{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_14312/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_14312","id":"gutenberg_14312","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14312","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Character","Christian life","Conduct of life"],"text":"WHAT ALL THE WORLD'S A-SEEKING\n\nOr, The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and Happiness\n\nby\n\nRALPH WALDO TRINE\n\nNew York\nDodge Publishing Company\n220 East Twenty-Third Street\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThere are two reasons the author has for putting forth this little\nvolume: he feels that the time is, as it always has been, ripe for it;\nand second, his soul has ever longed to express itself upon this endless\ntheme. It therefore comes from the heart--the basis of his belief that\nit will reach the heart.\n\nR.W.T.\nBoston, Massachusetts\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO REVISED EDITION.\n\n\nIt is impossible for one in a single volume, or perhaps in a number of\nvolumes, to reach the exact needs of every reader.\n\nIt is always a source of gratitude, as well as of inspiration for better\nand more earnest work in the future, for one to know that the truths\nthat have been and that are so valuable and so vital to him he has\nsucceeded in presenting in a manner such that they prove likewise of\nvalue to others. The author is most grateful for the good, kind words\nthat have come so generously from so many hundreds of readers of this\nsimple little volume from all parts of the world. He is also grateful to\nthat large company of people who have been so good as to put the book\ninto the hands of so many others.\n\nAnd as the days have passed, he has not been unmindful of the fact that\nhe might make it, when the time came, of still greater value to many.\nIn addition to a general revision of the book, some four or five\nquestions that seemed to be most frequently asked he has endeavored to\npoint answer to in an added part of some thirty pages, under the general\ntitle, \"Character-building Thought Power.\" The volume enters therefore\nupon its fifteenth thousand better able, possibly, to come a little more\ndirectly in touch with the every-day needs of those who will be\nsufficiently interested to read it.\n\nR.W.T.\nSunnybrae Farm\nCroton-on-the-Hudson\nNew York\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nPART I.   THE PRINCIPLE\n\nPART II.  THE APPLICATION\n\nPART III. THE UNFOLDMENT\n\nPART IV.  THE AWAKENING\n\nPART V.   THE INCOMING\n\nPART VI.  CHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER\n\n\n\n\nWHAT ALL THE WORLD'S A-SEEKING.\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\nTHE PRINCIPLE\n\n\n    Would you find that wonderful life supernal,\n      That life so abounding, so rich, and so free?\n    Seek then the laws of the Spirit Eternal,\n      With them bring your life into harmony.\n\n\nHow can I make life yield its fullest and best? How can I know the true\nsecret of power? How can I attain to a true and lasting greatness? How\ncan I fill the whole of life with a happiness, a peace, a joy, a\nsatisfaction that is ever rich and abiding, that ever increases, never\ndiminishes, that imparts to it a sparkle that never loses its lustre,\nthat ever fascinates, never wearies?\n\nNo questions, perhaps, in this form or in that have been asked oftener\nthan these. Millions in the past have asked them. Millions are asking\nthem to-day. They will be asked by millions yet unborn. Is there an\nanswer, a true and safe one for the millions who are eagerly and\nlongingly seeking for it in all parts of the world to-day, and for the\nmillions yet unborn who will as eagerly strive to find it as the years\ncome and go? Are you interested, my dear reader, in the answer? The fact\nthat you have read even thus far in this little volume whose title has\nled you to take it up, indicates that you are,--that you are but one of\nthe innumerable company already mentioned.\n\nIt is but another way of asking that great question that has come\nthrough all the ages--What is the _summum bonum_ in life? and there have\nbeen countless numbers who gladly would have given all they possessed to\nhave had the true and satisfactory answer. Can we then find this answer,\ntrue and satisfactory to ourselves, surely the brief time spent together\nmust be counted as the most precious and valuable of life itself. _There\nis an answer_: follow closely, and that our findings may be the more\nconclusive, take issue with me at every step if you choose, but tell me\nfinally if it is not true and satisfactory.\n\nThere is one great, one simple principle, which, if firmly laid hold of,\nand if made the great central principle in one's life, around which all\nothers properly arrange and subordinate themselves, will make that life\na grand success, truly great and genuinely happy, loved and blessed by\nall in just the degree in which it is laid hold upon,--a principle\nwhich, if universally made thus, would wonderfully change this old world\nin which we live,--ay, that would transform it almost in a night, and it\nis for its coming that the world has long been waiting; that in place of\nthe gloom and despair in almost countless numbers of lives would bring\nlight and hope and contentment, and no longer would it be said as so\ntruly to-day, that \"man's inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands\nmourn\"; that would bring to the life of the fashionable society woman,\nnow spending her days and her nights in seeking for nothing but her own\npleasure, such a flood of true and genuine pleasure and happiness and\nsatisfaction as would make the poor, weak something she calls by this\nname so pale before it, that she would quickly see that she hasn't known\nwhat true pleasure is, and that what she has been mistaking for the\nreal, the genuine, is but as a baser metal compared to the purest of\ngold, as a bit of cut glass compared to the rarest of diamonds, and that\nwould make this same woman who scarcely deigns to notice the poor woman\nwho washes her front steps, but who, were the facts known, may be\nliving a much grander life, and consequently of much more value to the\nworld than she herself, see that this poor woman is after all her\nsister, because child of the same Father; and that would make the humble\nlife of this same poor woman beautiful and happy and sweet in its\nhumility; that would give us a nation of statesmen in place of, with now\nand then an exception, a nation of politicians, each one bent upon his\nown personal aggrandizement at the expense of the general good; that\nwould go far, ay, very far toward solving our great and hard-pressing\nsocial problems with which we are already face to face; that, in short,\nwould make each man a prince among men, and each woman a queen among\nwomen.\n\nI have seen the supreme happiness in lives where this principle has been\ncaught and laid hold of, some, lives that seemed not to have much in\nthem before, but which under its wonderful influences have been so\ntransformed and so beautified, that have been made so sweet and so\nstrong, so useful and so precious, that each day seems to them all too\nshort, the same time that before, when they could scarcely see what was\nin life to make it worth the living, dragged wearily along. So there\nare countless numbers of people in the world with lives that seem not to\nhave much in them, among the wealthy classes and among the poorer, who\nmight under the influence of this great, this simple principle, make\nthem so precious, so rich, and so happy that time would seem only too\nshort, and they would wonder why they have been so long running on the\nwrong track, for it is true that much the larger portion of the world\nto-day is on the wrong track in the pursuit of happiness; but almost all\nare there, let it be said, not through choice, but by reason of not\nknowing the right, the true one.\n\nThe fact that really great, true, and happy lives have been lived in the\npast and are being lived to-day gives us our starting-point. Time and\nagain I have examined such lives in a most careful endeavor to find what\nhas made them so, and have found that in _each and every_ individual\ncase this that we have now come to has been the great central principle\nupon which they have been built. I have also found that in numbers of\nlives where it has not been, but where almost every effort apart from it\nhas been made to make them great, true, and happy, they have not been\nso; and also that no life built upon it in sufficient degree, other\nthings being equal, has failed in being thus.\n\nLet us then to the answer, examine it closely, see if it will stand\nevery test, if it is the true one, and if so, rejoice that we have found\nit, lay hold of it, build upon it, tell others of it. The last four\nwords have already entered us at the open door. The idea has prevailed\nin the past, and this idea has dominated the world, that _self_ is the\ngreat concern,--that if one would find success, greatness, happiness, he\nmust give all attention to self, and to self alone. This has been the\ngreat mistake, this the fatal error, this the _direct_ opposite of the\nright, the true as set forth in the great immutable law that--_we find\nour own lives in losing them in the service of others_, in longer\nform--the more of our lives we give to others, the fuller and the\nricher, the greater and the grander, the more beautiful and the more\nhappy our own lives become. It is as that great and sweet soul who when\nwith us lived at Concord said,--that generous giving or losing of your\nlife which saves it.\n\nThis is an expression of one of the greatest truths, of one of the\ngreatest principles of practical ethics the world has thus far seen. In\na single word, it is _service_,--not self but the other self. We shall\nsoon see, however, that our love, our service, our helpfulness to\nothers, invariably comes back to us, intensified sometimes a hundred or\na thousand or a thousand thousand fold, and this by a great, immutable\nlaw.\n\nThe Master Teacher, he who so many years ago in that far-away Eastern\nland, now in the hill country, now in the lake country, as the people\ngathered round him, taught them those great, high-born, and tender\ntruths of human life and destiny, the Christ Jesus, said identically\nthis when he said and so continually repeated,--\"He that is greatest\namong you shall be your servant\"; and his whole life was but an\nembodiment of this principle or truth, with the result that the greatest\nname in the world to-day is his,--the name of him who as his life-work,\nhealed the sick; clothed the naked; bound up the broken-hearted;\nsustained the weak, the faltering; befriended and aided the poor, the\nneedy; condemned the proud, the vain, the selfish; and through it all\ntaught the people to love justice and mercy and service, to live in\ntheir higher, their diviner selves,--in brief, to _live_ his life, the\nChrist-life, and who has helped in making it possible for this greatest\nprinciple of practical ethics the world has thus far seen to be\nenunciated, to be laid hold of, to be lived by to-day. \"He that is\ngreatest among you shall be your servant,\" or, he who would be truly\ngreat and recognized as such must find it in the capacity of a servant.\n\nAnd what, let us ask, is a servant? One who renders service. To himself?\nNever. To others? Alway. Freed of its associations and looked at in the\nlight of its right and true meaning, than the word \"servant\" there is no\ngreater in the language; and in this right use of the term, as we shall\nsoon see, every life that has been really true, great, and happy has\nbeen that of a servant, and apart from this no such life _ever has been\nor ever can be lived_.\n\nO you who are seeking for power, for place, for happiness, for\ncontentment in the ordinary way, tarry for a moment, see that you are on\nthe wrong track, grasp this great eternal truth, lay hold of it, and you\nwill see that your advance along this very line will be manifold times\nmore rapid. Are you seeking, then, to make for yourself a name? Unless\nyou grasp this mighty truth and make your life accordingly, as the great\nclock of time ticks on and all things come to their proper level\naccording to their merits, as all invariably, inevitably do, you will\nindeed be somewhat surprised to find how low, how very low your level\nis. Your name and your memory will be forgotten long ere the minute-hand\nhas passed even a single time across the great dial; while your\nfellow-man who has grasped this simple but this great and all-necessary\ntruth, and who accordingly is forgetting himself in the service of\nothers, who is making his life a part of a hundred or a thousand or a\nmillion lives, thus illimitably intensifying or multiplying his own,\ninstead of living as you in what otherwise would be his own little,\ndiminutive self, will find himself ascending higher and higher until he\nstands as one among the few, and will find a peace, a happiness, a\nsatisfaction so rich and so beautiful, compared to which yours will be\nbut a poor miserable something, and whose name and memory when his life\nhere is finished, will live in the minds and hearts of his fellow-men\nand of mankind fixed and eternal as the stars.\n\nA corollary of the great principle already enunciated might be\nformulated thus: _there is no such thing as finding true happiness by\nsearching for it directly_. It must come, if it come at all, indirectly,\nor by the service, the love, and the happiness we give to others. So,\n_there is no such thing as finding true greatness by searching for it\ndirectly_. It always, without a single exception has come indirectly in\nthis same way, and it is not at all probable that this great eternal law\nis going to be changed to suit any particular case or cases. Then\nrecognize it, put your life into harmony with it, and reap the rewards\nof its observance, or fail to recognize it and pay the penalty\naccordingly; for the law itself will remain unchanged.\n\nThe men and women whose names we honor and celebrate are invariably\nthose with lives founded primarily upon this great law. Note if you\nwill, every _truly_ great life in the world's history, among those\nliving and among the so-called dead, and tell me if in _every_ case that\nlife is not a life spent in the service of others, either directly, or\nindirectly as when we say--he served his country. Whenever one seeks for\nreputation, for fame, for honor, for happiness directly and for his own\nsake, then that which is true and genuine never comes, at least to any\ndegree worthy the name. It may seem to for a time, but a great law says\nthat such an one gets so far and no farther. Sooner or later, generally\nsooner, there comes an end.\n\nHuman nature seems to run in this way, seems to be governed by a great\nparadoxical law which says, that whenever a man self-centred, thinking\nof, living for and in himself, is very desirous for place, for\npreferment, for honor, the very fact of his being thus is of itself a\nsufficient indicator that he is too small to have them, and mankind\nrefuses to accord them. While the one who forgets self, and who, losing\nsight of these things, makes it his chief aim in life to help, to aid,\nand to serve others, by this very fact makes it known that he is large\nenough, is great enough to have them, and his fellow-men instinctively\nbestow them upon him. This is a great law which many would profit by to\nrecognize. That it is true is attested by the fact that the praise of\nmankind instinctively and universally goes out to a hero; but who ever\nheard of a hero who became such by doing something for himself? Always\nsomething he has done for others. By the fact that monuments and statues\nare gratefully erected to the memory of those who have helped and served\ntheir fellow-men, not to those who have lived to themselves alone.\n\nI have seen many monuments and statues erected to the memories of\nphilanthropists, but I never yet have seen one erected to a miser; many\nto generous-hearted, noble-hearted men, but never yet to one whose whole\nlife was that of a sharp bargain-driver, and who clung with a sort of\nsemi-idiotic grasp to all that came thus into his temporary possession.\nI have seen many erected to statesmen,--statesmen,--but never one to\nmere politicians; many to true orators, but never to mere demagogues;\nmany to soldiers and leaders, but never to men who were not willing,\nwhen necessary, to risk all in the service of their country. No, you\nwill find that the world's monuments and statues have been erected and\nits praises and honors have gone out to those who were large and great\nenough to forget themselves in the service of others, who have been\nservants, true servants of mankind, who have been true to the great law\nthat we find our own lives in losing them in the service of others. Not\nhonor for themselves, but service for others. But notice the strange,\nwonderful, beautiful transformation as it returns upon itself,--_honor\nfor themselves, because of service to others_.\n\nIt would be a matter of exceeding great interest to verify the truth of\nwhat has just been said by looking at a number of those who are regarded\nas the world's great sons and daughters,--those to whom its honors, its\npraises, its homage go out,--to see why it is, upon what their lives\nhave been founded that they have become so great and are so honored. Of\nall this glorious company that would come up, we must be contented to\nlook at but one or two.\n\nThere comes to my mind the name and figure of him the celebration of\nwhose birthday I predict will soon be made a national holiday,--he than\nwhom there is no greater, whose praises are sung and whose name and\nmemory are honored and blessed by millions in all parts of the world\nto-day, and will be by millions yet unborn, our beloved and sainted\nLincoln. And then I ask, Why is this? Why is this? One sentence of his\ntells us what to look to for the answer. During that famous series of\npublic debates in Illinois with Stephen A. Douglas in 1858, speaking at\nFreeport, Mr. Douglas at one place said, \"I care not whether slavery in\nthe Territories be voted up or whether it be voted down, it makes not a\nparticle of difference with me.\" Mr. Lincoln, speaking from the fulness\nof his great and royal heart, in reply said, with emotion, \"I am sorry\nto perceive that my friend Judge Douglas is so constituted that he does\nnot feel the lash the least bit when it is laid upon another man's\nback.\" Thoughts upon self? Not for a moment. Upon others? Always. He at\nonce recognized in those black men four million brothers for whom he had\na service to perform.\n\nIt would seem almost grotesque to use the word _self-ish_ in connection\nwith this great name. He very early, and when still in a very humble and\nlowly station in life, either consciously or unconsciously grasped this\ngreat truth, and in making the great underlying principle of his life to\nserve, to help his fellow-men, he adopted just that course that has made\nhim one of the greatest of the sons of men, our royal-hearted elder\nbrother. He never spent time in asking what he could do to attain to\ngreatness, to popularity, to power, what to perpetuate his name and\nmemory. He simply asked how he could help, how he could be of service to\nhis fellow-men, and continually did all his hands found to do.\n\nHe simply put his life into harmony with this great principle; and in so\ndoing he adopted the best means,--the _only_ means to secure that which\ncountless numbers seek and strive for directly, and every time so\nwoefully fail in finding.\n\nThere comes to my mind in this same connection another princely soul,\none who loved all the world, one whom all the world loves and delights\nto honor. There comes to mind also a little incident that will furnish\nan insight into the reason of it all. On an afternoon not long ago, Mrs.\nHenry Ward Beecher was telling me of some of the characteristics of\nBrooklyn's great preacher. While she was yet speaking of some of those\nalong the very lines we are considering, an old gentleman, a neighbor,\ncame into the room bearing in his hands something he had brought from\nMr. Beecher's grave. It was the day next following Decoration Day. His\nstory was this: As the great procession was moving into the cemetery\nwith its bands of rich music, with its carriages laden with sweet and\nfragrant flowers, with its waving flags, beautiful in the sunlight, a\npoor and humble-looking woman with two companions, by her apparent\nnervousness attracted the attention of the gate-keeper. He kept her in\nview for a little while, and presently saw her as she gave something she\nhad partially concealed to one of her companions, who, leaving the\nprocession, went over to the grave of Mr. Beecher, and tenderly laid it\nthere. Reverently she stood for a moment or two, and then, retracing\nher steps, joined her two companions, who with bowed heads were waiting\nby the wayside.\n\nIt was this that the old gentleman had brought,--a gold frame, and in it\na poem cut from a volume, a singularly beautiful poem through which was\nbreathed the spirit of love and service and self-devotion to the good\nand the needs of others. At one or two places where it fitted, the pen\nhad been drawn across a word and Mr. Beecher's name inserted, which\nserved to give it a still more real, vivid, and tender meaning. At the\nbottom this only was written, \"From a poor Hebrew woman to the immortal\nfriend of the Hebrews.\" There was no name, but this was sufficient to\ntell the whole story. Some poor, humble woman, but one out of a mighty\nnumber whom he had at some time befriended or helped or cheered, whose\nburden he had helped to carry, and soon perhaps had forgotten all about\nit. When we remember that this was his life, is it at all necessary to\nseek farther why all the world delights to honor this, another\nroyal-hearted elder brother? and, as we think of this simple, beautiful,\nand touching incident, how true and living becomes the thought in the\nold, old lines!--\n\n    \"Cast thy bread upon the waters, waft it on with praying breath,\n    In some distant, doubtful moment it may save a soul from death.\n    When you sleep in solemn silence, 'neath the morn and evening dew,\n    Stranger hands which you have strengthened may strew lilies over you.\"\n\nOur good friend, Henry Drummond, in one of his most beautiful and\nvaluable little works says--and how admirably and how truly!--that \"love\nis the greatest thing in the world.\" Have you this greatest thing? Yes.\nHow, then, does it manifest itself? In kindliness, in helpfulness, in\nservice, to those around you? If so, well and good, you have it. If not,\nthen I suspect that what you have been calling love is something else;\nand you have indeed been greatly fooled. In fact, I am sure it is; for\nif it does not manifest itself in this way, it cannot be true love, for\nthis is the one grand and never-failing test. Love is the statics,\nhelpfulness and service the dynamics, the former necessary to the\nlatter, but the latter the more powerful, as action is always more\npowerful than potentiality; and, were it not for the dynamics, the\nstatics might as well not be. Helpfulness, kindliness, service, is but\nthe expression of love. It is love in action; and unless love thus\nmanifests itself in action, it is an indication that it is of that weak\nand sickly nature that needs exercise, growth, and development, that it\nmay grow and become strong, healthy, vigorous, and true, instead of\nremaining a little, weak, indefinite, sentimental something or nothing.\n\nIt was but yesterday that I heard one of the world's greatest thinkers\nand speakers, one of our keenest observers of human affairs, state as\nhis opinion that selfishness is the root of all evil. Now, if it is\npossible for any one thing to be the root of all evil, then I think\nthere is a world of truth in the statement. But, leaving out of account\nfor the present purpose whether it is true or not, it certainly is true\nthat he who can't get beyond self robs his life of its chief charms, and\nmore, defeats the very ends he has in view. It is a well-known law in\nthe natural world about us that whatever hasn't use, that whatever\nserves no purpose, shrivels up. So it is a law of our own being that he\nwho makes himself of no use, of no service to the great body of mankind,\nwho is concerned only with his own small self, finds that self, small as\nit is, growing smaller and smaller, and those finer and better and\ngrander qualities of his nature, those that give the chief charm and\nhappiness to life, shrivelling up. Such an one lives, keeps constant\ncompany with his own diminutive and stunted self; while he who,\nforgetting self, makes the object of his life service, helpfulness, and\nkindliness to others, finds his whole nature growing and expanding,\nhimself becoming large-hearted, magnanimous, kind, loving, sympathetic,\njoyous, and happy, his life becoming rich and beautiful. For instead of\nhis own little life alone he has entered into and has part in a hundred,\na thousand, ay, in countless numbers of other lives; and every success,\nevery joy, every happiness coming to each of these comes as such to him,\nfor he has a part in each and all. And thus it is that one becomes a\nprince among men, a queen among women.\n\nWhy, one of the very fundamental principles of life is, so much love, so\nmuch love in return; so much love, so much growth; so much love, so much\npower; so much love, so much life,--strong, healthy, rich, exulting, and\nabounding life. The world is beginning to realize the fact that love,\ninstead of being a mere indefinite something, is a vital and living\nforce, the same as electricity is a force, though perhaps of a different\nnature. The same great fact we are learning in regard to thought,--that\nthoughts are things, that _thoughts are forces, the most vital and\npowerful in the universe_, that they have form and substance and power,\nthe quality of the power determined as it is by the quality of the life\nin whose organism the thoughts are engendered; and so, when a thought is\ngiven birth, it does not end there, but takes form, and as a force it\ngoes out and has its effect upon other minds and lives, the effect being\ndetermined by its intensity and the quality of the prevailing emotions,\nand also by the emotions dominating the person at the time the thoughts\nare engendered and given form.\n\nScience, while demonstrating the great facts it is to-day demonstrating\nin connection with the mind in its relations to and effects upon the\nbody, is also finding from its very laboratory experiments that each\nparticular kind of thought and emotion has its own peculiar qualities,\nand hence its own peculiar effects or influences; and these it is\nclassifying with scientific accuracy. A very general classification in\njust a word would be--those of a higher and those of a lower nature.\n\nSome of the chief ones among those of the lower nature are anger,\nhatred, jealousy, malice, rage. Their effect, especially when violent,\nis to emit a poisonous substance into the system, or rather, to set up a\ncorroding influence which transforms the healthy and life-giving\nsecretions of the body into the poisonous and the destructive. When one,\nfor example, is dominated, even if for but a moment by a passion of\nanger or rage, there is set up in the system what might be justly termed\na bodily thunder-storm, which has the effect of souring or corroding the\nnormal and healthy secretions of the body and making them so that\ninstead of life-giving they become poisonous. This, if indulged in to\nany extent, sooner or later induces the form of disease that this\nparticular state of mind and emotion or passion gives birth to; and it\nin turn becomes chronic.\n\nWe shall ultimately find, as we are beginning to so rapidly to-day, that\npractically all disease has its origin in perverted mental states or\nemotions; that anger, hatred, fear, worry, jealousy, lust, as well as\nall milder forms of perverted mental states and emotions, has each its\nown peculiar poisoning effects and induces each its own peculiar form of\ndisease, for all life is from within out.\n\nThen some of the chief ones belonging to the other class--mental states\nand emotions of the higher nature--are love, sympathy, benevolence,\nkindliness, and good cheer. These are the natural and the normal; and\ntheir effect, when habitually entertained, is to stimulate a vital,\nhealthy, bounding, purifying, and life-giving action, the exact opposite\nof the others; and these very forces, set into a bounding activity, will\nin time counteract and heal the disease-giving effects of their\nopposites. Their effects upon the countenance and features in inducing\nthe highest beauty that can dwell there are also marked and\nall-powerful. So much, then, in regard to the effects of one's thought\nforces upon the self. A word more in regard to their effects upon\nothers.\n\nOur prevailing thought forces determine the mental atmosphere we create\naround us, and all who come within its influence are affected in one way\nor another, according to the quality of that atmosphere; and, though\nthey may not always get the exact thoughts, they nevertheless get the\neffects of the emotions dominating the originator of the thoughts, and\nhence the creator of this particular mental atmosphere, and the more\nsensitively organized the person the more sensitive he or she is to\nthis atmosphere, even at times to getting the exact and very thoughts.\nSo even in this the prophecy is beginning to be fulfilled,--there is\nnothing hid that shall not be revealed.\n\nIf the thought forces sent out by any particular life are those of\nhatred or jealousy or malice or fault-finding or criticism or scorn,\nthese same thought forces are aroused and sent back from others, so that\none is affected not only by reason of the unpleasantness of having such\nthoughts from others, but they also in turn affect one's own mental\nstates, and through these his own bodily conditions, so that, so far as\neven the welfare of self is concerned, the indulgence in thoughts and\nemotions of this nature are most expensive, most detrimental, most\ndestructive.\n\nIf, on the other hand, the thought forces sent out be those of love, of\nsympathy, of kindliness, of cheer and good will, these same forces are\naroused and sent back, so that their pleasant, ennobling, warming, and\nlife-giving effects one feels and is influenced by; and so again, so far\neven as the welfare of self is concerned, there is nothing more\ndesirable, more valuable and life-giving. There comes from others, then,\nexactly what one sends to and hence calls forth from them.\n\n_And would we have all the world love us, we must first then love all\nthe world_,--merely a great scientific fact. Why is it that all people\ninstinctively dislike and shun the little, the mean, the self-centred,\nthe selfish, while all the world instinctively, irresistibly, loves and\nlongs for the company of the great-hearted, the tender-hearted, the\nloving, the magnanimous, the sympathetic, the brave? The mere\nanswer--because--will not satisfy. There is a deep, scientific reason\nfor it, either this or it is not true.