reveals Himself in terms of love to those who reallyknow Him. He believed that there is joy to the human soul in followingthis inner guide and translating its impulses into deeds of love andservice for one's fellow-men. If we could, if we would thus translatereligion into terms of life, it would become a source of perennial joy. 

It is not with observation, said Jesus, that the supreme thing that hetaught--the seeking and finding of the Kingdom of God--will come. Do notseek it at some other place, some other time. It is within, and ifwithin it will show forth. Make no mistake about that, --it will showforth. It touches and it sensitises the inner springs of action in aman's or a woman's life. When a man realises his Divine sonship thatJesus taught, he will act as a son of God. Out of the heart springeither good or evil actions. Self-love, me, mine; let me get all I canfor myself, or, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself--the Divine lawof service, of mutuality--the highest source of ethics. 

You can trust any man whose heart is right. He will be straight, clean, reliable. His word will be as good as his bond. Personally you can'ttrust a man who is brought into any line of action, or into anyinstitution through fear. The sore is there, liable to break out incorruption at any time. This opening up of the springs of the inner lifefrees him also from the letter of the law, which after all consists ofthe traditions of men, and makes him subject to that higher moral guidewithin. How clearly Jesus illustrated this in his conversationsregarding the observance of the Sabbath--how the Sabbath was made forman and not man for the Sabbath, and how it was always right to do goodon the Sabbath. 

I remember some years ago a friend in my native state telling me thefollowing interesting incident in connection with his grandmother. Itwas in northern Illinois--it might have been in New England. "As a boy, "said he, "I used to visit her on the farm. She loved her cup of coffeefor breakfast. Ordinarily she would grind it fresh each morning in thekitchen; but when Sunday morning came she would take her coffee-grinderdown into the far end of the cellar, where no one could see and no onecould hear her grind it. " He could never quite tell, he said, whether itwas to ease her own conscience, or in order to give no offence to herneighbours. 

Now, I can imagine Jesus passing by and stopping at that home--it was ahome known for its native kindly hospitality--and meeting her just asshe was coming out of the cellar with her coffee-grinder--his quick andunerring perception enabling him to take in the whole situation at once, and saying: "In the name of the Father, Aunt Susan, what were you doingwith your coffee-grinder down in the cellar on this beautiful Sabbathmorning? You like your cup of coffee, and I also like the coffee thatyou make; thank God that you have it, and thank God that you have thegood health to enjoy it. We can give praise to the Father through eatingand drinking, if, as in everything else, these are done in moderationand we give value received for all the things that we use. So don't takeyour grinder down into the cellar on the Sabbath morning; but grind yourcoffee up here in God's sunshine, with a thankful heart that you have itto grind. "

And I can imagine him, as he passes out of the little front gate, turning and waving another good-bye and saying: "When I come again, AuntSusan, be it week-day or Sabbath, remember God's sunshine and keep outof the cellar. " And turning again in a half-joking manner: "And when youtake those baskets of eggs to town, Aunt Susan, don't pick out too manyof the large ones to keep for yourself, but take them just as the henslay them. And, Aunt Susan, give good weight in your butter. This will doyour soul infinitely more good than the few extra coins you would gainby too carefully calculating"--Aunt Susan with all her lovablequalities, had a little tendency to close dealing. 

I think we do incalculable harm by separating Jesus so completely fromthe more homely, commonplace affairs of our daily lives. If we had amore adequate account of his discourses with the people and hisassociations with the people, we would perhaps find that he was not, after all, so busy in saving the world that he didn't have time for thesimple, homely enjoyments and affairs of the everyday life. The littleglimpses that we have of him along these lines indicate to me that hehad. Unless we get his truths right into this phase of our lives, thechances are that we will miss them entirely. 

And I think that with all his earnestness, Jesus must have had anunusually keen sense of humour. With his unusual perceptions and hisunusual powers in reading and in understanding human nature, it couldnot be otherwise. That he had a keen sense for beauty; that he saw it, that he valued it, that he loved it, especially beauty in all nature, many of his discourses so abundantly prove. Religion with him was notdivorced from life. It was the power that permeated every thought andevery act of the daily life. 

VIII

IF WE SEEK THE ESSENCE OF HIS REVELATION, AND THE PURPOSE OF HIS LIFE

If we would seek the essence of Jesus' revelation, attested both by hiswords and his life, it was to bring a knowledge of the ineffable love ofGod to man, and by revealing this, to instil in the minds and hearts ofmen love for God, and a knowledge of and following of the ways of God. It was also then to bring a new emphasis of the Divine law of love--thelove of man for man. Combined, it results, so to speak, in raising mento a higher power, to a higher life, --as individuals, as groups, as onegreat world group. 

It is a newly sensitised attitude of mind and heart that he brought andthat he endeavoured to reveal in all its matchless beauty--a followingnot of the traditions of men, but fidelity to one's God, whereby theDivine rule in the mind and heart assumes supremacy and, as mustinevitably follow, fidelity to one's fellow-men. These are theessentials of Jesus' revelation--the fundamental forces in his ownlife. His every teaching, his every act, comes back to them. I believealso that all efforts to mystify the minds of men and women by latertheories _about_ him are contrary to his own expressed teaching, and inexact degree that they would seek to substitute other things for thesefundamentals. 

I call them fundamentals. I call them his fundamentals. What right haveI to call them his fundamentals?

An occasion arose one day in the form of a direct question for Jesus tostate in well-considered and clear-cut terms the essence, the gist, ofhis entire teachings--therefore, by his authority, the fundamentals ofessential Christianity. In the midst of one of the groups that he wasspeaking to one day, we are told that a certain lawyer arose--aninterpreter of, an authority on, the existing ecclesiastical law. Thereference to him is so brief, unfortunately, that we cannot tell whetherhis question was to confound Jesus, as was so often the case, or whetherbeing a liberal Jew he longed for an honest and truly helpful answer. From Jesus' remark to him, after his primary answer, we are justified inbelieving it was the latter. 

His question was: "Master, which is the great commandment in the law?"Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thyheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the firstand great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt lovethy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law andthe prophets. "

Here we have a wonderful statement from a wonderful source. So clear-cutis it that any wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot mistake it. Especially is this true when we couple with it this other statement ofJesus: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; Iam not come to destroy, but to fulfil. " We must never forget that Jesuswas born, lived, and died a Jew, the same as all of his disciples--andthey never regarded themselves in any other light. The _basis_ of hisreligion was the religion of Israel. It was this he taught andexpounded, now in the synagogue, now out on the hillside and by thelake-side. It was this that he tried to teach in its purity, that hetried to free from the hedges that ecclesiasticism had built around it, this that he endeavoured to raise to a still higher standard. 

One cannot find the slightest reference in any of his sayings that wouldindicate that he looked upon himself in any other light--except theoverwhelming sense that it was his mission to bring in the newdispensation by fulfilling the old, and then carrying it another greatstep forward, which he did in a wonderful way--both God-ward andman-ward. 

We must not forget, then, that Jesus said that he did not come todestroy the Law and the Prophets, but to fulfil them. We must notforget, however, that before fulfilling them he had to free them. Thefreedom-giving, God-illumined words spoken by free God-illumined men, had, in the hands of those not God-illumined, later on becomeinstitutionalised, made into a system, a code. The people were taughtthat only the priests had access to God. They were the custodians ofGod's favour and only through the institution could any man, or anywoman, have access to God. This became the sacred thing, and as theyears had passed this had become so hedged about by continually addedlaws and observances that all the spirit of religion had become crushed, stifled, beaten to the ground. 

The very scribes and Pharisees themselves, supposed to minister to thespiritual life and the welfare of the people, became enrobed in theirfine millinery and arrogance, masters of the people, whose ministersthey were supposed to be, as is so apt to be the case when aninstitution builds itself upon the free, all-embracing message of truthgiven by any prophet or any inspired teacher. It has occurred time andtime again. Christianity knows it well. It is only by constant vigilancethat religious freedom is preserved, from which alone comes any highdegree of morality, or any degree of free and upward-moving life amongthe people. 

It was on account of this shameful robbing of the people of their Divinebirthright that the just soul of Jesus, abhorring both casuistry andoppression under the cloak of religion, gave utterance to that fineinvective that he used on several occasions, the only times that hespoke in a condemnatory or accusing manner: "Now do ye, Pharisee, makeclean the outside of the cup and the platter; but your inward part isfull of ravening and wickedness. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For ye are as graves which appear not, and the men that walkover them are not aware of them. .. . Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! Forye lade men with burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touchnot the burdens with one of your fingers. .. . Woe unto you, lawyers! Forye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered. "

And here is the lesson for us. It is the spirit that must always be keptuppermost in religion. Otherwise even the revelation and the religionof Jesus could be compressed into a code, with its self-appointedinstruments of interpretation, the same as the Pharisees did the Law andthe Prophets that he so bitterly condemned, with a bravery so intrepidand so fearless that it finally caused his death. 

No, if God is not in the human soul waiting to make Himself known to thebelieving, longing heart, accessible to all alike without money andwithout price, without any prescribed code, then the words of Jesus havenot been correctly handed down to us. And then again, confirming us inthe belief that a man's deepest soul relation is a matter between himand his God, are his unmistakable and explicit directions in regard toprayer. 

It is so easy to substitute the secondary thing for the fundamental, theby-thing for the essential, the container for the thing itself. You willrecall that symbolic act of Jesus at the last meeting, the Last Supperwith his disciples, the washing of the disciples' feet by the Master. The point that is intended to be brought out in the story is, of course, the extraordinary condescension of Jesus in doing this menial servicefor his disciples. "The feet-washing symbolises the attitude of humbleservice to others. Every follower of Jesus must experience it. " One ofthe disciples is so astonished, even taken aback by this menial serviceon the part of Jesus, that he says: Thou shall never wash my feet. Jesusanswered him, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me. "

In Oriental countries where sandals are worn that cover merely the solesof the feet, it was, it is the custom of the host to offer his guest whocomes water with which to wash his feet. There is no reason why thissimple incident of humble service, or rather this symbolic act of humbleservice, could not be taken and made an essential condition of salvationby any council that saw fit to make it such. Things just as strange asthis have happened; though any thinking man or woman _today_ would deemit essentially foolish. 

It is an example of how the spirit of a beautiful act could bemisrepresented to the people. For if you will look at them again, Jesus'words are very explicit: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part withme. " But hear Jesus' own comment as given in John: "So after he hadwashed their feet, and had taken his garments, and was set down again, he said unto them, Know ye what I have done to you? Ye call me Masterand Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought to wash one another's feet. For Ihave given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than hislord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye knowthese things, happy are ye if ye do them. " It is a means to an end andnot an end in itself. The spirit that it typifies is essential; but notthe act itself. 

The same could be rightly said of the Lord's Supper. It is an observancethat can be made of great value, one very dear and valuable to manypeople. But it cannot, if Jesus is to be our authority, and if correctlyreported, be by any means made a fundamental, an essential of salvation. From the rebuke administered by Jesus to his disciples in a number ofcases where they were prone to drag down his meanings by their purelymaterial interpretations, we should be saved from this. 

You will recall his teaching one day when he spoke of himself as thebread of life that a man may eat thereof and not die. Some of his Jewishhearers taking his words in a material sense and arguing in regard tothem one with another said: "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?"Hearing them Jesus reaffirming his statement said: "Verily, verily, Isay unto you, except ye eat of the flesh of the Son of Man, and drinkhis blood, ye have not life in yourselves. .. . For my flesh is meatindeed, and my blood is drink indeed. " His disciples, likewise, pronehere as so often to make a literal and material interpretation of hisstatements, said one to another: "This is a hard saying; who can hearhim?" Or according to our idiom--who can understand him? Jesus askedthem squarely if what he had just said caused them to stumble, and inorder to be sure that they might not miss his real meaning and thereforeteaching, said: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profitethnothing: the words that I speak unto you, _they_ are spirit, and _they_are life. "

Try as we will, we cannot get away from the fact that it was the wordsof truth that Jesus brought that were ever uppermost in his mind. Hesaid, Follow me, not some one else, nor something else that would claimto represent me. And follow me merely because I lead you to the Father. 

So supremely had this young Jewish prophet, the son of a carpenter, madeGod's business his business, that he had come into the full realisationof the oneness of his life with the Father's life. He was able torealise and to say, "I and my Father are one. " He was able to bring tothe world a knowledge of the great fact of facts--the essential onenessof the human with the Divine--that God tabernacles with men, that Hemakes His abode in the minds and the hearts of those who through desireand through will open their hearts to His indwelling presence. 

The first of the race, he becomes the revealer of this great eternaltruth--the mediator, therefore, between God and man--in very truth theSaviour of men. "If a man love me, " said he, "he will keep my words: andmy Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abodewith him. .. . If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; evenas I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. "

It is our eternal refusal to follow Jesus by listening to the words oflife that he brought, and our proneness to substitute something else intheir place, that brings the barrenness that is so often evident in theeveryday life of the Christian. We have been taught _to believe in_Jesus; we have not been taught _to believe_ Jesus. This has resulted ina separation of Christianity from life. The predominating motive hasbeen the saving of the soul. It has resulted too often in a selfish, negative, repressive, ineffective religion. As Jesus said: "And why callye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?"

We are just beginning to realise at all adequately that it was _thesalvation of the life_ that he taught. When the life is redeemed torighteousness through the power of the indwelling God and moves out inlove and in service for one's fellow-men, the soul is then saved. 

A man may be a believer in Jesus for a million years and still be anoutcast from the Kingdom of God and His righteousness. But a man can'tbelieve Jesus, which means following his teachings, without coming atonce into the Kingdom and enjoying its matchless blessings both here andhereafter. And if there is one clear-cut teaching of the Master, it isthat the life here determines and with absolute precision the life tocome. 

One need not then concern himself with this or that doctrine, whether itbe true or false. Later speculations and theories are not for him. Jesus' own saying applies here: "If any man will do his will he shallknow of the doctrine, whether it be of God. " He enters into the Kingdom, the Kingdom of Heaven here and now; and when the time comes for him topass out of this life, he goes as a joyous pilgrim, full of anticipationfor the Kingdom that awaits him, and the Master's words go with him: "Inmy Father's house are many mansions. "

By thus becoming a follower of Jesus rather than merely a believer inJesus, he gradually comes into possession of insights and powers thatthe Master taught would follow in the lives of those who became hisfollowers. The Holy Spirit, the Divine Comforter, of which Jesus spoke, the Spirit of Truth, that awaits our bidding, will lead continually tothe highest truth and wisdom and insight and power. Kant's statement, "The other world is not another locality, but only another way of seeingthings, " is closely allied to the Master's statement: "The Kingdom ofGod is within you. " And closely allied to both is this statement of amodern prophet: "The principle of Christianity and of every truereligion is within the soul--the realisation of the incarnation of Godin every human being. "

When we turn to Jesus' own teachings we find that his insistence was notprimarily upon the saving of the soul, but upon the saving of the lifefor usefulness, for service, here and now, for still higher growth andunfoldment, whereby the soul might be grown to a sufficient degree thatit would be worth the saving. And this is one of the great facts that isnow being recognised and preached by the forward-looking men and womenin our churches and by many equally religious outside of our churches. 

And so all aspiring, all thinking, forward-looking men and women of ourday are not interested any more in theories about, explanations of, ordogmas about Jesus. They are being won and enthralled by the wonderfulpersonality and life of Jesus. They are being gripped by the power ofhis teachings. They do not want theories about God--they want God--andGod is what Jesus brought--God as the moving, the predominating, theall-embracing force in the individual life. But he who finds the Kingdomof God, whose life becomes subject to the Divine rule and life within, realises at once also his true relations with the whole--with hisneighbour, his fellow-men. He realises that his neighbour is not merelythe man next door, the man around the corner, or even the man in thenext town or city; but that his neighbour _is every man and every womanin the world_--because all children of the same infinite Father, allbound in the same direction, but over many different roads. 

The man who has come under the influence and the domination of theDivine rule, realises that his interests lie in the same direction asthe interests of all, that he cannot gain for himself any good--that is, any essential good--at the expense of the good of all; but rather thathis interests, his Welfare, and the interests and the welfare of allothers are identical. God's rule, the Divine rule, becomes for him, therefore, the fundamental rule in the business world, the dominatingrule in political life and action, the dominating rule in the law andrelations of nations. 

Jesus did not look with much favour upon outward form, ceremony, or withmuch favour upon formulated, or formal religion; and he somehow or otherseemed to avoid the company of those who did. We find him almostcontinually down among the people, the poor, the needy, the outcast, thesinner--wherever he could be of service to the Father, that is, whereverhe could be of service to the Father's children. According to theaccounts he was not always as careful in regard to those with whom heassociated as the more respectable ones, the more respectable classes ofhis day thought he should be. They remarked it many times. Jesus noticedit and remarked in turn. 

We find him always where the work was to be done--friend equally of thepoor and humble, and those of station--truly friend of man, teaching, helping, uplifting. And then we find him out on the mountain side--inthe quiet, in communion--to keep his realisation of his oneness with theFather intact; and with this help he went down regularly to the people, trying to lift their minds and lives up to the Divine ideal that herevealed to them, that they in turn might realise their real relationsone with another, that the Kingdom of God and His righteousness mightgrow and become the dominating law and force in the world--"Thy Kingdomcome, Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. "

It is this Kingdom idea, the Divine rule, the rule of God in all of therelations and affairs of men on earth that is gripping earnest men andwomen in great numbers among us today. Under the leadership of thesethinking, God-impelled men and women, many of our churches are pushingtheir endeavours out into social service activities along many differentlines; and the result is they are calling into their ranks many able menand women, especially younger men and women, who are intenselyreligious, but to whom formal, inactive religion never made any appeal. 

When the Church begins actually to throw the Golden Rule onto itsbanner, not in theory but in actual practice, actually forgetting selfin the Master's service, careless even of her own interests, hermembership, she thereby calls into her ranks vast numbers of the best ofthe race, especially among the young, so that the actual result is amembership not only larger than she could ever hope to have otherwise, but a membership that commands such respect and that exercises suchpower, that she is astounded at her former stupidity in being shackledso long by the traditions of the past. A new life is engendered. Thereis the joy of real accomplishment. 

We are in an age of great changes. Advancing knowledge necessitateschanges. And may I say a word here to our Christian ministry, thatsplendid body of men for whom I have such supreme admiration? One of themost significant facts of our time is this widespread inclination anddetermination on the part of such great numbers of thinking men andwomen to go directly to Jesus for their information of, and theirinspiration from him. The beliefs and the voice of the laymen, those inour churches and those out of our churches, must be taken into accountand reckoned with. Jesus is too large and too universal a character tobe longer the sole possession, the property of any organisation. 

There is a splendid body of young men and young women numbering intountold thousands, who are being captured by the personality and thesimple direct message of Jesus. Many of these have caught his spirit andare going off into other lines of the Master's service. They are doingeffective and telling work there. Remember that when the spirit of theChrist seizes a man, it is through the channel of present-day forms andpresent-day terms, not in those of fifteen hundred, or sixteen hundred, or even three hundred years ago. 

