{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_23820/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_23820","id":"gutenberg_23820","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23820","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","New Thought","Spiritual life"],"text":"E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Annie McGuire, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Book Cover]\n\nTHE LIFE RADIANT\n\nby\n\nLILIAN WHITING\n\nAuthor of \"The World Beautiful,\" \"The Spiritual Significance\"\n\"The World Beautiful in Books,\" \"Kate Field, a Record,\"\n\"Boston Days,\" etc.\n\n\n  \"Follow it, follow it,\n  Follow the Gleam.\"\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nBoston\nLittle, Brown, and Company\n1903\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nARVILLA DELIGHT MEEKER\n(MRS. NATHAN COOK MEEKER)\n\nIN WHOSE BEAUTIFUL LIFE PATIENCE HAS DONE HER\nPERFECT WORK, AND WHOSE UNFALTERING AND\nJOYFUL FAITH IN GOD REVEALS IMPRESSIVE\nTRUTH IN THE LIFE RADIANT OF\nHOLY LIVING\n\nTHESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH\nTHE DEVOTION OF\nLILIAN WHITING\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n                                         PAGE\n  THE GOLDEN AGE LIES ONWARD.\n\n    THE SUPREME ILLUMINATION               24\n    CREATING THE NEW WORLD                 26\n    ELIMINATING ANXIETIES                  33\n    HEAVEN'S PERFECT HOUR                  37\n    LOVE AND GOOD WILL                     46\n    THE DIVINER POSSIBILITIES              51\n    THE WEIGHT OF THE PAST                 64\n\n  DISCERNING THE FUTURE.\n\n    A DETERMINING QUESTION                 85\n    IN PROPORTION TO POWER                 99\n\n  THE ETHEREAL REALM.\n\n    A SCIENTIFIC FACT                     124\n    A GLORIOUS INAUGURATION               136\n    FINER COSMIC FORCES                   149\n    HEALTH AND HAPPINESS                  158\n    A NEW FORCE                           172\n    THE SERVICE OF THE GODS               174\n\n  THE POWER OF THE EXALTED MOMENT.\n\n    OBEY THE VISION                       192\n    THE OPEN DOOR                         201\n    INTERRUPTIONS AS OPPORTUNITIES        204\n    THE CHARM OF COMPANIONSHIP            214\n    A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE IN ARIZONA        226\n    A TRAGIC IDYL OF COLORADO             237\n    A REMARKABLE MYSTIC                   254\n    THE MOMENTOUS QUESTION                261\n\n  THE NECTAR OF THE HOUR.\n\n    A PROFOUND EXPERIENCE                 285\n    THE LAW OF PRAYER                     299\n    CONDUCT AND BEAUTY                    313\n    THE DIVINE PANORAMA                   321\n    ALSO THE HOLY GHOST, THE COMFORTER    331\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIFE RADIANT.\n\n  \"_I am Merlin\n  Who follow the Gleam._\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  _Know well, my soul, God's hand controls\n        Whate'er thou fearest;\n  Round Him in calmest music rolls\n        Whate'er thou hearest._\n\n  _What to thee is shadow, to Him is day,\n        And the end He knoweth.\n  And not on a blind and aimless way\n        The spirit goeth._\n\n  WHITTIER.\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN AGE LIES ONWARD.\n\n  \"The Golden Age lies onward, not behind.\n  The pathway through the past has led us up:\n  The pathway through the future will lead on,\n  And higher.\"\n\n\nThe Life Radiant is that transfiguration of the ordinary daily events\nand circumstances which lifts them to the spiritual plane and sees them\nas the signs and the indications of the divine leading. Every\ncircumstance thus becomes a part of the revelation; and to constantly\nlive in this illuminated atmosphere is to invest all experiences with a\nkind of magical enchantment. Life prefigures itself before us as a\nspiritual drama in which we are, at once, the actors and the spectators.\nThe story of living goes on perpetually. The days and the years\ninevitably turn the pages and open new chapters. Nothing is ever\nhopeless, because new combinations and groupings create new results. The\nforces that determine his daily life are partly with man and partly with\nGod. They lie in both the Seen and the Unseen. We are always an\ninhabitant of both realms, and to recognize either alone and be blind to\nthe other is to deprive ourselves of the great sources of energy. The\ndivine aid, infinite and all-potent as it is, capable at any moment of\nutterly transforming all the conditions and transferring them to a\nhigher plane, is yet limited by the degree of spiritual receptivity in\nthe individual. As one may have all the air that he is able to breathe,\nso may one have all the aid of the Holy Spirit which he is capable of\nreceiving. Man can never accept so gladly and so freely as God offers;\nbut in just the proportion to which he can, increasingly, lift up his\nheart in response, to that degree God fills his life with a glory not of\nearth.