\n\nMuch has been said, much written, in regard to what some have been\npleased to call personal magnetism, but which, as is so commonly true in\ncases of this kind, is even to-day but little understood. But to my mind\npersonal magnetism in its true sense, and as distinguished from what may\nbe termed a purely animal magnetism, is nothing more nor less than the\nthought forces sent out by a great-hearted, tender-hearted, magnanimous,\nloving, sympathetic man or woman; for, let me ask, have you ever known\nof any great personal magnetism in the case of the little, the mean, the\nvindictive, the self-centred? Never, I venture to say, but always in the\ncase of the other.\n\nWhy, there is nothing that can stand before this wonderful transmuting\npower of love. So far even as the enemy is concerned, I may not be to\nblame if I have an enemy; but I am to blame if I keep him as such,\nespecially after I know of this wonderful transmuting power. Have I then\nan enemy, I will refuse, absolutely refuse, to recognize him as such;\nand instead of entertaining the thoughts of him that he entertains of\nme, instead of sending him like thought forces, I will send him only\nthoughts of love, of sympathy, of brotherly kindness, and magnanimity.\nBut a short time it will be until he feels these, and is influenced by\nthem. Then in addition I will watch my opportunity, and whenever I can,\nI will even go out of my way to do him some little kindnesses. Before\nthese forces he cannot stand, and by and by I shall find that he who\nto-day is my bitterest enemy is my warmest friend and it may be my\nstaunchest supporter. No, the wise man is he who by that wonderful\nalchemy of love transmutes the enemy into the friend,--transmutes the\nbitterest enemy into the warmest friend and supporter. Certainly this is\nwhat the Master meant when he said: \"Love your enemies, do good to them\nthat hate you and despitefully use you: thou shalt thereby be heaping\ncoals of fire upon their heads.\" Ay, thou shalt melt them: before this\nforce they cannot stand. Thou shalt melt them, and transmute them into\nfriends.\n\n    \"You never can tell what your thoughts will do\n      In bringing you hate or love;\n    For thoughts are things, and their airy wings\n      Are swifter than carrier doves.\n    They follow the law of the universe,--\n      Each thing must create its kind;\n    And they speed o'er the track to bring you back\n      Whatever went out from your mind.\"\n\nYes, science to-day, at the close of this nineteenth century, in the\nlaboratory is discovering and scientifically demonstrating the great,\nimmutable laws upon which the inspired and illuminated ones of all ages\nhave based all their teachings, those who by ordering their lives\naccording to the higher laws of their being get in a moment of time,\nthrough the direct touch of inspiration, what it takes the physical\ninvestigator a whole lifetime or a series of investigators a series of\nlifetimes to discover and demonstrate.\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\nTHE APPLICATION\n\n\n    Are you seeking for greatness, O brother of mine,\n      As the full, fleeting seasons and years glide away?\n    If seeking directly and for self alone,\n      The true and abiding you never can stay.\n    But all self forgetting, know well the law,\n      It's the hero, and not the self-seeker, who's crowned.\n    Then go lose your life in the service of others,\n      And, lo! with rare greatness and glory 'twill abound.\n\nIs it your ambition to become great in any particular field, to attain\nto fame and honor, and thereby to happiness and contentment? Is it your\nambition, for example, to become a great _orator_, to move great masses\nof men, to receive their praise, their plaudits? Then remember that\nthere never has been, there never will, in brief, there never can be a\ntruly great orator without a great _purpose_, a great cause behind him.\nYou may study in all the best schools in the country, the best\nuniversities and the best schools of oratory. You may study until you\nexhaust all these, and then seek the best in other lands. You may study\nthus until your hair is beginning to change its color, but this of\nitself will _never_ make you a great orator. You may become a demagogue,\nand, if self-centred, you inevitably will; for this is exactly what a\ndemagogue is,--a great demagogue, if you please, than which it is hard\nfor one to call to mind a more contemptible animal, and the greater the\nmore contemptible. But without laying hold of and building upon this\ngreat principle you never can become a great orator.\n\nCall to mind the greatest in the world's history, from Demosthenes--Men\nof Athens, march against Philip, your country and your fellow-men will\nbe in early bondage unless you give them your best service now--down to\nour own Phillips and Gough,--Wendell Phillips against the traffic in\nhuman blood, John B. Gough against a slavery among his fellow-men more\nhard and galling and abject than the one just spoken of; for by it the\nbody merely is in bondage, the mind and soul are free, while in this,\nbody, soul, and mind are enslaved. So you can easily discover the great\n_purpose_, the great cause for _service_, behind each and every one.\n\nThe man who can't get beyond himself, his own aggrandizement and\ninterests, must of necessity be small, petty, personal, and at once\nmarks his own limitations; while he whose life is a life of service and\nself-devotion has no limits, for he thus puts himself at once on the\nside of the _Universal_, and this more than all else combined gives a\ntremendous power in oratory. Such a one can mount as on the wings of an\neagle, and Nature herself seems to come forth and give a great soul of\nthis kind means and material whereby to accomplish his purposes, whereby\nthe great universal truths go direct to the minds and hearts of his\nhearers to mould them, to move them; for the orator is he who moulds the\nminds and hearts of his hearers in the great moulds of universal and\neternal truth, and then moves them along a definite line of action, not\nhe who merely speaks pieces to them.\n\nHow thoroughly Webster recognized this great principle is admirably\nshown in that brief but powerful description of eloquence of his; let us\npause to listen to a sentence or two: \"True eloquence indeed does not\nconsist in speech.... Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way,\nbut they cannot compass it.... Affected passion, intense expression, the\npomp of declamation, all may aspire to it; they cannot reach it.... The\ngraces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied\ncontrivances of speech, shock and disgust men when their own lives and\nthe fate of their wives and their children and their country hang on the\ndecision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is\nvain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then\nfeels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then\npatriotism is eloquent, then self-devotion is eloquent. The clear\nconception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the\nfirm resolve, the dauntless spirit speaking on the tongue, beaming from\nthe eye, informing every feature and urging the whole man onward, right\nonward to his object,--this, this is eloquence.\" And note some of the\nchief words he has used,--_self-devotion, patriotism, high purpose_. The\nself-centred man can never know these, and much less can he make use of\nthem.\n\nTrue, things that one may learn, as the freeing of the bodily agents,\nthe developing of the voice, and so on, that all may become the _true\nreporters of the soul_, instead of limiting or binding it down, as is so\nfrequently the case in public speakers,--these are all valuable, ay, are\nvery important and very necessary, unless one is content to live below\nhis highest possibilities, and he is wise who recognizes this tact; but\nthese in themselves are but as trifles when compared to those greater,\nmore powerful, and all-essential qualities.\n\nIs it your ambition to become a great _states man?_ Note the very first\nthing, then, the word itself,--_states-man_, a man who gives his life to\nthe service of the State. And do you not recognize the fact that, when\none says--a man who gives his life to the service of the State, it is\nbut another way of saying--a man who gives his life to the service of\nhis fellow-men; for what, after all, is any country, any State, in the\ntrue sense of the term, but the aggregate, the great body of its\nindividual citizenship. And he who lives for and unto himself, who puts\nthe interests of his own small self before the interests of the\nthousands, can never become a states-man; for a statesman must be a\nlarger man than this.\n\nCall to your mind the greatest of the world, among those living and\namong the so-called dead, and you will quickly see that the life of each\nand every one has been built upon this great principle, and that all\nhave been great and are held as such in just the degree in which it has\nbeen. Two of the greatest among Americans, both passed away, would\nto-day and even more as time goes on, be counted still greater, had they\nbeen a little larger in one aspect of their natures,--large enough to\nhave recognized to its fullest extent the eternal truth and importance\nof this great principle, and had they given the time to the service of\ntheir fellow-men that was spent in desiring the Presidency and in all\ntoo plainly making it known. Having gained it could have made them no\ngreater, and having so plainly shown their eager and childish desire for\nit has made them less great. Of the many thousands of men who have been\nin our American Congress since its beginning, and of the very, very\nsmall number comparatively that you are able to call to mind, possibly\nnot over fifty, which would be about one out of every six hundred or\nmore, you will find that you are able to call to mind each one of this\nvery small number on account of his standing for some measure or\nprinciple that would to the highest degree increase the human welfare,\nthus truly fulfilling the great office of a _statesman_.\n\nThe one great trouble with our country to-day is that we have but few\nstatesmen. We have a great swarm, a great hoard of politicians; but it\nis only now and then that we find a man who is large enough truly to\ndeserve the name--statesman. The large majority in public life to-day\nare there not for the purpose of serving the best interests of those\nwhom they are supposed to represent, but they are there purely for self,\npurely for self-aggrandizement in this form or in that, as the case may\nbe.\n\nEspecially do we find this true in our municipalities. In some, the\ngovernment instead of being in the hands of those who would make it such\nin truth, those who would make it serve the interests it is designed to\nserve, it is in the hands of those who are there purely for self, little\nwhelps, those who will resort to any means to secure their ends, at\ntimes even to honorable means, should they seem to serve best the\nparticular purpose in hand. We have but to look around us to see that\nthis is true. The miserable, filthy, and deplorable condition of affairs\nthe Lexow Committee in its investigations not so long ago laid bare to\npublic gaze had its root in what? In the fact that the offices in that\ngreat municipality have been and are filled by men who are there to\nserve in the highest degree the public welfare or by men who are there\npurely for self-aggrandizement? But let us pass on. This degraded\ncondition of affairs exists not only in this great city, but there are\nscarcely any that are free from it entirely. Matters are not always to\ncontinue thus, however. The American people will learn by and by what\nthey ought fully to realize to-day--that the moment the honest people,\nthe citizens, in distinction from the barnacles, mass themselves and\nstay massed, the notorious, filthy political rings cannot stand before\nthem for a period of even twenty-four hours. _The right, the good, the\ntrue, is all-powerful, and will inevitably conquer sooner or later when\nbrought to the front._ Such is the history of civilization.\n\nLet our public offices--municipal, state, and federal--be filled with\nmen who are in love with the human kind, large men, men whose lives are\nfounded upon this great law of service, and we will then have them\nfilled with statesmen. Never let this glorious word be disgraced,\ndegraded, by applying it to the little, self-centred whelps who are\nunable to get beyond the politician stage. Then enter public life; but\nenter it as a man, not as a barnacle: enter it as a statesman, not as a\npolitician.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it your ambition to become a great _preacher_, or better yet, with\nthe same meaning, a great _teacher?_ Then remember that the greatest of\nthe world have been those who have given themselves in thorough\nself-devotion and service to their fellow-men, who have given themselves\nso thoroughly to all they have come in contact with that there has been\nno room for self. They have not been seekers after fame, or men who have\nthought so much of their own particular dogmatic ways of thinking as to\nspend the greater part of their time in discussing dogma, creed,\ntheology, in order, as is so generally true in cases of this kind, to\nprove that the _ego_ you see before you is right in his particular ways\nof thinking, and that his chief ambition is to have this fact clearly\nunderstood,--an abomination, I verily believe, in the sight of God\nhimself, whose children in the mean time are starving, are dying for the\nbread of life, and an abomination I am sure, in the sight of the great\nmajority of mankind. Let us be thankful, however, for mankind is finding\nless use for such year by year, and the time will soon come when they\nwill scarcely be tolerated at all.\n\nIt is to a very great extent on account of men of this kind, especially\nin the early history, that the true spirit of religion, of Christianity,\nhas been lost sight of in the mere form. The basket in which it has\nbeen deemed necessary to carry it has been held as of greater import\nthan the rare and divinely beautiful fruit itself. The true spirit, that\nthat quickeneth and giveth life and power, has had its place taken by\nthe mere letter, that that alone blighteth and killeth. Instead of\nrunning after these finely spun, man-made theories, this stuff,--for\nstuff is the word,--this that we outgrow once every few years in our\nmarch onward and upward, and then stand and laugh as we look back to\nthink that such ideas have ever been held, instead of this, thinking\nthat thus you will gain power, act the part of the wise man, and go each\nday into the _silence_, there commune with the Infinite, there dwell for\na season with the Infinite Spirit of all life, of all power; for you can\nget _true power_ in no other way.\n\nInstead of running about here and there to have your cup filled at these\nlittle stagnant pools, dried up as they generally are by the continual\nrays of a constantly shining egoistic sun, go direct to the great\nfountain-head, and there drink of the water of life that is poured out\nfreely to every one if he will but go there for it. One can't, however,\nsend and have it brought by another.\n\nGo, then, into the _silence_, even if it be but for a short period,--a\nperiod of not more than a quarter or a half-hour a day,--and there come\ninto contact with the Great Source of all life, of all power. _Send out\nyour earnest desires for whatsoever you will; and whatsoever you will,\nif continually watered by expectation, will sooner or later come to\nyou_. All knowledge, all truth, all power, all wisdom, all things\nwhatsoever, are yours, if you will but go in this way for them. It has\nbeen tried times without number, and has never yet once failed where the\nmotives have been high, where the knowledge of the results beforehand\nhas been sufficiently great. Within a fortnight you can know the truth\nof this for yourself if you will but go in the right way.\n\nAll the truly great teachers in the world's history have gotten their\npowers in this way. You remember the great soul who left us not long\nago, he who ministered so faithfully at Trinity, the great preacher of\nsuch wonderful powers, the one so truly inspired. It was but an evening\nor two since, when in conversation with a member of his congregation, we\nwere talking in regard to Phillips Brooks. She was telling of his\nbeautiful and powerful spirit and said that they were all continually\nconscious of the fact that he had a power they hadn't, but that all\nlonged for; that he seemed to have a great secret of power they hadn't,\nbut that they often tried to find. She continued, and in the very next\nsentence went on to tell of a fact,--one that I knew full well,--the\nfact that during a certain period of each day he took himself alone into\na little, silent room, he fastened the door behind him, and during this\nperiod under no circumstances could he be seen by any one. The dear lady\nknew these two things, she knew and was influenced by his great soul\npower, she also knew of his going thus into the silence each day; but,\nbless her heart, it had never once occurred to her to put the two\ntogether.\n\nIt is in this way that great soul power is grown; and the men of this\ngreat power are the men who move the world, the men who do the great\nwork in the world along all lines, and against whom no man, no power,\ncan stand. Call to mind a number of the world's greatest preachers, or,\nusing again the better term, teachers, and bear in mind I do not mean\ncreed, dogma, form, but religious teachers,--and the one class differs\nfrom the other even as the night from the day,--and you will find two\ngreat facts in the life of each and all,--great soul power, grown\nchiefly by much time spent in the silence, and the fact that the life of\neach has been built upon this one great and all-powerful principle of\nlove, service, and helpfulness for all mankind.\n\nIs it your ambition to become a great _writer?_ Very good. But remember\nthat unless you have something to give to the world, something you feel\nmankind must have, something that will aid them in their march upward\nand onward, unless you have some service of this kind to render, then\nyou had better be wise, and not take up the pen; for, if your object in\nwriting is merely fame or money, the number of your readers may be\nexceedingly small, possibly a few score or even a few dozen may be a\nlarge estimate.\n\nWhat an author writes is, after all, the sum total of his life, his\nhabits, his characteristics, his experiences, his purposes. _He never\ncan write more than he himself is_. He can never pass beyond his\nlimitations; and unless he have a purpose higher than writing merely for\nfame or self-aggrandizement, he thereby marks his own limitations, and\nwhat he seeks will never come. While he who writes for the world,\nbecause he feels he has something that it needs and that will be a help\nto mankind, if it _is_ something it needs, other things being equal,\nthat which the other man seeks for directly, and so never finds, will\ncome to him in all its fulness. This is the way it comes, and this way\nonly. _Mankind cares nothing for you until you have shown that you care\nfor mankind._\n\nNote this statement from the letter of a now well-known writer, one\nwhose very first book met with instant success, and that has been\nfollowed by others all similarly received. She says, \"I never thought of\nwriting until two years and a half ago, when, in order to disburden my\nmind of certain thoughts that clamored for utterance, I produced,\" etc.\nIn the light of this we cannot wonder at the remarkable success of her\nvery first and all succeeding books. She had something she felt the\nworld needed and must have; and, with no thought of self, of fame, or of\nmoney, she gave it. The world agreed with her; and, as she was large\nenough to seek for neither, it has given her both.\n\nNote this also: \"I write for the love of writing, not for money or\nreputation. The former I have without exertion, the latter is not worth\na pin's point in the general economy of the vast universe. Work done for\nthe love of working brings its own reward far more quickly and surely\nthan work done for mere payment.\" This is but the formulated statement\nof what all the world's greatest writers and authors have said or would\nsay,--at least so far as I have come in contact with their opinions in\nregard to it.\n\nSo, unless you are large enough to forget self for the good, for the\nservice of mankind, thus putting yourself on the side of the universal\nand making it possible for you to give something that will in turn of\nitself bring fame, you had better be wise, and not lift the pen at all;\nfor what you write will not be taken up, or, if it is, will soon be let\nfall again.\n\nOne of our most charming and most noted American authors says in regard\nto her writing, \"I press my soul upon the white paper\"; and let me tell\nyou the reason it in turn makes its impression upon so many thousands of\nother souls is because hers is so large, so tender, so sympathetic, so\nloving, that others cannot resist the impression, living as she does not\nfor self, but for the service of others, her own life thus having a part\nin countless numbers of other lives.\n\nIt is only that that comes from the heart that can reach the heart.\nTake from their shelves the most noted, the greatest works in any\nlibrary, and you will find that their authors have made them what they\nare not by a study of the rules and principles of rhetoric, for this of\nitself never has made and never can make a great writer. They are what\nthey are because the author's very soul has been fired by some great\ntruth or fact that the world has needed, that has been a help to\nmankind. Large souls they have been, souls in love with all the human\nkind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it your ambition to become a great _actor?_ Then remember that if you\nmake it the object of your life to play to influence the hearts, the\nlives, and so the destinies of men, this same great law of nature that\noperates in the case of the orator will come to your assistance, will\naid you in your growth and development, and will enable you to attain to\nheights you could never attain to or even dream of, in case you play for\nthe little _ego_ you otherwise would stand for. In the latter case you\nmay succeed in making a third or a fourth rate actor, possibly a second\nrate; but you can never become one of the world's greatest, and the\nchances are you may succeed in making not even a livelihood, and thus\nhave your wonderment satisfied why so many who try fail.\n\nIn the other case, other things being equal, the height you may attain\nto is unbounded, depending upon the degree you are able to forget\nyourself in influencing the minds and the souls, and thus the lives and\nthe destinies of men.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it your ambition to become a great _singer?_ Then remember that if\nyour thought is only of self, you may never sing at all, unless, indeed,\nyou enjoy singing to yourself,--this, or you will be continually anxious\nas to the size of your audience. If, on the other hand, you choose this\nfield of work because here you can be of the greatest service to\nmankind, if your ambition is to sing to the hearts and the lives of men,\nthen this same great law of nature will come to assist you in your\ngrowth and development and efforts, and other things being equal,\ninstead of singing to yourself or being anxious as to the size of your\naudience, you will seldom find time for the first, and your anxiety will\nbe as to whether the place has an audience-chamber large enough to\naccommodate even a small portion of the people who will seek\nadmittance. You remember Jenny Lind.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it your ambition to become a _fashionable society woman_, this and\nnothing more, intent only upon your own pleasure and satisfaction? Then\nstop and meditate, if only for a moment; for if this is the case, you\nnever will, ay, you never can find the true and the genuine, for you\nfail to recognize the great law that there is no such thing as finding\ntrue happiness by searching for it _directly_, and the farther on you go\nthe more flimsy and shallow and unsatisfying that imitation you are\nwilling to accept for the genuine will become. You will thereby rob life\nof its chief charms, defeat the very purpose you have in view. And,\nwhile you are at this moment meditating, oh grasp the truth of the great\nlaw that you will find your own life only in losing it in the service of\nothers,--that the more of your life you so give, the fuller and the\nricher, the greater and the grander, the more beautiful and the more\nhappy your own life will become.\n\nAnd with your abundant means and opportunities build your life upon this\ngreat law of service, and experience the pleasure of growing into that\nfull, rich, ever increasing and satisfying life that will result, and\nthat will make you better known, more honored and blessed, than the life\nof any mere society woman can be, or any life, for that matter; for you\nare thus living a life the highest this world can know. And you will\nthus hasten the day when, standing and looking back and seeing the\nemptiness and the littleness of the other life as compared with this,\nyou will bless the time that your better judgment prevailed and saved\nyou from it. Or, if you chance to be in it already, delay not, but\ncommence now to build upon this true foundation.\n\nInstead of discharging your footman, as did a woman of whom I chance to\nknow, because he finally refused to stand in the rain by the side of her\ncarriage, with his arms folded just so, standing immovable like a mummy\n(I had almost said like a fool), daring to look neither to one side nor\nthe other, but all the time in the direction of her so-called ladyship,\nwhile she spent an hour or two in doing fifteen or twenty minutes'\nshopping in her desire to make it known that this is Mrs. Q.'s carriage,\nand this is the footman that goes with it,--instead of doing this, give\nhim an umbrella if necessary, and take him to aid you as you go on your\nerrands of mercy and cheer and service and loving kindness to the\ninnumerable ones all about you who so stand in need of them.\n\nIs there any comparison between the appellation \"Lady Bountiful\" and \"a\nproud, selfish, pleasure-seeking woman\"? And, much more, do you think\nthere is any comparison whatever between the real pleasure and happiness\nand satisfaction in the lives of the two?\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIs it the ambition of your life to _accumulate great wealth_, and thus\nto acquire a great name, and along with it happiness and satisfaction?\nThen remember that whether these will come to you will depend _entirely_\nupon the use and disposition you make of your wealth. If you regard it\nas a _private trust_ to be used for the highest good of mankind, then\nwell and good, these will come to you. If your object, however, is to\npile it up, to hoard it, then neither will come; and you will find it a\nlife as unsatisfactory as one can live.\n\nThere is, there can be, no greatness in things, in material things, of\nthemselves. The greatness is determined entirely by the use and\ndisposition made of them. The greatest greatness and the only _true_\ngreatness in the world is unselfish love and service and self-devotion\nto one's fellow-men.\n\nLook at the matter carefully, and tell me candidly if there can be\nanything more foolish than a man's spending all the days of his life\npiling up and hoarding money, too mean and too stingy to use any but\nwhat is absolutely necessary, accumulating many times more than he can\npossibly ever use, always eager for more, growing still more eager and\ngrasping the nearer he comes to life's end, then lying down, dying, and\nleaving it. It seems to me about as sensible for a man to have as the\ngreat aim and ambition of life the piling up of an immense pile of old\niron in the middle of a large field, and sitting on it day after day\nbecause he is so wedded to it that it has become a part of his life and\nlest a fragment disappear, denying himself and those around him many of\nthe things that go to make life valuable and pleasant, and finally dying\nthere, himself, the soul, so dwarfed and so stunted that he has really a\nhard time to make his way out of the miserable old body. There is not\nsuch a great difference, if you will think of it carefully,--one a pile\nof old iron, the other a pile of gold or silver, but all belonging to\nthe same general class.\n\nIt is a great law of our being that we become like those things we\ncontemplate. If we contemplate those that are true and noble and\nelevating, we grow in the likeness of these. If we contemplate merely\nmaterial things, as gold or silver or copper or iron, our souls, our\nnatures, and even our faces become like them, hard and flinty, robbed of\ntheir finer and better and grander qualities. Call to mind the person or\npicture of the miser, and you will quickly see that this is true. Merely\nnature's great law. He thought he was going to be a master: he finds\nhimself the slave. Instead of possessing his wealth, his wealth\npossesses him. How often have I seen persons of nearly or quite this\nkind! Some can be found almost anywhere. You can call to mind a few,\nperhaps many.\n\nDuring the past two or three years two well-known millionaires in the\nUnited States, millionaires many times over, have died. The one started\ninto life with the idea of acquiring a great name by accumulating great\nwealth. These two things he had in mind,--self and great wealth. And, as\nhe went on, he gradually became so that he could see nothing but these.\nThe greed for gain soon made him more and more the slave; and he,\nknowing nothing other than obedience to his master, piled and\naccumulated and hoarded, and after spending all his days thus, he then\nlay down and died, taking not so much as one poor little penny with him,\nonly a soul dwarfed compared to what it otherwise might have been. For\nit might have been the soul of a royal master instead of that of an\nabject slave.\n\nThe papers noted his death with seldom even a single word of praise. It\nwas regretted by few, and he was mourned by still fewer. And even at his\ndeath he was spoken of by thousands in words far from complimentary, all\nuniting in saying what he might have been and done, what a tremendous\npower for good, how he might have been loved and honored during his\nlife, and at death mourned and blessed by the entire nation, the entire\nworld. A pitiable sight, indeed, to see a human mind, a human soul, thus\nvoluntarily enslave itself for a few temporary pieces of metal.\n\nThe other started into life with the principle that a man's success is\nto be measured by his _direct usefulness_ to his fellow-men, to the\nworld in which he lives, and by this alone; that private wealth is\nmerely a _private trust_ to be used for the highest good of mankind.