There is a spirit of intellectual honesty that prevents many men andwomen from subscribing to anything to which they cannot give theirintellectual assent, as well as their moral and spiritual assent. Theydo not object to creeds. They know that a creed is but a statement, astatement of a man's or a woman's belief, whether it be in connectionwith religion, or in connection with anything else. But what they doobject to is dogma, that unholy thing that lives on credulity, that istherefore destructive of the intellectual and the moral life of everyman and every woman who allows it to lay its paralysing hand upon them, that can be held to if one is at all honest and given to thought, onlythrough intellectual chicanery. 

We must not forget also that God is still at work, revealing Himselfmore fully to mankind through modern prophets, through modern agencies. His revelation is not closed. It is still going on. The sillypresumption in the statement therefore--"the truth once delivered. "

It is well occasionally to call to mind these words by Robert Burns, singing free and with an untrammelled mind and soul from hisheather-covered hills:

 Here's freedom to him that wad read, Here's freedom to him that wad write; There's nane ever feared that the truth should be heared But them that the truth wad indict. 

It is essential to remember that we are in possession of knowledge, thatwe are face to face with conditions that are different from any in theprevious history of Christendom. The Christian church must be sure thatit moves fast enough so as not to alienate, but to draw into it thatgreat body of intellectually alive, intellectually honest young men andwomen who have the Christ spirit of service and who are mastered by agreat purpose of accomplishment. Remember that these young men and womenare now merely standing where the entire church will stand in a fewyears. Remember that any man or woman who has the true spirit of servicehas the spirit of Christ--and more, has the religion of the Christ. 

Remember that Jesus formulated no organisation. His message of theKingdom was so far-reaching that no organisation could ever possiblyencompass it, though an organisation may be, and has been, a great aidin actualising it here on earth. He never made any conditions as tothrough whom, or what, his truth should be spread, and he would condemntoday any instrumentality that would abrogate to itself any monopoly ofhis truth, just as he condemned those ecclesiastical authorities of hisday who presumed to do the same in connection with the truth of God'searlier prophets. 

And so I would say to the Church--beware and be wise. Make yourconditions so that you can gain the allegiance and gain the help of thissplendid body of young men and young women. Many of them are made of thestock that Jesus would choose as his own apostles. Among the young menwill be our greatest teachers, our great financiers, our bestlegislators, our most valuable workers and organisers in various fieldsof social service, our most widely read authors, eminent and influentialeditorial and magazine writers as well as managers. 

Many of these young women will have high and responsible positions aseducators. Some will be heads and others will be active workers in ourwidely extended and valuable women's clubs. Some will have a hand inpolitical action, in lifting politics out of its many-times lowcondition into its rightful state in being an agent for theaccomplishment of the people's best purposes and their highest good. Some will be editors of widely circulating and influential women'smagazines. Some will be mothers, true mothers of the children of others, denied their rights and their privileges. Make it possible for them, nay, make it incumbent upon them to come in, to work within the greatChurch organisation. 

It cannot afford that they stay out. It is suicidal to keep them out. Any other type of organisation that did not look constantly tocommanding the services of the most capable and expert in its line wouldfall in a very few months into the ranks of the ineffectives. A businessor a financial organisation that did not do the same would go intofinancial bankruptcy in even a shorter length of time. By attractingthis class of men and women into its ranks it need fear neither moralnor financial bankruptcy. 

But remember, many men and women of large calibre are so busy doingGod's work in the world that they have no time and no inclination to beattracted by anything that does not claim their intellectual as well astheir moral assent. The Church must speak fully and unequivocally interms of present-day thought and present-day knowledge, to win theallegiance or even to attract the attention of this type of men andwomen. 

And may I say here this word to those outside, and especially to thisclass of young men and young women outside of our churches? Changes, and therefore advances in matters of this kind come slowly. This is truefrom the very nature of human nature. Inherited beliefs, especially whenit comes to matters of religion, take the deepest hold and are theslowest to change. Not in all cases, but this is the general rule. 

Those who hold on to the old are earnest, honest. They believe thatthese things are too sacred to be meddled with, or even sometimes, to bequestioned. The ordinary mind is slow to distinguish between traditionand truth--especially where the two have been so fully and so adroitlymixed. Many are not in possession of the newer, the more advancedknowledge in various fields that you are in possession of. But rememberthis--in even a dozen years a mighty change has taken place--except in achurch whose very foundation and whose sole purpose is dogma. 

In most of our churches, however, the great bulk of our ministers arejust as forward-looking, just as earnest as you, and are deeply desirousof following and presenting the highest truth in so far as it lieswithin their power to do so. It is a splendid body of men, willing towelcome you on your own grounds, longing for your help. It is a mightyengine for good. Go into it. Work with it. Work through it. The bestmen in the Church are longing for your help. They need it more than theyneed anything else. I can assure you of this--I have talked with many. 

They feel their handicaps. They are moving as rapidly as they find itpossible to move. On the whole, they are doing splendid work and with abig, fine spirit of which you know but little. You will find a wonderfulspirit of self-sacrifice, also. You will find a stimulating and preciouscomradeship on the part of many. You will find that you will get greatgood, even as you are able to give great good. 

The Church, as everything else, needs to keep its machinery in continualrepair. Help take out the worn-out parts--but not too suddenly. TheChurch is not a depository, but an instrument and engine of truth andrighteousness. Some of the older men do not realise this; but they willdie off. Respect their beliefs. Honest men have honest respect fordifferences of opinion, for honest differences in thought. Sympathy is agreat harmoniser. "Differences of opinion, intellectual distinctions, these must ever be--separation of mind, but unity of heart. "

I like these words of Lyman Abbott. You will like them. They are spokenout of a full life of rich experience and splendid service. They have, moreover, a sort of unifying effect. They are more than a tonic: "Ofall characters in history none so gathers into himself and reflects fromhimself all the varied virtues of a complete manhood as does Jesus ofNazareth. And the world is recognising it. .. . If you go back to theolden time and the old conflicts, the question was, 'What is therelation of Jesus Christ to the Eternal?' Wars have been fought over thequestion, 'Was he of one substance with the Father?' I do not know; I donot know of what substance the Father is; I do not know of whatsubstance Jesus Christ is. What I do know is this--that when I look intothe actual life that I know about, the men and women that are about me, the men and women in all the history of the past, of all the livingbeings that ever lived and walked the earth, there is no one that sofills my heart with reverence, with affection, with loyal love, withsincere desire to follow, as doth Jesus Christ. .. . 

"I do not need to decide whether he was born of a virgin. I do not needto decide whether he rose from the dead. I do not need to decide whetherhe made water into wine, or fed five thousand with two loaves and fivesmall fishes. Take all that away, and still he stands the onetranscendent figure toward whom the world has been steadily growing, andwhom the world has not yet overtaken even in his teachings. .. . I do notneed to know what is his metaphysical relation to the Infinite. I say itreverently--I do not care. I know for me he is the great Teacher; I knowfor me he is the great Leader whose work I want to do; and I know for mehe is the great Personality, whom I want to be like. That I know. Theology did not give that to me, and theology cannot get it away fromme. "

And what a basis as a test of character is this twofold injunction--thisgreat fundamental of Jesus! All religion that is genuine flowers incharacter. It was Benjamin Jowett who said, and most truly: "The valueof a religion is in the ethical dividend that it pays. " When the heartis right towards God we have the basis, the essence of religion--theconsciousness of God in the soul of man. We have truth in the inwardparts. When the heart is right towards the fellow-man we have theessential basis of ethics; for again we have truth in the inward parts. 

Out of the heart are the issues of life. When the heart is right alloutward acts and relations are right. Love draws one to the very heartof God; and love attunes one to all the highest and most valuedrelationships in our human life. 

Fear can never be a basis of either religion or ethics. The one who ismoved by fear makes his chief concern the avoidance of detection on theone hand, or the escape of punishment on the other. Men of large calibrehave an unusual sagacity in sifting the unessential from the essentialas also the false from the true. Lincoln, when replying to the questionas to why he did not unite himself with some church organisation, said:"When any church will inscribe over its altar, as its sole qualificationof membership, the Saviour's condensed statement of the substance ofboth law and gospel: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thyheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbouras thyself, that church shall I join with all my heart and soul. "

He was looked upon by many in his day as a non-Christian--by some as aninfidel. His whole life had a profound religious basis, so deep and soall-absorbing that it gave him those wonderful elements of personalitythat were instantly and instinctively noticed by, and that moved all menwho came in touch with him; and that sustained him so wonderfully, according to his own confession, through those long, dark periods of thegreat crisis, The fact that in yesterday's New York paper--Sundaypaper--I saw the notice of a sermon in one of our Presbyterianpulpits--Lincoln, the Christian--shows that we have moved up a roundand are approaching more and more to an essential Christianity. 

Similar to this statement or rather belief was that of Emerson, Jefferson, Franklin, and a host of other men among us whose lives havebeen lives of accomplishment and service for their fellow-men. Emerson, who said: "A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of lightwhich flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of thefirmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice histhought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognise our ownrejected thoughts. They come back to us with a certain alienatedmajesty. " Emerson, who also said: "I believe in the still, small voice, and that voice is the Christ within me. " It was he of whom the famousFather Taylor in Boston said: "It may be that Emerson is going to hell, but of one thing I am certain: he will change the climate there andemigration will set that way. "

So thought Jefferson, who said: "I have sworn eternal hostility to everyform of tyranny over the minds of men. " And as he, great prophet, withhis own hand penned that immortal document--the Declaration of AmericanIndependence--one can almost imagine the Galilean prophet standing athis shoulder and saying: Thomas, I think it well to write it so. Bothhad a burning indignation for that species of self-seeking either on thepart of an individual or an organisation that would seek to enchain theminds and thereby the lives of men and women, and even lay claim totheir children. Yet Jefferson in his time was frequently called anatheist--and merely because men in those days did not distinguish asclearly as we do today between ecclesiasticism and religion, betweenformulated and essential Christianity. 

So we are brought back each time to Jesus' two fundamentals--and thesecome out every time foursquare with the best thought of our time. Thereligion of Jesus is thereby prevented from being a mere tribalreligion. It is prevented from being merely an organisation that couldpossibly have his sanction as such--that is, an organisation that wouldbe able to say: This is his, and this only. It makes it have aworld-wide and eternal content. The Kingdom that Jesus taught isinfinitely broader in its scope and its inclusiveness than anyorganisation can be, or that all organisations combined can be. 

IX

HIS PURPOSE OF LIFTING UP, ENERGISING, BEAUTIFYING, AND SAVING THEENTIRE LIFE: THE SAVING OF THE SOUL IS SECONDARY; BUT FOLLOWS

We have made the statement that Jesus did unusual things, but that hedid them on account of, or rather by virtue of, his unusual insight intoand understanding of the laws whereby they could be done. Hisunderstanding of the powers of the mind and spirit was intuitive andvery great. As an evidence of this were his numerous cases of healingthe sick and the afflicted. 

Intuitively he perceived the existence and the nature of the subjectivemind, and in connection with it the tremendous powers of suggestion. Intuitively he was able to read, to diagnose the particular ailment andthe cause of the ailment before him. His thought was so poised that itwas energised by a subtle and peculiar spiritual power. Such confidencedid his personality and his power inspire in others that he was able toan unusual degree to reach and to arouse the slumbering subconsciousmind of the sufferer and to arouse into action its own slumberingpowers whereby the life force of the body could transcend and remouldits error-ridden and error-stamped condition. 

In all these cases he worked through the operation of law--it is exactlywhat we know of the laws of suggestion today. The remarkable cases ofhealing that are being accomplished here and there among us today aredone unquestionably through the understanding and use of the same lawsthat Jesus was the supreme master of. 

By virtue of his superior insight--his understanding of the laws of themind and spirit--he was able to use them so fully and so effectivelythat he did in many cases eliminate the element of time in his healingministrations. But even he was dependent in practically all cases, uponthe mental cooperation of the one who would be healed. Where this wasfull and complete he succeeded; where it was not he failed. Such atleast again and again is the statement in the accounts that we have ofthese facts in connection with his life and work. There were placeswhere we are told he could do none of his mighty works on account oftheir unbelief, and he departed from these places and went elsewhere. Many times his question was: "Believe ye that I am able to do this?"Then: "According to your faith be it unto you, " and the healing wasaccomplished. 

The laws of mental and spiritual therapeutics are identically the sametoday as they were in the days of Jesus and his disciples, who made thehealing of sick bodies a part of their ministration. It is but fair topresume from the accounts that we have that in the early Church of theDisciples, and for well on to two hundred years after Jesus' time, thehealing of the sick and the afflicted went hand in hand with thepreaching and the teaching of the Kingdom. There are those who believethat it never should have been abandoned. As a well-known writer hassaid: "Healing is the outward and practical attestation of the power andgenuineness of spiritual religion, and ought not to have dropped out ofthe Church. " Recent sincere efforts to re-establish it in churchpractice, following thereby the Master's injunction, is indicative ofthe thought that is alive in connection with the matter today. [A] Fromthe accounts that we have Jesus seems to have engaged in works ofhealing more during his early than during his later ministry. He mayhave used it as a means to an end. On account of his great love andsympathy for the physical sufferer as well as for the moral sufferer, itis but reasonable to suppose that it was an integral part of hisannounced purpose--the saving of the life, of the entire life, forusefulness, for service, for happiness. 

And so we have this young Galilean prophet, coming from an hithertounknown Jewish family in the obscure little village of Nazareth, givingobedience in common with his four brothers and his sisters to his fatherand his mother; but by virtue of a supreme aptitude for and anirresistible call to the things of the spirit--made irresistible throughhis overwhelming love for the things of the spirit--he is early absorbedby the realisation of the truth that God is his father and that all menare brothers. 

The thought that God is his father and that he bears a unique and filialrelationship to God so possesses him that he is filled, permeated withthe burning desire to make this newborn message of truth and thereby ofrighteousness known to the world. 

His own native religion, once vibrating through the souls of theprophets as the voice of God, has become so obscured, so hedged about, so killed by dogma, by ceremony, by outward observances, that it hasbecome a mean and pitiable thing, and produces mean and pitiableconditions in the lives of his people. The institution has become soovergrown that the spirit has gone. But God finds another prophet, clearly and supremely open to His spirit, and Jesus comes as theMessiah, the Divine Son of God, the Divine Son of Man, bringing to theearth a new Dispensation. It is the message of the Divine Fatherhood ofGod, God whose controlling character is love, and with it the Divinesonship of man. An integral part of it is--all men are brothers. 

He comes as the teacher of a new, a higher righteousness. He brings themessage and he expounds the message of the Kingdom of God. All men heteaches must repent and turn from their sins, and must henceforth livein this Kingdom. It is an inner kingdom. Men shall not say: Behold it ishere or it is there; for, behold, it is within you. God is your fatherand God longs for your acknowledgment of Him as your father; He longsfor your love even as He loves you. You are children of God, but youare not true Sons of God until through desire the Divine rule and lifebecomes supreme in your minds and hearts. It is thus that you will findthe Kingdom of God. When you do, then your every act will show forth inaccordance with this Divine ideal and guide, and the supreme law ofconduct in your lives will be love for your neighbour, for all mankind. Through this there will then in time become actualised the Kingdom ofHeaven on the earth. 

He comes in no special garb, no millinery, no brass bands, no formulas, no dogmas, no organisation other than the Kingdom, to uphold and becomea slave to, and in turn be absorbed by, as was the organisation that hefound strangling all religion in the lives of his people and which he sobitterly condemned. What he brought was something infinitelytranscending this--the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, to whichall men were heirs--equal heirs--and thereby redemption from their sins, therefore salvation, the saving of their lives, would be the inevitableresult of their acknowledgment of and allegiance to the Divine rule. 

How he embraced all--such human sympathy--coming not to destroy but tofulfil; not to judge the world but to save the world. How he loved thechildren! How he loved to have them about him! How he loved theirsimplicity, and native integrity of mind and heart! Hear him as he says:"Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of Godas a little child, he shall not enter therein"; and again: "Suffer thelittle children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is theKingdom of God. " The makers of dogma, in evolving some three hundredyears later on the dogma of the inherent sinfulness and degradation ofthe human life and soul, could certainly find not the slightest trace ofany basis for it again in these words and acts of Jesus. 

We find him sympathising with and mingling with and seeking to draw untothe way of his own life the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the same asthe well-to-do and those of station and influence--seeking to draw allthrough love and knowledge to the Father. 

There is a sense of justice and righteousness in his soul, however, thatbalks at oppression, injustice, and hypocrisy. He therefore condemns andin scathing terms those and only those who would seek to place anybarrier between the free soul of any man and his God, who would bindeither the mind or the conscience of man to any prescribed formulas ordogmas. Honouring, therefore the forms that his intelligence and hisconscience allowed him to honour, he disregarded those that they didnot. 

Like other good Jewish rabbis, for he was looked upon during hisministry and often addressed as Rabbi, he taught in the synagogues ofhis people; but oftener out on the hillsides and by the lake-side, underthe blue sky and the stars of heaven. Giving due reverence to the Lawand the Prophets--the religion of his people and his own earlyreligion--but in spirit and in discriminating thought so fartranscending them, that the people marvelled at his teachings andsaid--surely this a prophet come from God; no man ever spoke to us as hespeaks. By the ineffable beauty of his life and the love and thewinsomeness of his personality, and by the power of the truths that hetaught, he won the hearts of the common people. They followed him andhis following continually increased. 

Through it all, however, he incurred the increasing hostility and theincreasing hatred of the leaders, the hierarchy of the existingreligious organisation. They were animated by a double motive, that ofprotecting themselves, and that of protecting their establishedreligion. But in their slavery to the organisation, and because unableto see that it was the spirit of true religion that he brought andtaught, they cruelly put him to death--the same as the organisationestablished later on in his name, put numbers of God's true prophets, Jesus' truest disciples to death, and essentially for the same reasons. 

Jesus' quick and almost unerring perception enabled him to foresee this. It did not deter him from going forward with his message, standingresolutely and superbly by his revelation, and at the last almostcourting death--feeling undoubtedly that the sealing of his revelationand message with his very life blood would but serve to give it itsgreatest power and endurance. Heroically he met the fate that heperceived was conspiring to end his career, to wreck his teachings andhis influence. He went forth to die clear-sighted and unafraid. 

He died for the sake of the truth of the message that he lived and sodiligently and heroically laboured for--the message of the ineffablelove of God for all His children and the bringing of them into theFather's Kingdom. And we must believe from his whole life's teaching, not to save their souls from some future punishment; not through anydemand of satisfaction on the part of God; not as any substitutionarysacrifice to appease the demands of an angry God--for it was the exactopposite of this that his whole life teaching endeavoured to makeknown. It was supremely the love of the Father and His longing for thelove and allegiance, therefore the complete life and service of Hischildren. It was the beauty of holiness--the beauty of wholeness--thewholeness of life, the saving of the whole life from the sin andsordidness of self and thereby giving supreme satisfaction to God. Itwas love, not fear. If not, then almost in a moment he changed theentire purpose and content, the entire intent of all his previous lifework. This is unthinkable. 