\n\n  \"Man may ask, and God may answer, but we may not understand,\n  Knowing but our own poor language, all the writing of His hand.\"\n\nScience has discovered the existence of that incalculable energy, the\nether, interpenetrated in the atmosphere. Electro-magnetic currents of\npower beyond all conception are revealed, and when intelligently\nrecognized by some happy genius, like that of Marconi, they begin to be\nutilized in the service of human progress. Now as this ethereal energy\nwhich is only just beginning to be recognized can be drawn upon for\nlight, for heat, for motor power, for communication, just as this\nhitherto undreamed-of power can be drawn upon for the fundamental needs\nof the physical world, so, correspondingly, does there exist the\ninfinite reservoir of spiritual energy which God freely opens to man in\nprecisely the proportion in which he recognizes and avails himself of\nits transforming power. And in this realm lies the Life Radiant. If this\ntransfiguration of life could only be experienced by the aid of wealth\nand health and all for which these two factors stand, it would not be\nworth talking about. We hear a great deal of the \"privileged classes\"\nand of \"fortunate conditions,\" as if there were certain arbitrary\ndivisions in life defined by impassable boundaries, and that he who\nfinds himself in one, is unable to pass to another.\n\nNever was there a more fatally erroneous conception. In the spiritual\nworld there are no limits, no boundaries, no arbitrary divisions. Just\nso far as the soul conquers, is it free. Conquer ignorance, and one\nenters the realm of education, of culture; conquer vice, and he enters\ninto the realm of virtue; conquer impatience and irritability and\nbitterness, and their result in gloom and despondency, and he enters\ninto the realm of serenity and sweetness and exaltation with their\nresult in power of accomplishment. The Life Radiant can be achieved, and\nis within the personal choice of every individual. One may place himself\nin relation with this infinite and all-potent current of divine energy\nand receive its impetus and its exhilaration and its illumination every\nhour in the day. The toiler in manual labor may lead this twofold life.\nOn the visible side he is pushing onward in the excavation of a tunnel;\nhe is laying the track of a new railroad; he is engaged in building a\nhouse; he stands at his appointed place in a great factory,--but is this\nall? His real work lies both in the visible and in the invisible. On\nthe one hand he is contributing to the material resources of the world,\nand he is earning his wage by which to live; on the other hand he is\ndeveloping patience, faithfulness, and judgment,--quantities of the\nspiritual man and possessions of the spiritual life which extend the\nspiritual territory. Faithfulness to the immediate duty creates a larger\ntheatre for duty. There are not wanting examples that could be named of\nstatesmen,--senators, governors, and others in high places, to say\nnothing of the supreme example of a Lincoln; there are not wanting\nexamples of professional men in high and important places who initiated\ntheir work by any humble and honest industrial employment that chanced\nto present itself at the moment. Conquering this rudimentary realm, they\npassed on to others successively. Integrity is a spiritual quantity, and\nit insures spiritual aid. The cloud of witnesses is never dispersed. The\nonly imprisonment is in limitations, and limitations can be constantly\novercome. The horizon line of the impossible recedes as we advance. In\nthe last analysis nothing is too sublime or too beautiful to be\nentirely possible. Its attainment is simply a question of conditions.\nThese conditions lie in entering into this inner realm of spiritual\nenergy in which the personal will is increasingly identified with the\nwill of God.\n\nLike an echo of celestial music are these lines by Sully-Prudhomme:--\n\n  \"The lilies fade with the dying hours,\n    Hushed is the song-bird's lay;\n  But I dream of summers and dream of flowers\n    That last alway.