\nUnder the benign influences of this mighty principle of service, we see\nhim great, influential, wealthy; his whole nature expanding, himself\ngrowing large-hearted, generous, magnanimous, serving his State, his\ncountry, his fellow-men, writing his name on the hearts of all he comes\nin contact with, so that his name is never thought of by them without\nfeelings of gratitude and praise.\n\nThen as the chief service to his fellow-men, next to his own personal\ninfluence and example, he uses his vast fortune, this vast private\ntrust, for the founding and endowing of a great institution of learning,\nusing his splendid business capacities in its organization, having\nuppermost in mind in its building that young men and young women may\nthere have every advantage at the least possible expense to fit\nthemselves in turn for the greatest _direct usefulness_ to their\nfellow-men while they live in the world.\n\nIn the midst of these activities the news comes of his death. Many\nhearts now are sad. The true, large-hearted, sympathizing friend, the\nservant of rich and poor alike, has gone away. Countless numbers whom he\nhas befriended, encouraged, helped, and served, bless his name, and give\nthanks that such a life has been lived. His own great State rises up as\nhis pall-bearers, while the entire nation acts as honorary pall-bearers.\nWho can estimate the influence of a life such as this? But it cannot be\nestimated; for it will flow from the ones personally influenced to\nothers, and through them to others throughout eternity. He alone who in\nHis righteous balance weighs each human act can estimate it. And his\nfinal munificent gift to mankind will make his name remembered and\nhonored and blessed long after the accumulations of mere plutocrats are\nscattered and mankind forgets that they have ever lived.\n\nThen have as your object the accumulation of great wealth if you choose;\nbut bear in mind that, unless you are able to get beyond self, it will\nmake you not great, but small, and you will rob life of the finer and\nbetter things in it. If, on the other hand, you are guided by the\nprinciple that private wealth is but a _private trust_, and that _direct\nusefulness_ or service to mankind is the only real measure of true\ngreatness, and bring your life into harmony with it, then you will\nbecome and will be counted great; and with it will come that rich joy\nand happiness and satisfaction that always accompanies a life of true\nservice, and therefore the best and truest life.\n\nOne can never afford to forget that personality, life, and character,\nthat there may be the greatest service, are the chief things, and wealth\nmerely the _incident_. Nor can one afford to be among those who are too\nmean, too small, or too stingy to invest in anything that will grow and\nincrease these.\n\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\nTHE UNFOLDMENT\n\n\n    If you'd have a rare growth and unfoldment supreme,\n       And make life one long joy and contentment complete,\n    Then with kindliness, love, and good will let it teem,\n       And with service for all make it fully replete.\n\n    If you'd have all the world and all heaven to love you,\n       And that love with its power would you fully convince,\n    Then love all the world; and men royal and true,\n       Will make cry as you pass--\"God bless him, the prince!\"\n\n\nOne beautiful feature of this principle of love and service is that this\nphase of one's personality, or nature, can be grown. I have heard it\nasked, If one hasn't it to any marked degree naturally, what is to be\ndone? In reply let it be said, Forget self, get out of it for a little\nwhile, and, as it comes in your way, do something for some one, some\nkind service, some loving favor, it makes no difference how _small_ it\nmay appear. But a kind look or word to one weary with care, from whose\nlife all worth living for seems to have gone out; a helping hand or\nlittle lift to one almost discouraged,--it may be that this is just the\ncritical moment, a helping hand just now may change a life or a destiny.\nShow yourself a friend to one who thinks he or she is friendless.\n\nOh, there are a thousand opportunities each day right where you\nare,--not the great things far away, but the little things right at\nhand. With a heart full of love do something: experience the rich\nreturns that will come to you, and it will be unnecessary to urge a\nrepetition or a continuance. The next time it will be easier and more\nnatural, and the next. You know of that wonderful reflex-nerve system\nyou have in your body,--that which says that whenever you do a certain\nthing in a certain way, it is easier to do the same thing the next time,\nand the next, and the next, until presently it is done with scarcely any\neffort on your part at all, it has become your second nature. And thus\nwe have what? Habit. This is the way that all habit is, the way that all\nhabit must be formed. And have you ever fully realized that _life is,\nafter all, merely a series of habits_, and that it lies entirely within\none's own power to determine just what that series shall be?\n\nI have seen this great principle made the foundation principle in an\ninstitution of learning. It is made not a theory merely as I have seen\nit here and there, but a vital, living truth. And I wish I had time to\ntell of its wonderful and beautiful influences upon the life and work of\nthat institution, and upon the lives and the work of those who go out\nfrom it. A joy indeed to be there. One can't enter within its walls even\nfor a few moments without feeling its benign influences. One can't go\nout without taking them with him. I have seen purposes and lives almost\nor quite transformed; and life so rich, so beautiful, and so valuable\nopened up, such as the persons never dreamed could be, by being but a\nsingle year under these beautiful and life-giving influences.\n\nI have also seen it made the foundation principle of a great summer\ncongress, one that has already done an unprecedented work, one that has\na far greater work yet before it, and chiefly by reason of this\nall-powerful foundation upon which it is built,--conceived and put into\noperation as it was by a rare and highly illumined soul, one thoroughly\nfilled with the love of service for all the human kind. There are no\nthoughts of money returns, for everything it has to give is as free as\nthe beautiful atmosphere that pervades it. The result is that there is\ndrawn together, by way of its magnificent corps of lectures as well as\nthose in attendance, a company of people of the rarest type, so that\neverywhere there is a manifestation of that spirit of love, helpfulness,\nand kindliness, that permeates the entire atmosphere with a deep feeling\nof peace, that makes every moment of life a joy.\n\nSo enchanting does this spirit make the place that very frequently the\nsingle day of some who have come for this length of time has lengthened\nitself into a week, and the week in turn into a month; and the single\nweek of others has frequently lengthened itself, first into a month,\nthen into the entire summer. There is nothing at all strange in this\nfact, however; for wherever one finds sweet humanity, he there finds a\nspot where all people love to dwell.\n\nMaking this the fundamental principle of one's life, around which all\nothers properly arrange and subordinate themselves, is not, as a casual\nobserver might think, and as he sometimes suggests, an argument against\none's own growth and development, against the highest possible\nunfoldment of his entire personality and powers. Rather, on the other\nhand, is it one of the greatest reasons, one of the greatest arguments,\nin its favor; for, the stronger the personality and the greater the\npowers, the greater the influence in the service of mankind. If, then,\nlife be thus founded, can there possibly be any greater incentive to\nthat self-development that brings one up to his highest possibilities? A\ndevelopment merely for self alone can never have behind it an incentive,\na power so great; _and after all, there is nothing in the world so\ngreat, so effective in the service of mankind, as a strong, noble, and\nbeautiful manhood or womanhood_. It is this that in the ultimate\ndetermines the influence of every man upon his fellow-men. _Life,\ncharacter, is the greatest power in the world, and character it is that\ngives the power; for in all true power, along whatever line it may be,\nit is after all, living the life that tells_. This is a great law that\nbut few who would have great power and influence seem to recognize, or,\nat least, that but few seem to act upon.\n\nAre you a writer? You can never write more than you yourself are. Would\nyou write more? Then broaden, deepen, enrich the life. Are you a\nminister? You can never raise men higher than you have raised yourself.\nYour words will have exactly the sound of the life whence they come.\nHollow the life? Hollow-sounding and empty will be the words, weak,\nineffective, false. Would you have them go with greater power, and thus\nbe more effective? Live the life, the power will come. Are you an\norator? The power and effectiveness of your words in influencing and\nmoving masses of men depends entirely upon the altitude from which they\nare spoken. Would you have them more effective, each one filled with a\nliving power? Then elevate the life, the power will come. Are you in the\nwalks of private life? Then, wherever you move, there goes from you,\neven if there be no word spoken, a silent but effective influence of an\nelevating or a degrading nature. Is the life high, beautiful? Then the\ninfluences are inspiring, life-giving. Is it low, devoid of beauty? The\ninfluences then, are disease laden, death-dealing. The tones of your\nvoice, the attitude of your body, the character of your face, all are\ndetermined by the life you live, all in turn influence for better or for\nworse all who come within your radius. And if, as one of earth's great\nsouls has said, the only way truly to help a man is to make him better,\nthen the tremendous power of merely the life itself.\n\nWhy, I know personally a young man of splendid qualities and gifts, who\nwas rapidly on the way of ruin, as the term goes, gradually losing\ncontrol of himself day after day, self-respect almost gone,--already the\nthought of taking his own life had entered his mind,--who was so\ninspired with the mere presence and bearing of a royal-hearted young\nman, one who had complete mastery of himself, and therefore a young man\nof power, that the very sight of him as he went to and fro in his daily\nwork was a power that called his better self to the front again,\nawakened the God nature within him, so that he again set his face in the\ndirection of the right, the true, the manly; and to-day there is no\ngrander, stronger, more beautiful soul in all the wide country than he.\nYes, there is a powerful influence that resolves itself into a service\nfor all in each individual strong, pure, and noble life.\n\nAnd have the wonderful possibilities of what may be termed an inner or\nsoul development ever come strongly to your notice? Perhaps not, for as\nyet only a few have begun to recognize under this name a certain great\npower that has always existed,--a power that has never as yet been fully\nunderstood, and so has been called by this term and by that. It is\npossible so to develop this soul power that, as we stand merely and talk\nwith a person, there goes out from us a silent influence that the person\ncannot see or hear, but that he feels, and the influences of which he\ncannot escape; that, as we merely go into a room in which several\npersons are sitting, there goes out from us a power, a silent influence\nthat all will feel and will be influenced by, even though not a word be\nspoken. This has been the power of every man, of every woman, of great\nand lasting influence in the world's history.\n\nIt is just beginning to come to us through a few highly illumined souls\nthat this power can be grown, that it rests upon great natural law that\nthe Author of our being has instituted within us and about us. It is\nduring the next few years that we are to see many wonderful developments\nalong this line; for in this, as in many others, the light is just\nbeginning to break. A few, who are far up on the heights of human\ndevelopment, are just beginning to catch the first few faint flushes of\nthe dawn. Then live to your highest. This of itself will make you of\ngreat service to mankind, but without this you never can be. Naught is\nthe difference how hard you may try; and know, even so far as your own\nhighest interests are concerned, that the true joy of existence comes\nfrom living to one's highest.\n\nThis life, and this alone, will bring that which I believe to be one of\nthe greatest characteristics of a truly great man,--humility; and when\none says humility, he necessarily implies simplicity; for the two always\ngo hand in hand. The one is born of the other. The proud, the vain, the\nhaughty, those striving for effect, are never counted among the world's\ngreatest personages. The very fact of one's striving for effect of\nitself indicates that there is not enough in him to make him really\ngreat; while he who really is so needs never concern himself about it,\nnor does he ever. I can think of no better way for one to attain to\nhumility and simplicity than for him to have his mind off of self in the\nservice of others. Vanity, that most dangerous quality, and especially\nfor young people, is the outcome of one's always regarding self.\n\nMrs. Henry Ward Beecher once said that, when they lived in the part of\nBrooklyn known as the Heights, they could always tell when Mr. Beecher\nwas coming in the evening from the voices and the joyous laughter of the\nchildren. All the street urchins, as well as the more well-to-do\nchildren in the vicinity, knew him, and would often wait for his coming.\nWhen they saw him in the distance, they would run and gather around him,\nget hold of his hands, into those large overcoat pockets for the nuts\nand the good things he so often filled them with before starting for\nhome, knowing as he did full well what was coming, tug at him to keep\nhim with them as long as they could, he all the time laughing or running\nas if to get away, never too great--ay, rather let us say, great\nenough--to join with them in their sports.\n\nThat mysterious dignity of a man less great, therefore with less of\nhumility and simplicity, with mind always intent upon self and his own\nstanding, would have told him that possibly this might not be just the\n\"proper thing\" to do. But even the children, street urchins as well as\nthose well-to-do, found in this great loving soul a friend. Recall\nsimilar incidents in the almost daily life of Lincoln and in the lives\nof all truly great men. All have that beautiful and ever-powerful\ncharacteristic, that simple, childlike nature.\n\nAnother most beautiful and valuable feature of this life is its effect\nupon one's own growth and development. There is a law which says that\none can't do a kind act or a loving service for another without its\nbringing rich returns to his own life and growth. This is an invariable\nlaw. Can I then, do a kind act or a loving service for a brother or a\nsister,--and all indeed are such because children of the same\nFather,--why, I should be glad--ay, doubly glad of the opportunity. If I\ndo it thus out of love, forgetful of self, for aught I know it may do me\nmore good than the one I do it for, in its influence upon the growing of\nthat rich, beautiful, and happy life it is mine to grow; though the joy\nand satisfaction resulting from it, the highest, the sweetest, the\nkeenest this life can know, are of themselves abundant rewards.\n\nIn addition to all this it scarcely ever fails that those who are thus\naided by some loving service may be in a position somehow, some-when,\nsomewhere, either directly or indirectly, and at a time when it may be\nmost needed or most highly appreciated, to do in turn a kind service for\nhim who, with never a thought of any possible return, has dealt kindly\nwith them. So\n\n    \"Cast your bread upon the waters, far and wide your treasures strew,\n    Scatter it with willing fingers, shout for joy to see it go!\n    You may think it lost forever; but, as sure as God is true,\n    In this life and in the other it will yet return to you.\"\n\nHave you sorrows or trials that seem very heavy to bear? Then let me\ntell you that one of the best ways in the world to lighten and sweeten\nthem is to lose yourself in the service of others, in helping to bear\nand lighten those of a fellow-being whose, perchance, are much more\ngrievous than your own. It is a great law of your being which says you\ncan do this. Try it, and experience the truth for yourself, and know\nthat, when turned in this way, sorrow is the most beautiful soul-refiner\nof which the world knows, and hence not to be shunned, but to be\nwelcomed and rightly turned.\n\nThere comes to my mind a poor widow woman whose life would seem to have\nnothing in it to make it happy, but, on the other hand, cheerless and\ntiresome, and whose work would have been very hard, had it not been for\na little crippled child she dearly loved and cared for, and who was all\nthe more precious to her on account of its helplessness. Losing herself\nand forgetting her own hard lot in the care of the little cripple, her\nwhole life was made cheerful and happy, and her work not hard, but easy,\nbecause lightened by love and service for another. And this is but one\nof innumerable cases of this kind.\n\nSo you may turn your sorrows, you may lighten your burdens, by helping\nbear the burdens, if not of a crippled child, then of a brother or a\nsister who in another sense may be crippled, or who may become so but\nfor your timely service. You can find them all about you: never pass one\nby.\n\nBy building upon this principle, the poor may thus live as grandly and\nas happily as the rich, those in humble and lowly walks of life as\ngrandly and as happily as those in what seem to be more exalted\nstations. Recognizing the truth, as we certainly must by this time, that\none is _truly_ great only in so far as this is made the fundamental\nprinciple of his life, it becomes evident that that longing for\ngreatness for its and for one's own sake falls away, and none but a\ndiseased mind cares for it; for no sooner is it grasped than, as a\nbubble, it bursts, because it is not the true, the permanent, but the\nfalse, the transient. On the other hand, he who forgetting self and this\nkind of greatness, falsely so called, in the service of his fellow-men,\nby this very fact puts himself on the right track, the only track for\nthe true, the genuine; and in what degree it will come to him depends\nentirely upon his adherence to the law.\n\nAnd do you know the influence of this life in the moulding of the\nfeatures, that it gives the highest beauty that can dwell there, the\nbeauty that comes from within,--the _soul beauty_, so often found in the\npaintings of the old masters. _True beauty must come, must be grown,\nfrom, within_. That outward veneering, which is so prevalent, can never\nbe even a poor imitation of this type of the true, the genuine. To\nappreciate fully the truth of this, it is but necessary to look for a\nmoment at that beautiful picture by Sant, the \"Soul's Awakening,\" a face\nthat grows more beautiful each time one looks at it, and that one never\ntires of looking at, and compare with it the fractional parts of\napothecary shops we see now and then--or so often, to speak more\ntruly--on the streets. A face of this higher type carries with it a\nbenediction wherever it goes.\n\nA beautiful little incident came to my notice not long ago. It was a\nvery hot and dusty day. The passengers on the train were weary and\ntired. The time seemed long and the journey cheerless. A lady with a\nface that carries a benediction to all who see her entered the car with\na little girl, also of that type of beauty that comes from within, and\nwith a voice musical, sweet, and sparkling, such as also comes from this\nsource.\n\nThe child, when they were seated, had no sooner spoken a few words\nbefore she began to enlist the attention of her fellow-passengers. She\nbegan playing peek-a-boo with a staid and dignified old gentleman in the\nseat behind her. He at first looked at her over his spectacles, then\nlowered his paper a little, then a little more, and a little more.\nFinally, he dropped it altogether, and, apparently forgetting himself\nand his surroundings, became oblivious to everything in the fascinating\npleasure he was having with the little girl. The other passengers soon\nfound themselves following his example. All papers and books were\ndropped. The younger folks gave way to joyous laughter, and all seemed\nto vie with each other in having the honor of receiving a word or a\nsmile from the little one.\n\nThe dust, the heat, the tired, cheerless feelings were all forgotten;\nand when these two left the car, the little girl waving them good-by,\ninstinctively, as one person, all the passengers waved it to her in\nreturn, and two otherwise dignified gentlemen, leaving their seats,\npassed over to the other side, and looked out of the window to see her\nas long as they could. Something as an electrical spark seemed to have\npassed through the car. All were light-hearted and happy now; and the\nconditions in the car, compared to what they were before these two\nentered, would rival the work of the stereopticon, so far as\ncompleteness of change is concerned. You have seen such faces and have\nheard such voices. They result from a life the kind we are considering.\nThey are but its outward manifestations, spontaneous as the water from\nthe earth as it bursts forth a natural fountain.\n\nWe must not fail also to notice the effect of this life upon one's\nmanners and bearing. True politeness comes from a life founded upon this\ngreat principle, and from this alone. This gives the true\ngentleman,--_gentle-man_,--a man gentle, kind, loving, courteous from\nnature. Such a one can't have anything but true politeness, can't be\nanything but a gentle-man; for one can't truly be anything but himself.\nSo the one always intent upon and thinking of self cannot be the true\ngentleman, notwithstanding the artful contrivances and studied efforts\nto appear so, but which so generally reveal his own shallowness and\nartificiality, and disgust all with whom he comes in contact.\n\nI sometimes meet a person who, when introduced, will go through a series\nof stiff, cold, and angular movements, the knee at such a bend, the foot\nat such an angle, the back with such a bend or hump,--much less pleasant\nto see than that of a camel or a dromedary, for with these it is\nnatural,--so that I have found myself almost thinking, Poor fellow, I\nwonder what the trouble is, whether he will get over it all right. It is\nso very evident that he all the time has his mind upon himself,\nwondering whether or not he is getting everything just right. What a\nrelief to turn from such a one to one who, instead of thinking always of\nself, has continually in mind the ease and comfort and pleasure he can\ngive to others, who, in other words, is the true _gentle-man_, and with\nwhom true politeness is natural; for one's every act is born of his\nthoughts.\n\nIt is said that there was no truer gentleman in all Scotland than Robert\nBurns. And yet he was a farmer all his life, and had never been away\nfrom his native little rural village into a city until near the close of\nhis life, when, taking the manuscripts that for some time had been\naccumulating in the drawer of his writing-table up to Edinburgh, he\ncaptivated the hearts of all in the capital. Without studied\ncontrivances, he was the true gentleman, and true politeness was his,\nbecause his life was founded upon the principle that continually brought\nfrom his pen lines such as:--\n\n    \"It's coming yet, for a' that,\n    That man to man, the warld o'er,\n    Shall brothers be for a' that!\"\n\nAnd under the influence of this principle, he was a gentleman by nature,\nand one of nature's noblemen, without ever thinking whether he was or\nnot, as he who is truly such never needs to and never does.\n\nAnd then recall the large-hearted Ben Franklin, when sent to the French\ncourt. In his plain gray clothes, unassuming and entirely forgetful of\nhimself, how he captured the hearts of all, of even the giddy society\nladies, and how he became and remained while there the centre of\nattraction in that gay capital! His politeness, his manners, all the\nresult of that great, kind, loving, and helpful nature which made\nothers feel that it was they he was devoting himself to and not himself.\n\nThis little extract from a letter written by Franklin to George\nWhitefield will show how he regarded the great principle we are\nconsidering: \"As to the kindness you mention, I wish it could have been\nof more service to you. But, if it had, the only thanks I should desire\nis that you would always be equally ready to serve any other person that\nmay need your assistance; and so let good offices go around, for mankind\nare all of a family. For my own part, when I am employed in serving\nothers, I do not look upon myself as conferring favors, but as paying\ndebts. In my travels, and since my settlement, I have received much\nkindness from men to whom I shall never have any opportunity of making\nany direct return, and numberless mercies from God, who is infinitely\nabove being benefited by our services. These kindnesses from men I can,\ntherefore, only return on their fellow-men; and I can only show my\ngratitude for these mercies from God by a readiness to help his other\nchildren and my brethren.\"\n\nNo, true gentlemanliness and politeness always comes from within, and is\nborn of a life of love, kindliness, and service. This is the universal\nlanguage, known and understood everywhere, even when our words are not.\nThere is, you know, a beautiful old proverb which says, \"He who is kind\nand courteous to strangers thereby shows himself a citizen of the\nworld.\" And there is nothing so remembered, and that so endears one to\nall mankind, as this universal language. Even dumb animals understand it\nand are affected by it. How quickly the dog, for example, knows and\nmakes it known when he is spoken to and treated kindly or the reverse!\nAnd here shall not a word be spoken in connection with that great body\nof our fellow-creatures whom, because we do not understand their\nlanguage, we are accustomed to call dumb? The attitude we have assumed\ntoward these fellow-creatures, and the treatment they have been\nsubjected to in the past, is something almost appalling.\n\nThere are a number of reasons why this has been true. Has not one been\non account of a belief in a future life for man, but not for the animal?\nA few years ago a gentleman left by will some fifty thousand dollars for\nthe work of Henry Bergh's New York Society. His relatives contested the\nwill on the ground of insanity,--on the ground of insanity because he\nbelieved in a future life for animals. The judge, in giving his decision\nsustaining the will, stated that after a very careful investigation, he\nfound that fully half the world shared the same belief. Agassiz\nthoroughly believed it. An English writer has recently compiled a list\nof over one hundred and seventy English authors who have so thoroughly\nbelieved it as to write upon the subject. The same belief has been\nshared by many of the greatest thinkers in all parts of the world, and\nit is a belief that is constantly gaining ground.\n\nAnother and perhaps the chief cause has been on account of a supposed\ninferior degree of intelligence on the part of animals, which in another\nform would mean, that they are less able to care for and protect\nthemselves. Should this, however, be a reason why they should be\nneglected and cruelly treated? Nay, on the other hand, should this not\nbe the greatest reason why we should all the more zealously care for,\nprotect, and kindly treat them?\n\nYou or I may have a brother or a sister who is not normally endowed as\nto brain power, who, perchance, may be idiotic or insane, or who,\nthrough sickness or mishap, is weakminded; but do we make this an\nexcuse for neglecting, cruelly treating, or failing to love such a one?\nOn the contrary, the very fact that he or she is not so able to plan\nfor, care for, and protect him or her self, is all the greater reason\nfor all the more careful exercise of these functions on our part. But,\ncertainly, there are many animals around us with far more intelligence,\nat least manifested intelligence, than this brother or sister. The\nparallel holds, but the absurd falsity of the position we assume is most\napparent. No truer nobility of character can anywhere manifest itself\nthan is shown in one's attitude toward and treatment of those weaker or\nthe so-called inferior, and so with less power to care for and protect\nthemselves. Moreover, I think we shall find that we are many times\nmistaken in regard to our beliefs in connection with the inferior\nintelligence of at least many animals. If, instead of using them simply\nto serve our own selfish ends without a just recompense, without a\nthought further than as to what we can get out of them, and then many\ntimes casting them off when broken or of no further service, and many\ntimes looking down upon, neglecting, or even abusing them,--if, instead\nof this, we would deal equitably with them, love them, train and\neducate them the same as we do our children, we would be somewhat\nsurprised at the remarkable degree of intelligence the \"dumb brutes\"\npossess, and also the remarkable degree of training they are capable of.\nWhat, however, can be expected of them when we take the attitude we at\npresent hold toward them?\n\nPage after page might readily be filled with most interesting as well as\ninspiring portrayals of their superior intelligence, their remarkable\ncapabilities under kind and judicious training, their _faithfulness_ and\n_devotion_. The efforts of such noble and devoted workers as Henry Bergh\nin New York, of George T. Angell in Massachusetts, and many others in\nvarious parts of the country, have already brought about a great change\nin our attitude toward and relations with this great body of our\nfellow-creatures, and have made all the world more thoughtful,\nconsiderate, and kind. This, however, is just the beginning of a work\nthat is assuming greater and ever greater proportions.\n\nThe work of the American Humane Education Society[A] is probably\nsurpassed in its vitality and far-reaching results by the work of no\nother society in the world to-day. Its chief object is the humane\neducation of the American people; and through one phase of its work\nalone--its Bands of Mercy, over twenty-five thousand of which have\nalready been formed, giving regular, systematic humane training and\ninstruction to between one and two million children, and these\ncontinually increasing in numbers--a most vital work is being done, such\nas no man can estimate.\n\nThe humane sentiment inculcated in one's relations with the animal\nworld, and its resultant feelings of sympathy, tenderness, love, and\ncare, will inevitably manifest itself in one's relations with his\nfellows; and I for one, would rejoice to see this work carried into\nevery school throughout the length and breadth of the land. In many\ncases this one phase of the child's training would be of far more vital\nvalue and import as he grows to manhood than all the rest of the\nschooling combined, and it would form a most vital entering wedge in the\nsolution of our social situation.