In his last act he did not abrogate his own expressed statement, thatthe very essence of his message was expressed, as love to God and loveto one's neighbour. He did not abrogate his continually repeateddeclaration that it was the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, whichbrings man's life into right relations with God and into right relationswith his fellow-men, that it was his purpose to reveal and to draw allmen to, thereby aiding God's eternal purpose--to establish in this worlda state which he designated the Kingdom of Heaven wherein a social orderof brotherliness and justice, wrought and maintained through the potencyof love, would prevail. In doing this he revealed the character of Godby being himself an embodiment of it. 

It was the power of a truth that was to save the life that he wasalways concerned with. Therefore his statement that the Son of Man hascome that men might have life and might have it more abundantly--to savemen from sin and from failure, and secondarily from their consequences;to make them true Sons of God and fit subjects and fit workers in HisKingdom. Conversion according to Jesus is the fact of this Divine rulein the mind and heart whereby the life is saved--the saving of the soulfollows. It is the direct concomitant of the saved life. 

In his death he sealed his own statement: "The law and the prophets wereuntil John; since that time the Kingdom of God is preached, and everyman presseth into it. " Through his death he sealed the message of hislife when putting it in another form he said: "Verily, verily, I sayunto you, He that heareth my word and believeth on Him that sent me hatheverlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation: but is passedfrom death unto life. "

In this majestic life divinity and humanity meet. Here is theincarnation. The first of the race consciously, vividly, and fully torealise that God incarnates Himself and has His abode in the hearts andthe lives of men, the first therefore to realise his Divine Sonship andbecome able thereby to reveal and to teach the Divine Fatherhood of Godand the Divine Sonship of Man. 

In this majestic life is the atonement, the realisation of theat-one-ment of the Divine in the human, made manifest in his own lifeand in the way that he taught, sealed then by his own blood. 

In this majestic life we have the mediator, the medium or connector ofthe Divine and the human. In it we have the Saviour, the veryincarnation of the truth that he taught, and that lifts the minds andthereby the lives of men up to their Divine ideal and pattern, thatredeems their lives from the sordidness and selfishness and sin of thehitherto purely material self, and that being thereby saved, makes themfit subjects for the Father's Kingdom. 

In this majestic life is the full embodiment of the beauty ofholiness--whose words have gone forth and whose spirit is ceaselessly atwork in the world, drawing men and women up to their divine ideal, andthat will continue so to draw all in proportion as his words of truthand his life are lifted up throughout the world. 

X

SOME METHODS OF ATTAINMENT

After this study of the teachings of the Divine Master let us know this. It is the material that is the transient, the temporary; and the mentaland spiritual that is the real and the eternal. We must not becomeslaves to habit. The material alone can never bring happiness--much lesssatisfaction. These lie deeper. That conversation between Jesus and therich young man is full of significance for us all, especially in thisambitious, striving, restless age. 

Abundance of life is determined not alone by one's material possessions, but primarily by one's riches of mind and spirit. A world of truth iscontained in these words: "Life is what we are alive to. It is not alength, but breadth. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, mere luxuryor idleness, pride or money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, history, poetry, and music, flowers, God and eternalhopes, is to be all but dead. "

Why be so eager to gain possession of the hundred thousand or thehalf-million acres, of so many millions of dollars? Soon, and it may bebefore you realise it, all must be left. It is as if a man made it hisambition to accumulate a thousand or a hundred thousand automobiles. Allsoon will become junk. But so it is with all material things beyond whatwe can actually and profitably use for our good and the good ofothers--and that we actually do so use. 

A man can eat just so many meals during the year or during life. If hetries to eat more he suffers thereby. He can wear only so many suits ofclothing; if he tries to wear more, he merely wears himself out takingoff and putting on. Again it is as Jesus said: "For what shall it profita man, if he gain the whole world and lose his own life?" And rightthere is the crux of the whole matter. All the time spent inaccumulating these things beyond the reasonable amount, is so much takenfrom the life--from the things of the mind and the spirit. It is in thedevelopment and the pursuit of these that all true satisfaction lies. Elemental law has so decreed. 

We have made wonderful progress, or rather have developed wonderfulskill in connection with things. We need now to go back and catch up thethread and develop like skill in making the life. 

Little wonder that brains are addled, that nerves are depleted, thatnervous dyspepsia, that chronic weariness, are not the exception butrather the rule. Little wonder that sanitariums are always full; thatasylums are full and overflowing--and still more to be built. No wonderthat so many men, so many good men break and go to pieces, and so manylose the life here at from fifty to sixty years, when they should be inthe very prime of life, in the full vigour of manhood; at the very agewhen they are capable of enjoying life the most and are most capable ofrendering the greatest service to their fellows, to their community, because of greater growth, experience, means, and therefore leisure. Jesus was right--What doth it profit? And think of the real riches thatin the meantime are missed. 

It is like an addled-brain driver in making a trip across the continent. He is possessed, obsessed with the insane desire of making a record. Heplunges on and on night and day, good weather and foul--and all the timehe is missing all the beauties, all the benefits to health and spiritalong the way. He has none of these when he arrives--he has missed themall. He has only the fact that he has made a record drive--or nearlymade one. And those with him he has not only robbed of the beautiesalong the way; but he has subjected them to all the discomforts alongthe way. And what really underlies the making of a record? It isprimarily the spirit of vanity. 

When the mental beauties of life, when the spiritual verities aresacrificed by self-surrender to and domination by the material, one ofthe heavy penalties that inexorable law imposes is the drying up, so tospeak, of the finer human perceptions--the very faculties of enjoyment. It presents to the world many times, and all unconscious to himself, astunted, shrivelled human being--that eternal type that the Master hadin mind when he said: "Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be requiredof thee. " He whose sole employment or even whose primary employmentbecomes the building of bigger and still bigger barns to take care ofhis accumulated grain, becomes incapable of realising that life and thethings that pertain to it are of infinitely more value than barns, orhouses, or acres, or stocks, or bonds, or railroad ties. These all havetheir place, all are of value; but they can never be made the life. Arecent poem by James Oppenheim presents a type that is known to nearlyevery one:[B]

 I heard the preacher preaching at the funeral: He moved the relatives to tears telling them of the father, husband, and friend that was dead: Of the sweet memories left behind him: Of a life that was good and kind. 

 I happened to know the man, And I wondered whether the relatives would have wept if the preacher had told the truth: Let us say like this:

 "The only good thing this man ever did in his life, Was day before yesterday: _He died_. .. . But he didn't even do that of his own volition. .. . He was the meanest man in business on Manhattan Island, The most treacherous friend, the crudest and stingiest husband, And a father so hard that his children left home as soon as they were old enough. .. . Of course he had divinity: everything human has: But he kept it so carefully hidden away that he might just as well not have had it. .. . 

 "Wife! good cheer! now you can go your own way and live your own life! Children, give praise! you have his money: the only good thing he ever gave you. .. . Friends! you have one less traitor to deal with. .. . This is indeed a day of rejoicing and exultation! Thank God this man is dead!"

An unknown enjoyment and profit to him is the world's great field ofliterature, the world's great thinkers, the inspirers of so many throughall the ages. That splendid verse by Emily Dickinson means as much tohim as it would to a dumb stolid ox:

 He ate and drank the precious words, His spirit grew robust, He knew no more that he was poor, Nor that his frame was dust; He danced along the dingy days, And this bequest of wings Was but a book! What liberty A loosened spirit brings!

Yes, life and its manifold possibilities of unfoldment and avenues ofenjoyment--life, and the things that pertain to it--is an infinitelygreater thing than the mere accessories of life. 

What infinite avenues of enjoyment, what peace of mind, what serenity ofsoul may be the possession of all men and all women who are alive tothe inner possibilities of life as portrayed by our own prophet, Emerson, when he said:

 Oh, when I am safe in my sylvan home, I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome; And when I am stretched beneath the pines, Where the evening star so holy shines, I laugh at the lore and pride of man, At the Sophist schools and the learned clan; For what are they all in their high conceit, When man in the bush with God may meet?

It was he who has exerted such a world-wide influence upon the minds andlives of men and women who also said: "Great men are they who see thatspirituality is stronger than any material force: that thoughts rule theworld. " And this is true not only of the world in general, but it istrue likewise in regard to the individual life. 

One of the great secrets of all successful living is unquestionably thestriking of the right balance in life. The material has its place--and avery important place. Fools indeed were we to ignore or to attempt toignore this fact. We cannot, however, except to our detriment, put thecart before the horse. Things may contribute to happiness, but thingscannot bring happiness--and sad indeed, and crippled and dwarfed andstunted becomes the life of every one who is not capable of realisingthis fact. Eternally true indeed is it that the life is more than meatand the body more than raiment. 

All life is from an inner centre outward. As within, so without. As wethink we become. Which means simply this: our prevailing thoughts andemotions are never static, but dynamic. Thoughts are forces--likecreates like, and like attracts like. It is therefore for us to choosewhether we shall be interested primarily in the great spiritual forcesand powers of life, or whether we shall be interested solely in thematerial things of life. 

But there is a wonderful law which we must not lose sight of. It is tothe effect that when we become sufficiently alive to the inner powersand forces, to the inner springs of life, the material things of lifewill not only follow in a natural and healthy sequence, but they willalso assume their right proportions. They will take their right places. 

It was the recognition of this great fundamental fact of life that Jesushad in mind when he said: "But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; andall these things shall be added unto you, "--meaning, as he so distinctlystated, the kingdom of the mind and spirit made open and translucent tothe leading of the Divine Wisdom inherent in the human soul, when thatleading is sought and when through the right ordering of the mind wemake the conditions whereby it may become operative in the individuallife. 

The great value of God as taught by Jesus is that God dwells in us. Itis truly Emmanuel--God with us. The law must be observed--the conditionsmust be met. "The Lord is with you while ye be with him; and if ye willseek him, he will be found of you. " "The spirit of the living Goddwelleth in you. " "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, thatgiveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be givenhim. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. " That there is a Divinelaw underlying prayer that helps to release the inner springs of wisdom, which in turn leads to power, was well known to Jesus, for his lifeabundantly proved it. 

His great aptitude for the things of the spirit enabled him intuitivelyto realise this, to understand it, to use it. And there was no mystery, no secret, no subterfuge on the part of Jesus as to the source of hispower. In clear and unmistakable words he made it known--and why shouldhe not? It was the truth, the truth of this inner kingdom that wouldmake men free that he came to reveal. "The words that I speak unto youI speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth theworks. " "My Father worketh hitherto and I work. .. . For as the Fatherhath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life inhimself. .. . I can of mine own self do nothing. " As he followed theconditions whereby this higher illumination can come so must we. 

The injunction that Jesus gave in regard to prayer is unquestionably themethod that he found so effective and that he himself used. How manytimes we are told that he withdrew to the mountain for his quiet period, for communion with the Father, that the realisation of his oneness withGod might be preserved intact. In this continual realisation--I and myFather are one--lay his unusual insight and power. And his distinctstatement which he made in speaking of his own powers--as I am ye shallbe--shows clearly the possibilities of human unfoldment and attainment, since he realised and lived and then revealed the way. 

Were not this Divine source of wisdom and power the heritage of everyhuman soul, distinctly untrue then would be Jesus' saying: "For everyone that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to himthat knocketh, it shall be opened. " Infinitely better is it to know thatone has this inner source of guidance and wisdom which as he openshimself to it becomes continually more distinct, more clear and moreunerring in its guidance, than to be continually seeking advice fromoutside sources, and being confused in regard to the advice given. Thisis unquestionably the way of the natural and the normal life, made sosimple and so plain by Jesus, and that was foreshadowed by Isaiah whenhe said: "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard that the everlastingGod, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary? He giveth power to the faint and to them that have nomight he increaseth strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But they that wait upon the Lordshall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles;they shall run, and not be weary; they shall walk, and not faint. "

Not that problems and trials will not come. They will come. There neverhas been and there never will be a life free from them. Life isn'tconceivable on any other terms. But the wonderful source of consolationand strength, the source that gives freedom from worry and freedom fromfear is the realisation of the fact that the guiding force and themoulding power is within us. It becomes active and controlling in thedegree that we realise and in the degree that we are able to openourselves so that the Divine intelligence and power can speak to and canwork through us. 

Judicious physical exercise induces greater bodily strength and vigour. An active and alert mental life, in other words mental activity, inducesgreater intellectual power. And under the same general law the same istrue in regard to the development and the use of spiritual power. It, however, although the most important of all because it has to do morefundamentally with the life itself, we are most apt to neglect. Thelosses, moreover, resulting from this neglect are almost beyondcalculation. 

To establish one's centre aright is to make all of life's activities andevents and results flow from this centre in orderly sequence. A modernwriter of great insight has said: "The understanding that God is, and_all there is_, will establish you upon a foundation from which you cannever be moved. " To know that the power that is God is the power thatworks in us is knowledge of transcendent import. 

To know that the spirit of Infinite wisdom and power which is thecreating, the moving, and the sustaining force in all life, thinks andacts in and through us as our own very life, in the degree that weconsciously and deliberately desire it to become the guiding and theanimating force in our lives, and open ourselves fully to its leadings, and follow its leadings, is to attain to that state of conscious onenesswith the Divine that Jesus realised, lived and revealed, and that hetaught as the method of the natural and the normal life for all men. 

We are so occupied with the matters of the sense-life that allunconsciously we become dominated, ruled by the things of the senses. Now in the real life there is the recognition of the fact that thesprings of life are all from within, and that the inner always leads andrules the outer. Under the elemental law of Cause and Effect this isalways done--whether we are conscious of it or not. But the differencelies here: The master of life consciously and definitely allies himselfin mind and spirit with the great central Force and rules his world fromwithin. The creature of circumstances, through lack of desire or throughweakness of will, fails to do this, and, lacking guiding and directingforce, drifts and becomes thereby the creature of circumstance. 

One of deep insight has said: "That we do not spontaneously see and knowGod, as we see and know one another, and so manifest the God-nature aswe do the sense-nature, is because that nature is yet latent, and in asense slumbering within us. Yet the God-nature within us connects us asdirectly and vitally with the Being and Kingdom of God within, behind, and above the world, as does the sense-nature with the world external tous. Hence as the sense-consciousness was awakened and established by therecognition of and communication with the outward world through thesenses, so the God-consciousness must be awakened by the correspondingrecognition of, and communication with the Being and Kingdom of Godthrough intuition--the spiritual sense of the inner man. .. . The trueprayer--the prayer of silence--is the only door that opens the soul tothe direct revelation of God, and brings thereby the realisation of theGod-nature in ourselves. "

As the keynote to the world of sense is activity, so the keynote tospiritual light and power is quiet. The individual consciousness must bebrought into harmony with the Cosmic consciousness. Paul speaks of the"sons of God. " And in a single sentence he describes what he means bythe term--"For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are thesons of God. " An older prophet has said: "The Lord in the midst of theeis mighty. " Jesus with his deep insight perceived the identity of hisreal life with the Divine life, the indwelling Wisdom and Power, --the"Father in me. " The whole course of his ministry was his attempt "toshow those who listened to him how he was related to the Father, and toteach them that they were related to the same Father in exactly the sameway. "

There is that within man that is illumined and energised through thetouch of His spirit. We can bring our minds into rapport, into suchharmony and connection with the infinite Divine mind that it speaks inus, directs us, and therefore acts through us as our own selves. Throughthis connection we become illumined by Divine wisdom and we becomeenergised by Divine power. It is ours, then, to act under the guidanceof this higher wisdom and in all forms of expression to act and to workaugmented by this higher power. The finite spirit, with all itslimitations, becomes at its very centre in rapport with Infinite spirit, its Source. The finite thereby becomes the channel through which theInfinite can and does work. 

To use an apt figure, it is the moving of the switch whereby we connectour wires as it were with the central dynamo which is the force thatanimates, that gives and sustains life in the universe. It is makingactual the proposition that was enunciated by Emerson when he said:"Every soul is not only the inlet, but may become the outlet of allthere is in God. " Significant also in this connection is his statement:"The only sin is limitation. " It is the actualising of the fact that inHim we live and move and have our being, with its inevitable resultantthat we become "strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. " Thereis perhaps no more valuable way of realising this end, than to adopt thepractice of taking a period each day for being alone in the quiet, ahalf hour, even a quarter hour; stilling the bodily senses and makingoneself receptive to the higher leadings of the spirit--receptive to theimpulses of the soul. This is following the master's practice andexample of communion with the Father. Things in this universe and inhuman life do not happen. All is law and sequence. The elemental law ofcause and effect is universal and unvarying. In the realm of spirit lawis as definite as in the realm of mechanics--in the realm of allmaterial forces. 

If we would have the leading of the spirit, if we would perceive thehigher intuitions and be led intuitively, bringing the affairs of thedaily life thereby into the Divine sequence, we must observe theconditions whereby these leadings can come to us, and in time becomehabitual. 

The law of the spirit is quiet--to be followed by action--but quiet, themore readily to come into a state of harmony with the InfiniteIntelligence that works through us, and that leads us as our ownintelligence when through desire and through will, we are able to bringour subconscious minds into such attunement that it can act through us, and we are able to catch its messages and follow its direction. But tolisten and to observe the conditions whereby we can listen is essential. 

Jesus' own words as well as his practice apply here. After hisadmonition against public prayer, or prayer for show, or prayer of muchspeaking, he said: "But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;and thy Father which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. " Nowthere are millions of men, women, and children in the world who have noclosets. There are great numbers of others who have no access to themsometimes for days, or weeks, or months at a time. It is evident, therefore, that in the word that has been rendered closet hemeant--enter into the quiet recesses of your own soul that you may thushold communion with the Father. 

Now the value of prayer is not that God will change or order any laws orforces to suit the numerous and necessarily the diverse petitions ofany. All things are through law, and law is fixed and inexorable. Thevalue of prayer, of true prayer, is that through it one can so harmonisehis life with the Divine order that intuitive perceptions of truth and agreater perception and knowledge of law becomes his possession. As hasbeen said by an able contemporary thinker and writer: "We cannot form apassably thorough notion of man without saturating it through andthrough with the idea of a cosmic inflow from outside his worldlife--the inflow of God. Without a large consciousness of the universebeyond our knowledge, few men, if any, have done great things. [C]

I shall always remember with great pleasure and profit a call a few daysago from Dr. Edward Emerson of Concord, Emerson's eldest son. Happily Iasked him in regard to his father's methods of work--if he had anyregular methods. He replied in substance: "It was my father's custom togo daily to the woods--_to listen_. He would remain there an hour ormore in order to get whatever there might be for him that day. He wouldthen come home and write into a little book--his 'day-book'--what he hadgotten. Later on when it came time to write a book, he would transcribefrom this, in their proper sequence and with their proper connections, these entrances of the preceding weeks or months. The completed bookbecame virtually a ledger formed or posted from his day-books. "

The prophet is he who so orders his life that he can adequately listento the voice, the revelations of the over soul, and who truthfullytranscribes what he hears or senses. He is not a follower of custom orof tradition. He can never become and can never be made the subservienttool of an organisation. His aim and his mission is rather to free menfrom ignorance, superstition, credulity, from half truths, by leadingthem into a continually larger understanding of truth, of law--andtherefore of righteousness. 