\"\n\nNor is this only the day-dream of a poet. The summers and flowers that\nlast alway are a very immediate treasure which one has only to perceive,\nto grasp, to recognize, and to realize. \"Surely,\" exclaimed the\nPsalmist, \"goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,\nand I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.\" This dwelling in\n\"the house of the Lord\" is by no means a figure of speech. Nor is it to\nbe regarded as some ineffable privilege to be--possibly to be--enjoyed\nafter that change we call death. Its real significance is here and now.\nOne must dwell in \"the house of the Lord\" to-day, and every day. The\n\"house of the Lord\" is a beautiful figurative expression for that\nspiritual atmosphere in which one may perpetually live, and in which it\nis his simple duty both to live and to radiate to all around him.\n\nIn these summer days of 1903, in this golden dawn of the twentieth\ncentury, the world is echoing with wonder in the discovery of a new and\nmost mysterious force in nature,--radium. Science is, at this date,\npowerless to analyze or explain its marvellous power. The leading\nscientists of the world of learning--Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver\nLodge, and Professor Curie (who, with Mme. Curie, has the honor of being\nits discoverer)--believe that in radium will be found the true solution\nof the problem of matter. Radium gives off rays at the speed of one\nhundred and twenty thousand miles a second, and these rays offer the\nmost extraordinary heat, light, and power. Yet with this immense\nradiation it suffers no diminution of energy; nor can any scientist yet\ndiscern from what source this power is fed. A grain of it will furnish\nenough light to enable one to read, and, as Professor J. J. Thomson has\nobserved, it will suffer no diminution in a million years. It will burn\nthe flesh through a metal box and through clothing, but without burning\nthe texture of the garments. The rays given out by radium cannot be\nrefracted, polarized, or regularly reflected in the way of ordinary\nlight, although some of them can be turned aside by a magnet.\n\nProfessor Curie has reported to the French Academy of Science that half\na pound of radium salts will in one hour produce a heat equal to the\nburning of one-third of a foot of hydrogen gas. This takes place, it\nmust be remembered, without any perceptible diminution in the radium. It\nemits heat maintaining a temperature of 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above its\nsurroundings. It evolves sufficient heat to melt more than its own\nweight of ice every hour. Radium projects its rays through solid\nsubstances without any perceptible hindrance and burns blisters through\na steel case. The light is pale blue. Down in the deepest pitchblende\nmines, where particles of radium have been hidden away since the\ncreation of the world, they are still found shining with their strange\nblue light. The radium electrons pass through the space which separates\nevery molecule in a solid body from another. The scientific theory is\nthat no two molecules in any body, however dense, actually touch. The\nrelative power of radium to the X-ray is as six to one. The rays of\nradium have one hundred thousand times the energy of those of uranium\nand over one hundred times the energy of barium radiation. The scarcity\nof the metal will be understood when it is stated that there is far less\nradium in pitchblende than gold in ordinary sea water. Radium colors\nglass violet; transforms oxygen into ozone, white phosphorus to red;\nelectrifies various gases and liquids, including petroleum and liquid\nair.\n\nProfessor Sir William Crookes, the world's greatest living physicist and\nexperimental scientist, said of radium in the June of this 1903:--\n\n     \"In total darkness I laid a piece of pitchblende--the ore from\n     which radium is extracted--face down upon a sensitized plate, and\n     let it act with its own light for twenty-four hours. The result was\n     a photograph, where the black pitchblende appeared light owing to\n     the emanations from the radium contained in it. The photograph also\n     shows these going off into space from the sides of the specimen.\n\n     \"Radium is dangerous to handle. Once I carried a tiny piece of\n     radium in my waistcoat pocket to a soiree at the Royal Society, and\n     on reaching home found a blister in my side. The blisters from\n     radium may take months to get well, as the injurious effect goes so\n     deep. Now I carry a thick lead box just large enough to hold the\n     little brass case in which I keep the radium itself. There it\n     lies--a little, tawny, crystalline patch. There would hardly be a\n     larger quantity together in one box anywhere in England.