\n\nAnd why should we not speak to and kindly greet an animal as we pass it,\nas instinctively as we do a human fellow-being? Though it may not get\nour words, it will invariably get the attitude and the motive that\nprompts them, and will be affected accordingly. This it will do every\ntime. Animals in general are marvellously sensitive to the mental\nconditions, the thought forces, and emotions of people. Some are\npeculiarly sensitive, and can detect them far more quickly and\nunerringly than many people can.\n\nIt ought to help us greatly in our relations with them ever fully to\nrealize that they with us are parts of the one Universal Life, simply\ndifferent forms of the manifestation of the One Life, having their part\nto play in the economy of the great universe the same as we have ours,\nhaving their destiny to work out the same as we have ours, and just as\nimportant, just as valuable, in the sight of the All in All as we\nourselves.\n\n\"I saw deep in the eyes of the animals the human soul look out upon me.\n\n\"I saw where it was born deep down under feathers and fur, or condemned\nfor a while to roam four-footed among the brambles. I caught the\nclinging mute glance of the prisoner, and swore I would be faithful.\n\n\"Thee my brother and sister I see, and mistake not. Do not be afraid.\nDwelling thus for a while, fulfilling thy appointed time, thou, too,\nshall come to thyself at last.\n\n\"Thy half-warm horns and long tongue lapping round my wrist do not\nconceal thy humanity any more than the learned talk of the pedant\nconceals his,--for all thou art dumb, we have words and plenty between\nus.\n\n\"Come nigh, little bird, with your half-stretched quivering\nwings,--within you I behold choirs of angels, and the Lord himself in\nvista.\"[B]\n\nBut a small thing, apparently, is a kind look, word, or service of some\nkind; but, oh! who can tell where it may end? It costs the giver\ncomparatively nothing; but who can tell the priceless value to him who\nreceives it? The cup of loving service, be it merely a cup of cold\nwater, may grow and swell into a boundless river, refreshing and\ncarrying life and hope in turn to numberless others, and these to\nothers, and so have no end. This may be just the critical moment in some\nlife. Given now, it may save or change a life or a destiny. So don't\nwithhold the bread that's in your keeping, but\n\n     \"Scatter it with willing fingers, shout for joy to see it go.\"\n\nThere is no greater thing in life that you can do, and nothing that\nwill bring you such rich and precious returns.\n\nThe question is sometimes asked, How can one feel a deep and genuine\nlove, a love sufficient to manifest itself in service for all?--there\nare some so mean, so small, with so many peculiar, objectionable, or\neven obnoxious characteristics. True, very true, apparently at least;\nbut another great law of life is that _we find in men and women exactly\nthose qualities, those characteristics, we look for, or that are nearest\nakin to the predominant qualities or characteristics of our own\nnatures_. If we look for the peculiar, the little, the objectionable,\nthese we shall find; but back of all this, all that is most apparent on\nthe exterior, in the depths of each and every human soul, is the good,\nthe true, the brave, the loving, the divine, the God-like, that that\nnever changes, the very God Himself that at some time or another will\nshow forth His full likeness.\n\nAnd still another law of life is that others usually manifest to us that\nwhich our own natures, or, in other words, our own thoughts and\nemotions, call forth. The same person, for example, will come to two\ndifferent people in an entirely different way, because the larger,\nbetter, purer, and more universal nature of the one calls forth the\nbest, the noblest, the truest in him; while the smaller, critical,\npersonal nature of the other calls forth the opposite. The wise man is\ntherefore careful in regard to what he has to say concerning this or\nthat one; for, generally speaking, it is a sad commentary upon one's\nself if he find only the disagreeable, the objectionable. _One lives\nalways in the atmosphere of his own creation_.\n\nAgain, it is sometimes said, But such a one has such and such habits or\nhas done so and so, has committed such and such an error or such and\nsuch a crime. But who, let it be asked, constituted me a judge of my\nfellow-man? Do I not recognize the fact that the moment I judge my\nfellow-man, by that very act I judge myself? One of two things, I either\njudge myself or hypocritically profess that never once in my entire life\nhave I committed a sin, an error of any kind, never have I stumbled,\nnever fallen, and by that very profession I pronounce myself at once\neither a fool or a knave, or both.\n\nAgain, it is said, But even for the sake of helping, of doing some\nservice, I could not for my own sake, for character's, for reputation's\nsake, I could not afford even to be seen with such a one. What would\npeople, what would my friends, think and say? True, apparently at least,\nbut, if my life, my character, has such a foundation, a foundation so\nweak, so uncertain, so tottering, as to be affected by anything of this\nkind, I had better then look well to it, and quietly, quickly, but\nsecurely, begin to rebuild it; and, when I am sure that it is upon the\ntrue, deep, substantial foundation, the only additional thing then\nnecessary is for me to reach that glorious stage of development which\nquickly gets one out of the personal into the universal, or rather that\nindicates that he is already out of the one and into the other, when he\ncan say: They think. What do they think? Let them think. They say. What\ndo they say? Let them say.\n\nAnd, then, the supreme charity one should have, when he realizes the\nfact that _the great bulk of the sin and error in the world is committed\nnot through choice, but through ignorance_. Not that the person does not\nknow many times that this or that course of action is wrong, that it is\nwrong to commit this error or sin or crime; but the ignorance comes in\nhis belief that in this course of conduct he is deriving pleasure and\nhappiness, and his ignorance of the fact that through a different course\nof conduct he would derive a pleasure, a happiness, much keener, higher,\nmore satisfying and enduring.\n\nNever should we forget that we are all the same in motive,--pleasure and\nhappiness: we differ only in method; and this difference in method is\nsolely by reason of some souls being at any particular time more fully\nevolved, and thus having a greater knowledge of the great, immutable\nlaws under which we live, and by putting the life into more and ever\nmore complete harmony with these higher laws and forces, and in this way\nbringing about the highest, the keenest, the most abiding pleasure and\nhappiness instead of seeking it on the lower planes.\n\nWhile all are the same in essence, all a part of the One Infinite,\nEternal, all with the same latent possibilities, all reaching ultimately\nthe same place, it nevertheless is true that at any particular time some\nare more fully awakened, evolved, unfolded. One should also be careful,\nif life is continuous, eternal, how he judges any particular life merely\nfrom these threescore years and ten; for the very fact of life, in\nwhatever form, means continual activity, growth, advancement,\nunfoldment, attainment, and, if there is the one, there must of\nnecessity be the other. So in regard to this one or that one, no fears\nneed be entertained.\n\nBy the door of my woodland cabin stood during the summer a magnificent\ntube-rose stock. The day was when it was just putting into bloom; and\nthen I counted buds--latent flowers--to the number of over a score. Some\neight or ten one morning were in full bloom. The ones nearer the top did\nnot bloom forth until some two and three weeks later, and for some it\ntook quite a month to reach the fully perfected stage. These certainly\nwere not so beautiful, so satisfying, as those already in the perfect\nbloom, those that had already reached their highest perfection. But\nshould they on this account be despised? Wait, wait and give the element\nof time an opportunity of doing its work; and you may find that by and\nby, when these have reached their highest perfection, they may even far\ntranscend in beauty and in fragrance those at present so beautiful, so\nfragrant, so satisfying, those that we so much admire.\n\nHere we recognize the element of time. How foolish, how childish, how\npuerile, to fail or even refuse to do the same when it comes to the\nhuman soul, with all its God-like possibilities! And, again, how\nfoolish, because some of the blooms on the rose stock had not reached\ntheir perfection as soon as others, to have pronounced them of no value,\nunworthy, and to have refused them the dews, the warm rains, the\nlife-giving sunshine, the very agencies that hastened their perfected\ngrowth! Yet this puerile, unbalanced attitude is that taken by untold\nnumbers in the world to-day toward many human souls on account of their\nless mature unfoldment at any given time.\n\nWhy, the very fact that a fellow-man and a brother has this or that\nfault, error, undesirable or objectionable characteristic, is of itself\nthe very reason he needs all the more of charity, of love, of kindly\nhelp and aid, than is needed by the one more fully developed, and hence\nmore free from these. All the more reason is there why the best in him\nshould be recognized and ever called to the front.\n\nThe wise man is he who, when he desires to rid a room of darkness or\ngloom, does not attempt to drive it out directly, but who throws open\nthe doors and the windows, that the room may be flooded with the golden\nsunlight; for in its presence darkness and gloom cannot remain. So the\nway to help a fellow-man and a brother to the higher and better life is\nnot by ever prating upon and holding up to view his errors, his faults,\nhis shortcomings, any more than in the case of children, but by\nrecognizing and ever calling forth the higher, the nobler, the divine,\nthe God-like, _by opening the doors and the windows of his own soul_,\nand thus bringing about a spiritual perception, that he may the more\ncarefully listen to the inner voice, that he may the more carefully\nfollow \"the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.\"\nFor in the exact proportion that the interior perception comes will the\nouter life and conduct accord with it,--so far, and no farther.\n\nWhere in all the world's history is to be found a more beautiful or\nvaluable incident than this? A group of men, self-centred,\nself-assertive, have found a poor woman who, in her blindness and\nweakness, has committed an error, the same one that they, in all\nprobability, have committed not once, but many times; _for the rule is\nthat they are first to condemn who are-most at fault themselves_. They\nbring her to the Master, they tell him that she has committed a\nsin,--ay, more, that she has been taken in the very act,--and ask what\nshall be done with her, informing him that, in accordance with the olden\nlaws, such a one should be stoned.\n\nBut, quicker than thought, that great incarnation of spiritual power and\ninsight reads their motives; and, after allowing them to give full\nexpression to their accusations, he turns, and calmly says, \"He among\nyou that is _without sin_, let _him_ cast the first stone.\" So saying,\nhe stoops down, as if he is writing in the sand. The accusers, feeling\nthe keen and just rebuke, in the mean time sneak out, until not one\nremains. The Master, after all have gone, turns to the woman, his\nsister, and kindly and gently says, \"And where are thine accusers? doth\nno man condemn thee?\" \"No man, Lord.\" \"_And neither do I condemn thee:\ngo thou, and sin no more_.\" Oh, the beauty, the soul pathos! Oh, the\nroyal-hearted brother! Oh, the invaluable lesson to us all!\n\nI have no doubt that this gentle, loving admonition, this calling of the\nhigher and the better to the front, set into operation in her interior\nnature forces that hastened her progress from the purely animal, the\nunsatisfying, the diminishing, to the higher spiritual, the satisfying,\nthe ever-increasing, or, even more, that made it instantaneous, but that\nin either case brought about the new birth,--the new birth that comes\nwith the awakening of the soul out of its purely physical sense-life to\nthe higher spiritual perception and knowledge of itself, and thus the\nbirth of the higher out of the lower, as at some time or another comes\nto each and every human soul.\n\nAnd still another fact that should make us most charitable toward and\nslow to judge, or rather refuse to judge, a fellow-man and a\nbrother,--the fact that we cannot know the intense strugglings and\nfightings he or she may be subjected to, though accompanied, it is true,\nby numerous stumblings and fallings, though the latter we see, while the\nformer we fail to recognize. Did we, however, know the truth of the\nmatter, it may be that in the case of ourselves, who are so quick to\njudge, had we the same temptations and fightings, the battle would not\nbe half so nobly, so manfully fought, and our stumblings and fallings\nmight be many times the number of his or of hers. Had we infinite\nknowledge and wisdom, our judgments would be correct; though, had we\ninfinite knowledge and wisdom, we would be spared the task, though\nperhaps pleasure would seem to be the truer word to use, of our own\nself-imposed judgments.\n\nEven so, then, if I cannot give myself in thorough love and service and\nself-devotion to each and all of the Father's other children, to every\nbrother, no matter what the rank, station, or apparent condition, it\nshows that at least one of several things is radically wrong with self;\nand it also indicates that I shall never know the full and supreme joy\nof existence until I am able to and until I regard each case in the\nlight of a rare and golden opportunity, in which I take a supreme\ndelight.\n\nAlthough what has just been said is true, at the same time there are\noccasions when it must be taken with wise discretion; and, although\nthere are things it may be right for me to do for the sake of helping\nanother life, at the same time there are things it may be unwise for me\nto do. I have sympathy for a friend who is lying in the gutter; but it\nwould be very unwise for me to get myself into the same condition, and\ngo and lie with him, thinking that only thus I could show my fullest\nsympathy, and be of greatest help to him. On the contrary, it is only as\nI stand on the higher ground that I am able to reach forth the hand\nthat will truly lift him up. The moment I sink myself to the same level,\nmy power to help ceases.\n\nJust as unwise, to use a familiar example, far more unwise, would it be\nfor me, were I a woman, to think of marrying a man who is a drunkard or\na libertine, thinking that because I may love him I shall be able to\nreform him. In the first place, I should find that the desired results\ncould not be accomplished in this way, or rather, no results that could\nnot be accomplished, and far more readily accomplished otherwise, and at\nfar less expense. In the second place, I could not afford to subject\nmyself to the demands, the influences, of one such, and so either sink\nmyself to his level or, if not, then be compelled to use the greater\npart of my time, thought, and energy in demonstrating over existing\nconditions, and keeping myself true to the higher life, the same time\nthat might be used in helping the lives of many others. If I sink myself\nto his level, I do not help, but aid all the more in dragging him down,\nor, if I do not sink to his level, then in the degree that I approach it\ndo I lose my power over and influence with that life. Especially would\nit be unwise on my part if on his part there is no real desire for a\ndifferent course, and no manifest endeavor to attain to it. Many times\nit seems necessary for such a one to wallow in the deepest of the mire,\nuntil, to use a commonplace phrase, he has his fill. He will then be\nready to come out, will then be open to influence. I in the mean time,\ninstead of entering into the mire with him, instead of subjecting my\nlife to his influences, will stand up on the higher ground, and will\never point him upward, will ever reach forth a hand to help him upward,\nand will thus subject _him_ to the higher influences; and, by preserving\nmyself in this attitude, I can do the same for many other lives. In it\nall there will be no bitterness, no condemnation, no casting off, but\nthe highest charity, sympathy and love; and it is only by this method\nthat I can manifest the highest, only by this method that I can the most\ntruly aid, for only as I am lifted up can I draw others unto me.\n\nIn this matter of service, as in all other matters, that supreme\nregulator of human life and conduct--good common sense--must always be\nused. There are some natures, for example, whom the more we would do\nfor, the more we would have to do for, who, in other words, would become\ndependent, losing their sense of self-dependence. For such the highest\nservice one can render is as judiciously and as indirectly as possible\nto lead them to the sense of self-reliance. Then there are others whose\nnatures are such that, the more they are helped, the more they expect,\nthe more they demand, even as their right, who, in other words, are\nparasites or vultures of the human kind. In this case, again, the\ngreatest service that can be rendered may be a refusal of service, a\nrefusal of aid in the ordinary or rather expected forms, and a still\ngreater service in the form of teaching them that great principle of\njustice, of compensation, that runs through all the universe,--that for\nevery service there must be in some form or another an adequate service\nin return, that the law of compensation in one form or another is\nabsolute, and, in fact, the greatest forms of service we can render any\none are, generally speaking, along the lines of teaching him the great\nlaws of his own being, the great laws of his true possibilities and\npowers and so the great laws of self-help.\n\nAnd, again, it is possible for one whose heart goes out in love and\nservice for all, and who, by virtue of lacking that long range of vision\nor by virtue of not having a grasp of things in their entirety or\nwholeness, may have his time, his energies so dissipated in what seems\nto be the highest service that he is continually kept from his own\nhighest unfoldment, powers, and possessions, the very things that in\ntheir completeness would make him a thousand-fold more effective and\npowerful in his own life, and hence in the life of real service and\ninfluence. And, in a case of this kind, many times the mark of the most\nabsolute unselfishness is a strong and marked selfishness, which will\nprove however to be a selfishness only in the seeming.\n\n_The self should never be lost sight of. It is the one thing of supreme\nimportance, the greatest factor even in the life of the greatest\nservice_. Being always and necessarily precedes doing: having always and\nnecessarily precedes giving. But this law also holds: that when there is\nthe being, it is all the more increased by the doing; when there is the\nhaving, it is all the more increased by the giving. _Keeping to one's\nself dwarfs and stultifies. Hoarding brings loss: using brings even\ngreater gain_. In brief, the more we are, the more we can do; the more\nwe have, the more we can give.\n\nThe most truly successful, the most powerful and valuable life, then,\nis the life that is first founded upon this great, immutable law of love\nand service, and that then becomes supremely self-centred,--supremely\nself-centred that it may become all the more supremely unself-centred;\nin other words, the life that looks v/ell to self, that there may be the\never greater self, in order that there may be the ever greater service.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote A: Headquarters at Boston, Mass.]\n\n[Footnote B: Toward Democracy.]\n\n\n\n\nPART IV.\n\nTHE AWAKENING\n\n\n    If you'd live a religion that's noble,\n      That's God-like and true,\n    A religion the grandest that men\n      Or that angels can,\n    Then live, live the truth\n      Of the brother who taught you,\n    It's love to God, service and love\n      To the fellow-man.\n\n\nSocial problems are to be among the greatest problems of the generation\njust moving on to the stage of action. They, above all others, will\nclaim the attention of mankind, as they are already claiming it across\nthe waters even as at home. The attitude of the two classes toward each\nother, or the separation of the classes, will be by far the chief\nproblem of them all. Already it is imperatively demanding a solution.\nGradually, as the years have passed, this separation has been going on,\nbut never so rapidly as of late. Each has come to regard the other as an\nenemy, with no interests in common, but rather that what is for the\ninterests of the one must necessarily be to the detriment of the other.\n\nThe great masses of the people, the working classes, those who as much,\nif not more than many others ought to be there, are not in our churches\nto-day. They already feel that they are not wanted there, and that the\nChurch even is getting to be their enemy. There must be a reason for\nthis, for it is impossible to have an effect without its preceding\ncause. It is indeed time to waken up to these facts and conditions; for\nthey must be _squarely_ met. A solution is imperatively demanded, and\nthe sooner it comes, the better; for, if allowed to continue thus, all\nwill come back to be paid for, intensified a thousand-fold,--ay, to be\npaid for even by many innocent ones.\n\nLet this great principle of service, helpfulness, love, and\nself-devotion to the interests of one's fellow-men be made the\nfundamental principle of all lives, and see how simplified these great\nand all-important questions will become. Indeed, they will almost solve\nthemselves. It is the man all for self, so small and so short sighted\nthat he can't get beyond his own selfish interests, that has done more\nto bring about this state of affairs than all other causes combined. Let\nthe cause be removed, and then note the results.\n\nFor many years it has been a teaching even of political economy that an\nemployer buys his help just as he buys his raw material or any other\ncommodity; and this done, he is in no way responsible for the welfare of\nthose he employs. In fact, the time isn't so far distant when the\nemployed were herded together as animals, and were treated very much as\nsuch. But, thanks be to God, a better and a brighter day is dawning.\nEven the employer is beginning to see that practical ethics, or true\nChristianity, and business cannot and must not be divorced; that the man\nhe employs, instead of being a mere animal whose services he buys, is,\nafter all his fellow-man and his brother, and demands a treatment as\nsuch, and that when he fails to recognize this truth, a righteous God\nsteps in, demanding a penalty for its violation.\n\nHe is recognizing the fact that whatsoever is for the well-being of the\none he employs, that whatever privileges he is enabled to enjoy that\nwill tend to grow and develop his physical, his mental, and his moral\nlife, that will give him an agreeable home and pleasant family\nrelations, that whatever influences tend to elevate him and to make his\nlife more happy, are a direct gain, even from a financial standpoint for\nhimself, by its increasing for him the efficiency of the man's labor.\nIt is already recognized as a fact that the employer who interests\nhimself in these things, other things being equal, is the most\nsuccessful. Thus the old and the false are breaking away before the\nright and the true, as all inevitably must sooner or later; and the\ndivinity and the power of the workingman is being ever more fully\nrecognized.\n\nIn the very remote history of the race there was one who, violating a\ngreat law, having wronged a brother, asked, \"Am I my brother's keeper?\"\nKnowing that he was, he nevertheless deceitfully put the question in\nthis way in his desire, if possible, to avoid the responsibility. Many\nemployers in their selfishness and greed for gain have asked this same\nquestion in this same way. They have thought they could thus defeat the\nsure and eternal laws of a Just Ruler, but have thereby deceived\nthemselves the more. These more than any others have to a great degree\nbrought about the present state of affairs in the industrial and social\nworld.\n\nJust as soon as the employer recognizes the falsity of these old\nteachings and practices, and the fact that he cannot buy his employee's\nservices the same as he buys his raw material, with no further\nresponsibility, but that the two are on vastly different planes, that\nhis employee is his fellow-man and his brother, and that he is his\nbrother's keeper, and will be held responsible as such, that it is to\nhis own highest interests, as well as to the highest interests of those\nhe employs and to society in general, to recognize this; and just as\nsoon as he who is employed fully appreciates his opportunities and makes\nthe highest use of all, and in turn takes an active, personal interest\nin all that pertains to his employer's welfare,--just that soon will a\nsolution of this great question come forth, and no sooner.\n\nIt is not so much a question of legislation as of education and right\ndoing, thus a dealing with the _individual_, and so a prevention and a\ncure, not merely a suppression and a regulation, which is always sure to\nfail; for, in a case of right or wrong no question is ever settled\nfinally until it is settled rightly.\n\nThe individual, dealing with the individual is necessarily at the bottom\nof all true social progress. There can't be anything worthy the name\nwithout it. The truth will at once be recognized by all _that the good\nof the whole defends upon the good of each, and the good of each makes\nthe good of the whole_. Attend, then, to the individual, and the whole\nwill take care of itself. Let each individual work in harmony with every\nother, and harmony will pervade the whole. The old theory of\ncompetition--that in order to have great advancement, great progress, we\nmust have great competition to induce it--is as false as it is savage\nand detrimental in its nature. We are just reaching that point where the\nlarger men and women are beginning to see its falsity. They are\nrecognizing the fact that, _not competition, but co-operation,\nreciprocity, is the great, the true power_,--to climb, not by attempting\nto drag, to keep down one's fellows, but by aiding them, and being in\nturn aided by them, thus combining, and so multiplying the power of all\ninstead of wasting a large part one against the other.\n\nAnd grant that a portion do succeed in rising, while the other portion\nremain in the lower condition, it is of but little value so far as their\nown peace and welfare are concerned; for they can never be what they\nwould be, were all up together. Each is but a part, a member, of the\ngreat civil body; and no member, let alone the entire body, can be\nperfectly well, perfectly at ease, when any other part is in dis-ease.\nNo one part of the community, no one part of the nation, can stand\nalone: all are dependent, interdependent. This is the uniform teaching\nof history from the remotest times in the past right through to the\npresent. A most admirable illustration of this fact--if indeed the word\n\"admirable\" can be used in connection with a matter so deplorable--was\nthe unparalleled labor trouble we had in our great Western city but a\nfew summers ago. The wise man is he who learns from experiences of this\nterrific nature.\n\nNo, not until this all-powerful principle is fully recognized, and is\nbuilt upon so thoroughly that the brotherhood principle, the principle\nof oneness can enter in, and each one recognizes the fact that his own\ninterests and welfare depend upon the interests, the welfare of each,\nand therefore of all, that each is but a part of the one great whole,\nand each one stands shoulder to shoulder in the advance forward, can we\nhope for any true solution of the great social problems before us, for\nany permanent elevation of the standard in our national social life and\nwelfare.\n\nThis same principle is the solution, and the only true solution, of the\ncharities question, as indeed the whole world during the last few years\nor so, and during this time only, is beginning to realize. And the\nsplendid and efficient work of the organized charities in all our large\ncities, as of the Elberfeld system in Germany, is attesting the truth of\nthis. Almost numberless methods have been tried during the past, but all\nhave most successfully failed; and many have greatly increased the\nwretched condition of matters, and of those it was designed to help.\nDuring this length of time only have these all-important questions been\ndealt with in a true, scientific, Christ-like, common-sense way. It has\nbeen found even here that nothing can take the place of the personal and\nfriendly influences of a life built upon this principle of service.\n\nThe question of aiding the poor and needy has passed through three\ndistinct phases of development in the world's history. In early times it\nwas, \"Each one for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.\" From the\ntime of the Christ, and up to the last few years it has been, \"Help\nothers.\" Now it is, \"_Help others to help themselves_.\" The wealthy\nsociety lady going down Fifth Avenue in New York, or Michigan Avenue in\nChicago, or Charles Street in Baltimore, or Commonwealth Avenue in\nBoston, who flings a coin to one asking alms, is _not_ the one who is\ndoing a true act of charity; but, on the other hand, she may be doing\nthe one she thus gives to and to society in general much more harm than\ngood, as is many times the case. It is but a cheap, a very cheap way of\nbuying ease for her sympathetic nature or her sense of duty. Never let\nthe word \"charity,\" which always includes the elements of interested\nservice, true helpfulness, kindliness, and love, be debased by making it\na synonym of mere giving, which may mean the flinging of a quarter in\nscorn or for show.\n\nRecognizing the great truth that the best and only way to help another\nis to help him to help himself, and that the neglected classes need not\nso much alms as friends, the Organized Charities with their several\nbranches in different parts of the city have their staffs of \"friendly\nvisitors,\" almost all voluntary, and from some of the best homes in the\nland. Then when a case of need comes to the notice of the society, one\nof these goes to the person or family as a _friend_ to investigate, to\nfind what circumstances have brought about these conditions, and, if\nfound worthy of aid, present needs are supplied, an effort is made to\nsecure work, and every effort is made to put them on their feet again,\nthat self-respect may be regained, that hope may enter in; for there is\nscarcely anything that tends to make one lose his self-respect so\nquickly and so completely as to be compelled, or of his own accord, to\nask for alms.