It was more than a mere poetic idea that Lowell gave utterance to whenhe said:

 The thing we long for, that we are For one transcendent moment. 

To establish this connection, to actualise this God-consciousness, thatit may not be for one transcendent moment, but that it may becomeconstant and habitual, so that every thought arises, and so that everyact goes forth from this centre, is the greatest good that can come intothe possession of man. There is nothing greater. It is none other thanthe realisation of Jesus' injunction--"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Godand His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. " Itis then that he said--Do not worry about your life. Your mind and yourwill are under the guidance of the Divine mind; your every act goes outunder this direction and all things pertaining to your life will fallinto their proper places. Therefore do not worry about your life. 

When a man finds his centre, when he becomes centred in the Infinite, then redemption takes place. He is redeemed from the bondage of thesenses. He lives thereafter under the guidance of the spirit, and thisis salvation. It is a new life that he has entered into. He lives in anew world, because his outlook is entirely new. He is living now in theKingdom of Heaven. Heaven means harmony. He has brought his own personalmind and life into harmony with the Divine mind and life. He becomes acoworker with God. 

It is through such men and women that God's plans and purposes arecarried out. They not only hear but they interpret for others God'svoice. They are the prophets of our time and the prophets of all time. They are doing God's work in the world, and in so doing they are findingtheir own supreme satisfaction and happiness. They are not lookingforward to the Eternal life. They realise that they are now in theEternal life, and that there is no such thing as eternal life if thislife that we are now in is not it. When the time comes for them to stoptheir labours here, they look forward without fear and with anticipationto the change, the transition to the other form of life--but not to anyother life. The words of Whitman embody a spirit of anticipation and ofadventure for them:

 Joy, Shipmate, joy! (Pleas'd to my soul at death I cry) One life is closed, one life begun, The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last, she leaps. Joy, Shipmate, joy!

They have an abiding faith that they will take up the other form of lifeexactly where they left it off here. Being in heaven now they will be inheaven when they awake to the continuing beauties of the life subsequentto their transition. Such we might also say is the teaching of Jesusregarding the highest there is in life here and the best there is in thelife hereafter. 

XI

SOME METHODS OF EXPRESSION

The life of the Spirit, or, in other words, the true religious life, isnot a life of mere contemplation or a life of inactivity. As Fichte, in"The Way Toward the Blessed Life, " has said: "True religion, notwithstanding that it raises the view of those who are inspired by itto its own region, nevertheless, retains their Life firmly in the domainof action, and of right moral action. .. . Religion is not a business byand for itself which a man may practise apart from his otheroccupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours; but it is theinmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and pervades all our Thoughtand Action, which in other respects pursue their appointed coursewithout change or interruption. That the Divine Life and Energy actuallylives in us is inseparable from Religion. "

How thoroughly this is in keeping with the thought of the highlyillumined seer, Swedenborg, is indicated when he says: "The Lord'sKingdom is a Kingdom of ends and uses. " And again: "Forsaking the worldmeans loving God and the neighbour; and God is loved when a man livesaccording to His commandments, and the neighbour is loved when a manperforms uses. " And still again: "To be of use means to desire thewelfare of others for the sake of the common good; and not to be of usemeans to desire the welfare of others not for the sake of the commongood but for one's own sake. .. . In order that man may receive heavenlylife he must live in the world and engage in its business andoccupations, and thus by a moral and civil life acquire spiritual life. In no other way can spiritual life be generated in man, or his spirit beprepared for heaven. "

We hear much today both in various writings and in public utterances of"the spiritual" and "the spiritual life. " I am sure that to the greatmajority of men and women the term spiritual, or better, the spirituallife, means something, but something by no means fully tangible orclear-cut. I shall be glad indeed if I am able to suggest a morecomprehensible concept of it, or putting it in another form and betterperhaps, to present a more clear-cut portraiture of the spiritual lifein expression--in action. 

And first let us note that in the mind and in the teachings of Jesusthere is no such thing as the secular life and the religious life. Hisministry pertained to every phase of life. The truth that he taught wasa truth that was to permeate every thought and every act of life. 

We make our arbitrary divisions. We are too apt to deny the fact thatthe Lord is the Lord of the week-day, the same as He is the Lord of theSabbath. Jesus refused to be bound by any such consideration. He taughtthat every act that is a good act, every act that is of service tomankind is not only a legitimate act to be done on the Sabbath day, butan act that _should_ be performed on the Sabbath day. And any act thatis not right and legitimate for the Sabbath day is neither right norlegitimate for the week-day. In other words, it is the spirit ofrighteousness that must permeate and must govern every act of life andevery moment of life. 

In seeking to define the spiritual life, it were better to regard theworld as the expression of the Divine mind. The spirit is the life; theworld and all things in it, the material to be moulded, raised, andtransmuted from the lower to the higher. This is indeed the law ofevolution, that has been through all the ages and that today is at work. It is the God-Power that is at work and every form of useful activitythat helps on with this process of lifting and bettering is a form ofDivine activity. If therefore we recognise the one Divine life workingin and through all, the animating force, therefore the Life of all, andif we are consciously helping in this process we are spiritual men. 

No man of intelligence can fail to recognise the fact that life is moreimportant than things. Life is the chief thing, and material things arethe elements that minister to, that serve the purposes of the life. Whoever does anything in the world to preserve life, to better itsconditions, who, recognising the Divine force at work lifting life upalways to better, finer conditions, is doing God's work in theworld--because cooperating with the great Cosmic world plan. 

The ideal, then, is men and women of the spirit, open and responsivealways to its guidance, recognising the Divine plan and the Divineideal, working cooperatively in the world to make all conditions of lifefairer, finer, more happy. He who lives and works not as an individual, that is not for his good alone, but who recognises the essential onenessof life--is carrying out his share of the Divine plan. 

A man may be unusually gifted; he may have unusual ability in business, in administration; he may be a giant in finance, in administration, butif for self alone, if lack of vision blinds him to the great Divineplan, if he does not recognise his relative place and value; if he gainshis purposes by selfishness, by climbing over others, by indifference tohuman pain or suffering--oblivious to human welfare--his ways are theways of the jungle. His mind and his life are purely sordid, grossly andblindly self-centred--wholly material. He gains his object, but byDivine law not happiness, not satisfaction, not peace. He is outside theKingdom of Heaven--the kingdom of harmony. He is living and working outof harmony with the Divine mind that is evolving a higher order of lifein the world. He is blind too, he is working against the Divine plan. 

Now what is the Divine call? Can he be made into a spiritual man? Yes. Adifferent understanding, a different motive, a different object--thenwill follow a difference in methods. Instead of self alone he will havea sense of, he will have a call to service. And this man, formerly ahinderer in the Divine plan, becomes a spiritual giant. His splendidpowers and his qualities do not need to be changed. Merely his motivesand thereby his methods, and he is changed into a giant engine ofrighteousness. He is a part of the great world force and plan. He isdoing his part in the great world work--he is a coworker with God. Andhere lies salvation. Saved from self and the dwarfed and stuntedcondition that will follow, his spiritual nature unfolds and envelopshis entire life. His powers and his wealth are thereafter to blessmankind. But behold! by another great fundamental law of life in doingthis he is blessed ten, a hundred, a millionfold. 

Material prosperity is or may become a true gain, a veritable blessing. But it can become a curse to the world and still more to its possessorwhen made an end in itself, and at the expense of all the higherattributes and powers of human life. 

We have reason to rejoice that a great change of estimate has not onlybegun but is now rapidly creeping over the world. He of even ageneration ago who piled and piled, but who remained ignorant of themore fundamental laws of life, blind to the law of mutuality andservice, would be regarded today as a low, beastly type. I speakadvisedly. It is this obedience to the life of the spirit that Whitmanhad in mind when he said: "And whoever walks a furlong without sympathywalks to his own funeral drest in his shroud. " It was the full floweringof the law of mutuality and service that he saw when he said: "I saw acity invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth. Idream'd that it was the new City of Friends. Nothing was greater therethan the quality of robust love; it led the rest. It was seen every hourin the actions of the men of that city and in all their looks andwords. " It is through obedience to this life of the spirit that order isbrought out of chaos in the life of the individual and in the life ofthe community, in the business world, the labour world, and in our greatworld relations. 

But in either case, we men and women of Christendom, to be a Christianis not only to be good, but to be good for something. According to theteachings of the Master true religion is not only personal salvation, but it is giving one's self through all of one's best efforts toactualise the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth. The finding of theKingdom is not only personal but social and world-affirming--and in thedegree that it becomes fully and vitally personal will it become so. 

A man who is not right with his fellow-men is not right and cannot beright with God. This is coming to be the clear-cut realisation of allprogressive religious thought today. Since men are free from thetrammels of an enervating dogma that through fear made them seek, orrather that made them contented with religion as primarily a system ofrewards and punishments, they are now awakening to the fact that thelogical carrying out of Jesus' teaching of the Kingdom is theestablishing here on this earth of an order of life and hence of asociety where greater love and cooperation and justice prevail. Ourrapidly growing present-day conception of Christianity makes it notworld-renouncing, but world-affirming. 

This modern conception of the function of a true and vital Christianitymakes it the task of the immediate future to apply Christianity totrade, to commerce, to labour relations, to all social relations, tointernational relations. "And, in the wider field of religious thought, "says a writer in a great international religious paper, "what truerservice can we render than to strip theology of all that is unreal orneedlessly perplexing, and make it speak plainly and humanly to peoplewho have their duty to do and their battle to fight?" It makesintelligent, sympathetic, and helpful living take the place of the toothand the claw, the growl and the deadly hiss of the jungle--all right intheir places, but with no place in human living. 

The growing realisation of the interdependence of all life is giving anew standard of action and attainment, and a new standard of estimate. Jesus' criterion is coming into more universal appreciation: He that isgreatest among you shall be as he who serves. Through this fundamentallaw of life there are responsibilities that cannot be evaded orshirked--and of him to whom much is given much is required. 

It was President Wilson who recently said: "It is to be hoped that theseobvious truths will come to more general acceptance; that honestbusiness will quit thinking that it is attacked when loaded-dicebusiness is attacked; that the mutuality of interest between employerand employee will receive ungrudging admission; and, finally, that menof affairs will lend themselves more patriotically to the work of makingdemocracy an efficient instrument for the promotion of human welfare. Itcannot be said that they have done so in the past. .. . As a consequence, many necessary things have been done less perfectly without theirassistance that could have been done more perfectly with their expertaid. " He is by no means alone in recognising this fact. Nor is he at allblind to the great change that is already taking place. 

In a recent public address in New York, the head of one of the largestplants in the world, and who starting with nothing has accumulated afortune of many millions, said: "The only thing I am proud of--prouderof than that I have amassed a great fortune--is that I established thefirst manual training school in Pennsylvania. The greatest delight ofmy life is to see the advancement of the young men who have come upabout me. "

This growing sense of personal responsibility, and still better, ofpersonal interest, this giving of one's abilities and one's time, _inaddition to one's means_, is the beginning of the fulfilment of what Ihave long thought: namely, the great gain that will accrue to numberlesscommunities and to the nation, when men of great means, men of greatbusiness and executive ability, give of their time and their abilitiesfor the accomplishment of those things for the public welfare thatotherwise would remain undone, or that would remain unduly delayed. Whata gain will result also to those who so do in the joy and satisfactionresulting from this higher type of accomplishment hallowed by theundying element of human service!

You keep silent too much. "Have great leaders, and the rest willfollow, " said Whitman. The gift of your abilities while you live wouldbe of priceless worth for the establishing and the maintenance of afairer, a healthier, and a sweeter life in your community, your city, your country. It were better to do this and to be contented with asmaller accumulation than to have it so large or even so excessive, andwhen the summons comes to leave it to two or three or to half a dozenwho cannot possibly have good use for it all, and some of whom perchancewould be far better off without it, or without so much. By so doing youwould be leaving something still greater to them as well as to hundredsor thousands of others. 

Significant in this connection are these words by a man of wealth and ofgreat public service:[D]

"On the whole, the individualistic age has not been a success, eitherfor the individual, or the community in which he has lived, or thenation. We are, beyond question, entering on a period where the welfareof the community takes precedence over the interests of the individualand where the liberty of the individual will be more and morecircumscribed for the benefit of the community as a whole. Man'sactivities will hereafter be required to be not only for himself but forhis fellow-men. To my mind there is nothing in the signs of the times socertain as this. 

"The man of exceptional ability, of more than ordinary talent, willhereafter look for his rewards, for his honours, not in one directionbut in two--first, and foremost, in some public work accomplished, and, secondarily, in wealth acquired. In place of having it said of him athis death that he left so many hundred thousand dollars it will be saidthat he rendered a certain amount of public service, and, incidentally, left a certain amount of money. Such a goal will prove a far greatersatisfaction to him, he will live a more rational, worthwhile life, andhe will be doing his share to provide a better country in which to live. We face new conditions, and in order to survive and succeed we shallrequire a different spirit of public service. "

I am well aware of the fact that the mere accumulation of wealth is not, except in very rare cases, the controlling motive in the lives of ourwealthy men of affairs. It is rather the joy and the satisfaction ofachievement. But nevertheless it is possible, as has so often proved, toget so much into a habit and thereby into a rut, that one becomes avictim of habit; and the life with all its superb possibilities of humanservice, and therefore of true greatness, becomes side-tracked andabortive. 

There are so many different lines of activity for human betterment forchildren, for men and women, that those of great executive and financialability have wonderful opportunities. Greatness comes always throughhuman service. As there is no such thing as finding happiness bysearching for it directly, so there is no such thing as achievinggreatness by seeking it directly. It comes not primarily throughbrilliant intellect, great talents, but primarily through the heart. Itis determined by the way that brilliant intellect, great talents areused. It is accorded not to those who seek it directly. By an indirectlaw it is accorded to those who, forgetting self, give and thereby losetheir lives in human service. 

Both poet and prophet is Edwin Markham when he says:

 We men of earth have here the stuff Of Paradise--we have enough! We need no other stones to build The stairs into the Unfulfilled-- No other ivory for the doors-- No other marble for the floors-- No other cedar for the beam And dome of man's immortal dream. 

 Here on the paths of every day-- Here on the common human way, Is all the stuff the gods would take To build a Heaven; to mould and make New Edens. Ours the stuff sublime To build Eternity in time!

This putting of divinity into life and raising thereby an otherwisesordid life up to higher levels and thereby to greater enjoyments, isthe power that is possessed equally by those of station and means, andby those in the more humble or even more lowly walks of life. 

When your life is thus touched by the spirit of God, when it is ruled bythis inner Kingdom, when your constant prayer, as the prayer of everytruly religious man or woman will be--Lord, what wilt Thou have me todo? My one desire is that Thy will be my will, and therefore that Thywill be done in me and through me--then you are living the Divine life;you are a coworker with God. And whether your life according to acceptedstandards be noted or humble it makes no difference--you are fulfillingyour Divine mission. You should be, you cannot help being fearless andhappy. You are a part of the great creative force in the world. 

You are doing a man's or a woman's work in the world, and in so doingyou are not unimportant; you are essential. The joy of trueaccomplishment is yours. You can look forward always with sublimecourage and expectancy. The life of the most humble can thus become anexalted life. Mother, watching over, cleaning, feeding, training, andeducating your brood; seamstress, working, with a touch of the Divinein all you do--it must be done by some one--allow it to be done by nonebetter than by you. Farmer, tilling your soil, gathering your crops, caring for your herds; you are helping feed the world. There is nothingmore important. 

 "Who digs a well, or plants a seed, A sacred pact he keeps with sun and sod; With these he helps refresh and feed The world, and enters partnership with God. "

If you do not allow yourself to become a slave to your work, and if youcooperate within the house and the home so that your wife and yourdaughters do not become slaves or near-slaves, what an opportunity isyours of high thinking and noble living! The more intelligent youbecome, the better read, the greater the interest you take in communityand public affairs, the more effectively you become what in reality andjointly you are--the backbone of this and of every nation. Teacher, poet, dramatist, carpenter, ironworker, clerk, college head, Mayor, Governor, President, Ruler--the effectiveness of your work and thesatisfaction in your work will be determined by the way in which yourelate your thought and your work to the Divine plan, and coordinateyour every activity in reference to the highest welfare of the greaterwhole. 

However dimly or clearly we may perceive it great changes are takingplace. The simple, direct teachings of the Christ are reaching more andmore the mind, are stirring the heart and through these are dominatingthe actions of increasing numbers of men and women. The realisation ofthe mutual interdependence of the human family, the realisation of itscommon source, and that when one part of it goes wrong all sufferthereby, the same as when any portion of it advances all are lifted andbenefited thereby, makes us more eager for the more speedy actualisingof the Kingdom that the Master revealed and portrayed. 

It was Sir Oliver Lodge who in this connection recently said: "Those whothink that the day of the Messiah is over are strangely mistaken; it hashardly begun. In individual souls Christianity has flourished and bornefruit, but for the ills of the world itself it is an almost untriedpanacea. It will be strange if this ghastly war fosters and simplifiesand improves a knowledge of Christ, and aids a perception of theineffable beauty of his life and teaching; yet stranger things havehappened, and whatever the churches may do, I believe that the call ofChrist himself will be heard and attended to by a larger part ofhumanity in the near future, as never yet it has been heard or attendedto on earth. "

The simple message of the Christ, with its twofold injunction of Love, is, when sufficiently understood and sufficiently heeded, all that wemen of earth need to lift up, to beautify, to make strong and Godlikeindividual lives and thereby and of necessity the life of the world. Jesus never taught that God incarnated Himself in him alone. I challengeany man living to find any such teaching by him. He did proclaim his ownunique realisation of God. Intuitively and vividly he perceived theDivine life, the eternal Word, the eternal Christ, manifesting in hisclean, strong, upright soul, so that the young Jewish rabbi and prophet, known in all his community as Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary andwhose brothers and sisters they knew so well, [E] became thefirstborn--fully born--of the Father. 

He then pleaded with all the energy and love and fervour of his splendidheart and vigorous manhood that all men should follow the Way that herevealed and realise their Divine Sonship, that their lives might beredeemed--redeemed from the bondage of the bodily senses and thebondage of merely the things of the outer world, and saved as fitsubjects of and workers in the Father's Kingdom. Otherwise for millionsof splendid earnest men and women today his life-message would have nomeaning. 

To make men awake to their real identity, and therefore to theirpossibilities and powers as true sons of God, the Father of all, andtherefore that all men are brothers--for otherwise God is not Father ofall--and to live together in brotherly love and mutual cooperationwhereby the Divine will becomes done on earth as it is in heaven--thisis his message to we men of earth. If we believe his message and accepthis leadership, then he becomes indeed our elder brother who leads theway, the Word in us becomes flesh, the Christ becomes enthroned in ourlives, --and we become co-workers with him in the Father's vineyard. 