\n\n     \"There are several kinds of emanations from radium. Photographs\n     similar to those produced by the Roentgen ray tube and induction\n     coil can be got by means of the emanations from a small quantity of\n     radium. I took a screen made of zincblende, which will phosphoresce\n     when the emanations of radium fall upon it. I then painted upon it,\n     in a solution of radium, the word 'Radium.' In the dark this screen\n     (about three inches by four inches) gives off sufficient light to\n     read by. But the most striking way of showing the emanations is by\n     the little contrivance I call a Spinthariscope. In this a zinc\n     sulphide screen is fitted at the end of a short brass tube, with a\n     speck of radium about a millimeter away from it. Looking in the\n     dark through the lens at the other end one sees a regular\n     bombardment of the screen by the emanations. The phenomena of\n     radium require us to recast many of our ideas of matter,\n     electricity, and energy, and its discovery promises to realize what\n     for the last hundred years have been but day-dreams of philosophy.\n\n     \"Although the fact of emission of heat by radium is in itself\n     sufficiently remarkable, this heat is probably only a small portion\n     of the energy radium is constantly sending into space. It is at the\n     same time hurling off material particles which reveal their impact\n     on a screen by luminous scintillations. Stop these by a glass or\n     mica screen, and torrents of Roentgen rays still pour out from a\n     few milligrams of radium salt in quantity to exhibit to a company\n     all the phenomena of Roentgen rays, and with energy enough to\n     produce a nasty blister on the flesh, if kept near it for an hour.\"\n\nIt is hardly possible to contemplate this remarkable element in the\nworld of nature without recognizing its correspondence in the world of\nspirit. If an element radiates perpetual light, heat, and power with no\nloss of its own inherent energy, so the spirit can radiate love,\nsympathy, sweetness, and inspiration with no diminution of its own\nquality. Science may be unable to recognize the medium from which\nradium is fed; but religion recognizes the medium from which the spirit\ndraws its sustenance in the power of God. The human will merged in the\ndivine will is invincible. There is no ideal of life which it may not\nrealize, and this realization is in the line of the inevitable and is\nexperienced with the unerring certainty of a mathematical demonstration.\n\nYet, when one comes to examine the actual average attitude of humanity\ntoward this subject of the divine will, one finds it is largely that of\na mere gloomy and enforced resignation, even at its best, and, at its\nworst, of distrust and rebellion to the will of God. It seems to be held\nas the last resort of desperation and despair, rather than as the one\nabounding source of all joy and success and achievement.\n\nThe average individual holds a traditional belief that he ought,\nperhaps, to be able sincerely to wish that God's will be done, but as a\nmatter of fact he far prefers his own. The petition is, in his mind,\ninvariably associated with seasons of great sorrow, disaster, and\ncalamity, when, having apparently nothing else to hope for, a prayer is\noffered for the will of God! It is somewhat vaguely held to be the\nappropriate expression for the last emergency, and that it implies\nresigning one's self to the most serious and irreferable calamity. There\nis also a nebulous feeling that while the will of God may be entirely\nappropriate to the conditions and circumstances of the aged, the poor,\nthe unfortunate, and the defective classes, it is the last thing in the\nworld to be invoked for the young, the gifted, the strong, and the\nbrilliant orders of society. It is tacitly relegated to a place in some\nlast hopeless emergency, and not to a place in the creative energy of\nthe most brilliant achievement.