\n\nIt is thus many times that a new life is entered upon, brightness and\nhope taking the place of darkness and despair. This is not the only call\nthe friendly visitor makes; but he or she becomes a _true friend_, and\nmakes regular visits as such. If by this method the one seeking charity\nis found to be an impostor, as is frequently the case, proper means of\nexposure are resorted to, that his or her progress in this course may be\nstopped. The organizations are thus doing a most valuable work, and one\nthat will become more and more valuable as they are enabled to become\nbetter organized, the greatest need to-day being more with the true\nspirit to act as visiting friends.\n\nIt is this same great principle that has given birth to our college and\nuniversity settlements and our neighborhood guilds which are so rapidly\nincreasing, and which are destined to do a great and efficient work.\nHere a small colony of young women, many from our best homes, and the\nablest graduates of our best colleges, and young men, many of them the\nablest graduates of our best universities, take up their abode in the\npoorest parts of our large cities, to try by their personal influence\nand personal contact to raise the surrounding life to a higher plane. It\nis in these ways that the poor and the unfortunate are dealt with\ndirectly. Thus the classes mingle. Thus that sentimentalism which may do\nand which has done harm to these great problems, and by which the people\nit is designed to help may be hindered rather than helped, is done away\nwith. Thus true aid and service are rendered, and the needy are really\nhelped.\n\nThe one whose life is built upon this principle will not take up work of\nthis kind as a \"fad,\" or because it is \"fashionable,\" but because it is\nright, true, Christ-like. The truly great and noble never fear thus to\nmingle with those poorer and less fortunate. It is only those who would\nlike to be counted as great, but who are too small to be so recognized,\nand who, therefore, always thinking of self, put forth every effort to\nappear so. There is no surer test than this.\n\nVery truly has it been said that \"the greatest thing a man can do for\nGod is to be kind to some of His other children.\" All children of the\nsame Father, therefore all brothers, sisters. Man is next to God. Man is\nGod incarnate. Humanity, therefore, cannot be very far from being next\nto godliness. Many people there are who are greatly concerned about\nserving God, as they term it. Their idea is to build great edifices with\ncostly ornaments to Him. A great deal of their time is spent in singing\nsongs and hallelujahs to Him, just as if _He_ needed or wanted these for\nHimself, forgetting that He is far above being benefited by anything\nthat we can say or do, forgetting that He doesn't want these, when for\nlack of them some of His children are starving for bread to eat or are\ndying for the bread of life.\n\nCan you conceive of a God who is worthy of love and service,--and I\nspeak most reverently,--who under such conditions would take a\nsatisfaction in these things? I confess I am not able to. I can conceive\nof no way in which I can serve God only as I serve Him through my own\nlife and through the lives of my fellow-men. This, certainly, is the\nonly kind of service He needs or wants, or that is acceptable to Him.\nAt one place we read, \"He that says he loves God and loves not his\nfellow-men, is a liar; and the truth is not in him.\"\n\nEven in religion I think we shall find that there is nothing greater or\nmore important than this great principle of service, helpfulness,\nkindliness, and love. Is not Christianity, you ask, greater or more\nimportant? Why, bless you, is this any other than Christianity, is\nChristianity any other than this,--at least, if we take what the Master\nTeacher himself has said? For what, let us ask, is a Christian,--the\nreal, not merely in name? A follower of Christ, one who does as he did,\none who lives as he lived. And, again, who was Christ? He that healed\nthe sick, clothed the naked, bound up the broken-hearted, sustained and\nencouraged the weak, the faltering, befriended and aided the poor, the\nneedy, condemned the proud and the selfish, taught the people to live\nnobly, truly, grandly, to live in their higher, diviner selves, that the\ngreatest among them should be their servant, and that his followers were\nthose who lived as he lived. He spent all his time in the service of\nhumanity. He gave his whole life in this way. He it was who went about\ndoing good.\n\nIs it your desire then, to be numbered among his followers, to bear\nthat blessed name, the name \"Christian\"? Then sit at his feet, and learn\nof him, love him, do as he did, as he taught you to do, live as he\nlived, as he taught you to live, and you are a Christian, and not unless\nyou do. True Christianity can be found in no other way.\n\nNaught is the difference what one may call himself; for many call\nthemselves by this name to whom Christ says it will one day be said, \"I\nnever knew you: depart from me, ye cursed.\" Naught is the difference\nwhat creeds one may subscribe to, what rites and ceremonies he may\nobserve, how loud and how numerous his professions may be. All of these\nare but as a vain mockery, unless he _is_ a Christian; and to be a\nChristian is, as we have found, to be a follower of Christ, to do as he\ndid, to live as he lived. Then live the Christ life. Live so as to\nbecome at one with God, and dwell continually in this blessed\nat-one-ment. The trouble all along has been that so many have mistaken\nthe mere person of the Christ, the mere physical Jesus, for his life,\nhis spirit, his teachings, and have succeeded in getting no farther than\nthis as yet, except in cases here and there.\n\nNow and then a rare soul rises up, one with great power, great\ninspiration, and we wonder at his great power, his great inspiration,\nwhy it is. When we look deeply enough, however, we will find that one\ngreat fact will answer the question every time. It is living the life\nthat brings the power. He is living the Christ life, not merely standing\nafar off and looking at it, admiring it, and saying, Yes, I believe, I\nbelieve, and ending it there. In other words, he has found the kingdom\nof heaven. He has found that it is not a place, but a condition; and the\nsong continually arising from his heart is, There is joy, only joy.\n\nThe Master, you remember, said: \"Seek ye not for the kingdom of heaven\nin tabernacles or in houses made with hands. Know ye not that the\nkingdom of heaven is within you?\" He told in plain words where and how\nto find it. He then told how to find _all other_ things, when he said,\n\"Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these other things shall\nbe added unto you.\" Now, do you wonder at his power, his inspiration,\nhis abundance of all things? The trouble with so many is that they act\nas if they do not believe what the Master said. They do not take him at\nhis word. They say one thing: they do another. Their acts give the lie\nto their words. Instead of taking him at his word, and living as if they\nhad faith in him, they prefer to follow a series of old, outgrown,\nman-made theories, traditions, forms, ceremonies, and seem to be\nsatisfied with the results. No, _to be a Christian is to live the Christ\nlife_, the life of him who went about doing good, the life of him who\ncame not to be ministered unto, but to minister.\n\nWe will find that this mighty principle of love and service is the\ngreatest to live by in this life, and also one of the gates whereby all\nwho would must enter the kingdom of heaven.\n\nAgain we have the Master's words. In his own and only description of the\nlast judgment, after speaking of the Son of Man coming in all his glory\nand all the holy angels with him, of his sitting on the throne of his\nglory with all nations gathered before him, of the separation of this\ngathered multitude into two parts, the one on his right, the other on\nhis left, he says: \"Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand,\nCome, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from\nthe foundation of the world. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me\nmeat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took\nme in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in\nprison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him,\nsaying, Lord, when saw we _thee_ an hungered, and fed _thee_? or\nthirsty, and gave _thee_ drink? When saw we _thee_ a stranger, and took\n_thee_ in? or naked, and clothed _thee_? Or when saw we _thee_ sick, or\nin prison, and came unto _thee_? And the King shall answer, and say unto\nthem, Verily I say unto you, _Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of\nthe least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me_.\n\n\"Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye\ncursed. For I was an hungered, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty,\nand ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; sick,\nand in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they answer him,\nsaying, Lord, when saw we _thee_ an hungered, or athirst, or a stranger,\nor naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee? Then\nshall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, _Inasmuch as ye did\nit not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me_.\"\n\nAfter spending the greater portion of his life in many distant climes\nin a fruitless endeavor to find the Cup of the Holy Grail,[C] thinking\nthat thereby he was doing the greatest service he could for God, Sir\nLaunfal at last returns an old man, gray-haired and bent. He finds that\nhis castle is occupied by others, and that he himself is an outcast. His\ncloak is torn; and instead of the charger in gilded trappings he was\nmounted upon when as a young man, he started out with great hopes and\nambitions, he is afoot and leaning on a staff. While sitting there and\nmeditating, he is met by the same poor and needy leper he passed the\nmorning he started, the one who in his need asked for aid, and to whom\nhe had flung a coin in scorn, as he hurried on in his eager desire to be\nin the Master's service. But matters are changed now, and he is a wiser\nman. Again the poor leper says:--\n\n    \"'For Christ's sweet sake, I beg an alms';--\n    The happy camels may reach the spring,\n    But Sir Launfal sees only the grewsome thing,\n    The leper, lank as the rain-blanched bone,\n    That cowers beside him, a thing as lone\n    And white as the ice-isles of Northern seas\n    In the desolate horror of his disease.\n\n    \"And Sir Launfal said: 'I behold in thee\n    An image of Him who died on the tree;\n    Thou also hast had thy crown of thorns,--\n    Thou also hast had the world's buffets and scorns,--\n    And to thy life were not denied\n    The wounds in the hands and feet and side:\n    Mild Mary's Son, acknowledge me;\n    Behold, _through him_, I give to thee!'\n\n    \"Then the soul of the leper stood up in his eyes\n      And looked at Sir Launfal, and straightway be\n    Remembered in what a haughtier guise\n      He had flung an alms to leprosie,\n    When he girt his young life up in gilded mail\n    And set forth in search of the Holy Grail.\n    The heart within him was ashes and dust;\n    He parted in twain his single crust,\n    He broke the ice on the streamlet's brink,\n    And gave the leper to eat and drink,\n    'Twas a mouldy crust of coarse brown bread,\n      'Twas water out of a wooden bowl,--\n    Yet with fine wheaten bread was the leper fed,\n      And 'twas red wine he drank with his thirsty soul.\n\n    \"As Sir Launfal mused with a downcast face,\n    A light shone round about the place;\n    The leper no longer crouched at his side,\n    But stood before him glorified,\n    Shining and tall and fair and straight\n    As the pillar that stood by the Beautiful Gate,--\n    Himself the Gate whereby men can\n    Enter the temple of God in Man.\n\n    \"And the voice that was calmer than silence said,\n    'Lo, it is I, be not afraid!\n    In many climes, without avail,\n    Thou hast spent thy life for the Holy Grail;\n    Behold, it is here,--this cup which thou\n    Didst fill at the streamlet for me but now;\n    This crust is my body broken for thee,\n    This water His blood that died on the tree;\n    The Holy Supper is kept, indeed,\n    In whatso we share with another's need;\n    Not what we give, but what we _share_,--\n    For the gift without the giver is bare;\n    Who gives himself with his alms feeds three,--\n    Himself, his hungering neighbor, and me.'\"\n\nThe fear is sometimes entertained, and the question is sometimes asked,\nMay not adherence to this principle of helpfulness and service become\nmere sentimentalism? or still more, may it not be the means of lessening\nanother's sense of self-dependence, and thus may it not at times do more\nharm than good? In reply let it be said: If the love which impels it be\na selfish love, or a weak sentimental ism, or an effort at show, or\ndevoid of good common sense, yes, many times. But if it be a strong,\ngenuine, unselfish love, then no, never. For, if my love for my\nfellow-man be the true love, I can never do anything that will be to his\nor any one's else detriment,--nothing that will not redound to his\nhighest ultimate welfare. Should he, for example come and ask of me a\nparticular favor, and were it clear to me that granting it would not be\nfor his highest good ultimately, then love at once resolves itself into\nduty, and compels me to forbear. A true, genuine, unselfish love for\none's fellow-man will never prompt, and much less permit, anything that\nwill not result in his highest ultimate good. Adherence, therefore, to\nthis great principle in its truest sense, instead of being a weak\nsentimentalism, is, we shall find, of all practical things the _most\nintensely practical_.\n\nAnd a word here in regard to the test of true love and service, in\ndistinction from its semblance for show or for vain glory. The test of\nthe true is this: that it goes about and does its good work, it never\nsays anything about it, but lets others do the saying. It not only says\nnothing about it, but more, it has no desire to have it known; and, the\ntruer it is, the greater the desire to have it unknown save to God and\nits own true self. In other words, it is not sicklied o'er with a\nsemi-insane desire for notoriety or vainglory, and hence never weakens\nitself nor harasses any one else by lengthy recitals of its good deeds.\nIt is not the _professional_ good-doing. It is simply living its natural\nlife, open-minded, open-hearted, doing each day what its hands find to\ndo, and in this finding its own true life and joy. And in this way it\nunintentionally but irresistibly draws to itself a praise the rarest and\ndivinest I know of,--the praise I heard given but a day or two ago to\none who is living simply his own natural life without any conscious\neffort at anything else, the praise contained in the words: And, oh, it\nis beautiful, the great amount of good he does and of which the world\nnever hears.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote C: \"According to the mythology of the Romancers, the Sangreal,\nor Holy Grail, was the cup out of which Jesus partook of the Last Supper\nwith his disciples. It was brought into England by Joseph of Arimathea,\nand remained there, an object of pilgrimage and adoration, for many\nyears in the keeping of his lineal descendants. It was incumbent upon\nthose who had charge of it to be chaste in thought, word, and deed; but,\none of the keepers having broken this condition, the Holy Grail\ndisappeared. From that time it was a favorite enterprise of the Knights\nof Sir Arthur's court to go in search of it.\"--_James Russell Lowell_.]\n\n\n\n\nPART V.\n\nTHE INCOMING\n\n\n    O dull, gray grub, unsightly and noisome, unable to roam,\n      Days pass, God's at work, the slow chemistry's going on,\n             Behold! Behold!\n    O brilliant, buoyant life, full winged, all the heaven's thy home!\n    O poor, mean man, stumbling and falling, e'en shamed by a clod.\n      Years pass, God's at work, spiritual awakening has come,\n            Behold! Behold!\n    O regal, royal soul, then image, now the likeness of God.\n\n\nThe Master Teacher, he who appeals most strongly and comes nearest to us\nof this western civilization, has told us that the whole and the highest\nduty of man is comprised in two great, two simple precepts--- love to\nGod and love to the fellow-man. The latter we have already fully\nconsidered. We have found that in its real and true meaning it is not a\nmere indefinite or sentimental abstraction, but that it is a vital,\nliving force; and in its manifestation it is life, it is action, it is\nservice. Let us now for a moment to the other,--love to God, which in\ngreat measure however let it be said, has been considered in dealing\nwith love to the fellow-man. Let us see, however, what it in its true\nand full nature reveals.\n\nThe question naturally arising at the outset is, Who, what is God? I\nthink no truer, sublimer definition has ever been given in the world's\nhistory, in any language, in any clime, than that given by the Master\nhimself when standing by the side of Jacob's well, to the Samaritan\nwoman he said, God is Spirit; and they that worship Him must worship Him\nin spirit and in truth. God is Spirit, the Infinite Spirit, the Infinite\nLife back of all these physical manifestations we see in this changing\nworld about us, and of which all, including we ourselves, is the body or\nouter form; the one Infinite Spirit which fills all the universe with\nHimself, so that all is He, since He is all. All is He in the sense of\nbeing a part of Him; for, if He is all, there can be nothing that is\noutside of, that is not a part of Him, so that each one is a part of\nthis Eternal God who is not separate from us, and, if not separate from\nus, then not afar off, for in Him we live and move and have our being,\n_He is the life of our life_, our very life itself. The life of God is\nin us, we are in the life of God; but that life transcends us so that it\nincludes all else,--every person, every animal, every grass-blade, every\nflower, every particle of earth, every particle of everything, animate\nand inanimate. So that God is _All_; and, if all, then each individual,\nyou and I, must be a vital part of that all, since there can be nothing\nseparate from it; and, if a part, then the same in nature, in\ncharacteristics,--the same as a tumbler of water taken from the ocean\nis, in nature, in qualities, in characteristics, identical with that\nocean, its source. God, then, is the Infinite Spirit of which each one\nis a part in the form of an individualized spirit. God is Spirit,\ncreating, manifesting, ruling through the agency of great spiritual laws\nand forces that surround us on every side, that run through all the\nuniverse, and that unite all; for in one sense, there is nothing in all\nthis great universe but law. And, oh, the stupendous grandeur of it all!\nThese same great spiritual laws and forces operate within us. They are\nthe laws of our being. By them every act of each individual life is\ngoverned.\n\nNow one of the great facts borne ever more and more into the inner\nconsciousness of man is that sublime and transcendent fact that we have\njust noticed,--that man is one with, that he is part of, the Infinite\nGod, this Infinite Spirit that is the life of all, this Infinite Whole;\nthat he is not a mere physical, material being,--for the physical is but\nthe material which the real inner self, the real life or spirit uses to\nmanifest through,--but that he _is_ this spirit, this spirit, using,\nliving in this physical, material house or body to get the contact, the\nexperience with the material world around him while in this form of\nlife, but spirit nevertheless, and spirit now as much as he ever will or\never can be, except so far of course, as he recognizes more and more his\ntrue, his higher self, and so consciously evolves, step by step, into\nthe higher and ever higher realization of the real nature, the real\nself, the God-self. As I heard it said by one of the world's great\nthinkers and writers but a few days ago: Men talk of having a soul. I\nhave no soul. I am a soul: I have a body. We are told moreover in the\nword, that man is created in the image of God. God is Spirit. What then\nmust man be, if that which tells us is true?\n\nNow one of the great errors all along in the past has been that we have\nmistaken the mere body, the mere house in which we live while in this\nform of life for a period,--that which comes from the earth and which,\nin a greater or less time, returns to the earth,--this we have mistaken\nfor the real self. Either we have lost sight of or we have failed to\nrecognize the true identity. The result is that we are at life from the\nwrong side, from the side of the external, while all true life is from\nwithin out.\n\nWe have taken our lives out of a conscious harmony with the higher laws\nof our being, with the result that we are going against the great\ncurrent of the Divine Order of things. Is it any wonder, then, that we\nfind the strugglings, the inharmonies, the sufferings, the fears, the\nforebodings, the fallings by the wayside, the \"strange, inscrutable\ndispensations of Providence\" that we behold on every side? The moment we\nbring our lives into harmony with the higher laws of our being, and, as\na result, into harmony with the current of the Divine Order of things,\nwe shall find that all these will have taken wings; for the cause will\nhave been removed. And as we look down the long vista of such a life, we\nshall find that each thing fits into all others with a wonderful, a\nsublime, a perfect, a divine harmony.\n\nThis, it will seem to some,--and to many, no doubt,--is claiming a great\ndeal. No more, however, than the Master Teacher warranted us in claiming\nwhen he said, and repeated it so often, Seek ye first the kingdom of\nheaven, and all these other things shall be added unto you; and he left\nus not in the dark as to exactly what he meant by the kingdom of heaven,\nfor again he said: Say not, Lo here, nor lo there. Know ye not that the\nkingdom of heaven is within you? _Within you._ The interior spiritual\nkingdom, the kingdom of the higher self, which is the kingdom of God;\nthe kingdom of harmony,--harmony with the higher laws of your being.\n\nThe Master said what he said not for the sake merely of using a phrase\nof rhetoric, nor even to hear himself talk; for this he never did. But\nthat great incarnation of spiritual insight and power knew of the great\nspiritual laws and forces under which we live, and also that supreme\nfact of the universe, that _man is a spiritual being, born to have\ndominion_, and that, by recognizing the true self and by bringing it\ninto complete and perfect harmony with the higher spiritual laws and\nforces under which he lives, he can touch these laws and forces so that\nthey will respond at every call and bring him whatsoever he wills,--one\nof the most stupendous scientific facts of the universe. When he has\nfound and entered into the kingdom, then applies to him the truth of the\ngreat precept, Take ye no thought for the morrow; for the things of the\nmorrow will take care of themselves.\n\nYes, we are at life from the wrong side. We have been giving all time\nand attention to the mere physical, the material, the external, the mere\noutward means of expression and the things that pertain thereto, thus\nmissing the real life; and this we have called living, and seem, indeed,\nto be satisfied with the results. No wonder the cry has gone out again\nand again from many a human soul, Is life worth the living? But from one\nwho has once commenced to _live_, this cry never has, nor can it ever\ncome; for, _when the kingdom is once found, life then ceases to be a\nplodding, and becomes an exultation, an ecstasy, a joy_. Yes, you will\nfind that all the evil, all the error, all the disease, all the\nsuffering, all the fears, all the forebodings of life, are on the side\nof the physical, the material, the transient; while all the peace, all\nthe joy, all the happiness, all the growth, all the life, all the rich,\nexulting, abounding life, is on the side of the spiritual, the\never-increasing, the eternal,--that that never changes, that has no end.\nInstead of crying out against the destiny of fate, let us cry out\nagainst the destiny of self, or rather against the destiny of the\nmistaken self; for everything that comes to us comes through causes\nwhich we ourselves or those before us have set into operation. Nothing\ncomes by chance, for _in all the wide universe there is absolutely no\nsuch thing as chance_. We bring whatever comes. Are we not satisfied\nwith the effects, the results? The thing then to do, is to change the\ncauses; for we have everything in our own hands the moment we awake to a\nrecognition of the true self.\n\nWe make our own heaven or our own hell, and the only heaven or hell that\nwill ever be ours is that of our own making. The order of the universe\nis one thing: we take our lives out of harmony with and so pervert the\nlaws under which we live, and make it another. The order is the all\ngood. We pervert the laws, and what we call evil is the result,--simply\nthe result of the violation of law; and we then wonder that a just and\nloving God could permit such and such things. We wonder at what we term\nthe \"strange, inscrutable dispensations of Providence,\" when all is of\nour own making. We can be our own best friends or we can be our own\nworst enemies; and the only real enemy one can ever have is the self,\nthe very self.\n\nIt is a well-known fact in the scientific world that the great work in\nthe process of evolution is the gradual advancing from the lower to the\nhigher, from the coarser to the finer, or, in other words, from the\ncoarser material to the finer spiritual; and this higher\nspiritualization of life is the great work before us all. All pass\nultimately over the same road in general, some more rapidly, some more\nslowly. The ultimate destiny of all is the higher life, the finding of\nthe higher self; and to this we are either led or we are pushed,--led,\nby recognizing and coming into harmony with the higher laws of our\nbeing, or pushed, through their violation, and hence through experience,\nthrough suffering, and at times through bitter suffering, until through\nthis very agency we learn the laws and come into harmony with them, so\nthat we thus see the economy, the blessedness of even error, shame, and\nsuffering itself, in that, if we are not wise enough to go voluntarily\nand of our own accord, it all the more quickly brings us to our true,\nour higher selves.\n\nMoreover, whatever is evolved must as surely first be involved. We\ncannot conceive even of an evolution without first an involution; and,\nif this is true, we cannot conclude otherwise than that all that will\never be brought forth through the process of evolution is already\nwithin, all the God possibilities of the human soul are now, at this\nvery moment, latent within. This being true, the process of evolution\nneed not, as is many times supposed, take aeons or even ages for its\naccomplishment; for the process is wonderfully accelerated when we have\ngrasped and when we have commenced to actualize the reality of that\nmighty precept, Know thyself.\n\nIt is possible, through an intelligent understanding of the laws of the\nhigher life, to advance in the spiritual awakening and unfoldment even\nin a single year more than one otherwise would through a whole lifetime,\nor more in a single day or even hour than in an entire year or series of\nyears otherwise.\n\nThis higher spiritualization of life is certainly what the Master had in\nmind when he said, It is as hard for a rich man to enter into the\nkingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a\nneedle. For, if a man give all his days and his nights merely to the\naccumulation of outer material possessions, what time has he for the\ngrowing, the unfolding, of the interior, the spiritual, what time for\nfinding that wonderful kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, the Christ\nwithin?\n\nThis certainly is also the significance of the temptation in the\nwilderness. The temptations were all, you will recall, in connection\nwith the material, the physical, and the things that pertain thereto. Do\nso and so, said the physical: follow after me, and I will give you bread\nin abundance, I will give you great fame and notoriety, I will give you\nvast material possessions. All, you see, a calling away from the real,\nthe interior, the spiritual, the eternal. Dominion over all the kingdoms\nof the _world_ was promised. But what, what is dominion overall the\nworld, with heaven left out?\n\nAll, however, was triumphed over. The physical was put into subjection\nby the spiritual, the victory was gained once for all and forever; and\nhe became the supreme and royal Master, and by this complete and\nglorious mastery of self he gained the mastery over all else besides,\neven to material things and conditions.\n\nAnd by this higher spiritual chemicalization of life thus set into\noperation the very thought forces of his mind became charged with a\nliving, mighty, and omnipotent power, so as to effect a mastery over all\nexterior conditions: hence the numerous things called miracles by those\nwho witnessed and who had not entered into a knowledge of the higher\nlaws that can triumph over and master the lower, but which are just as\nreal and as natural on their plane as the lower, and even more real and\nmore natural, because higher and therefore more enduring. But this\ncomplete mastery over self during this period of temptation was just the\nbeginning of the path that led from glory unto glory, the path that for\nyou and for me will lead from glory unto glory the same as for him.\n\nIt was this new divine and spiritual chemistry of life thus set into\noperation that transformed the man Jesus, that royal-hearted elder\nbrother, into the Christ Jesus, and forever blessed be his name; for he\nthus became our Saviour,--he became our Saviour by virtue of pointing\nout to us the way. This overcoming by the calling of the higher\nspiritual forces into operation is certainly what he meant when he said,\nI have overcome the world, and what he would have us understand when he\nsays, Overcome the world, even as I have overcome it.\n\nAnd in the same sense we are all the saviors one of another, or may\nbecome so. A sudden emergency arises, and I stand faltering and weak\nwith fear. My friend beside me is strong and fearless. He sees the\nemergency. He summons up all the latent powers within him, and springs\nforth to meet it. This sublime example arouses me, calls my latent\npowers into activity, when but for him I might not have known them\nthere. I follow his example. I now know my powers, and know them forever\nafter. Thus, in this, my friend has become my savior.