XII

THE WORLD WAR--ITS MEANING AND ITS LESSONS FOR US

Whatever differences of opinion--and honest differences of opinion--mayhave existed and may still exist in America in regard to the great worldconflict, there is a wonderful unanimity of thought that hascrystallised itself into the concrete form--_something must be done inorder that it can never occur again_. The higher intelligence of thenation must assert itself. It must feel and think and act in terms ofinternationalism. Not that the feeling of nationalism in any countryshall, or even can be eradicated or even abated. It must be made, however, to coordinate itself with the now rapidly growing sense ofworld-consciousness, that the growing intelligence of mankind, aided bysome tremendously concrete forms of recent experience, is nowrecognising as a great reality. 

That there were very strong sympathies for both the Allied Nations andfor the Central Powers in the beginning, goes without saying, How couldit be otherwise, when we realise the diverse and complex types of ourcitizenship?

One of the most distinctive, and in some ways one of the mostsignificant, features of the American nation is that it is todaycomposed of representatives, and in some cases, of enormous bodies ofrepresentatives, numbering into the millions, of practically everynation in the world. 

There are single cities where, in one case twenty-six, in another casetwenty-nine, and in other cases a still larger number of what are todaydesignated as hyphenated citizens are represented. The orderly removalof the hyphen, and the amalgamation of these splendid representatives ofpractically all nations into genuine American citizens, infused withAmerican ideals and pushed on by true American ambitions, is one of thegreat problems that the war has brought in a most striking manner to ourattention. 

Not that these representatives of many nations shall in any way losetheir sense of sympathy for the nations of their birth, in times ofeither peace or of distress, although they have found it eitheradvisable or greatly to their own personal advantage and welfare toleave the lands of their birth and to establish their homes here. 

The fact that in the vast majority of cases they find themselves betteroff here, and choose to remain and assume the responsibilities ofcitizenship in the Western Republic, involves a responsibility thatsome, if not indeed many, heretofore have apparently too lightlyconsidered. There must be a more supreme sense of allegiance, and acontinually growing sense of responsibility to the nation, that, guidedby their own independent judgment and animated by their own free wills, they have chosen as their home. 

There is a difference between sympathy and allegiance; and unless a manhas found conditions intolerable in the land of his birth, and this isthe reason for his seeking a home in another land more to his liking andto his advantage, we cannot expect him to be devoid of sympathy for theland of his birth, especially in times of stress or of great need. Wecan expect him, however, and we have a right to demand his _absoluteallegiance_ to the land of his adoption. And if he cannot give this, then we should see to it that he return to his former home. If he iscapable of clear thinking and right feeling, he also must realise thefundamental truth of this fact. 

There are public schools in America where as many as nineteen languagesare spoken in a single room. Our public schools, so eagerly sought bythe children of parents of foreign birth, in their intense eagernessfor an education, that is offered freely and without cost to all, canand must be made greater instruments in converting what must in timebecome a great menace to our institutions, and even to the very life ofthe nation itself, into a real and genuine American citizenship. Ourbest educators, in addition to our clearest thinking citizens, arerealising as never before, that our public-school system chiefly, amongour educational institutions, must be made a great melting-pot throughwhich this process of amalgamation must be carried on. 

We are also realising clearly now that, as a nation, we have beenentirely too lax in connection with our immigration privileges, regulations and restrictions. We have been admitting foreigners to ourshores in such enormous quantities each year that we have not been ableat all adequately to assimilate them, nor have we used at all asufficiently wise discrimination in the admission of desirables orundesirables. 

We have received, or we have allowed to be dumped upon our shores, greatnumbers of the latter whom we should know would inevitably becomedependents, as well as great numbers of criminals. The result has beenthat they have been costing certain localities millions of dollars everyyear. But entirely aside from the latter, the last two or three yearshave brought home to us as never before the fact that those who come toour shores must come with the avowed and the settled purpose of becomingreal American citizens, giving full and absolute allegiance to theinstitutions, the laws, the government of the land of their adoption. 

If any other government is not able so to manage as to make it moredesirable for its subjects to remain in the land of their birth, ratherthan to seek homes in the land with institutions more to their liking, or with advantages more conducive to their welfare, that government thenshould not expect to retain, even in the slightest degree, theallegiance of such former subjects. A hyphenated citizenship may becomeas dangerous to a republic as a cancer is in the human body. A countrywith over a hundred hyphens cannot fulfil its highest destiny. 

We, as a nation, have been rudely shaken from our long dream of almostinevitable national security. We have been brought finally, and althoughas a nation we have no desire for conquest or empire, and no desire formilitary glory, and therefore no need of any great army or navy foroffensive purposes, we have been brought finally to realise that we do, nevertheless, stand in need of a national strengthening of our arm ofdefence. A land of a hundred million people, where one could travel manytimes for a sixmonth and never see the sign of a soldier, is brought, though reluctantly, to face a new state of affairs; but one, nevertheless, that must be faced--calmly faced and wisely acted upon. And while it is true that as a nation we have always had the traditionof non-militarism, it is not true that we have had the tradition ofmilitary or of naval impotence or weakness. 

Preparedness, therefore, has assumed a position of tremendousimportance, in individual thought, in public discussion, and almostuniversally in the columns of the public press. One of the most vitalquestions among us then is, not so much as to how we shall prepare, buthow shall we prepare adequately for defensive purposes, in case of anyemergency arising, without being thrown too far along the road ofmilitarism, and without an inordinate preparation that has been thescourge and the bane of many old-world countries for so many years, andthat quite as much as anything has been provocative of the horribleconflict that has literally been devastating so many European countries. 

It is clearly apparent that the best thought in America today calls foran adequate preparation for purposes of defence, and calls for arecognition of facts as they are. It also clearly sees the danger ofcertain types of mind and certain interests combining to carry thematter much farther than is at all called for. The question is--Howshall we then strike that happy balance that is the secret of allsuccessful living in the lives of either individuals or in the lives ofnations?

All clear-seeing people realise that, as things are in the world today, there is a certain amount of preparedness that is necessary forinfluence and for insurance. As within the nation a police force isnecessary for the enforcement of law, for the preservation of law andorder, although it is not at all necessary that every second or thirdman be a policeman, so in the council of nations the individual nationmust have a certain element of force that it can fall back upon if allother available agencies fail. In diplomacy the strong nations win out, the weaker lose out. Military and naval power, unless carried to aridiculous excess does not, therefore, lie idle, even when not in actualuse. 

Our power and influence as a nation will certainly not be in proportionto our weakness. Although righteousness exalteth a nation, it isnevertheless true that righteousness alone will not protect anation--while other nations are fully armed. National weakness does notmake for peace. 

Righteousness, combined with a spirit of forbearance, combined with akeen desire to give justice as well as to demand justice, if combinedwith the power to strike powerfully and sustainedly in defence ofjustice, and in defence of national integrity, is what protects anation, and this it is that in the long run exalteth a nation--_whilethings are as they are_. 

While conditions have therefore brought prominently to the forefront inAmerica the matter of military training and military service--anadequate military preparation for purposes of defence, for full andadequate defence, the best thought of the nation is almost a unit in thebelief that, for us as a nation, an immense standing army is unnecessaryas well as inadvisable. 

No amount of military preparation that is not combined definitely andcompletely with an enhanced citizenship, and therefore with an advancein real democracy, is at all worthy of consideration on the part of theAmerican people, or indeed on the part of the people of any nation. Pre-eminently is this true in this day and age. 

Observing this principle we could then, while a certain degree ofuniversal training under some system similar to the Swiss or Australiansystem is being carried on, and to serve _our immediate needs_, have anarmy of even a quarter of a million men without danger of militarism andwithout heavy financial burdens, and without subverting our Americanideas--providing it is an industrial arm. There are great engineeringprojects that could be carried on, thereby developing many of our nowlatent resources; there is an immense amount of road-building that couldbe projected in many parts of, if not throughout the entire country;there are great irrigation projects that could be carried on in the farWest and Southwest, reclaiming millions upon millions of acres of whatare now unproductive desert lands; all these could be carried on andmade even to pay, keeping busy a large number of men for half a dozenyears to come. 

This army of this number of men could be recruited, trained to anadequate degree of military service, and at the same time could beengaged in profitable employment on these much-needed works. They couldthen be paid an adequate wage, ample to support a family, or ample tolay up savings if without family. Such men leaving the army service, would then have a degree of training and skill whereby they would beable to get positions or employment, all more remunerative than thebulk of them, perhaps, would ever be able to get without such trainingand experience. 

An army of this number of trained men, somewhat equally divided betweenthe Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards, the bulk of them engaged inregular constructive work, _work that needs to be done and that, therefore, could be profitably done_, and ready to be called intoservice at a moment's notice, would constitute a tremendous insuranceagainst any aggression from without, and would also give a tremendoussense of security for half a dozen years at least. This number couldthen be reduced, for by that time several million young men fromeighteen years up would be partially trained and in first-class physicalshape to be summoned to service should the emergency arise. 

In addition to the vast amount of good roads building, whose cost couldbe borne in equal proportions by nation, state and county--a mostimportant factor in connection with military necessity as well as agreat economic factor in the successful development and advancement ofany community--the millions of acres of now arid lands in the West, awaiting only water to make them among the most valuable and productivein all the world, could be used as a great solution of our immigrationproblem. 

Up to the year when the war began, there came to our shores upwards ofone million immigrants every twelve months, seeking work, and most ofthem homes in this country. The great bulk of them got no farther thanour cities, increasing congestion, already in many cases acute, and manyof them becoming in time, from one cause or another, dependents, theannual cost of their maintenance aggregating many millions every year. 

With these vast acres ready for them large numbers could, under a wisesystem of distribution, be sent on to the great West and Southwest, andmore easily and directly now since the Panama Canal is open fornavigation. Allotments of these lands could be assigned them that theycould in time become owners of, through a wisely established system ofpayments. Many of them would thereby be living lives similar to thosethey lived in their own countries, and for which their training andexperience there have abundantly fitted them. They would thus become afar more valuable type of citizens--landowners--than they could everpossibly become otherwise, and especially through our presentunorganised hit-or-miss system. They would in time also add annuallyhundreds of millions of productive work to the wealth of the country. 

The very wise system that was inaugurated some time ago in connectionwith the Coast Defence arm of our army is, under the wise direction ofour present Secretary of War, to be extended to all branches of theservice. For some time in the Coast Artillery Service the enlisted manunder competent instruction has had the privilege of becoming a skilledmachinist or a skilled electrician. Now the system is to be extendedthrough all branches of the military service, and many additional tradesare to be added to the curricula of the trade schools of the army. Theyoung man can, therefore, make his own selection and become a trainedartisan at the same time that he serves his time in the army, with allexpenses for such training, as well as maintenance, borne by theGovernment. He can thereby leave the service fully equipped forprofitable employment. 

This will have the tendency of calling a better class of young men intothe service; it will also do away with the well-founded criticism thatarmy life and its idleness, or partly-enforced idleness, unfits a manfor useful industrial service after he quits the army. If this samesystem is extended through the navy, as it can be, both army and navyservice will meet the American requirement--that neither military nornaval service take great numbers of men from productive employment, tobe in turn supported by other workers. Instead of so much dead timber, they are all the time producing while in active service, and are beingtrained to be highly efficient as producers, when they leave theservice. 

Under this system the Federal Government can build its own ordnanceworks and its own munition factories and become its own maker ofwhatever may be required in all lines of output. We will then be able toescape the perverse influence of gain on the part of large munitionindustries, and the danger that comes from that portion of a militaryparty whose motives are actuated by personal gain. 

If the occasion arises, or if we permit the occasion to arise, Kruppismin America will become as dangerous and as sinister in its influencesand its proportions, as it became in Germany. 

Another great service that the war has done us, is by way of bringinghome to us the lesson that has been so prominently brought to the frontin connection with the other nations at war, namely, the necessity ofthe speedy and thorough mobilisation of all lines of industries andbusiness; for the thoroughness and the efficiency with which this can bedone may mean success that otherwise would result in failure anddisaster. We are now awake to the tremendous importance of this. 

It is at last becoming clearly understood among the peoples and thenations of the world that, as a nation, we have no desire for conquest, for territory, for empire--we have no purposes of aggression; we havequite enough to do to develop our resources and our as yet greatundeveloped areas. 

A few months before the war broke, I had conversations with the heads orwith the representatives of leading publishing houses in severalEuropean countries. It was at a time when our Mexican situation wasbeginning to be very acute. I remember at that time especially, theconversation with the head of one of the largest publishing houses inItaly, in Milan. I could see plainly his scepticism when, in reply tohis questions, I endeavoured to persuade him that as a nation we had nomotives of conquest or of aggression in Mexico, that we were interestedsolely in the restoration of a representative and stable governmentthere. And since that time, I am glad to say that our acts as a nationhave all been along the line of persuading him, and also many otherlike-minded ones in many countries abroad, of the truth of thisassertion. By this general course we have been gaining the confidenceand have been cementing the friendship of practically every SouthAmerican republic, our immediate neighbours on the southern continent. This has been a source of increasing economic power with us, and anelement of greatly added strength, and also a tremendous energy workingall the time for the preservation of peace. 

One can say most confidently, even though recognising our many gravefaults as a nation, that our course along this line has been such, especially of late years, as to inspire confidence on the part of allthe fair-minded nations of the world. 

Our theory of the state, the theory of democracy, is not that the stateis above all, and that the individual and his welfare are as nothingwhen compared to it, but rather that the state is the agency throughwhich the highest welfare of all its subjects is to be evolved, expressed, maintained. No other theory to my mind, is at all compatiblewith the intelligence of any free-thinking people. 

Otherwise, there is always the danger and also the likelihood, whilehuman nature is as it is, for some ruler, some clique, or factions so toconcentrate power into their own hands, that for their own ambitions, for aggrandisement, or for false or short-sighted and half-baked ideasof additions to their country, it is dragged into periodic wars withother nations. 

Nor do we share in the belief that the state is above morality, butrather that identically the same moral ideals, precepts and obligationsthat bind individuals must be held sacred by the state, otherwise itbecomes a pirate among nations, and it will inevitably in time be hunteddown and destroyed as such, however great its apparent power. Nor do weas a nation share in the belief that war is necessary and indeed goodfor a nation, to inspire and to preserve its manly qualities, itsvirility, and therefore its power. Were this the only way that thiscould be brought about, it might be well and good; but the price to bepaid is a price that is too enormous and too frightful, and the resultsare too uncertain. We believe that these same ideals can be inculcated, that these same energies can be used along useful, conserving, constructive lines, rather than along lines of destruction. 

A nation may have the most colossal and perfect military system in theworld, and still may suffer defeat in any given while, because of thoseunseen things that pertain to the soul of another people, whereby powersand forces are engendered and materialised that make defeat for themimpossible; and in the matter of big guns, it is well always to rememberthat no nation can build them so great that another nation may not buildthem still greater. National safety does not necessarily lie in thatdirection. Nor, on the other hand, along the lines of extremepacificism--surely not as long as things are as they are. The argumentof the lamb has small deterrent effect upon the wolf--as long as thewolf is a wolf. And sometimes wolves hunt in packs. The most preeminentlesson of the great war for us as a nation should be this--there shouldbe constantly a degree of preparedness sufficient to hold until all theothers, the various portions of the nation, thoroughly coordinated andready, can be summoned into action. Thus are we prepared, thus are wesafe, and there is no danger or fear of militarism. 

In a democracy it should, without question, be a fundamental fact thathand in hand with equal rights there should go a sense of equal duty. Acall for defence should have a universal response. So it is merely goodcommon-sense, good judgment, if you please, for all the young men of thenation to have a training sufficient to enable them to respondeffectively if the nation's safety calls them to its defence. It is nocrime, however we may deprecate war, to be thus prepared. 

For young men--and we must always remember that it is the young men whoare called for this purpose--for young men to be called to the coloursby the tens or the hundreds of thousands, unskilled and untrained, to beshot down, decimated by the thoroughly trained and skilled troops ofanother nation, or a combination of other nations, is indeed the crime. Never, moreover, was folly so great as that shown by him or by her whowill not see. And to look at the matter without prejudice, we willrealise that this is merely policing what we have. It is meeting forcewith adequate force, _if it becomes necessary_, so to meet it. 

This is necessary until such time as we have in operation among nationsa thoroughly established machinery whereby force will give place toreason, whereby common sense will be used in adjusting all differencesbetween nations, as it is now used in adjusting differences betweenindividuals. 

Our period of isolation is over. We have become a world-nation. Equalityof rights presupposes equality of duty. In our very souls we loathemilitarism. Conquest and aggression are foreign to our spirit, andforeign to our thoughts and ambitions. But weakness will by no meansassure us immunity from aggression from without. Universal militarytraining up to a reasonable point, and the joint sense of responsibilityof every man and every woman in the nation, and the right of thenational government to expect and to demand that every man and womanstand ready to respond to the call to service, whatever form it maytake--this is our armour. 

All intelligent people know that the national government has always hadthe power to draft every male citizen fit for service into militaryservice. It is not therefore a question of universal military service. The real and only question is whether these or great numbers of these goout illy prepared and equipped as sheep to the shambles perchance, orwhether they go out trained and equipped to do a man's work--moreadequately prepared to protect themselves as well as the integrity ofthe nation. It is not to be done for the love or the purpose ofmilitarism; but recognising the fact that militarism still persists, that with us it may not be triumphant should we at any time be forced toface it. There are certain facts that only to our peril as well as ourmoral degradation, we can be blind to. Said a noted historian but a fewdays ago:

"I loathe war and militarism. I have fought them for twenty years. But Iam a historian, and I know that bullies thrive best in an atmosphere ofmeekness. As long as this military system lasts you must discourage themailed fist by showing that you will meet it with something harder thana boxing glove. We do not think it good to admit into the code of thetwentieth century that a great national bully may still with impunitysqueeze the blood out of its small neighbours and seize their goods. "

We need not fear militarism arising in America as long as thefundamental principles of democracy are preserved and continuallyextended, which can be done only through the feeling of the individualresponsibility of every man and every woman to take a keen and constantinterest in the matters of their own government--community, state, national, and now international. We must realise and ever more fullyrealise that in a government such as ours, the people are thegovernment, and that when in it anything goes wrong, or wrongs andinjustices are allowed to grow and hold sway, we are to blame. 

Universal military training has not militarised Switzerland nor has itAustralia. It is rather the very essence of democracy and the veryantithesis of militarism. 

 "Let each son of Freedom bear His portion of the burden. Should not each one do his share? To sacrifice the splendid few-- The strong of heart, the brave, the true, Who live--or die--as heroes do, While cowards profit--is not fair!"