\n\nNow, as a matter of profoundest truth, this attitude is as remote from\nthe clear realization of what is involved in the will of God as would be\nthe conviction that the flying express train or the swift electric motor\ncars might be suitable enough for the aged, and the weary, and the\ninvalid, and the people whose time was of little consequence, but that\nthe young, the radiant, the eager, the gifted, the people to whom time\nwas valuable, must go by their own conveyances of horse or foot under\ntheir immediate personal control. This fallacy is no more remote from\ntruth than is the fallacy that the will of God is something to be\naccepted with what decorum of resignation one may, only when he cannot\nhelp it! On the contrary, the will of God is the infinitely great motor\nof human life. Its power is as incalculably greater over the soul than\nthat of radium over other elements, as it is higher in the scale of\nbeing; as spirit rather than substance; and the Life Radiant is really\nentered upon when one has come absolutely to merge all his longing and\ndesire into the divine purposes. It is like availing one's self of the\ngreat laws of attraction and gravitation in nature. With the human will\nidentified with the divine will, every day's experience becomes invested\nwith the keenest zest and interest. The events that may arise at any\nmoment enlist the energy and fascinate the imagination. The\nconsciousness of union with God produces an exquisite confidence in the\nwise and sweet enchantment of life; the constant receptivity of the soul\nto the influence and the guiding of the Holy Spirit make an atmosphere\necstatic, even under the most commonplace or outwardly depressing\ncircumstances. Celestial harmonies thrill the air. In this divine\natmosphere--the soul's native air--every energy is quickened. The divine\nrealm is as truly the habitat of the spiritual man--who, temporarily\ninhabiting a physical body that he may thus come into relations with a\nphysical world, is essentially a spiritual rather than a physical\nbeing--as the air is the habitat of the bird, or the water of the fish.\nWhen the divine statement is made, \"Without Me ye can do nothing,\" it is\nsimply that of a literal fact. The gloom, the depression, the irritation\nthat so often prevail and persist in mental conditions, do not arise,\nprimarily, from any outward trial or perplexity; they are the\nresult--the inevitable result--of the soul's lack of union with God; the\nlack of that _rapport_ between the spirit of man and the divine spirit\nin which alone is exhilaration and joy. When this union is forged, when\nthe human will rests perfectly in the divine will, one then absolutely\nknows, with the most positive and literal conviction, that \"all things\nwork together for good to them that love God.\" The assurance is felt\nwith the unchallenged force of a mathematical demonstration. Not merely\nthat the pleasant and agreeable things work together for good, but\n_all_ things--pain, loss, sorrow, injustice, misapprehension. Then one\nrealizes in his own experience the significance of the words, \"We glory\nin tribulation, also.\" One has heard all one's life, perhaps, of \"the\nministry of sorrow,\" and similar phrases, and he has become a trifle\nimpatient of them as a sort of incantation with which he has little\nsympathy. At the best, he relegates this order of ministry to the rank\nand file of humanity; to those whose lives are (to his vision) somewhat\nprosy and dull; and for himself he proposes to live in a world\nbeautiful, where stars and sunsets and flames and fragrances enchant the\nhours, where, with his feet shod with silver bells, he is perpetually\nconscious of being\n\n  \"Born and nourished in miracles.\"\n\nHe is perfectly confident that every life can be happy, if it will; and\nhe regards sorrow as a wholly stupid and negative state which no one\nneed fall into if only he have sufficient energy to generate a perpetual\nenchantment. Thus he dances down the years like the daffodils on the\nmorning breeze, singing always his hymn to the radiant goddess:\n\n  \"The Fairest enchants me,\n  The Mighty commands me,\"\n\npledging his faith at the Altar of Perpetual Adoration that one has only\nbut to believe in happiness and make room for it in his life in order to\nlive in this constant exhilaration. Then, one day, he awakens to find\nhis world in ruins. Sorrow, pain, loss, have come upon him, and have\ncome in the one form of all others that seems most impossible to bear.\nIf it were death, even of the one dearest on earth, he would be\nsustained by divine consolations. If it were financial deprivation, he\ncould meet it with fortitude and accept Goethe's counsel to \"go and earn\nmore.