\n\nI am weak in some point of character,--vacillating, yielding, stumbling,\nfalling, continually eating the bitter fruit of it all. My friend is\nstrong, he has gained thorough self-mastery. The majesty and beauty of\npower are upon his brow. I see his example, I love his life, I am\ninfluenced by his power. My soul longs and cries out for the same. A\nsupreme effort of will--that imperial master that will take one anywhere\nwhen rightly directed--arises within me, it is born at last, and it\ncalls all the soul's latent powers into activity; and instead of\nstumbling I stand firm, instead of giving over in weakness I stand firm\nand master, I enter into the joys of full self-mastery, and through this\ninto the mastery of all things besides. And thus my friend has again\nbecome my savior.\n\nWith the new power I have acquired through the example and influence of\nmy savior-friend, I, in turn, stand before a friend who is struggling,\nwho is stumbling and in despair. He sees, he feels, the power of my\nstrength. He longs for, his soul cries out for the same. _His_ interior\nforces are called into activity, he now knows his powers; and instead of\nthe slave, he becomes the master, and thus I, in turn, have become his\nsavior. Oh, the wonderful sense of sublimity, the mighty feelings of\nresponsibility, the deep sense of power and peace the recognition of\nthis fact should bring to each and all.\n\nGod works through the instrumentality of human agency. Then forever away\nwith that old, shrivelling, weakening, dying, and devilish idea that we\nare poor worms of the dust! We may or we may not be: it all depends upon\nthe self. The moment we believe we are we become such; and as long as we\nhold to the belief we will be held to this identity, and will act and\nlive as such. The moment, however, we recognize our divinity, our\nhigher, our God-selves, and the fact that we are the saviors of our\nfellow-men, we become saviors, and stand and move in the midst of a\nmajesty and beauty and power that of itself proclaims us as such.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere is a prevalent idea to the effect that overcoming in this sense\nnecessarily implies more or less of a giving up,--that it means\nsomething possibly on the order of asceticism. On the contrary, the\nhighest, truest, keenest pleasures the human soul can know, it finds\nonly after the higher is entered upon and has commenced its work of\nmastery; and, instead of there being a giving up of any kind, there is a\ngreat law which says that the lower always and of its own accord falls\naway before the higher. And the time soon comes when, as one stands and\nlooks back, he wonders that this or that that he at one time called\npleasure ever satisfied him; for what then satisfied him, compared to\nwhat now is his hourly peace, satisfaction, and joy, was but as poor\nbrass compared to the finest, purest, and rarest of gold.\n\nFrom what has been said let it not be inferred that the body, the\nphysical, material life is to be despised or looked down upon. This,\nrather let it be said, is one of the crying errors of the times, and\nprolific of a _vast_ amount of error, suffering, and shame. On the\ncontrary, it should be thought all the more highly of: it should be\nloved and developed to its highest perfections, beauties, and powers.\nGod gave us the body not in vain. It is just as holy and beautiful as\nthe spirit itself. It is merely the outward material manifestation of\nthe individualized spirit; and we by our hourly thoughts and emotions\nare building it, are determining its conditions, its structure, and\nappearance. And, if there are any conditions we are not satisfied with,\nwe by an understanding of the laws, have it in our power to make it over\nand change these conditions. Flamarion, the eminent French scientist,\nmember of the Royal Academy of Science, and recognized as one of the\nmost eminent scientists living, tells us that the entire human structure\ncan be made over within a period of less than one year, some eleven\nmonths being the length of time required for the more compact and more\nset portions to respond; while some portions respond much more readily\nwithin a period of from two to three months, and some even within a\nmonth.\n\nEvery part, every organ, every function of the body is just as clean,\njust as beautiful, just as sweet, and just as holy as every other part;\nand it is only by virtue of man's perverted ways of looking at some that\nthey become otherwise, and the moment they so become, abuses, ill uses,\nsuffering, and shame creep in.\n\n_Not repression, but elevation._ Would that this could be repeated a\nthousand times over! Not repression, but elevation. Every part, every\norgan, every function of the body is given for _use_, but not for misuse\nor abuse; and the moment the latter takes place in connection with any\nfunction it loses its higher powers of use, and there goes with this the\nhigher powers of true enjoyment. It is thus that we get that large class\nknown as abnormals, resorting to the methods they resort to for\nenjoyment, but which, in its true sense, they always fail in finding,\nbecause law will admit of no violations; and, if violated, it takes away\nthe very powers of enjoyment, it takes away the very things that through\nits violation they thought they had secured, or it turns them into ashes\nin their very hands. God, nature, law, the higher self, is not mocked.\n\nNot repression, but elevation,--repression only in the sense of\nmastery; but this means--nay, this is--elevation. In other words, we\nshould be the master, and not the body. We should dictate to the body,\nand should never, even for an instant, allow it to dictate to us.\n\nOh, the thousands, the hundreds of thousands of men and women who are\neverywhere being driven hither and thither, led into this and into that\nwhich their own better selves would not enter into, simply because they\nhave allowed the body to assume the mastery; while they have taken the\nplace of the weakling, the slave, and all on account of their own\nweakness,--weakness through ignorance, ignorance of the tremendous\nforces and powers within, the forces and powers of the mind and spirit.\n\nIt would be a right royal plan for those who are thus enslaved by the\nbody,--and we all are more or less, each in his own particular way, and\nnot one is absolutely free,--it would be a good plan to hold\nimmediately, at this very hour, a conversation with the body somewhat\nafter this fashion: Body, we have for some time been dwelling together.\nLife for neither has been in the highest degree satisfactory. The cause\nis now apparent to me. The mastery I have voluntarily handed over to\nyou. You have not assumed it of your own accord; but I have given it\nover to you little by little, and just in the degree that you have\nappropriated it. Neither one is to blame. It has been by virtue of\nignorance. But henceforth we will reverse positions. You shall become\nthe servant, and I the master. From this time forth you shall no longer\ndictate to me, but I will dictate to you.\n\nI, one with Infinite intelligence, wisdom, and power, longing for a\nfuller and ever fuller realization of this oneness, will assume control,\nand will call upon you to help in the fuller and ever fuller external\nmanifestation of this realization. We will thus regain the ground both\nof us have lost. We will thus be truly married instead of farcically so.\nAnd thus we will help each the other to a realization of the highest,\nmost satisfying and most enduring pleasures and joys, possibilities and\npowers, loves and realizations, that human life can know; and so, hand\nin hand, we will help each the other to the higher and ever-increasing\nlife instead of degrading each the other to the lower and\never-decreasing. I will become the imperial master, and you the royal\ncompanion; and thus we will go forth to an ever larger life of love and\nservice, and so of true enjoyment.\n\nThis conversation, if entered into in the spirit, accompanied by an\nearnest, sincere desire for its fulfilment, re-enforced by the thought\nforces, and continually attended by that absolute magnet of power, firm\nexpectation, will, if all are firmly and persistently held to, bring the\nfull realization of one's fondest desires with a certainty as absolute\nas that effect follows cause. The higher self will invariably master\nwhen it truly and firmly asserts itself. Much the same attitude can be\nassumed in connection with the body in disease or in suffering with the\nsame results. Forces can be set into operation which will literally\nchange and make over the diseased, the abnormal portions, and in time\ntransform them into the healthy, the strong, the normal,--this when we\nonce understand and vitally grasp the laws of these mighty forces, and\nare brought to the full recognition of the absolute control of mind, of\nspirit, over matter, and all, again let it be said, in accordance with\nnatural spiritual law.\n\n_No, a knowledge of the spiritual realities of life prohibits\nasceticism, repression, the same as it prohibits license and perverted\nuse. To err on the one side is just as contrary to the ideal life as to\nerr on the other._ All things are for a purpose, all should be used and\nenjoyed; but all should be rightly used, that they may be fully enjoyed.\n\nIt is the threefold life and development that is wanted,--physical,\nmental, spiritual. This gives the rounded life, and he or she who fails\nin any one comes short of the perfect whole. The physical has its uses\njust the same and is just as important as the others. The great secret\nof the highly successful life is, however, to infuse the mental and the\nphysical with the spiritual; in other words, to spiritualize all, and so\nraise all to the highest possibilities and powers.\n\nIt is the all-round, fully developed we want,--not the ethereal,\npale-blooded man and woman, but the man and woman of flesh and blood,\nfor action and service here and now,--the man and woman strong and\npowerful, with all the faculties and functions fully unfolded and used,\nall in a royal and bounding condition, but all rightly subordinated. The\nman and the woman of this kind, with the imperial hand of mastery upon\nall,--standing, moving thus like a king, nay, like a very God,--such is\nthe man and such is the woman of power. Such is the ideal life: anything\nelse is one-sided, and falls short of it.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe most powerful agent in character-building is this awakening to the\ntrue self, to the fact that man is a spiritual being,--nay, more, that\nI, this very eternal I, am a spiritual being, right here and now, at\nthis very moment, with the God-powers which can be quickly called forth.\nWith this awakening, life in all its manifold relations becomes\nwonderfully simplified. And as to the powers, the full realization of\nthe fact that man is a spiritual being and a living as such brings, they\nare absolutely without limit, increasing in direct proportion as the\nhigher self, the God-self, assumes the mastery, and so as this higher\nspiritualization of life goes on.\n\nWith this awakening and realization one is brought at once _en rapport_\nwith the universe. He feels the power and the thrill of the life\nuniversal. He goes out from his own little garden spot, and mingles with\nthe great universe; and the little perplexities, trials, and\ndifficulties of life that to-day so vex and annoy him, fall away of\ntheir own accord by reason of their very insignificance. The intuitions\nbecome keener and ever more keen and unerring in their guidance. There\ncomes more and more the power of reading men, so that no harm can come\nfrom this source. There comes more and more the power of seeing into the\nfuture, so that more and more true becomes the old adage,--that coming\nevents cast their shadows before. Health in time takes the place of\ndisease; for all disease and its consequent suffering is merely the\nresult of the violation of law, either consciously or unconsciously,\neither intentionally or unintentionally. There comes also a spiritual\npower which, as it is sent out, is adequate for the healing of others\nthe same as in the days of old. The body becomes less gross and heavy,\nfiner in its texture and form, so that it serves far better and responds\nfar more readily to the higher impulses of the soul. Matter itself in\ntime responds to the action of these higher forces; and many things that\nwe are accustomed by reason of our limited vision to call miraculous or\nsupernatural become the normal, the natural, the every-day.\n\nFor what, let us ask, is a miracle? Nothing more nor less than this: a\nhighly illumined soul, one who has brought his life into thorough\nharmony with the higher spiritual laws and forces of his being, and\ntherefore with those of the universe, thus making it possible for the\nhighest things to come to him, has brought to him a law a little higher\nthan the ordinary mind knows of as yet. This he touches, he operates. It\nresponds. The people see the result, and cry out, Miracle! miracle! when\nit is just as natural, just as fully in accordance with the law on this\nhigher plane, as is the common, the every-day on the ordinary. And let\nit be remembered that the miraculous, the supernatural of to-day\nbecomes, as in the process of evolution we leave the lower for the\nhigher, the commonplace, the natural, the every-day of to-morrow; and,\ntruly, miracles are being performed in the world to-day just as much as\nthey ever have been.\n\nAnd why should we not to-day have the powers of the foremost in the days\nof old? The great universe in which we live is just the same, the great\nlaws under which we live are identically the same, God the same and\nworking in His world now just as then. The only difference we shall find\nis in ourselves, in that we have taken our lives out of harmony with the\nhigher laws of our being, and consequently have lost the higher powers\nthrough not using them. Mighty men we are told they were, mighty men\nwho walked with God,--and in the last clause lies the secret of the\nfirst,--- men who lived in the spirit, men who followed after the real\nlife instead of giving all time and attention to the mere external, men\nwho lived in the higher stories of their being, and not continually in\nthe basements.\n\nWith here and there an exception we reverse the process. We live in the\nvalleys, so to speak, often disease-infected valleys, when we might\nmount up to the mountain-tops, and there dwell continually in the warm\nand mellow sunlight of God's, or if you please, of nature's great,\nunchangeable laws, and find ourselves rising ever higher and higher, and\nrevelations coming new every day.\n\nThe Master never claimed for himself anything that he did not claim for\nall mankind; but, quite to the contrary, he said and continually\nrepeated, Not only shall ye do these things, but greater than these\nshall ye do; for I have pointed out to you the way,--meaning, though\nstrange as it evidently seems to many, _exactly_ what he said.\n\nOf the vital power of thought and the interior forces in moulding\nconditions, and more, of the supremacy of thought over all conditions,\nthe world has scarcely the faintest grasp, not to say even idea, as yet.\nThe fact that thoughts are forces, and that through them _we have\ncreative power_, is one of the most vital facts of the universe, the\nmost vital fact of man's being. And through this instrumentality we have\nin our grasp and as our rightful heritage, the power of making life and\nall its manifold conditions exactly what we will.\n\nThrough our thought-forces we have creative power, not in a figurative\nsense, but in reality. Everything in the material universe about us had\nits origin first in spirit, in thought, and from this it took its form.\nThe very world in which we live, with all its manifold wonders and\nsublime manifestations, is the result of the energies of the divine\nintelligence or mind,--God, or whatever term it comes convenient for\neach one to use. And God said, Let there be, and there was,--the\nmaterial world, at least the material manifestation of it, literally\nspoken into existence, the spoken word, however, but the outward\nmanifestation of the interior forces of the Supreme Intelligence.\n\nEvery castle the world has ever seen was first an ideal in the\narchitect's mind. Every statue was first an ideal in the sculptor's\nmind. Every piece of mechanism the world has ever known was first\nformed in the mind of the inventor. Here it was given birth to. These\nsame mind-forces then dictated to and sent the energy into the hand that\ndrew the model, and then again dictated to and sent the energy into the\nhands whereby the first instrument was clothed in the material form of\nmetal or of wood. The lower negative always gives way to the higher when\nmade positive. Mind is positive: matter is negative.\n\nEach individual life is a part of, and hence is one with, the Infinite\nLife; and the highest intelligence and power belongs to each in just the\ndegree that he recognizes his oneness and lays claim to and uses it. The\npower of the word is not merely an idle phrase or form of expression. It\nis a real mental, spiritual, scientific fact, and can become vital and\npowerful in your hands and in mine in just the degree that we understand\nthe omnipotence of the thought forces and raise all to the higher\nplanes.\n\nThe blind, the lame, the diseased, stood before the Christ, who said,\nReceive thy sight, rise up and walk, or, be thou healed; and o! _it was\nso_. The spoken word, however, was but the outward expression and\nmanifestation of his interior thought-forces, the power and potency of\nwhich he so thoroughly knew. But the laws governing them are the same\nto-day as they were then, and it lies in our power to use them the same\nas it lay in his.\n\nEach individual life, after it has reached a certain age or degree of\nintelligence, lives in the midst of the surroundings or environments of\nits own creation; and this by reason of that wonderful power, _the\ndrawing power of mind_, which is continually operating in every life,\nwhether it is conscious of it or not.\n\nWe are all living, so to speak, in a vast ocean of thought. The very\natmosphere about us is charged with the thought-forces that are being\ncontinually sent out. When the thought-forces leave the brain, they go\nout upon the atmosphere, the subtle conducting ether, much the same as\nsound-waves go out. It is by virtue of this law that thought\ntransference is possible, and has become an established scientific fact,\nby virtue of which a person can so direct his thought-forces that a\nperson at a distance, and in a receptive attitude, can get the thought\nmuch the same as sound, for example, is conducted through the agency of\na connecting medium.\n\nEven though the thoughts as they leave a particular person, are not\nconsciously directed, they go out; and all may be influenced by them in\na greater or less degree, each one in proportion as he or she is more or\nless sensitively organized, or in proportion as he or she is negative,\nand so open to forces and influences from without. The law operating\nhere is one with that great law of the universe,--that like attracts\nlike, so that one continually attracts to himself forces and influences\nmost akin to those of his own life. And his own life is determined by\nthe thoughts and emotions he habitually entertains, for each is building\nhis world from within. As within, so without; cause, effect.\n\nA stalk of wheat and a stock of corn are growing side by side, within an\ninch of each other. The soil is the same for both; but the wheat\nconverts the food it takes from the soil into wheat, the likeness of\nitself, while the corn converts the food it takes from the same soil\ninto corn, the likeness of itself. What that which each has taken from\nthe soil is converted into is determined by the soul, the interior life,\nthe interior forces of each. This same grain taken as food by two\npersons will be converted into the body of a criminal in the one case,\nand into the body of a saint in the other, each after its kind; and its\nkind is determined by the inner life of each. And what again determines\nthe inner life of each? The thoughts and emotions that are habitually\nentertained and that inevitably, sooner or later, manifest themselves in\nouter material form. Thought is the great builder in human life: it is\nthe determining factor. Continually think thoughts that are good, and\nyour life will show forth in goodness, and your body in health and\nbeauty. Continually think evil thoughts, and your life will show forth\nin evil, and your body in weakness and repulsiveness. Think thoughts of\nlove, and you will love and will be loved. Think thoughts of hatred, and\nyou will hate and will be hated. Each follows its kind.\n\nIt is by virtue of this law that each person creates his own\n\"atmosphere\"; and this atmosphere is determined by the character of the\nthoughts he habitually entertains. It is, in fact, simply his thought\natmosphere--the atmosphere which other people detect and are influenced\nby.\n\nIn this way each person creates the atmosphere of his own room; a\nfamily, the atmosphere of the house in which they live, so that the\nmoment you enter the door you feel influences kindred to the thoughts\nand hence to the lives of those who dwell there. You get a feeling of\npeace and harmony or a feeling of disquietude and inharmony. You get a\nwelcome, want-to-stay feeling or a cold, want-to-get-away feeling,\naccording to their thought attitude toward you, even though but few\nwords be spoken. So the characteristic mental states of a congregation\nof people who assemble there determine the atmosphere of any given\nassembly-place, church, or cathedral. Its inhabitants so make, so\ndetermine the atmosphere of a particular village or city. The\nsympathetic thoughts sent out by a vast amphitheatre of people, as they\ncheer a contestant, carry him to goals he never could reach by his own\nefforts alone. The same is true in regard to an orator and his audience.\n\nNapoleon's army is in the East. The plague is beginning to make inroads\ninto its ranks. Long lines of men are lying on cots and on the ground in\nan open space adjoining the army. Fear has taken a vital hold of all,\nand the men are continually being stricken. Look yonder, contrary to the\nearnest entreaties of his officers, who tell him that such exposure will\nmean sure death, Napoleon with a calm and dauntless look upon his face,\nwith a firm and defiant step, is coming through these plague-stricken\nranks. He is going up to, talking with, touching the men; and, as they\nsee him, there goes up a mighty shout,--The Emperor! the Emperor! and\nfrom that hour the plague in its inroads is stopped. A marvellous\nexample of the power of a man who, by his own dauntless courage,\nabsolute fearlessness, and power of mind, could send out such forces\nthat they in turn awakened kindred forces in the minds of thousands of\nothers, which in turn dominate their very bodies, so that the plague,\nand even death itself, is driven from the field. One of the grandest\nexamples of a man of the most mighty and tremendous mind and will power,\nand at the same time an example of one of the grandest failures, taking\nlife in its totality, the world has ever seen.\n\nAgain, as has been said, the great law operating in connection with the\nthought-forces is one with that great law of the universe,--that like\nattracts like. We can, by virtue of our ignorance of the powers of the\nmind forces and the prevailing mental states,--we can take the passive,\nthe negative, fearing, drifting attitude, and thus continually attract\nto us like influences and conditions from both the seen and the unseen\nside of life. Or, by a knowledge of the power and potency of these\nforces, we can take the positive, the active attitude, that of mastery,\nand so attract the higher and more valuable influences, exactly as we\nwill to.\n\nWe are all much more influenced by the thought-forces and mental states\nof those around us and of the world at large than we have even the\nslightest conception of. If not self-hypnotized into certain beliefs and\npractices, we are, so to speak, semi-hypnotized through the influence of\nthe thoughts of others, even though unconsciously both on their part and\non ours. We are so influenced and enslaved in just the degree that we\nfail to recognize the power and omnipotence of our own forces, and so\nbecome slaves to custom, conventionality, the opinions of others, and so\nin like proportion lose our own individuality and powers. He who in his\nown mind takes the attitude of the slave, by the power of his own\nthoughts and the forces he thus attracts to him, becomes the slave. He\nwho in his own mind takes the attitude of the master, by the same power\nof his own thoughts and the forces he thus attracts to him, becomes the\nmaster. Each is building his world from within, and, if outside forces\nplay, it is because he allows them to play; and he has it in his own\npower to determine whether these shall be positive, uplifting,\nennobling, strengthening, success-giving, or negative, degrading,\nweakening, failure-bringing.\n\nNothing is more subtle than thought, nothing more powerful, nothing more\nirresistible in its operations, when rightly applied and held to with a\nfaith and fidelity that is unswerving,--a faith and fidelity that never\nknows the neutralizing effects of doubt and fear. If one have\naspirations and a sincere desire for a higher and better condition, so\nfar as advantages, facilities, associates, or any surroundings or\nenvironments are concerned, and if he continually send out his highest\nthought-forces for the realization of these desires, and continually\nwater these forces with firm expectation as to their fulfilment, he will\nsooner or later find himself in the realization of these desires, and\nall in accordance with natural laws and forces.\n\nFear brings its own fulfilment the same as hope. The same law operates,\nand if, as our good and valued friend, Job, said when the darkest days\nwere setting in upon him,--that which I feared has come upon me,--was\ntrue, how much more surely could he have brought about the opposite\nconditions, those he would have desired, had he have had even the\nslightest realization of his own powers, and had he acted the part of\nthe master instead of that of the servant, had he have dictated terms\ninstead of being dictated to, and thus suffering the consequences.\n\nIf one finds himself in any particular condition, in the midst of any\nsurroundings or environments that are not desirable, that have\nnothing--at least for any length of time--that is of value to him, for\nhis highest life and unfoldment, he has the remedy entirely within his\nown grasp the moment he realizes the power and supremacy of the forces\nof the mind and spirit; and, unless he intelligently use these forces,\nhe drifts. Unless through them he becomes master and dictates, he\nbecomes the slave and is dictated to, and so is driven hither and\nthither.\n\nEarnest, sincere desire, sincere aspiration for higher and better\nconditions or means to realize them, the thought-forces actively sent\nout for their realization, these continually watered by firm expectation\nwithout allowing the contrary, neutralizing force of fear ever to enter\nin,--this, accompanied by rightly directed work and activity, will\nbring about the fullest realization of one's highest desires and\naspirations with a certainty as absolute as that effect follows cause.\nEach and every one of us can thus make for himself ever higher and\nhigher conditions, can attract ever and ever higher influences, can\nrealize an ever higher and higher ideal in life. These are the forces\nthat are within us, simply waiting to be recognized and used,--the\nforces that we should infuse into and mould every-day life with. The\nmoment we vitally recognize them, they become our servants and wait upon\nour bidding.\n\nAre you, for example, a young man or a young woman desiring a college, a\nuniversity education, or have you certain literary or artistic instincts\nyour soul longs the more fully to realize and actualize, and seems there\nno way open for you to realize the fulfilment of your desires? But the\npower is in your hands the moment you recognize it there. Begin at once\nto set the right forces into operation. Put forth your ideal, which will\nbegin to clothe itself in material form, send out your thought-forces\nfor its realization, continually hold and add to them, always strongly\nbut always calmly, never allow the element of fear, which will keep the\nrealization just so much farther away, to enter in; but, on the\ncontrary, continually water with firm expectation all the forces thus\nset into operation. Do not then sit and idly fold the hands, expecting\nto see all things drop into the lap,--God feeds the sparrow, but he does\nnot throw the food into its nest,--but take hold of the first thing that\noffers itself for you to do,--work in the fields, at the desk, saw wood,\nwash dishes, tend behind the counter, or whatever it may be,--be\nfaithful to the thing in hand, always expecting something better, and\nknow that this in hand is the thing that will open to you the next\nhigher, and this the next and the next; and so realize that each thing\nthus taken hold of is but the agency that takes you each time a step\nnearer the realization of your fondest ideals. You then hold the key;\nand bolts that otherwise would remain immovable, by this mighty force,\nwill be thrown before you.\n\nWe are born to be neither slaves nor beggars, but to dominion and to\nplenty. This is our rightful heritage, if we will but recognize and lay\nclaim to it. Many a man and many a woman is to-day longing for\nconditions better and higher than he or she is in, who might be using\nthe same time now spent in vain, indefinite, spasmodic longings, in\nputting into operation forces which, accompanied by the right personal\nactivity, would speedily bring the fullest realization of his or her\nfondest dreams. The great universe is filled with an abundance of all\nthings, filled to overflowing. All there is, is in her, waiting only for\nthe touch of the right forces to cast them forth. She is no respecter of\npersons outside of the fact that she always responds to the demands of\nthe man or the woman who knows and uses the forces and powers he or she\nis endowed with. And to the demands of such she always opens her\ntreasure-house, for the supply is always equal to the demand. All things\nare in the hands of him who knows they are there.\n\nOf all known forms of energy, thought is the most subtle, the most\nirresistible force. It has always been operating; but, so far as the\ngreat masses of the people are concerned, it has been operating blindly,\nor, rather, they have been blind to its mighty power, except in the\ncases of a few here and there. And these, as a consequence, have been\nour prophets, our seers, our sages, our saviors, our men of great and\nmighty power. We are just beginning to grasp the tremendous truth that\nthere is a _science of thought_, and that the laws governing it can be\nknown and scientifically applied. The man who understands and who\nappropriates this fact has literally all things under his control.