Many still recall that not a few well-meaning people at the close of theCivil War proclaimed that, with upwards of two million trained menbehind him, General Grant would become a military dictator, and thatthis would be followed by the disappearance of democracy in the nation. But the mind, the temper, the traditions of our people are all aguarantee against militarism. The gospel, the hallucination of theshining armour, the will to power, has no attraction for us. We loatheit; nor do we fear its undermining and crushing our own libertiesinternally. Nevertheless, it is true that vigilance is always and alwayswill be the price of liberty. There must be a constant education towardscitizenship. There must be an alert democracy, so that any land and seaforce is always the servant of the spirit; for only otherwise it canbecome its master--but otherwise it will become its master. 

XIII

OUR SOLE AGENCY OF INTERNATIONAL PEACE, AND INTERNATIONAL CONCORD

The consensus of intelligent thought throughout the world is to theeffect that just as we have established an orderly method for thesettlement of disputes between individuals or groups of individuals inany particular nation, we must now move forward and establish suchmethods for the settlement of disputes among nations. There is nocivilised country in the world that any longer permits the individual totake the law into his own hands. 

The intelligent thought of the world now demands the definiteestablishment of a World Federation for the enforcement of peace amongnations. It demands likewise the definite establishment of a permanentWorld Court, backed by adequate force for the arbitrament of alldisputes among nations--unable to be adjusted by the nations themselvesin friendly conference. We have now reached the stage in worlddevelopment and in world intercourse where peace must beinternationalised. Our present chaotic condition, which exists simplybecause we haven't taken time as yet to establish a method, must bemade to give place to an intelligently devised system of law and order. Anything short of this means a periodic destruction of the finest fruitsof civilisation. It means also the periodic destruction of the finestyoung manhood of the world. This means, in turn, the speedy degenerationof the human race. The deification of force, augmented by all theproducts and engines of modern science, is simply the way of sublimatedsavagery. 

The world is in need of a new dispensation. Recent events showindisputably that we have reached the parting of the ways, the family ofnations must now push on into the new day or the world will plunge oninto a darker night. There is no other course in sight. I know of nofiner words penned in any language--this time it was in French--toexpress an unvarying truth than these words by Victor Hugo: "There isone thing that is stronger than armies, and that is an idea whose timehas come. "

Never before, after viewing the great havoc wrought, the enormous debtsthat will have to be paid for between fifty and a hundred years to come, the tremendous disruptions and losses in trade, the misery anddegradation stalking broadcast over every land engaged in thewar--scarcely a family untouched--never before have nations been in thestate of mind to consider and to long to act upon some sensible andcomprehensive method of international concord and adjustments. If thissucceeds, the world, including ourselves, is the gainer. If this doesnot succeed, though the chances are overwhelmingly in its favour, thenwe can proclaim to the assembled nations that as long as a state ofoutlawry exists among nations, that then no longer by chance but bydesign, we as a nation will be in a state of preparedness broad andcomprehensive enough to defend ourselves against the violation of any ofthe rights of a sovereign nation. It is only in this way that we canshow a due appreciation of the struggles and the sacrifices of those whogave us our national existence; it is only in this way that we can, retain our self-respect, that we can command the respect of othernations _while things are as they are_; that we can hope to retain anydegree of influence and authority for the diplomatic arm of ourGovernment in the Council of Nations. 

Every neutral nation has suffered tremendously by the war. Every neutralnation will suffer until a new world-order among nations is projectedand perfected. 

We owe a tremendous duty to the world in connection with this greatworld crisis and upheaval. Diligently should our best men and women, those of insight and greatest influence, and with the expenditure ofboth time and means, seek to further the practical working out of aWorld Federation and a permanent World Court. Public opinion should bethus aroused and solidified so that the world knows that we stand as aunited nation back of the idea and the plan. 

The divine right of kings has gone. It holds no more. We hear now andthen, it is true, some silly statement in regard to it, but littleattention is paid to it. The divine right of priests has gone except inthe minds of the few remaining ignorant and herdable ones. The divineright of dynasties--or rather of dynasties to persist--seems to die alittle harder, but it is well on the way. We are now realising that theonly divine right is the right of the people--and all the people. 

Never again should it be possible for one man, or for one little groupof men so to lead, or so to mislead a nation as to plunge it into war. The growth of democracy compelling the greater participation of all thepeople in government must prohibit this. So likewise the closerelationship of the entire world now must make it forever impossible fora single nation or a group of nations for any cause to plunge a wholeworld or any part of it into war. These are sound and clear-visionedwords recently given utterance to by James Bryce: "However much wecondemn reckless leaders and the ruthless caste that live for war, thereal source of the mischief is the popular sentiment behind them. Thelesson to be learned is that doctrines and deep-rooted passions, whencethese evils spring, can only be removed by the slow and steady workingof spiritual forces. What most is needed is the elimination of thosefeelings the teachings of which breed jealousy and hatred and prompt mento defiance and aggression. "

Humanity and civilisation is not headed towards Ab the cave-man, whatever appearances, in the minds of many, may indicate at the presenttime. Humanity will arise and will reconstruct itself. Great lessonswill be learned. Good will result. But what a terrific price to pay!What a terrific price to pay to learn the lesson that "moral forces arethe only invincible forces in the universe"! It has been slow, butsteadily the world is advancing to that stage when the individual or thenation that does not know that the law of mutuality, of cooperation, andstill more the law of sympathy and good will, is the supreme law in realcivilisation, real advancement, and real gain--that does not know thatits own welfare is always bound up with the welfare of the greaterwhole--is still in the brute stage of life and the bestial propensitiesare still its guiding forces. 

Prejudice, suspicion, hatred, national big-headedness, must give way torespect, sympathy, the desire for mutual understanding and cooperation. The higher attributes must and will assert themselves. The former arethe ways of periodic if not continuous destruction--the latter are theways of the higher spiritual forces that must prevail. Significant arethese words of one of our younger but clear-visioned American poets, Winter Bynner:

 Whether the time be slow or fast, Enemies, hand in hand, Must come together at the last And understand. 

 No matter how the die is cast, Or who may seem to win-- We know that we must love at last-- Why not begin?

The teaching of hatred to children, the fostering of hatred in adults, can result only in harm to the people and the nation where it isfostered. The dragon's tooth will leave its marks upon the entire nationand the fair life of all the people will suffer by it. The holding incontempt of other people makes it sometimes necessary that one's ownhead be battered against the wall that he may be sufficiently aroused torecognise and to appreciate their sterling and enduring qualities. 

The use of a club is more spectacular for some at least than the use ofintellectual and moral forces. The rattling of the machine-gun producesmore commotion than the more quiet ways of peace. All of the powerfulforces in nature, those of growth, germination, and conservation, thesame as in human life are quiet forces. So in the preservation of peace. It consists rather in a high constructive policy. It requires alwaysclear vision, a constantly progressive and cooperative method of lifeand action; frank and open dealing and a resolute purpose. It is won andmaintained by nothing so much in the long run as when it makes theGolden Rule its law of conduct. Slowly we are realising that greatarmaments--militarism--do not insure peace. They may lead away fromit--they are very apt to lead away from it. 

Peace is related rather to the great moral laws of conduct. It has to dowith straight, clean, open dealing. It is fostered by sympathy, forbearance. This does not mean that it pertains to weakness. On thecontrary it is determined by resolute but high purpose, the actual andactive desire of a nation to live on terms of peace with all othernations; and the world's; recognition of this fact is a most powerfulfactor in inducing and in actualising such living. 

Our own achievement of upwards of a hundred years in living inpeaceable, sympathetic and mutually beneficial relations with Canada;Canada's achievement in so living with us, should be a distinct andclear-cut answer to the argument that nations need to fortify theirboundaries one against another. This is true only where suspicion, mistrust, fear, secret diplomacy, and secret alliances hold instead ofthe great and eternally constructive forces--sympathy, good will, mutualunderstanding, induced and conserved by an International JointCommission of able men whose business it is to investigate, todetermine, and to adjust any differences that through the years mayarise. Here we have a boundary line of upwards of three thousand milesand not a fort; vast areas of inland seas and not a war vessel; and forupwards of a hundred years not a difference that the High JointCommission has not been able to settle amicably and to the mutualadvantage of both countries. 

I know that in connection with this we have an advantage over theold-world nations because we are free from age-long prejudices, hatreds, and past scores. But if this great conflict does not lead alongthe lines of the constructive forces and the working out of a new worldmethod, then the future of Europe and of the world is dark indeed. Surely it will lead to a new order--it is almost inconceivable that itwill not. 

The Golden Rule is a wonderful developer in human life, a wonderfulharmoniser in community life--with great profit it could be extended asthe law of conduct in international relations. It must be so extended. Its very foundation is sympathy, good will, mutuality, love. 

The very essence of Jesus' entire revelation and teaching was love. Itwas not the teaching of weakness or supineness in the face of wrong, however. There was no failure on his part to smite wrong when he sawit--wrong taking the form of injustice or oppression. He had, as we haveseen, infinite sympathy for and forbearance with the weak, the sinful;but he had always a righteous indignation and a scathing denunciationfor oppression--for that spirit of hell that prompts men ororganisations to seek, to study, to dominate the minds and thereby thelives of others. It was, moreover, that he would not keep silentregarding the deadly ecclesiasticism that bore so heavily upon hispeople and that had well-nigh crushed all their religious life whenceare the very springs of life, that he aroused the deadly antagonism ofthe ruling hierarchy. And as he, witnessing for truth and freedom, steadfastly and defiantly opposed oppression, so those who catch hisspirit today will do as he did and will realise as duty--"While wrong iswrong let no man prate of peace!"

 Peace? Peace? Peace? While wrong is wrong let no man prate of peace! He did not prate, the Master. Nay, he smote!

 * * * * *

 Hate wrong! Slay wrong! Else mercy, justice, truth, Freedom and faith, shall die for humankind. [F]

Nor did the code and teachings of Jesus prevent him driving themoney-changers from out the temple court. It was not for the purpose ofdoing them harm. It was rather to do them good by driving home to themin some tangible and concrete form, through the skin and flesh of theirbodies, what the thick skins of their moral natures were unable tocomprehend. The resistance of wrongdoing is not opposed to the law oflove. As in community life there is the occasional bully who hassometimes to be knocked down in order that he may have a dueappreciation of individual rights and community amenities, so amongnations a similar lesson is sometimes necessary in order that it or itsleaders may learn that there are certain things that do not pay, and, moreover, will not be allowed by the community of nations. 

Making might alone the basis of national policy and action, or making itthe basis of settlement in international settlements, but arouses andintensifies hatred and the spirit of revenge. So in connection with thisgreat world crisis--after it all then comes the great problem ofreorganisation and rehabilitation, and unless there comes about aninternational concord strong and definite enough to prevent a recurrenceof what has been, it would almost seem that restoration were futile; forthings will be restored only in time to be destroyed again. 

No amount of armament we know now will prevent war. It can be preventedonly by a definite concord of the nations brought finally to realise thefutility of war. To deny the possibility of a World League and a WorldCourt is to deny the ability of men to govern themselves. The history ofthe American Republic in its demonstration of the power and the geniusof federation should disprove the truth of this. Here we have a nationcomposed of forty-eight sovereign states and with the most heterogeneousaccumulation of people that ever came together in one country, let aloneone nation, and great numbers of them from those nations that forupwards of a thousand years have been periodically springing at oneanother's throats. Enlightened self-government has done it. The realspirit and temper of democracy has done it. But it must be thepreservation of the real spirit of democracy and constant vigilance thatmust preserve it. 

Prejudice, suspicion, hatred on the part of individuals or on the partof the people of one nation against the people of another nation, havenever yet advanced the welfare of any individual or any nation and nevercan. The world war is but the direct result of the type of peace thatpreceded it. The militarist argument reduced to its lowest terms amountsmerely to this: "For two nations to keep peace each must be strongerthan the other. "

Representative men of other countries do not resent our part in pressingthis matter and in taking the leadership in it. But even if they didthey would have no just right to. There is, however, a very generalfeeling that the American Republic, as the world's greatest example of_successful federation_, should take the lead in the World Federation. 

This is now going to be greatly fostered by virtue of one great goodthat the world war will eventually have accomplished--the doom and theend of autocracy. Dynasties and privileged orders that have lived andlived alone on militarism, will have been foreclosed on. The people incontrol, in an increasingly intelligent control of their own lives andtheir own governments, will be governed by a higher degree ofself-enlightenment and mutual self-interest than under the domination oreven the leadership of any type of hereditary ruling class or war-lord. In some countries autocracy in religion, through the free mingling anddiscussions of men of various nationalities and religious persuasions, will be again lessened, whereby the direct love and power of God in thehearts of men, as Jesus taught, will have a fuller sway and a more holyand a diviner moulding power in their lives. 

It was during those long, weary years coupled with the horrible crimesof the Thirty Years' War that the science of International Law began totake form, the result of that notable work, "De Jure Belli ac Pacis, " byGrotius. It is ours to see that out of this more intense and therebyeven more horrible conflict a new epoch in human and internationalrelations be born. 

As the higher powers of mind and spirit are realised and used, greatprimal instincts impelling men to expression and action that find theiroutlet many times in war, will be transmuted and turned from destructioninto powerful engines of construction. When a moral equivalent for warof sufficient impelling power is placed before men, those same virilequalities and powers that are now marshalled so easily for purposes offighting, will, under the guidance and in the service of the spirit, beused for the conserving of human life, and for the advancement and theincrease of everything that administers to life, that makes it moreabundant, more mutual, and more happy. And God knows that the call forsuch service is very great. 

 * * * * *

And even now comes the significant word that the long, the too longawaited world's Bill of Rights has taken form. The intelligence and thewill of righteous men, duly appointed as the representatives of fourteensovereign nations, has asserted itself, and the beginning has been made, without which there can be neither growth nor advancement. TheConstitution of the World League has taken form. It is not a perfectinstrument; but it will grow into as perfect an instrument as need befor its purpose. Changes and additions to it will be made as times andconditions indicate. Partisanship even with us may seek to defeat it. There is no question, however, but that the sober sense of the Americanpeople is behind it. 

One of the most fundamental results, we might say purposes of the greatworld war, was to end war. It means now that the world's unity andmutuality and its community of interests must be realised and that webuild accordingly. It means that the world's peace must be fostered andpreserved by the use of brains and guided by the heart; or that everybrute force made ghastly and deadly to the n_th_ degree that modernscience can devise, be periodically called in to settle the disputes orcurb the ambitions that will disrupt the peace of the world. 

The common people the world over are desiring as near as can be arrivedat, some surety as to the preservation of the world's peace; and theywill brook no interference with a plan that seems the most feasible wayto that end. The whole world is in that temper that gives significanceto the words of President Wilson when a day or two ago he said: "Anyman who resists the present tides that run in the world will findhimself thrown upon a shore so high and barren that it will seem as ifhe had been separated from his human kind forever. " Unless, he mighthave added--he has and can demonstrate a better plan. The two chiefarguments against it, that it will take away from our individual rightsand that it will lead us into entangling alliances, no longer hold--forwe are entangled already. We are a part of the great world force and itwere futile longer to seek to escape our duties as such. They are asessential as "our rights. "

It is with us now as a nation as it was with that immortal group thatgathered to sign our Declaration of Independence, to whom Franklin said:"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. "

It is well for Americans to recall that the first League of Nations waswhen thirteen distinct nationalities one day awoke to the fact that itwere better to forget their differences and to a great extent theirboundaries, and come together in a common union. They had their thirteendistinct armies to keep up, in order to defend themselves each againstthe other or against any combination of the others, to say nothing ofany outside power that might move against them. Jealousies arose andmisunderstandings were frequent. So zealous was each of its own rightsthat when the Constitutional Convention had completed its work, and theConstitution was ready for adoption, there were those who actually leftthe hall rather than sign it. They were good men but they were lookingat stern facts and they wanted no idealism in theirs. Good men, someanimated by the partisan spirit, it is true, earnest in theirbeliefs--but unequipped with the long vision. Their names are nowrecalled only through the search of the antiquarian. 

Infinitely better it has been found for the thirteen and eventually theforty-eight to stand together than to stand separately. The thirteenseparate states were farther separated so far as means of communicationand actual knowledge of one another were concerned, than are the nationsof the world today. 

It took men of great insight as well as vision to formulate our ownConstitution which made thirteen distinct and sovereign states theUnited States of America. The formulation of the Constitution of theWorld League has required such men. As a nation we may be proud that tworepresentative Americans have had so large a share in itsaccomplishment--President Wilson, good Democrat, and Ex-President Taft, good Republican. 

The greatest international and therefore world document ever producedhas been forged--it awaits the coming days, years, and even generationsfor its completion. And we accord great honour also to those statesmenof other nations who have combined keen insight born of experience, witha lofty idealism; for out of these in any realm of human activities andrelations, whatever eventually becomes the practical, is born. 

XIV

THE WORLD'S BALANCE-WHEEL

It was Lincoln who gave us a wonderful summary when he said: "After allthe one meaning of life is to be kind. "

Love, sympathy, fellowship is the very foundation of all civilised, happy, ideal life. It is the very balance-wheel of life itself. It givesthat genuineness and simplicity in voice, in look, in spirit that is soinstinctively felt by all, and to which all so universally respond. Itis like the fragrance of the flower--the emanation of its soul. 

Interesting and containing a most vital truth is this little memoir byChristine Rossetti: "One whom I knew intimately, and whose memory Irevere, once in my hearing remarked that, 'unless we love people, wecannot understand them. ' This was a new light to me. " It contains indeeda profound truth. 

Love, sympathy, fellowship, is what makes human life truly human. Cooperation, mutual service, is its fruitage. A clear-cut realisation ofthis and a resolute acting upon it would remove much of the cloudinessand the barrenness from many a life; and its mutual recognition--andaction based upon it--would bring order and sweetness and mutual gain invast numbers of instances in family, in business, in community life. Itwould solve many of the knotty problems in all lines of human relationsand human endeavour, whose solution heretofore has seemed well-nighimpossible. It is the telling oil that will start to running smoothlyand effectively many an otherwise clogged and grating system of humanmachinery. 

When men on both sides are long-headed enough, are sensible enough tosee its practical element and make it the fundamental basis of allrelationships, of all negotiations, and all following activities in therelations between capital and labour, employer and employee, literally anew era in the industrial world will spring into being. Both sides willbe the gainer--the dividends flowing to each will be even surprising. 

There is really no labour problem outside of sympathy, mutuality, good-will, cooperation, brotherhood. 

Injustice always has been and always will be the cause of all labourtroubles. But we must not forget that it is sometimes on one side andsometimes on the other. Misunderstanding is not infrequently itsaccompaniment. Imagination, sympathy, mutuality, cooperation, brotherhood are the hand-maidens of justice. No man is intelligentenough, is big enough to be the representative or the manager ofcapital, who is not intelligent enough to realise this. No man is fit tobe the representative of, or fit to have anything to do with thecouncils of labour who has not brains, intelligence enough to realisethis. These qualities are not synonyms of or in any way related tosentimentality or any weak-kneed ethics. They underlie the soundestbusiness sense. In this day and age they are synonyms of the wordpractical. There was a time and it was not so many years ago, when headsand executives of large enterprises did not realise this as fully asthey realise it today. A great change has already taken place. A new erahas already begun, and the greater the ability and the genius the moreeager is its possessor to make these his guiding principles, and tohasten the time when they will be universally recognised and built upon. The same is true of the more intelligent in the rank and file of labour, as also of the more intelligent and those who are bringing the bestresults as leaders of labour. There is no intelligent man or woman todaywho does not believe in organised labour. There is no intelligentemployer who does not believe in it and who does not welcome it. 