\" If it were any one of various other forms of trial, he reflects,\nthere would be for his pain various forms of consolation; but the\npeculiar guise it has assumed paralyzes him with its baffling power, its\ndarkness of eclipse. The element of hopelessness in it,--his own utter\ninability to understand the cause of the sorrow which is literally a\nthunderbolt out of a clear sky,--plunges him almost into despair. He had\nendeavored to give the best, but the result is as if he had given the\nworst; he had come to rely on a perfect and beautiful comprehension and\nsympathy, but he is confronted with the most inexplicable\nmisapprehension of all his motives, the most complete misunderstanding\nof all his aspirations and prayers. This, or other combinations and\nconditions of which it may serve as a type, is one of the phases of\nhuman experience. If pain were only the inevitable result of conscious\nand intentional wrong-doing, then might one even learn to refrain from\nthe error and thus avoid the result. But a deeper experience in life, a\nmore profound insight into the springs of its action, reveal that pain,\nas well as joy, falls into experience as an event encountered on the\nonward march, rather than as being, invariably, conditions created by\nourselves. In the final analysis of being, we may have created the\ncauses sometime and somewhere; but in the immediate sense we fail to\ndiscern the trace of our own action. A joy, a radiance undreamed of,\nsuddenly drops into a day, making it a memorable date forever; a joy\nthat transmutes itself into exaltation and a higher range of energy.\nNaturally, we count such an experience divine, and offer our gratitude\nto God, the giver of all blessings. But a tragedy of sorrow, a darkness\nof desolation impenetrable and seemingly final, also falls suddenly into\na day, and inexpressible amazement and incredulity that it can be real\nare added to the pain. But it is real. The sunshine has vanished; the\nstars have hidden their light; the air is leaden where once it was all\ngold and rose and pearl; one is alone in the desert, in a loneliness\nthat no voice sounds through, in an anguish that no human sympathy can\nreach or sustain. All that made life worth the living has been\ninexplicably withdrawn; and how, then, shall he live? And _why_ shall he\nlive? he may even question. The springs of energy are broken and his\npowers are paralyzed. Whatever he has hitherto done, whatever he has\ntried or hoped to do in the joyous exaltation of the days that have\nvanished from all save memory, he can do no longer. It is not a question\nof choice, not a decision that he would not still continue his efforts;\nbut it is the total impossibility of doing so that settles down upon him\nlike a leaden pall. The blind cannot see, the deaf cannot hear, the dumb\ncannot speak, the paralyzed cannot walk,--no matter how gladly they\nwould fulfil these functions. So he looks at his own life. His world is\nin ruins, and he has no power to ever rebuild it again. In such\nconditions the problem of suicide may arrive like a ghastly spectre to\nconfront the mind. It is a spectre that, according to statistics, is\nalarmingly prevalent. The statisticians talk of periods of it as \"an\nepidemic.\" Both science and religion take note of it, discuss its\nbearing upon life, its tendency and its possible prevention. It is seen\nas the result of both great and of trivial causes. It is seen to follow\na great sin, and to be the--terribly mistaken--refuge of a great sorrow.\nAnd the remedy lies,--where? It can hardly lie elsewhere than in a truer\nunderstanding of the very nature of life itself. The only remedy will be\nfound in the larger general understanding that life cannot be\nextinguished. One may destroy his physical _body_,--he can do that at\nany moment and by an infinite variety of methods. But he cannot destroy\n_himself_. He may deprive himself of the instrument that was given to\nhim for use in the physical world; he cannot escape from the duties\nthat he should have fulfilled when he had the means of doing so in the\nuse of this instrument we call the body. If science and religion could\nclearly teach the awful results that follow suicide, the terrible\nisolation and deprivation in which the spiritual being who has thrown\naway his instrument of service finds himself, it would be the one\neffective cure for a demoralizing tendency. If one has sinned, sometime\nand somewhere must he meet the consequences. He cannot escape them by\nescaping from his body, and the sooner he meets them, in repentance and\natonement, the sooner will he work out to better and brighter\nconditions. If one encounters disaster or great personal sorrow, what\nthen? One does not throw away all his possibilities of usefulness\nbecause he is himself unhappy. If he does do this he is ignoble. Life is\na divine dream. It is a divine responsibility, primarily between each\nsoul and God. It is one's business to live bravely, with dignity, with\nfaith, with generosity of consideration and good will, with love,\nindeed, which is the expression of the highest energy. Yet, with his\npersonal world in ruins, what shall he do? He must learn that supreme\nlesson of all time and eternity,--the lesson to accept and to joyfully\nembrace the will of God as thus revealed to him, in an inscrutable way.