\nHeredity and its attendant circumstances and influences? you ask. Most\nsurely. The barriers which heredity builds, the same as those\nenvironment erects, when the awakened interior forces are considered,\nare as mud walls standing within the range of a Krupp gun: shattered and\ncrumbled they are when the tremendous force is applied.\n\nThought needs direction to be effective, and upon this effective results\ndepend as much as upon the force itself. This brings us to the will.\nWill is not as is so often thought, a force in itself; will is the\ndirecting power. Thought is the force. Will gives direction. Thought\nscattered gives the weak, the uncertain, the vacillating, the aspiring,\nbut the never-doing, the I-would-like-to, but the get-no-where, the\nattain-to-nothing man or woman. Thought steadily directed by the will,\ngives the strong, the firm, the never-yielding, the never-know-defeat\nman or woman, the man or woman who uses the very difficulties and\nhindrances that would dishearten the ordinary person, as stones with\nwhich he paves a way over which he triumphantly walks, who, by the very\nforce he carries with him, so neutralizes and transmutes the very\nobstacles that would bar his way that they fall before him, and in turn\naid him on his way; the man or woman who, like the eagle, uses the very\ncontrary wind that would thwart his flight, that would turn him and\ncarry him in the opposite direction, as the very agency upon which he\nmounts and mounts and mounts, until actually lost to the human eye, and\nwhich, in addition to thus aiding him, brings to him an ever fuller\nrealization of his own powers, or in other words, an ever greater power.\n\nIt is this that gives the man or the woman who in storm or in sunny\nweather, rides over every obstacle, throws before him every barrier,\nand, as Browning has said, finally \"arrives.\" Take, for example, the\nsuccessful business man,--for it is all one, the law is the same in all\ncases,--the man who started with nothing except his own interior\nequipments. He has made up his mind to _one_ thing,--success. This is\nhis ideal. He thinks success, he sees success. He refuses to see\nanything else. He expects success: he thus attracts it to him, his\nthought-forces continually attract to him every agency that makes for\nsuccess. He has set up the current, so that every wind that blows\nbrings him success. He doesn't expect failure, and so he doesn't invite\nit. He has no time, no energies, to waste in fears or forebodings. He is\ndauntless, untiring, in his efforts. Let disaster come to-day, and\nto-morrow--ay, even yet to-day--he is getting his bearings, he is\nsetting forces anew into operation; and these very forces are of more\nvalue to him than the half million dollars of his neighbor who has\nsuffered from the same disaster. We speak of a man's failing in\nbusiness, little thinking that the real failure came long before, and\nthat the final crash is but the culmination, the outward visible\nmanifestation, of the real failure that occurred within possibly long\nago. _A man carries his success or his failure with him: it is not\ndependent upon outside conditions._\n\nWill is the steady directing power: it is concentration. It is the pilot\nwhich, after the vessel is started by the mighty force within, puts it\non its right course and keeps it true to that course, the pilot under\nwhose control the rudder is which brings the great ocean liner, even\nthrough storms and gales, to an exact spot in the Liverpool port within\na few minutes of its scheduled time, and at times even upon the very\nminute. Will is the sun-glass which so concentrates and so focuses the\nsun's rays that they quickly burn a hole through the paper that is held\nbefore it. The same rays, not thus concentrated, not thus focused, would\nfall upon the paper for days without any effect whatever. Will is the\nmeans for the directing, the concentrating, the focusing, of the\nthought-forces. Thought under wise direction,--this it is that does the\nwork, that brings results, that makes the successful career. One object\nin mind which we never lose sight of; an ideal steadily held before the\nmind, never lost sight of, never lowered, never swerved from,--this,\nwith persistence, determines all. Nothing can resist the power of\nthought, when thus directed by will.\n\nMay not this power, then, be used for base as well as for good purposes,\nfor selfish as well as for unselfish ends? The same with this\nmodification,--the more highly thought is spiritualized, the more subtle\nand powerful it becomes; and the more highly spiritualized the life, the\nfarther is it removed from base, ignoble, selfish ends. But, even if it\ncan be thus used, let him who would so use it be careful, let him never\nforget that that mighty, searching, omnipotent law of the right, of\ntruth, of justice, that runs through all the universe and that can\nnever be annulled or even for a moment set aside, will drive him to the\nwall, will crush him with a terrific force if he so use it.\n\nLet him never forget that whatever he may get for self at the expense of\nsome one else, through deception, through misrepresentation, through the\nexercise of the lower functions and powers, will by a law equally\nsubtle, equally powerful, be turned into ashes in his very hands. The\nhoney he thinks he has secured will be turned into bitterness as he\nattempts to eat it; the beautiful fruit he thinks is his will be as\nwormwood as he tries to enjoy it; the rose he has plucked will vanish,\nand he will find himself clutching a handful of thorns, which will\npenetrate to the very quick and which will flow the very life-blood from\nhis hands. For through the violation of a higher, an immutable law,\nthough he may get this or that, the power of true enjoyment will be\ntaken away, and what he gets will become as a thorn in his side: either\nthis or it will sooner or later escape from his hands. God's\ntriumphal-car moves in a direction and at a rate that is certain and\nabsolute, and he who would oppose it or go contrary to it must fall and\nbe crushed beneath its wheels; and for him this crushing is necessary,\nin order that it may bring him the more quickly to a knowledge of the\nhigher laws, to a realization of the higher self.\n\nThis brings to our notice two orders of will, which we may term, for\nconvenience' sake, the human and the divine. The human will is the one\njust noticed, the sense will, the will of the lower self, that which\nseeks its own ends regardless of its connection with the greater whole.\nThe divine will is the will of the higher self, the god-self, that that\nnever makes an error, that never leads into difficulties. How attain to\nits realization? How call it into a dominating activity? Through an\nawakening to and a living in the higher, the god-self, thus making it\none with God's will, one with the will of infinite intelligence,\ninfinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite power; and when this is done,\nno mistakes can be made, any more than limits can be set.\n\nIt is thus that the Infinite Power works through and for us--true\ninspiration--while our part is simply to see that our connection with\nthis power is consciously and perfectly kept. And, when we come to a\nknowledge of the true nature, a knowledge of the true self, when we come\nto a conscious realization of the fact that we are one with, a part of,\nthis spirit of infinite life, infinite love, infinite wisdom, infinite\npower, and infinite plenty, do we not see that we lack for nothing, that\nall things _are_ ours? It is then ours to speak the word: desire induces\nand gives place to realization. If you are intelligence, if you are\npower, if you are that all-seeing, all-knowing, all-doing, all-loving,\nall-having, that eternal self, that eternal one without beginning and\nwithout end, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, then all things\n_are_ yours, and you lack for nothing; and, when you come consciously to\nknow and to live this truth, then the whole of life for you is summed up\nin the one word _realization_. The striving, the pulling, the running\nhither and thither to accomplish this or that, that takes place on all\nplanes of life below this highest plane, gives place to this\n_realization_; and you and your desire become one.\n\nAnd what does this mean? Simply this: that you have found and have\nliterally entered into the kingdom of heaven, and heaven means harmony,\nso that you have entered into the kingdom of harmony,--harmony or\noneness with the Infinite Life, the Infinite God. And do we not, then,\nclearly see the rational and scientific basis for the injunction--seek\nye first the kingdom of heaven, and all these other things shall be\nadded unto you? Than this there is nothing in all the wide universe more\nscientific, nothing more practical; and in the light of this can we not\nalso see how readily follows the injunction--Take ye no thought for the\nthings of the morrow, for the things of the morrow will take care of\nthemselves? This realization gives you that care-less attitude, free\nfrom care. The Infinite Power does the work for you, and you are\nrelieved of the responsibility. Your responsibility lies in keeping\nyourself in a faithful and a never-failing connection with this Infinite\nSource. Why, I know a few lives that have come into such a conscious\noneness with the Infinite Life, and who so continually live in its\nrealization, that all things that have just been said are _absolutely_\ntrue in their cases. The solution of all things they thus put into the\nlaw, so that, when the time comes, the difficulty is solved, the course\nis clear, the way is opened, or the means are at hand. When one knows\nwhereof he speaks, of this he can speak with authority.\n\nWhen this realization comes, fear goes, hope attends, faith\ndominates,--the faith of to-day which gives place to the realization of\nto-morrow. We then have nothing to do with the past, nothing to do with\nthe future; for the whole of life is determined by the ever-present\nto-day. As my life to-day has been determined by the way I lived my\nyesterday, so my to-morrow is being determined by the way I live my\nto-day. Let me then live in this _eternal now_, and realize that I am at\nthis very moment living the eternal life as much as I ever shall or can\nlive it. I will then waste no time with the past, except perhaps\noccasionally to give thanks that its then seeming trials, sorrows,\nerrors, and stumblings have brought me all the sooner into harmony with\nthe laws of the higher life. Let me waste no time with the future, no\ntime in idle dreaming, neither in fears nor forebodings, thus inviting\nand opening the door for the entrance of their actualizations; but\nrather let me, by the thoughts and so by the deeds of to-day, make the\nfuture exactly what I will.\n\nEvery act is preceded and given birth to by a thought, the act repeated\nforms the habit, the habit determines the character, and character\ndetermines the life, the destiny,--a most significant, a most tremendous\ntruth: thought on the one hand, life, destiny, on the other. And how\nsimplified, when we realize that it is merely the thought of the present\nhour, and the next when it comes, and the next, and the next! so life,\ndestiny, on the one hand, the thoughts of the present hour, on the\nother. This is the secret of character-building. How wonderfully simple,\nthough what vigilance it demands!\n\nWhat, shall we ask, is the place, what the value, of prayer? Prayer, as\nevery act of devotion, brings us into an ever greater conscious harmony\nwith the Infinite, the one pearl of great price; for it is this harmony\nwhich brings all other things. Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, and\nthus is its own answer, as the sincere desire made active and\naccompanied by faith sooner or later gives place to realization; _for\nfaith is an invisible and invincible magnet, and attracts to itself\nwhatever it fervently desires and calmly and persistently expects_. This\nis absolute, and the results will be absolute in exact proportion as\nthis operation of the thought forces, as this faith is absolute, and\nrelative in exact proportion as it is relative. The Master said, What\nthings soever ye desire, when ye pray, _believe_ that ye receive them\nand ye shall have them. Can any law be more clearly enunciated, can\nanything be more definite and more absolute than this? According to thy\nfaith be it unto thee. Do we at times fail in obtaining the results we\ndesire? The fault, the failure, lies not in the law but in ourselves.\nRegarded in its right and true light, than prayer there is nothing more\nscientific, nothing more valuable, nothing more effective.\n\nThis conscious realization of oneness with the Infinite Life is of all\nthings the one thing to be desired; for, when this oneness is realized\nand lived in, all other things follow in its train, there are no desires\nthat shall not be realized, for God has planted in the human breast no\ndesire without its corresponding means of realization. No harm can come\nnigh, nothing can touch us, there will be nothing to fear; for we shall\nthus attract only the good. And whatever changes time may bring,\nunderstanding the law, we shall always expect something better, and thus\nset into operation the forces that will attract that something,\nrealizing that many times angels go out that arch-angels may enter in;\nand this is always true in the case of the life of this higher\nrealization. And why should we have any fear whatever,--fear even for\nthe nation, as is many times expressed? God is behind His world, in\nlove and with infinite care and watchfulness working out his great and\nalmighty plans; and whatever plans men may devise, He will when the time\nis ripe either frustrate and shatter, or aid and push through to their\nmost perfect culmination,--frustrate and shatter if contrary to, aid and\nactualize if in harmony with His.\n\nIt will readily be seen what a power the life that is fully awake, that\nfully grasps and uses the great forces of its own interior self, can be\nin the service of mankind. One with these forces highly spiritualized\nwill not have to go here and there to do the greatest service for\nmankind. Such a one can sit in his cabin, in his tent, in his own home,\nor, as he goes here and there, he can continually send out influences of\nthe most potent and powerful nature,--influences that will have their\neffect, that will do their work, and that will reach to the uttermost\nparts of the world. Than this there can be no more valuable, more vital\nservice, nor one of a higher nature.\n\nThese facts, the facts relating to the powers that come with the higher\nawakening, have been dealt with somewhat fully, to show that the matters\nalong the lines of man's interior, intuitive, spiritual, thought, soul\nlife, instead of being, as they are so many times regarded, merely\nindefinite, sentimental, or impractical, are, on the contrary,\npowerfully, omnipotently real, and are of all practical things in the\nworld the most practical, and, in the truest and deepest sense, the only\ntruly practical things there are. And pre-eminently is this true when we\nlook with a long range of vision, past the mere to-day, to the final\noutcome, to the time when that transition we are accustomed to call\ndeath takes place, and all accumulations and possessions material are\nleft behind, and the soul takes with it only the unfoldment and growth\nof the real life; and unless it has this, when all else must be left\nbehind, it goes out poor indeed. And a most wonderful and beautiful fact\nof it all is this: that all growth, all advancement, all attainment made\nalong the lines of the spiritual, the soul, the real life, is so much\nmade forever, and can never be lost. Hence the great fact in the\nadmonition, Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth\ndoth corrupt and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for\nyourselves treasures in heaven,--the interior, spiritual kingdom,--where\nneither moth doth corrupt nor where thieves break through and steal.\n\nWhat then, again let us ask, is love to God? It is far more, we have\nfound, than a mere sentimental abstraction. It is this awakening to the\nhigher, the god-self, a coming into the conscious realization of the\nfact that your life is one with, is a part of, the Infinite Life, the\nfull realization of the fact that you are a spiritual being here and\nnow, at this very moment, and a living as such. It is being true to the\nlight that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, and so a\nfinding of the Christ within; a realization of the fact that God is the\nlife of your life, and so not afar off; a realization of a oneness so\nperfect that you are able to say, as did His other son, \"I and my Father\nare one\"--the ultimate destiny of each human soul, each of the Father's\nchildren, for all, no matter what differences man may see, are equal in\nHis sight; and He created not one in vain. So love to God in its true\nexpression is not a mere sentimentality, a mere abstraction: it is life,\nit is growth, it is spiritual awakening and unfoldment, it is\nrealization. Again, it is life: it is the more abundant life.\n\nThen recognize this fact, and so fill your life with an intense, a\npassionate love for God. Then take this life, so rich, so abundant, and\nso powerful, and lose it in the love and service of your fellow-men, the\nFather's other children. Fill it with an intense, a passionate love for\nservice; and when this shall have been done, your life is in complete\nharmony with all the law and the prophets, in complete harmony with the\ntwo great and determining facts of human life and destiny,--love to God\nand love to one's fellow-men,--the two eternal principles upon which the\ngreat universal religion, which is slowly and gradually evolving out an\nalmost endless variety and form, is to rest. Do this, and feel once for\nall the power and the thrill of the life universal. Do this, and find\nyourself coming into the full realization of such splendors and beauties\nas all the royal courts of this world combined have never been able even\nto dream of.\n\nWhen the step from the personal to the impersonal, from the personal,\nthe individual, to the universal, is once made, the great solution of\nlife has come; and by this same step one enters at once into the realm\nof all power. When this is done, and one fully realizes the fact that\nthe greatest life is the life spent in the service of all mankind, and\nthen when he vitally grasps that great eternal principle of right, of\ntruth, of justice, that runs through all the universe, and which, though\ntemporarily it may seem to be perverted, always and with never an\nexception eventually prevails, and that with an omnipotent power,--he\nthen holds the key to all situations.\n\nA king of this nature goes about his work absolutely regardless of what\nmen may say or hear or think or do; for he himself has absolutely\nnothing to gain or nothing to lose, and nothing of this nature can come\nnear him or touch him, for he is standing not in the personal, but in\nthe universal. He is then in God's work, and the very God-powers are\nhis, and it seems as if the very angels of heaven come to minister unto\nhim and to move things his way; and this is true, very true, for he\nhimself is simply moving God's way, and when this is so, the certainty\nof the outcome is absolute.\n\nHow often did the Master say, \"I seek not to do mine own will, but the\nwill of the Father who sent me\"! Here is the world's great example of\nthe life out of the personal and in the universal, hence his great\npower. The same has been true of all the saviors, the prophets, the\nseers, the sages, and the leaders in the world's history, of all of\ntruly great and lasting power.\n\nHe who would then come into the secret of power must come from the\npersonal into the universal, and with this comes not only great power,\nbut also freedom from the vexations and perplexities that rise from the\nmisconstruing of motives, the opinions of others; for such a one cares\nnothing as to what men may say, or hear, or think, or do, so long as he\nis true to the great principles of right and truth before him. And, if\nwe will search carefully, we shall find that practically all the\nperplexities and difficulties of life have their origin on the side of\nthe personal.\n\nMuch is said to young men to-day about success in life,--success\ngenerally though, as the world calls success. It is well, however,\nalways to bear in mind the fact that there is a success which is a\nmiserable, a deplorable failure; while, on the other hand, there is a\nfailure which is a grand, a noble, a God-like success. And one crying\nneed of the age is that young men be taught the true dignity, nobility,\nand power of such a failure,--such a failure in the eyes of the world\nto-day, but such a success in the eyes of God and the coming ages. When\nthis is done, there will be among us more prophets, more saviors, more\nmen of grand and noble stature, who with a firm and steady hand will\nhold the lighted torch of true advancement high up among the people; and\nthey will be those whom the people will gladly follow, for they will be\nthose who will speak and move with authority, true sons of God, true\nbrothers of men. A man may make his millions and his life be a failure\nstill.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe promise was given that our conversation should not be extended; and\nunless we conclude it now, the promise will not be kept. Our aim at the\noutset, you will remember, was to find answer to the question--How can I\nmake life yield its fullest and best? how can I know the true secret of\npower? how can I attain to true greatness? how can I fill the whole of\nlife with a happiness, a peace, a joy, a satisfaction, that is ever rich\nand abiding, that ever increases, never diminishes?\n\nTwo great laws come forward: the one, that we find our own lives in\nlosing them in the service of others,--love to the fellow-man; the\nother, that all life is one with, is part of, the Infinite Life, that we\nare not material, but spiritual beings,--spiritual beings here and now,\nand a living as such, which brings us in turn to a realization of the\nhigher, the god-self, thus bringing us into the realm of all peace, all\npower, and all plenty,--this is love to God.\n\nAnd I wonder now if we have found the answer true and satisfactory. We\nhave sat at the feet of the Master Teacher, and he has told us that we\nhave. We have found that through them, and through them alone, _true_\ngreatness, power, and success can come; that through them comes the\nrichest joy, the greatest peace and satisfaction this world can know. We\nhave also found that, if one's desire is to make life narrow, pinched,\nand of little value, to rob it of its chief charms, the only requirement\nnecessary is to become self-centred, to live continually with the\nlittle, stunted self, which will inevitably grow more and more\ndiminutive and shrivelled as time passes, instead of reaching out and\nhaving a part in the great life of humanity, thus illimitably\nintensifying and multiplying his own. For each act of humble service is\nthat divine touching of the ground which enables one to get the spring\nwhereby he leaps to ever greater heights. We have found that a\nrecognition of these two laws enables one to grow and develop the\nfullest and richest life here, and that they are the two gates whereby\nall who would must enter the kingdom of heaven.\n\nAround this great and sweet-incensed altar of love, service, and\nself-devotion to God and the fellow-man, can and do all mankind bow and\nworship. To it can all religions and creeds subscribe: it is the\nuniversal religion.\n\nThen become at one with God, as did His other son, through the awakening\nto the real self and by living continually in this the higher, the\ngod-self. Become at one with humanity, as did His other son, by bringing\nyour life into harmony with this great, immutable law of love and\nservice and self-devotion, and so feel once for all the power and the\nthrill of the life universal.\n\nYours will then be a life the greatest, the grandest, the most joyous\nthis world can know; for you will indeed be living the Christ-life, the\nlife that is beyond compare, the life to which all the world stretches\nout its eager palms, and innumerable companies will rise up and call you\nblessed, and give thanks that such a life is the rich heritage of the\nworld. The song continually arising from your lips will then be, There\nis joy, only joy; for we are all one with the Infinite Life, all parts\nof the one great whole, and the Spirit of Infinite Goodness and Love is\never ruling over all.\n\n\n\n\nPART VI.\n\nCHARACTER-BUILDING THOUGHT POWER\n\n\n     _A thought,--good or evil,--an act, in time a habit,--so runs\n     life's law: what you live in your thought-world, that, sooner or\n     later, you will find objectified in your life._\n\n\nUnconsciously we are forming habits every moment of our lives. Some are\nhabits of a desirable nature; some are those of a most undesirable\nnature. Some, though not so bad in themselves, are exceedingly bad in\ntheir cumulative effects, and cause us at times much loss, much pain and\nanguish, while their opposites would, on the contrary, bring us much\npeace and joy, as well as a continually increasing power.\n\nHave we it within our power to determine at all times what types of\nhabits shall take form in our lives? In other words, is habit-forming,\ncharacter-building, a matter of mere chance, or have we it within our\nown control? We have, entirely and absolutely. \"I will be what I will to\nbe,\" can be said and should be said by every human soul.\n\nAfter this has been bravely and determinedly said, and not only said,\nbut fully inwardly realized, something yet remains. Something remains\nto be said regarding the great law underlying habit-forming,\ncharacter-building; for there is a simple, natural, and thoroughly\nscientific method that all should know. A method whereby old,\nundesirable, earth-binding habits can be broken, and new, desirable,\nheaven-lifting habits can be acquired,--a method whereby life in part or\nin its totality can be changed, provided one is sufficiently in earnest\nto know, and, knowing it, to apply the law.\n\nThought is the force underlying all. And what do we mean by this? Simply\nthis: Your every act--every conscious act--is preceded by a thought.\nYour dominating thoughts determine your dominating actions. The acts\nrepeated crystallize themselves into the habit. The aggregate of your\nhabits is your character. Whatever, then, you would have your acts, you\nmust look well to the character of the thought you entertain. Whatever\nact you would not do,--habit you would not acquire,--you must look well\nto it that you do not entertain the type of thought that will give birth\nto this act, this habit.\n\nIt is a simple psychological law that any type of thought, if\nentertained for a sufficient length of time, will, by and by, reach the\nmotor tracks of the brain, and finally burst forth into action. Murder\ncan be and many times is committed in this way, the same as all\nundesirable things are done. On the other hand, the greatest powers are\ngrown, the most God-like characteristics are engendered, the most heroic\nacts are performed in the same way.\n\nThe thing clearly to understand is this: That the thought is always\nparent to the act. Now, we have it entirely in our own hands to\ndetermine exactly what thoughts we entertain. In the realm of our own\nminds we have absolute control, or we should have, and if at any time we\nhave not, then there is a method by which we can gain control, and in\nthe realm of the mind become thorough masters. In order to get to the\nvery foundation of the matter, let us look to this for a moment. For if\nthought is always parent to our acts, habits, character, life, then it\nis first necessary that we know fully how to control our thoughts.\n\nHere let us refer to that law of the mind which is the same as is the\nlaw in connection with the reflex nerve system of the body, the law\nwhich says that whenever one does a certain thing in a certain way it is\neasier to do the same thing in the same way the next time, and still\neasier the next, and the next, and the next, until in time it comes to\npass that no effort is required, or no effort worth speaking of; but on\nthe contrary, to do the opposite would require the effort. The mind\ncarries with it the power that perpetuates its own type of thought, the\nsame as the body carries with it through the reflex nerve system the\npower which perpetuates and makes continually easier its own particular\nacts. Thus a simple effort to control one's thoughts, a simple setting\nabout it, even if at first failure is the result, and even if for a time\nfailure seems to be about the only result, will in time, sooner or\nlater, bring him to the point of easy, full, and complete control.\n\nEach one, then, can grow the power of determining, controlling his\nthought, the power of determining what types of thought he shall and\nwhat types he shall not entertain. For let us never part in mind with\nthis fact, that every earnest _effort_ along any line makes the end\naimed at just a little easier for each succeeding effort, even if, as\nhas been said, apparent failure is the result of the earlier efforts.\nThis is a case where even failure is success, for the failure is not in\nthe effort, and every earnest effort adds an increment of power that\nwill eventually accomplish the end aimed at. We _can_, then, gain the\nfull and complete power of determining what character, what type of\nthoughts we entertain.\n\nShall we now give attention to some two or three concrete cases? Here\nis a man, the cashier of a large mercantile establishment, or cashier of\na bank. In his morning paper he reads of a man who has become suddenly\nrich, has made a fortune of half a million or a million dollars in a few\nhours through speculation on the stock market. Perhaps he has seen an\naccount of another man who has done practically the same thing lately.\nHe is not quite wise enough, however, to comprehend the fact that when\nhe reads of one or two cases of this kind he could find, were he to look\ninto the matter carefully, one or two hundred cases of men who have lost\nall they had in the same way. He thinks, however, that he will be one of\nthe fortunate ones. He does not fully realize that there are no short\ncuts to wealth honestly made. He takes a part of his savings, and as is\ntrue in practically all cases of this kind, he loses all that he has put\nin. Thinking now that he sees why he lost, and that had he more money he\nwould be able to get back what he has lost, and perhaps make a handsome\nsum in addition, and make it quickly, the thought comes to him to use\nsome of the funds he has charge of. In nine cases out of ten, if not in\nten cases in every ten, the results that inevitably follow this are\nknown sufficiently well to make it unnecessary to follow him farther.\nWhere is the man's safety in the light of what we have been considering?