The bane of organised labour in the past has too often been theunscrupulous, the self-seeking, or the bull-headed labour leader. Organised labour must be constantly diligent to purge itself of theseits worst enemies. Labour is entitled to the very highest wage, or tothe best returns in cooperative management that it can get, and that areconsistent with sound business management, as also to the best labourconditions that a sympathetic and wise management can bring about. Itmust not, however, be unreasonable in its demands, neither bull-headed, nor seek to travel too fast--otherwise it may lose more than it willgain. 

It must not allow itself to act as a shield for the ineffective worker, or the one without a sense of mutuality, whose aim is to get all he canget without any thought as to what he gives in return, or even with thedeliberate purpose of giving the least that he can give and get awaywith it. Where there is a good and a full return, there should be notonly the desire but an eagerness to give a full and honest service. Lessthan this is indicative of a lack of honest and staunch manhood orwomanhood. 

It is incumbent upon organised labour also to remember that itrepresents but eight per cent of the actual working people of thisnation. Whether one works with his brains, or his hands, or both, isimmaterial. Nor does organised labour represent the great farminginterests of the country--even more fundamentally the backbone of thenation. 

The desirable citizen of any nation is he or she who does not seek toprosper at the expense of his fellows, who does not seek the advancementof his group to the detriment of all other groups--who realises thatnone are independent, that all are interdependent. 

He who is a teacher or a preacher of class-consciousness, is eitherconsciously or unconsciously--generally consciously and intentionally--apreacher of class-hatred. There is no more undesirable citizen in anynation than he. "Do you know why money is so scarce, brothers?" the soapbox orator demanded, and a fair-sized section of the backbone of thenation waited in leisurely patience for the answer. A tired-lookingwoman had paused for a moment on the edge of the crowd. She spokeshortly. "It's because so many of you men spend your time telling eachother why, 'stead of hustling to see that it ain't!" He is a fairrepresentative of the class-consciousness, class-hatred type. Again heis represented by the theorist constitutionally and chronically too lazyto do honest and constructive work either physically or mentally. Againby the one who has the big-head affliction. Or again by the oneafflicted with a species of insanity or criminality manifesting of lateunder the name of Bolshevism--a self-seeking tyranny infinitely worsethan Czarism itself. 

Its representatives have proved themselves moral perverts, determined tocarry out their theories and gain their own ends by treachery, theft, coersion, murder, and every foul method that will aid them in reducingorder to chaos--through the slogan of rule or ruin. Through brigandage, coersion, murder, it gets the funds to send its agents into thosecountries whose governments are fully in the hands of the people, andwhere if at any time injustice prevails it is solely the fault of thepeople in not using in an intelligent and determined manner thepossessions they already have. Or putting it in another way, on accountof shirking the duties it is morally incumbent upon them as citizens offree governments to perform. 

In America, whose institutions have been built and maintained solely bythe people, our duty is plain, for orderly procedure has been and evermust be our watch-word. Vigilance is moreover nowhere required more thanin representative government. Whenever the red hand of anarchy, Bolshevism, terrorism raises itself it should be struck so instantly andso powerfully that it has not only no time to gain adherents, but has notime to make its escape. It should be the Federal prison for anyAmerican who allows himself to become so misguided as to seek tosubstitute terrorism and destruction for our orderly and lawful methodsof procedure, or quick deportation for any foreigner who seeks ourshores to carry out these purposes, or comes as an agent for those whowould do the same. 

Organised labour has never occupied so high a position as it occupiestoday. That the rank and file will for an instant have commerce withthese agencies, whatever any designing leader here and there may seek todo, is inconceivable. That its organisations will be sought to be usedby them is just as probable. Its duty as to vigilance and determinationis pronounced. And unless vigilant and determined the set-backs it mayget and the losses it may suffer are just as pronounced. The spirit andtemper of the American people is such that it will not stand forcoersion, lawlessness, or any unfair demands. Public opinion is afterall the court of last resort. No strike or no lockout can succeed withus that hasn't that tremendous weapon, public opinion, behind it. Thenecessity therefore of being fair in all demands and orderly in allprocedure, and in view of this it is also well to remember thatorganised labour represents but eight per cent of the actual workingpeople of this nation. 

The gains of organised labour in the past have been very great. It isalso true that the demands of organised labour even today are verygreat. In true candor it must also be said that not only the impulse butthe sincere desire of the great bulk of employers is in a conciliatoryway to grant all demands of labour that are at all consistent with soundeconomic management, even in many cases to a great lessening of theirown profits, as well as to maintain working conditions as befits theirworkers as valuable and honoured members of our body politic, as theynaturally are and as they so richly deserve. 

For their own welfare, however, to say nothing of the welfare of thenation, labour unions must purge themselves of all anarchistic anddestructive elements. Force is a two-edged sword, and the force of thisnation when once its sense of justice and right is outraged and itstemper is aroused, will be found to be infinitely superior to anyparticular class, whether it be capital or whether it be labour. Organised labour stands in the way to gain much by intelligent andhonest work and orderly procedure. And to a degree perhaps never beforeequalled, does it stand in a position to lose much if throughself-deception on its own part or through unworthy leadership, itdeceives itself in believing itself superior to the forces of law andorder. 

In a nation where the people through their chosen representatives and byestablished systems of procedure determine their own institutions, whenagitators get beyond law and reason and lose sight too completely of thelaw of mutuality, there is a power backed by a force that it is meremadness to defy. The rights as well as the power of all the people willbe found to be infinitely superior to those of any one particular groupor class--clear-seeing men and women in any democratic form ofgovernment realise that the words mutuality and self-interest bear avery close relationship. 

The greatest gains in the relations between capital and labour duringthe coming few years will undoubtedly be along the lines ofprofit-sharing. Some splendid beginnings are already in successfuloperation. There is the recognition that capital is entitled initiallyto a fair return; again that labour is entitled to a good and fullliving wage--when both these conditions are met then that there be anequal division of the profits that remain, between the capital and theskill and management back of the capital invested on the one hand, andlabour on the other. Without the former labour would have no employmentin the particular enterprise; without the workers the former could notcarry on. Each is essential to the other. 

Labour being not a commodity, as some material thing merely to be boughtand sold, but the human element, is entitled to more than a living wage. It has human aspirations, and desires and needs. It has not only itspresent but its own and its children's future to safeguard. When it isthus made a partner in the business it becomes more earnest and reliableand effective in its work, less inclined to condone the shiftless, theincompetent, the slacker; more eager and resolute in withstanding theill-founded, reckless or sinister suggestions or efforts of anill-advised leadership. 

Capital or employer is the gainer also, because it is insured that loyaland more intelligent cooperation in its enterprise that is as essentialto its success as is the genius and skill of management. 

Taking a different form but proving most valuable alike for managementand capital on the one hand, and its workers on the other, is the caseof one of our great industrial plants, the largest of its kind in theworld and employing many thousands of workers, where already a trifleover forty per cent. Of its stock is in the hands of the workers. Theirthrift and their good judgment have enabled them to take advantage ofattractive prices and easy methods of payment made them by the company'smanagement. There are already many other concerns where this is true ingreater or less proportion. 

These are facts that certain types of labour agitators or even leadersas well as special pleaders for labour, find it convenient to forget, orat least not to mention. The same is true also of the millions that areevery year being paid out to make all working conditions andsurroundings cheerful, healthful, safe; in various forms of insurance, in retiring pensions. Through the initiative of this larger type ofemployer, or manager of capital, many hundreds of thousands both men andwomen and in continually increasing numbers, are being thusbenefited--outside and above their yearly wage or salary. 

A new era in connection with capital and labour has for some time beencoming into being; the era of democracy in industry has arrived. The dayof the autocratic sway on the part of capital has passed; nor will we asa nation take kindly to the autocratic sway of labour. It is obtaininga continually fuller recognition; and cooperation leading in many linesto profit-sharing is the new era we are now passing into. 

Though there are very large numbers of men of great wealth, employersand heads of industrial enterprises, who have caught the spirit of thenew industrial age upon which we have already begun to enter, and whoare glad to see labour getting its fairer share of the profits ofindustry and a larger recognition as partners in industry, there arethose who, lacking both imagination and vision, attempt to resist thetide that, already turned, is running in volume. They are our AmericanBourbons, our American Junkers. They are, considering the ominousundercurrents of change, unrest and discontent that are so apparent inthe entire industrial and economic world today, our worst breeders andfeeders of Bolshevism and lawlessness. 

If they had their way and their numbers were sufficiently large, theflames of Bolshevism and anarchy would be so fed that even in America wewould have little hope of escaping a great conflagration. They are theones who are determined to see that their immense profits areuncurtailled, whose homes must have ten bathrooms each; while greatnumbers of their workers without whom they would have to close up theindustry--hence their essential partners in the industry though not inname--haven't even a single bath-room and with families as large and inmany cases larger. 

They are they who must have three or four homes each, aggregating in themillions to build and to maintain. They are they who cannot see whyworkmen should discuss such things among themselves, or even questionthem, though in many cases they are scarcely able to make ends meet inthe face of continually advancing or even soaring prices, who neverenjoy a holiday, and are unable to lay up for the years to come, whenthey will no longer be "required" in industry. They are they thereforewho have but little if any interest or care for even the physicalwell-being of their workers, say nothing of their mental and spiritualwell-being and enjoyments--beyond the fact that they are well enough fedand housed for the next day's work. 

They are they who when it is suggested that, recognizing the change andthe run of the tide, they be keen-minded enough to anticipate changingconditions and organize their business so that their workers have somejoint share in its conditions and conduct, and some share in its profitsbeyond a mere living wage, reply--"I'll be damned if I do. " It doesn'trequire much of a prophetic sense now however, to be able to tellthem--they'll be damned if they don't. 

There is reason to rejoice also that for the welfare of Americaninstitutions, the number of this class is continually decreasing. Didthey predominate, with the unmistakable undercurrents of unrest, born ofa sense of injustice, there would be in time, and in a shorter time thanwe perhaps realize, but one outcome. Steeped in selfishness, makingthemselves impervious to all the higher leadings and impulses of thesoul--less than men--they are not only enemies of their own betterselves, but enemies of the nation itself. 

Bolshevism in Russia was born, or rather was able to get its hold, onlythrough the long generations of Czarism and the almost universal stateof ignorance in which its people were held, that preceded it. The greatpreponderance and the continually growing numbers of men withimagination, with a sense of care, mutuality, cooperation, brotherhood, in our various large enterprises is a force that will save this andother nations from a similar experience. 

I have great confidence in the Russian people. Its soul is sound; andafter the forces of treachery, incompetence and terrorism have spentthemselves, and the better elements are able to organize in sufficientforce to drive the beasts from its borders, it will arise and assertitself. There will be builded a new Russia that will be one of the greatand commanding nations of the world. In the meantime it affords a mostconcrete and valuable lesson to us and to all other nations--to strikeon the one hand, the forces of treachery and lawlessness the moment theyshow themselves, and on the other hand, to see that the soil is madefertile for neither their entrance nor growth. 

The strong nation is that in which under the leadership of universalfree education and equal opportunities, a due watch is maintained to seethat the rights of all individuals and all classes are nurtured andcarefully guarded. In such a government the nation and its interests isand must be supreme. Then if built upon high ethical and moral standardswhere mutuality is the watch-word and the governing principle of itslife, its motto might through right, power through justice, it becomes afit and effective member of the Society of Nations. 

Internationalism is higher than nationalism, humanity is above thenation. The stronger however the individual nation, the strongernecessarily will be the Society of Nations. 

Love, sympathy, fellowship, is not inconsistent with the use of force torestrain malignant evil, in the case of nations as in the case ofindividuals. Where goodness is weak it is exploited and becomes a victimof the stronger, when, devoid of a sense of mutuality, it isconscienceless. Strength without conscience, goodness, ungoverned by thelaw of mutuality, becomes tyranny. In seeking its own ends it violatesevery law of God and man. 

For the safety therefore of the better life of the world, for the verysafety and welfare of the Society of Nations, those nations that combinestrength with goodness, strength with good-will, strength with anever-growing sense of mutuality, which is the only law of a happy, orderly, and advancing human life, must combine to check the power ofany people or nation still devoid of the knowledge of this law, lestgoodness, truth and all the higher instincts and potentialities of life, even freedom itself perish from the earth. This can be done and must bedone not through malice or hatred, but through a sense of right andduty. 

There is no more diabolical, no more damnable ambition on the part ofindividuals, organizations or nations than to rule, to gain dominationover the minds and the lives of others either for the sake of power anddomination or for the material gain that can be made to flow therefrom. As a rule, however, it is both. There is nothing more destructive tothe higher moral and ethical life of the individual or the organizationcontrolled by this desire, nothing so destructive to the life of the oneor ones so dominated, and as a consequence to the life of society itselfas this evil and prostituting desire and purpose. 

Where this has become the clearly controlling motive, malignant anddeep-seated, if in the case of a nation, then it is the duty of thosenations that combine strength with character, strength with goodness, tocombine to check the evil wrought by such a nation. If by persuasion andgood-will, well and good. If not, then through the exercise of arestraining force. This is not contrary to the law of love, for the loveof the good is the controlling motive. It is only thus that the highermoral law which for its growth and consummation is dependent uponindividuals, can grow and gain supremacy in the world. 

Intellectual independence and acumen, combined with a love of truth, goodness, righteousness, love and service for others, is the greatestaid there can be in carrying out the Divine plan and purpose in theworld. The sword of love therefore becomes the sword of righteousnessthat cuts out the cancerous growth that is given from to by malignantill will; the sword of righteousness that strikes down slavery andoppression; the sword of righteousness therefore that becomes the swordof civilization. 

It is a weapon that does not have to be always used however; for whenits power is once clearly understood it is feared. Its deterrent powerbecomes therefore infinitely more effective than in its actual use. Soin any new world settlement, any nation or group that is not up to thismoral world standard, that would seek to impose its will and itsinstitutions upon any other nations for the sake of domination, or torob them of their goods, must be restrained through the federated powerof the other nations, not by forcing their own beliefs or codes orinstitutions upon it, but by restraining it and making ineffective anyambitions or purposes that it may plan, or until its people whatever itsleadership may be, are brought clearly and concretely to see that suchmethods do not pay. 

That Jesus to whom we ultimately go for our moral leadership, not onlysanctioned, but used and advocated the use of righteous force, whenmalignant evil in the form of self-seeking sought domination, eitherintellectual or physical, for its own selfish gain and aggrandizement, is clearly evidenced by many of his own sayings and his own acts. 

So within the nation during this great reconstruction period, these aretimes that call for heroic men and women. In a Democracy or in anyrepresentative form of government an alert citizenship is its onlysafety. With a vastly increased voting population, in that many millionsof women citizens are now admitted to full citizenship, the need forintelligent action and attention to matters of government was never sogreat. Great numbers will be herded and voted by organizations as wellas by machines. As these will comprise the most ignorant and thereforethe herdable ones, it is especially incumbent upon the great rank andfile of intelligent women to see that they take and maintain an activeinterest in public affairs. 

Politics is something that we cannot evade except to the detriment ofour country and thereby to our own detriment. Politics is but anotherword for government. And in a sense we the individual voter are thegovernment and unless we make matters of government our own concern, there are organizations and there are groups of designing men who willsteal in and get possession for their own selfish aggrandizement andgain. This takes sometimes the form of power, to be traded for otherpower, or concessions; but always if you will trace far enough, eventualmoney gain. Or again it takes the form of graft and even direct loot. The losses that are sustained through a lowered citizenship, throughinefficient service, through a general debauchery of publicinstitutions, through increased taxation to make up for the amounts thatare drawn off in graft and loot are well nigh incalculable--and for thesole reason that you and I, average citizens, do not take the activepersonal interest in our own matters of government that we should take. 

Clericalism, Tammanyism, Bolshevism, Syndicalism--and all in the guiseof interest in the people--get their holds and their profits in thisway. It is essential that we be locally wise and history wise. Any classor section or organization that is less than the nation itself must bewatched and be made to keep its own place, or it becomes a menace to thefree and larger life of the nation. Even in the case of a great nationalcrisis a superior patriotism is affected and paraded in order that itmay camouflage its other and real activities. 

When at times we forget ourselves and speak of rights rather than dutiesin connection with our country, it were well to recall and to repeat thewords of Franklin: "The sun never repents of the good he does nor doeshe ever demand a recompense. "

Not only is constant vigilance incumbent upon us, but realising the factthat the boys and the girls of today are the citizens of tomorrow--thenation's voters and law-makers--it is incumbent upon us to see thatAmerican free education through American free public schools, isadvanced to and maintained at its highest possibilities, and kept freefrom any agencies that will make for a divided or anything less than awhole-hearted and intelligent citizenship. The motto on the Shakespearestatue at Leicester Square in London: "There is no darkness butignorance, " might well be reproduced in every city and every hamlet inthe nation. 

Late revelations have shown how even education can be manipulated andprostituted for ulterior purposes. Parochial schools whether Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or Oriental, have no place in Americaninstitutions--and whether their work is carried on in English or in aforeign language. They are absolutely foreign to the spirit of ourinstitutions. They are purely for the sake of something less than thenation itself. Blind indeed are we if we are not history-wise. Criminalindeed are we to allow any boys or girls to be diverted to them and tobe deprived of the advantages of a better schooling and being broughtunder the influences of agencies that are thoroughly and whollyAmerican. 

American education must be made for American institutions and fornothing less than this. The nation's children should be shielded fromany power that seeks to get possession of them in order at an early andunaccountable age to fasten authority upon them, and to drive a wedgebetween them and all others of the nation. 

The nation has a duty to every child within its borders. To fail torecognize or to shirk that duty, will call for a price to be paidsometime as great as that that has been paid by every other nation thatdid not see until too late. Sectarianism in education stultifies androbs the child and nullifies the finest national instincts in education. It is for but one purpose--the use and the power of the organizationthat plans and that fosters it. 

Our government profiting by the long weary struggles of other countries, is founded upon the absolute separation of church and state. This doesnot mean the separation of religion in its true sense from the state;but keeping it free from every type of sectarian influence anddomination. It is ours to see that no silent subtle influences are atwork, that will eventually make the same trouble here as in othercountries, or that will thrust out the same stifling hand to undermineand to throttle universal free public education, and the inalienableright that every child has to it. Our children are the wards of andaccountable to the state--they are not the property of any organization, group or groups, less than the state. 

We need the creation of a strong Federal Department of Education ofcabinet rank, with ample means and strong powers to be the guidinggenius of all our state and local departments of education, with greaterattention paid to a more thorough and concrete training in civics, inmoral and ethical education, in addition to the other well recognizedbranches in public school education. It should have such powers also aswill enable it to see that every child is in school up to a certain age, or until all the fundamentals of a prescribed standard of Americaneducation are acquired. 