\nSimply this: the moment the thought of using for his own purpose funds\nbelonging to others enters his mind, if he is wise he will _instantly_\nput the thought from his mind. If he is a fool he will entertain it. In\nthe degree in which he entertains it, it will grow upon him; it will\nbecome the absorbing thought in his mind; it will finally become master\nof his will power, and through rapidly succeeding steps, dishonor,\nshame, degradation, penitentiary, remorse will be his. It is easy for\nhim to put the thought from his mind when it first enters; but as he\nentertains it, it grows into such proportions that it becomes more and\nmore difficult for him to put it from his mind; and by and by it becomes\npractically _impossible_ for him to do it. The light of the match, which\nbut a little effort of the breath would have extinguished at first, has\nimparted a flame that is raging through the entire building, and now it\nis almost, if not quite impossible to conquer it.\n\nShall we notice another concrete case? a trite case, perhaps, but one in\nwhich we can see how habit is formed, and also how the same habit can be\nunformed. Here is a young man, he may be the son of poor parents, or he\nmay be the son of rich parents; one in the ordinary ranks of life, or\none of high social standing, whatever that means. He is good-hearted,\none of good impulses, generally speaking,--a good fellow. He is out with\nsome companions, companions of the same general type. They are out for a\npleasant evening, out for a good time. They are apt at times to be\nthoughtless, even careless. The suggestion is made by one of the\ncompany, not that they get drunk, no, not at all; but merely that they\ngo and have something to drink together. The young man whom we first\nmentioned, wanting to be genial, scarcely listens to the suggestion that\ncomes to his inner consciousness--that it will be better for him not to\nfall in with the others in this. He does not stop long enough to realize\nthe fact that the greatest strength and nobility of character lies\nalways in taking a firm stand on the side of the right, and allow\nhimself to be influenced by nothing that will weaken this stand. He\ngoes, therefore, with his companions to the drinking place. With the\nsame or with other companions this is repeated now and then; and each\ntime it is repeated his power of saying \"No\" is gradually decreasing. In\nthis way he has grown a little liking for intoxicants, and takes them\nperhaps now and then by himself. He does not dream, or in the slightest\ndegree realize, what way he is tending, until there comes a day when he\nwakens to the consciousness of the fact that he hasn't the power nor\neven the impulse to resist the taste which has gradually grown into a\nminor form of craving for intoxicants. Thinking, however, that he will\nbe able to stop when he is really in danger of getting into the drink\nhabit, he goes thoughtlessly and carelessly on. We will pass over the\nvarious intervening steps and come to the time when we find him a\nconfirmed drunkard. It is simply the same old story told a thousand or\neven a million times over.\n\nHe finally awakens to his true condition; and through the shame, the\nanguish, the degradation, and the want that comes upon him he longs for\na return of the days when he was a free man. But hope has almost gone\nfrom his life. It would have been easier for him never to have begun,\nand easier for him to have stopped before he reached his present\ncondition, but even in his present condition, be it the lowest and the\nmost helpless and hopeless that can be imagined, he has the power to get\nout of it and be a free man once again. Let us see. The desire for drink\ncomes upon him again. If he entertain the thought, the desire, he is\nlost again. His only hope, his only means of escape is this: the moment,\naye, _the very instant_ the thought comes to him, if he will put it out\nof his mind he will thereby put out the little flame of the match. If he\nentertain the thought the little flame will communicate itself until\nalmost before he is aware of it a consuming fire is raging, and then\neffort is almost useless. The thought must be banished from the mind the\ninstant it enters; dalliance with it means failure and defeat, or a\nfight that will be indescribably fiercer than it would be if the thought\nis ejected at the beginning.\n\nAnd here we must say a word regarding a certain great law that we may\ncall the \"law of indirectness.\" A thought can be put out of the mind\neasier and more successfully, not by dwelling upon it, not by attempting\nto put it out _directly_, but by throwing the mind on to some other\nobject, by putting some other object of thought into the mind. This may\nbe, for example, the ideal of full and perfect self-mastery, or it may\nbe something of a nature entirely distinct from the thought which\npresents itself, something to which the mind goes easily and naturally.\nThis will in time become the absorbing thought in the mind, and the\ndanger is past. This same course of action repeated, will gradually\ngrow the power of putting more readily out of mind the thought of drink\nas it presents itself, and will gradually grow the power of putting into\nthe mind those objects of thought one most desires. The result will be\nthat as time passes the thought of drink will present itself less and\nless, and when it does present itself it can be put out of the mind more\neasily each succeeding time, until the time comes when it can be put out\nwithout difficulty, and eventually the time will come when the thought\nwill enter the mind no more at all.\n\nStill another case. You may be more or less of an irritable\nnature--naturally, perhaps, provoked easily to anger. Some one says\nsomething or does something that you dislike, and your first impulse is\nto show resentment and possibly to give way to anger. In the degree that\nyou allow this resentment to display itself, that you allow yourself to\ngive way to anger, in that degree will it become easier to do the same\nthing when any cause, even a very slight cause, presents itself. It\nwill, moreover, become continually harder for you to refrain from it,\nuntil resentment, anger, and possibly even hatred and revenge become\ncharacteristics of your nature, robbing it of its sunniness, its charm,\nand its brightness for all with whom you come in contact. If, however,\nthe instant the impulse to resentment and anger arises, you check it\n_then and there_, and throw the mind on to some other object of thought,\nthe power will gradually grow itself of doing this same thing more\nreadily, more easily, as succeeding like causes present themselves,\nuntil by and by the time will come when there will be scarcely anything\nthat can irritate you, and nothing that can impel you to anger; until by\nand by a matchless brightness and charm of nature and disposition will\nbecome habitually yours, a brightness and charm you would scarcely think\npossible to-day. And so we might take up case after case, characteristic\nafter characteristic, habit after habit. The habit of fault-finding and\nits opposite are grown in identically the same way; the characteristic\nof jealousy and its opposite; the characteristic of fear and its\nopposite. In this same way we grow either love or hatred; in this way we\ncome to take a gloomy, pessimistic view of life, which objectifies\nitself in a nature, a disposition of this type, or we grow that sunny,\nhopeful, cheerful, buoyant nature that brings with it so much joy and\nbeauty and power for ourselves, as well as so much hope and inspiration\nand joy for all the world.\n\nThere is nothing more true in connection with human life than that we\ngrow into the likeness of those things we contemplate. Literally and\nscientifically and necessarily true is it that, \"as a man thinketh in\nhis heart, so _is_ he.\" The \"is\" part is his character. His character is\nthe sum total of his habits. His habits have been formed by his\nconscious acts; but every conscious act is, as we have found, preceded\nby a thought. And so we have it--thought on the one hand, character,\nlife, destiny on the other. And simple it becomes when we bear in mind\nthat it is simply the thought of the present moment, and the next moment\nwhen it is upon us, and then the next, and so on through all time.\n\nOne can in this way attain to whatever ideals he would attain to. Two\nsteps are necessary: first, as the days pass, to form one's ideals; and\nsecond, to follow them continually whatever may arise, wherever they may\nlead him. Always remember that the great and strong character is the one\nwho is ever ready to sacrifice the present pleasure for the future good.\nHe who will thus follow his highest ideals as they present themselves to\nhim day after day, year after year, will find that as Dante, following\nhis beloved from world to world, finally found her at the gates of\nParadise, so he will find himself eventually at the same gates. Life is\nnot, we may say, for mere passing pleasure, but for the highest\nunfoldment that one can attain to, the noblest character that one can\ngrow, and for the greatest service that one can render to all mankind.\nIn this, however, we will find the highest pleasure, for in this the\nonly real pleasure lies. He who would find it by any short cuts, or by\nentering upon any other paths, will inevitably find that his last state\nis always worse than his first; and if he proceed upon paths other than\nthese he will find that he will never find real and lasting pleasure at\nall. The question is not, What are the conditions in our lives? but, How\ndo we meet the conditions that we find there? And whatever the\nconditions are, it is unwise and profitless to look upon them, even if\nthey are conditions that we would have otherwise, in the attitude of\ncomplaint, for complaint will bring depression, and depression will\nweaken and possibly even kill the spirit that would engender the power\nthat would enable us to bring into our lives an entirely new set of\nconditions.\n\nIn order to be concrete, even at the risk of being personal, I will say\nthat in my own experience there have come at various times into my life\ncircumstances and conditions that I gladly would have run from at the\ntime--conditions that caused at the time humiliation and shame and\nanguish of spirit. But invariably, as sufficient time has passed, I have\nbeen able to look back and see clearly the part which every experience\nof the type just mentioned had to play in my life. I have seen the\nlessons it was essential for me to learn; and the result is that now I\nwould not drop a single one of these experiences from my life,\nhumiliating and hard to bear as they were at the time; no, not for the\nworld. And here is also a lesson I have learned: whatever conditions are\nin my life to-day that are not the easiest and most agreeable, and\nwhatever conditions of this type all coming time may bring, I will take\nthem just as they come, without complaint, without depression, and meet\nthem in the wisest possible way; knowing that they are the best possible\nconditions that could be in my life at the time, or otherwise they would\nnot be there; realizing the fact that, although I may not at the time\nsee why they are in my life, although I may not see just what part they\nhave to play, the time will come, and when it comes I will see it all,\nand thank God for every condition just as it came.\n\nEach one is so apt to think that his own conditions, his own trials or\ntroubles or sorrows, or his own struggles, as the case may be, are\ngreater than those of the great mass of mankind, or possibly greater\nthan those of anyone else in the world. He forgets that each one has his\nown peculiar trials or troubles or borrows to bear, or struggles in\nhabits to overcome, and that his is but the common lot of all the human\nrace. We are apt to make the mistake in this--in that we see and feel\nkeenly our own trials, or adverse conditions, or characteristics to be\novercome, while those of others we do not see so clearly, and hence we\nare apt to think that they are not at all equal to our own. Each has his\nown problems to work out. Each must work out his own problems. Each must\ngrow the insight that will enable him to see what the causes are that\nhave brought the unfavorable conditions into his life; each must grow\nthe strength that will enable him to face these conditions, and to set\ninto operation forces that will bring about a different set of\nconditions. We may be of aid to one another by way of suggestion, by way\nof bringing to one another a knowledge of certain higher laws and\nforces,--laws and forces that will make it easier to do that which we\nwould do. The doing, however, must be done by each one for himself.\n\nAnd so the way to get out of any conditions we have gotten into, either\nknowingly or inadvertently, either intentionally or unintentionally, is\nto take time to look the conditions squarely in the face, and to find\nthe law whereby they have come about. And when we have discovered the\nlaw, the thing to do is not to rebel against it, not to resist it, but\nto go with it by working in harmony with it. If we work in harmony with\nit, it will work for our highest good, and will take us wheresoever we\ndesire. If we oppose it, if we resist it, if we fail to work in harmony\nwith it, it will eventually break us to pieces. The law is immutable in\nits workings. Go with it, and it brings all things our way; resist it,\nand it brings suffering, pain, loss, and desolation.\n\nBut a few days ago I was talking with a lady, a most estimable lady\nliving on a little New England farm of some five or six acres. Her\nhusband died a few years ago, a good-hearted, industrious man, but one\nwho spent practically all of his earnings in drink. When he died the\nlittle farm was unpaid for, and the wife found herself without any\nvisible means of support, with a family of several to care for. Instead\nof being discouraged with what many would have called her hard lot,\ninstead of rebelling against the circumstances in which she found\nherself, she faced the matter bravely, firmly believing that there were\nways by which she could manage, though she could not see them clearly at\nthe time. She took up her burden where she found it, and went bravely\nforward. For several years she has been taking care of summer boarders\nwho come to that part of the country, getting up regularly, she told me,\nat from half-past three to four o'clock in the morning, and working\nuntil ten o'clock each night. In the winter-time, when this means of\nrevenue is cut off, she has gone out to do nursing in the country round\nabout. In this way the little farm is now almost paid for; her children\nhave been kept in school, and they are now able to aid her to a greater\nor less extent. Through it all she has entertained no fears nor\nforebodings; she has shown no rebellion of any kind. She has not kicked\nagainst the circumstances which brought about the conditions in which\nshe found herself, but she has put herself into harmony with the law\nthat would bring her into another set of conditions. And through it all,\nshe told me, she had been continually grateful that she has been able to\nwork, and that whatever her own circumstances have been, she has never\nyet failed to find some one whose circumstances were still a little\nworse than hers, and for whom it was not possible for her to render some\nlittle service.\n\nMost heartily she appreciates the fact, and most grateful is she for it,\nthat the little home is now almost paid for, and soon no more of her\nearnings will have to go out in that channel. The dear little home, she\nsaid, would be all the more precious to her by virtue of the fact that\nit was finally hers through her own efforts. The strength and nobility\nof character that have come to her during these years, the sweetness of\ndisposition, the sympathy and care for others, her faith in the final\ntriumph of all that is honest and true and pure and good, are qualities\nthat thousands and hundreds of thousands of women, yes, of both men and\nwomen, who are apparently in better circumstances in life can justly\nenvy. And should the little farm home be taken away to-morrow, she has\ngained something that a farm of a thousand acres could not buy. By going\nabout her work in the way she has gone about it the burden of it all has\nbeen lightened, and her work has been made truly enjoyable.\n\nLet us take a moment to see how these same conditions would have been\nmet by a person of less wisdom, one not so far-sighted as this dear,\ngood woman has been. For a time possibly her spirit would have been\ncrushed. Fears and forebodings of all kinds would probably have taken\nhold of her, and she would have felt that nothing that she could do\nwould be of any avail. Or, she might have rebelled against the agencies,\nagainst the law which brought about the conditions in which she found\nherself, and she might have become embittered against the world, and\ngradually also against the various people with whom she came in contact.\nOr again, she might have thought that her efforts would be unable to\nmeet the circumstances, and that it was the duty of some one to lift her\nout of her difficulties. In this way no progress at all would have been\nmade towards the accomplishment of the desired results, and continually\nshe would have felt more keenly the circumstances in which she found\nherself, because there was nothing else to occupy her mind. In this way\nthe little farm would not have become hers, she would not have been able\nto do anything for others, and her nature would have become embittered\nagainst everything and everybody.\n\nTrue it is, then, not, What are the conditions in one's life? but, How\ndoes he meet the conditions that he finds there? This will determine\nall. And if at any time we are apt to think that our own lot is about\nthe hardest there is, and if we are able at any time to persuade\nourselves that we can find no one whose lot is just a little harder than\nours, let us then study for a little while the character Pompilia, in\nBrowning's poem,[D] and after studying it, thank God that the conditions\nin our life are so favorable; and then set about with a trusting and\nintrepid spirit to actualize the conditions that we most desire.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThought is at the bottom of all progress or retrogression, of all\nsuccess or failure, of all that is desirable or undesirable in human\nlife. The type of thought we entertain both creates and draws conditions\nthat crystallize about it, conditions exactly the same in nature as is\nthe thought that gives them form. Thoughts are forces, and each creates\nof its kind, whether we realize it or not. The great law of the drawing\npower of the mind, which says that like creates like, and that like\nattracts like, is continually working in every human life, for it is one\nof the great immutable laws of the universe. For one to take time to see\nclearly the things he would attain to, and then to hold that ideal\nsteadily and continually before his mind, never allowing faith--his\npositive thought-forces--to give way to or to be neutralized by doubts\nand fears, and then to set about doing each day what his hands find to\ndo, never complaining, but spending the time that he would otherwise\nspend in complaint in focusing his thought-forces upon the ideal that\nhis mind has built, will sooner or later bring about the full\nmaterialization of that for which he sets out.\n\nThere are those who, when they begin to grasp the fact that there is\nwhat we may term a \"science of thought,\" who, when they begin to realize\nthat through the instrumentality of our interior, spiritual\nthought-forces we have the power of gradually moulding the every-day\nconditions of life as we would have them, in their early enthusiasm are\nnot able to see results as quickly as they expect, and are apt to think,\ntherefore, that after all there is not very much in that which has but\nnewly come to their knowledge. They must remember, however, that in\nendeavoring to overcome an old or to grow a new habit, everything cannot\nbe done _all at once_.\n\nIn the degree that we attempt to use the thought-forces do we\ncontinually become able to use them more effectively. Progress is slow\nat first, more rapid as we proceed. Power grows by using, or, in other\nwords, using brings a continually increasing power. This is governed by\nlaw the same as are all things in our lives, and all things in the\nuniverse about us. Every act and advancement made by the musician is in\nfull accordance with law. No one commencing the study of music can, for\nexample, sit down to the piano and play the piece of a master at the\nfirst effort. He must not conclude, however, nor does he conclude, that\nthe piece of the master _cannot be_ played by him, or, for that matter,\nby any one. He begins to practise the piece. The law of the mind that we\nhave already noticed comes to his aid, whereby his mind follows the\nmusic more readily, more rapidly, and more surely each succeeding time,\nand there also comes into operation and to his aid the law underlying\nthe action of the reflex nerve system of the body, which we have also\nnoticed, whereby his fingers coordinate their movements with the\nmovements of his mind, more readily, more rapidly, and more accurately\neach succeeding time; until by and by the time comes when that which he\nstumbles through at first, that in which there is no harmony, nothing\nbut discord, finally reveals itself as the music of the master, the\nmusic that thrills and moves masses of men and women. So it is in the\nuse of the thought-forces. It is the reiteration, the constant\nreiteration of the thought that grows the power of continually stronger\nthought-focusing, and that finally brings manifestation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAll life is from within out. This is something that cannot be reiterated\ntoo often. The springs of life are all from within. This being true, it\nwould be well for us to give more time to the inner life than we are\naccustomed to give to it, especially in this Western world.\n\nThere is nothing that will bring us such abundant returns as to take a\nlittle time in the quiet each day of our lives. We need this to get the\nkinks out of our minds and hence out of our lives. We need this to form\nbetter the higher ideals of life. We need this in order to see clearly\nin mind the things upon which we would concentrate and focus the\nthought-forces. We need this in order to make continually anew and to\nkeep our conscious connection with the Infinite. We need this in order\nthat the rush and hurry of our every-day life does not keep us away from\nthe conscious realization of the fact that the spirit of Infinite life\nand power that is back of all, working in and through all, the life of\nall, is the life of our life, and the source of our power; and that\noutside of this we have no life and we have no power. To realize this\nfact fully, and to live in it consciously at all times, is to find the\nkingdom of God, which is essentially an inner kingdom, and can never be\nanything else. The kingdom of heaven is to be found only within, and\nthis is done once for all, and in a manner in which it cannot otherwise\nbe done, when we come into the conscious, living realization of the fact\nthat in our real selves we are essentially one with the Divine life, and\nopen ourselves continually so that this Divine life can speak to and\nmanifest through us. In this way we come into the condition where we are\ncontinually walking with God. In this way the consciousness of God\nbecomes a living reality in our lives; and in the degree in which it\nbecomes a reality does it bring us into the realization of continually\nincreasing wisdom, insight, and power. _This consciousness of God in the\nsoul of man is the essence, indeed the sum and substance of all\nreligion._ This identifies religion with every act and every moment of\nevery-day life. That which does not identify itself with every moment of\nevery day and with every act of life is religion in name only and not in\nreality. This consciousness of God in the soul of man is the one thing\nuniformly taught by all the prophets, by all the inspired ones, by all\nthe seers and mystics in the world's history, whatever the time,\nwherever the country, whatever the religion, whatever minor differences\nwe may find in their lives and teachings. In regard to this they all\nagree; indeed, this is the essence of their teaching, as it has also\nbeen the secret of their power and the secret of their lasting\ninfluence.\n\nIt is the attitude of the child that is necessary before we can enter\ninto the kingdom of heaven. As it was said, \"Except ye become as little\nchildren, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven.\" For we then\nrealize that of ourselves we can do nothing, but that it is only as we\nrealize that it is the Divine life and power working within us, and it\nis only as we open ourselves that it may work through us, that we are or\ncan do anything. It is thus that the simple life, which is essentially\nthe life of the greatest enjoyment and the greatest attainment, is\nentered upon.\n\nIn the Orient the people as a class take far more time in the quiet, in\nthe silence, than we take. Some of them carry this possibly to as great\nan extreme as we carry the opposite, with the result that they do not\nactualize and objectify in the outer life the things they dream in the\ninner life. We give so much time to the activities of the outer life\nthat we do not take sufficient time in the quiet to form in the inner,\nspiritual thought-life the ideals and the conditions that we would have\nactualized and manifested in the outer life. The result is that we take\nlife in a kind of haphazard way, taking it as it comes, thinking not\nvery much about it until, perhaps, pushed by some bitter experiences,\ninstead of moulding it, through the agency of the inner forces, exactly\nas we would have it. We need to strike the happy balance between the\ncustom in this respect of the Eastern and Western worlds, and go to the\nextreme of neither the one nor the other. This alone will give the ideal\nlife; and it is the ideal life only that is the thoroughly satisfactory\nlife. In the Orient there are many who are day after day sitting in the\nquiet, meditating, contemplating, idealizing, with their eyes focused on\ntheir stomach in spiritual revery, while through lack of outer\nactivities, in their stomachs they are actually starving. In this\nWestern world, men and women, in the rush and activity of our accustomed\nlife, are running hither and thither, with no centre, no foundation upon\nwhich to stand, nothing to which they can anchor their lives, because\nthey do not take sufficient time to come into the realization of what\nthe centre, of what the reality of their lives is.\n\nIf the Oriental would do his contemplating, and then get up and do his\nwork, he would be in a better condition; he would be living a more\nnormal and satisfactory life. If we in the Occident would take more time\nfrom the rush and activity of life for contemplation, for meditation,\nfor idealization, for becoming acquainted with our real selves, and then\ngo about our work manifesting the powers of our real selves, we would be\nfar better off, because we would be living a more natural, a more normal\nlife. To find one's centre, to become centred in the Infinite, is the\nfirst great essential of every satisfactory life; and then to go out,\nthinking, speaking, working, loving, living, from this centre.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn the highest character-building, such as we have been considering,\nthere are those who feel they are handicapped by what we term\n_heredity_. In a sense they are right; in another sense they are totally\nwrong. It is along the same lines as the thought which many before us\nhad inculcated in them through the couplet in the New England Primer:\n\"In Adam's fall, we sinned all.\" Now, in the first place, it is rather\nhard to understand the justice of this if it is true. In the second\nplace, it is rather hard to understand why it is true. And in the third\nplace there is no truth in it at all. We are now dealing with the real,\nessential self, and, however old Adam is, God is eternal. This means\nyou; it means me; it means every human soul. When we fully realize this\nfact we see that heredity is a reed that is easily broken. The life of\nevery one is in his own hands and he can make it in character, in\nattainment, in power, in divine self-realization, and hence in\ninfluence, exactly what he wills to make it. All things that he most\nfondly dreams of are his, or may become so if he is truly in earnest;\nand as he rises more and more to his ideal, and grows in the strength\nand influence of his character, he becomes an example and an inspiration\nto all with whom he comes in contact; so that through him the weak and\nfaltering are encouraged and strengthened; so that those of low ideals\nand of a low type of life instinctively and inevitably have their ideals\nraised, and the ideals of no one can be raised without its showing forth\nin his outer life. As he advances in his grasp upon and understanding of\nthe power and potency of the thought-forces, he finds that many times\nthrough the process of mental suggestion he can be of tremendous aid to\none who is weak and struggling, by sending to him now and then, and by\ncontinually holding him in the highest thought, in the thought of the\nhighest strength, wisdom, and love.\n\nThe one who takes sufficient time in the quiet mentally to form his\nideals, sufficient time to make and to keep continually his conscious\nconnection with the Infinite, with the Divine life and forces, is the\none who is best adapted to the strenuous life. He it is who can go out\nand deal with sagacity and power with whatever issues may arise in the\naffairs of every-day life. He it is who is building not for the years,\nbut for the centuries; not for time, but for the eternities. And he can\ngo out knowing not whither he goes, knowing that the Divine life within\nhim will never fail him, but will lead him on until he beholds the\nFather face to face.\n\nHe is building for the centuries because only that which is the\nhighest, the truest, the noblest, and best will abide the test of the\ncenturies. He is building for eternity because when the transition\nwe call death takes place, life, character, self-mastery, divine\nself-realization,--the only things that the soul when stripped of\neverything else takes with it,--he has in abundance. In life, or when\nthe time of the transition to another form of life comes, he is never\nafraid, never fearful, because he knows and realizes that behind him,\nwithin him, beyond him, is the Infinite wisdom and love; and in this he\nis eternally centred, and from it he can never be separated. With\nWhittier he sings:\n\n    \"I know not where His islands lift\n      Their fronded palms in air;\n    I only know I cannot drift\n      Beyond His love and care.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[Footnote D: \"The Ring and the Book,\" by Robert Browning.]","title":"What All The World's A-Seeking: The Vital Law of True Life, True Greatness Power and Happiness","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":44791}