A recent tabulation made public by a Federal Deputy Commissioner ofNaturalization has shown that a little over one tenth, in round numbers, 11, 000, 000, of our population is composed of unnaturalized aliens. Eventhis however tells but a part of the story; for vast numbers of eventhose who have become naturalized, have in no sense become Americanized. 

Speaking of this class an able editorial in a recent number of one ofour leading New York dailies has said:

"Of the millions of aliens who have gone through the legal forms ofnaturalization a very large proportion have not in any sense beenAmericanized, and, though citizens, they are still alien in habits ofthought, in speech and in their general attitude toward the community. 

"There are industrial centres not far from New York City that are whollyforeign. There are sections of this city that--except as the childrenthrough the schools and association with others of their own age yieldto change--are intensely alien. 

"To penetrate these barriers and open new avenues of communication withthe people who live within them is no longer a task to be performed byindividual effort. Americanization is a work that must be undertaken anddirected on a scale so extensive that only through the cooperation ofthe States and the Federal Government can it be successfully carriedout. It cannot longer be neglected without serious harm to the life andwelfare of the Nation. "

Some even more startling facts are given out in figures by theDepartment of the Interior, figures supplied to it by the SurgeonGeneral's Office of the Army. The War Department records show that 24. 9per cent. Of the draft army examined by that department's agents wereunable to read and understand a newspaper, or to write letters home. Inone draft in New York State in May, 1918, 16. 6 per cent. Were classed asilliterate. In one draft in connection with South Carolina troops inJuly, 1918, 49. 5 per cent. Where classed as illiterate. In one draft inconnection with Minnesota troops in July of the same year, 14. 2 percent. Were classed as illiterate. In other words it means for examplethat in New York State we have in round numbers 700, 000 men between 21and 31 years of age who are illiterate. The same source reveals the factthat in the nation in round numbers over 10, 000, 000 are eitherilliterate or without a knowledge of our language. The South is the homeof most of the wholly uneducated, the North of those of foreign speech. And in speaking of this class a recent editorial in anotherrepresentative New York daily, after making mention of one industrialcentre but a few miles out of New York City, in New Jersey, where nearly16 out of every 100 cannot read English, has said:

"Such people may enjoy the advantages America offers. Of its spirit andinstitutions they can comprehend nothing. They are the easy dupes offoreign agitators, unassimilable, an element of weakness in the socialbody that might easily be converted into an element of strength. Manyof them have the vote, controlled by leaders interested only in designsalien to America's welfare. 

"The problem is national in scope * * *. The best way to keep Bolshevismout of America is to reduce ignorance of our speech and everything elseto a minimum. However alert our immigration officers may be, foreignagents of social disorder are sure to pass through our doors, and aslong as we allow children to grow up among us who have no means offinding out the meaning of our laws and forms of government the seeds ofdiscontent will be sown in congenial soil. "

Profoundly true also are the following words from an editorial in stillanother New York daily in dealing with that great army of 700, 000illiterates within the State, or rather that portion of them who areadults of foreign birth:

"The first thing to do is to teach them, and make them realize that aknowledge of the English language is a prerequisite of first classAmerican citizenship. * * * The wiping out of illiteracy is a foundationstone in building up a strong population, able and worthy to hold itsown in the world. With the disappearance of illiteracy and of theignorance of the language of the country will also disappear many of thetrouble-breeding problems which have held back immigrants in gainingtheir fair share of real prosperity, the intelligence and self-respectwhich are vital ingredients in any good citizenship. Real freedom oflife and character cannot be enjoyed by the man or woman whose wholelife is passed upon the inferior plane of ignorance and prejudice. Teachthem all how to deserve the benefits of life in America, and they willsoon learn how to gain and protect them. "

It is primarily among the ignorant and illiterate that Bolshevism, anarchy, political rings, and every agency that attempts throughself-seeking to sow the seeds of discontent, treachery, and disloyalty, works to exploit them and to herd them for political ends. No man canhave that respect for himself, or feel that he has the respect due himfrom others as an honest and diligent worker, whatever his line of work, who is handicapped by the lack of an ordinary education. The heart ofthe American nation is sound. Through universal free public education itmust be on the alert and be able to see through Bourbonism andunderstand its methods on the one hand, and Bolshevism on the other; andbe determined through intelligent action to see that American soil ismade uncongenial to both. 

Our chief problem is to see that Democracy is made safe for and made ofreal service to the world. Our American education must be madecontinually more keenly alive to the great moral, ethical and socialneeds of the time. Thereby it will be made religious without having anysectarian slant or bias; it will be made safe for and the hand-maid ofDemocracy and not a menace to it. 

Vast multitudes today are seeing as never before that the moral andethical foundations of the nation's and the world's life is a matter ofprimal concern to all. 

We are finding more and more that the simple fundamentals of life andconduct as portrayed by the Christ of Nazareth not only constitutes agreat idealism, but the only practical way of life. Compared to this andto the need that it come more speedily and more universally intooperation in the life of the world today, truly "sectarian peculiaritiesare obsolete impertinences. "

Our time needs again more the prophet and less the priest. It needs theGod-impelled life and voice of the prophet with his face to the future, both God-ward and man-ward, burning with an undivided devotion to truthand righteousness. It needs less the priest, too often with his back tothe future and too often the pliant tool of the organisation whose chiefconcern is, and ever has been, the preservation of itself under theostensible purpose of the preservation of the truth once delivered, thesame that Jesus with his keen powers of penetration saw killed theSpirit as a high moral guide and as an inspirer to high andunself-centred endeavour, and that he characterised with such scathingscorn. There are splendid exceptions; but this is the rule now even asit was in his day. 

The prophet is concerned with truth, not a system; with righteousness, not custom; with justice, not expediency. Is there a man who would daresay that if Christianity--the Christianity of the Christ--had beenactually in vogue, in practice in all the countries of Christendomduring the last fifty years, during the last twenty-five years, thatthis colossal and gruesome war would ever have come about? Noclear-thinking and honest man would or could say that it would. We needagain the voice of the prophet, clear-seeing, high-purposed, andunafraid. We need again the touch of the prophet's hand to lead us backto those simple fundamental teachings of the Christ of Nazareth, thatare life-giving to the individual, and that are world-saving. 

We speak of our Christian civilisation, and the common man, especiallyin times like these, asks what it is, where it is--and God knows that wehave been for many hundred years wandering in the wilderness. He isthinking that the Kingdom of God on earth that the true teachings ofJesus predicated, and that he laboured so hard to actualise, needs somespeeding up. There is a world-wide yearning for spiritual peace andrighteousness on the part of the common man. He is finding itoccasionally in established religion, but often, perhaps more often, independently of it. He is finding it more often through his own contactand relations with the Man of Nazareth--for him the God-man. There is nogreater fact in our time, and there is no greater hope for the futurethan is to be found in this fact. 

Jesus gave the great principles, the animating spirit of life, notminute details of conduct. The real Church of Christ is not anhierarchy, an institution, it is a brotherhood--the actual establishingof the Kingdom of God in moral, ethical and social terms in the world. 

Among the last words penned by Dr. John Watson--Ian Maclaren--goodchurchman, splendid writer, but above all independent thinker andsplendid man, were the following: "Was it not the chief mistake and alsothe hopeless futility of Pharisaism to meddle with the minute affairs oflife, and to lay down what a man should do at every turn? It was nottherefore an education of conscience, but a bondage of conscience; itdid not bring men to their full stature by teaching them to face theirown problems of duty and to settle them, it kept them in a state ofchildhood, by forbidding and commanding in every particular of dailylife. Pharisaism, therefore, whether Jewish or Gentile, ancient ormodern, which replaces the moral law by casuistry, and the enlightenedjudgment of the individual by the confessional, creates a narrowcharacter and mechanical morals. Freedom is the birthright of the soul, and it is by the discipline of life the soul finds itself. It were apoor business to be towed across the pathless ocean of this world to thenext; by the will of God and for our good we must sail the shipourselves, and steer our own course. It is the work of the Bible to showus the stars and instruct us how to take our reckoning * * *. 

"Jesus did not tell us what to do, for that were impossible, as everyman has his own calling, and is set in by his own circumstances, butJesus has told us how to carry ourselves in the things we have to do, and He has put the heart in us to live becomingly, not by pedanticrules, but by an instinct of nobility. Jesus is the supreme teacher ofthe Bible and He came not to forbid or to command, but to place theKingdom of God as a living force, and perpetual inspiration within thesoul of man, and then, to leave him in freedom and in grace to fulfilhimself. "[G]

We no longer admit that Christ is present and at work only when aminister is expounding the gospel or some theological precept orconducting some ordained observance in the pulpit; or that religion isonly when it is labelled as such and is within the walls of a church. That belonged to the chapter in Christianity that is now rapidlyclosing, a chapter of good works and results--but so pitiably below itspossibilities. So pitiably below because men had been taught and withoutsufficient thought accepted the teaching that to be a Christian was tohold certain beliefs about the Christ that had been formulated by earlygroups of men and that had come down through the centuries. 

The chapter that is now opening upon the world is the one that putsChrist's own teachings in the simple, frank, and direct manner in whichhe gave them, to the front. It makes life, character, conduct, humanconcern and human service of greater importance than mere matters ofopinion. It makes eager and unremitting work for the establishing of theKingdom of God, the kingdom of right relations between men, here on thisearth, the essential thing. It insists that the telling test as towhether a man is a Christian is how much of the Christ spirit is inevidence in his life--and in every phase of his life. Gripped by thisidea which for a long time the forward-looking and therefore the big menin them have been striving for, our churches in the main are movingforward with a new, a dauntless, and a powerful appeal. 

Differences that have sometimes separated them on account of differencesof opinion, whether in thought or interpretation, [H] are now found to beso insignificant when compared to the actual simple fundamentals thatthe Master taught, and when compared to the work to be done, that agreat Interallied Church Movement is now taking concrete and strongworking form, that is equipping the church for a mighty and far-reachingChristian work. A new and great future lies immediately ahead. The goodit is equipping itself to accomplish is beyond calculation--a work inwhich minister and layman will have equal voice and equal share. 

It will receive also great inspiration and it will eagerly strike handswith all allied movements that are following the same leader, but alongdifferent roads. 

Britain's apostle of brotherhood and leader of the Brotherhood Movementthere, Rev. Tom Sykes, who has caught so clearly the Master's own basisof Christianity--love for and union with God, love for and union withthe brother--has recently put so much stimulating truth into a singleparagraph that I reproduce it here:

"The emergence of the feeling of kinship with the Unseen is the mostarresting and revealing fact of human history. * * * _The unionwith God_ is not through the display of ritual, but the affiliation andconjunction of life. We do not believe we are in a universe that hasscreens and folds, where the spiritual commerce of man has to beconducted on the principle of secret diplomacy. The universe is frankand open, and God is straightforward and honourable. _In making thespirit and practice of brotherliness_ the test of religious value, weare at one with Him who said: 'Inasmuch as ye do it unto one of theleast--ye do it unto me. ' _We touch the Father when we help His child. _Jesus taught us not to come to God asking, art Thou this or that? but tocall Him Father and live upon it. Do not admit that many of ourBrotherhood meetings are in 'neutral' or 'secular' halls and buildings!'Where two or three gather in My name, there am I. ' Where He is, thereis hallowed ground. "

We need a stock-taking and a mobilisation of our spiritual forces. Butwhat, after all, does this mean? Search as we may we are brought back_every time_ to this same Man of Nazareth, the God-man--Son of Man andSon of God. And gathering it into a few brief sentences it is this:Jesus' great revelation was this consciousness of God in the individuallife, and to this he witnessed in a supreme and masterly way, becausethis he supremely realised and lived. Faith in him and following himdoes not mean acquiring some particular notion of God or some particularbelief about him himself. It is the living in one's own life of thissame consciousness of God as one's source and Father, and a living inthese same filial relations with him of love and guidance and care thatJesus entered into and continuously lived. 

When this is done there is no problem and no condition in the individuallife that it will not clarify, mould, and therefore take care of; for"[Greek transliteration: mê merimnate tê psychê hymôn]"--do not worry about yourlife--was the Master's clear-cut command. Are we ready for this hightype of spiritual adventure? Not only are we assured of this great andmighty truth that the Master revealed and going ahead of us lived, thatunder this supreme guidance we need not worry about the things of thelife, but that under this Divine guidance we need not think _even of thelife itself_, if for any reason it becomes our duty or our privilege tolay it down. Witnessing for truth and standing for truth he againpreceded us in this. 

But this, this love for God or rather this state that becomes thenatural and the normal life when we seek the Kingdom, and the Divinerule becomes dominant and operative in mind and heart, leads us directlyback to his other fundamental: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. For if God is my Father and if he cares for me in this way--and everyother man in the world is my brother and He cares for him in exactly thesame way--then by the sanction of God his Father I haven't anything onmy brother; and by the love of God my Father my brother hasn't anythingon me. It is but the most rudimentary commonsense then, that we beconsiderate one of another, that we be square and decent one withanother. We will do well as children of the same Father to sit down andtalk matters over; and arise with the conclusion that the advice ofJesus, our elder brother, is sound: "Therefore all things whatsoever yewould that men should do to you, do ye even so to them. "

He gave it no label, but it has subsequently become known as the GoldenRule. There is no higher rule and no greater developer of the highestthere is in the individual human life, and no greater adjuster andbeautifier of the problems of our common human life. And when it becomessufficiently strong in its action in this, the world awaits itsprojection into its international life. This is the truth that herevealed--the twofold truth of love to God and love for the neighbour, that shall make men free. The truth of the Man of Nazareth still holdsand shall hold, and we must realise this adequately before we ask or canexpect any other revelation. 

We are in a time of great changes. The discovery of new laws andtherefore of new truth necessitates changes and necessitates advances. But whatever changes or advances may come, the Divine reality stillsurvives, independent of Jesus it is true, but as the world knows himstill better, it will give to him its supreme gratitude and praise, inthat he was the most perfect revealer of God to man, of God in man, andthe most concrete in that he embodied and lived this truth in his ownmatchless human-divine life; and stands as the God-man to which theworld is gradually approaching. For as Goethe has said--"We can neverget beyond the spirit of Jesus. "

Love it is, he taught, that brings order out of chaos, that becomes thesolvent of the riddle of life, and however cynical, skeptical, orpractical we may think at times we may be, a little quiet clear-cutthought will bring us each time back to the truth that it is theessential force that leads away from the tooth and the claw of thejungle, that lifts life up from and above the clod. Love is the world'sbalance-wheel; and as the warming and ennobling element of sympathy, care and consideration radiates from it, increasing one's sense ofmutuality, which in turn leads to fellowship, cooperation, brotherhood, a holy and diviner conception and purpose of life is born, that makeshuman life more as it should be, as it must be--as it will be. 

I love to feel that when one makes glad the heart of any man, woman, child, or animal, he makes glad the heart of God--and I somehow feelthat it is true. 

As our household fires radiate their genial warmth, and make more joyousand more livable the lot of all within the household walls, so life inits larger scope and in all its human relations, becomes more genial andmore livable and reveals more abundantly the deeper riches of itsdiviner nature, as it is made more open and more obedient to the higherpowers of mind and spirit. 

Do you know that incident in connection with the little Scottish girl?She was trudging along, carrying as best she could a boy younger, but itseemed almost as big as she herself, when one remarked to her how heavyhe must be for her to carry, when instantly came the reply: "He's naheavy. He's mi brither. " Simple is the incident; but there is in it atruth so fundamental that pondering upon it, it is enough to make many aman, to whom dogma or creed make no appeal, a Christian--and a mightyengine for good in the world. And more--there is in it a truth sofundamental and so fraught with potency and with power, that its widerrecognition and projection into all human relations would reconstruct aworld. 

 _I saw the mountains stand Silent, wonderful, and grand, Looking out across the land When the golden light was falling On distant dome and spire; And I heard a low voice calling, "Come up higher, come up higher, From the lowland and the mire, From the mist of earth desire, From the vain pursuit of pelf. From the attitude of self: Come up higher, come up higher. "_

 _James G. Clark_

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: The Emmanuel Movement in Boston in connection with EmmanuelChurch, inaugurated some time ago under the leadership and direction oftwo well-known ministers, Dr. Worcester and Dr. McComb, and a well-knownphysician, Dr. Coriat, and similar movements in other cities is anattestation of this. 

That most valuable book under the joint authorship of these three men:"Religion and Medicine, " Moffat, Yard and Company, New York, will befound of absorbing interest and of great practical value by many. Theamount of valuable as well as interesting and reliable material that itcontains is indeed remarkable. ]

[Footnote B: "War and Laughter, " by James Oppenheim--The CenturyCompany, New York. ]

[Footnote C: Henry Holt in "Cosmic Relations. "]

[Footnote D: From a notable article in the New York "Times Magazine, "Sunday, April 1, 1917, by George W. Perkins, chairman Mayor's FoodSupply Commission. ]

[Footnote E: Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother ofJames, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? And are his sisters not herewith us?--Mark 6:3. ]

[Footnote F: From that strong, splendid poem "Buttadeus, " by WilliamSamuel Johnson. ]

[Footnote G: "God's Message to the Human Soul"--_Revell_. ]

[Footnote H: The thought of the layman in practically all of ourchurches is much the same as that of Mr. Lloyd George when he said: "TheChurch to which I belong is torn with a fierce dispute; one part says itis baptism _into_ the name of the Father, and the other that it isbaptism _in_ the name of the Father. I belong to one of these parties. Ifeel most strongly about this. I would die for it, but I forget which itis. "]

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Transcriber's Notes

Made minor punctuation, spelling, and hyphenation changes forconsistency. 

Corrected the following typos:

Page 81: Changed Pharasaic to Pharisaic. (come into being a Pharisaic legalism)

Page 140: Changed subconsious to subconscious. (the slumbering subconsious mind)

Page 193: Changed independant to independent. (guided by their own independant judgment)

Page 217: Changed terriffic to terrific. (What a terriffic price to pay to learn the lesson)

Page 221: Changed symathy to sympathy. (He had, as we have seen, infinite symathy for and forbearance)

Page 232: Changed accompaniament to accompaniment. (Misunderstanding is not infrequently its accompaniament. )

Page 237: Changed viligant to vigilant. (And unless viligant and determined)

Page 245: Changed tyrany to tyranny. (ungoverned by the law of mutuality, becomes tyrany. )

Page 245: Changed malignent to malignant. (the use of force to restrain malignent evil, )

Page 253: Changed inaliable to inalienable. (the inaliable right that every child has)

Page 258: Changed impertinances to impertinences. ("sectarian peculiarities are obsolete impertinances. ")

Page 259: Changed Chrisitianity to Christianity. (Chrisitianity of the Christ)

Page 260: Changed heirarchy to hierarchy. (The real Church of Christ is not an heirarchy, )

Page 262: Changed that to than. (human service of greater importance that mere matters of opinion. )