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Supreme Illumination.]\n\nUntil he shall learn to accept this experience as divine, and offer his\ngratitude to God for pain as sincerely as he offered it for experiences\nof joy and of beauty, he cannot enter upon the Life Radiant. For the\nradiant life is only achieved through these mingled experiences as all\nequally accepted from the Divine Power.\n\n   \"Ah, when the infinite burden of life descendeth upon us,\n   Crushes to earth our hopes, and under the earth in the graveyard,\n   Then it is good to pray unto God, for His sorrowing children\n   Turns He ne'er from the door, but He heals and helps and consoles them.\n   Yet is it good to pray when all things are prosperous with us;\n   Pray in fortunate days, for life's most beautiful fortune\n   Kneels before the Eternal's gate, and with hands inter-folded,\n   Praises, thankful and moved, the only Giver of blessings.\"\n\nThe Life Radiant comes when one can as sincerely thank God for pain as\nfor joy; when, after long groping in the darkness, clinging, indeed, to\nhis faith in God (for without that he could not live an hour, though\nthat faith be totally without sight), he suddenly realizes how a great\nsorrow has wrought in him a great result; that it has perfected and\ncrystallized all that was nebulous in his faith, and that it has\nabsolutely brought him into perfect rest in the Divine Will; that it has\nforged that indissoluble link which forevermore identifies his will with\nthe will of God, and thus opens to him a realm fairer far than a \"World\nBeautiful\"--even a World Divine. Only in this finer ether is revealed to\nhim the Life Radiant; in the atmosphere made resplendent and glorious by\nthis revelation of the soul's union with God. It is a life only\nexperienced after one who has seen before him the Promised Land is led\ninto the Wilderness instead, and who, standing there in the midst of\ndenial, and defeat, and desolation, can rejoice in the sea of glass\nmingled with fire through which he must pass. Only in this supreme\nsurrender of the soul to God; only in this rapture of union with the\ndivine power, lies the Life Radiant. It is a glory not of earth; it is\nthe instant crystallization of an intense and infinite energy that pours\nitself into every need of the varied human life. It is the igniting of a\nspark that flashes its illumination on every problem and perplexity. It\nis the coming to \"know God\" in the sense meant by Saint Paul, and thus\nto enter into the eternal life. For the eternal life is not a term that\nimplies mere duration. It implies present conditions. The eternal life\nis now. It is a spiritual state, and implies the profound and the\nrealized union with God, rather than a prolongation of existence through\ncountless ages. Only the eternal life can thus prolong itself. The life\nof the spirit is alone immortal.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Creating the New World.]\n\n\"The soul looketh steadily forward, creating a world before her, leaving\nworlds behind her,\" and \"the web of events is the flowing robe in which\nshe is clothed.\" That union of energy and will which we call the soul is\ncapable of creating a new world every day, and any adequate perception\nof the life that now is, as well as that which is to come, suggests\nconsolation for the ills of the day and leads one into the atmosphere of\npeace and joy.\n\nWhen one comes into any clear realization of this life of the\nspirit,--of its infinite outlook, its command of resources,--the\nentanglement with trifles falls off of itself. Not unfrequently a great\ndeal of time and energy is totally wasted in endeavoring to combat or to\nconquer the annoyances and troubles that beset one; that weight his\nwings and blind his eyes and render him impervious and unresponsive to\nthe beauty and joy of life. Nine times out of ten it is far better to\nignore these, to put them out of sight and out of mind, and press on to\ngain the clearer atmosphere, to create the new world. \"The whole course\nof things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance\nfor each of us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why\nneed you choose so painfully your place, and occupation, and associates,\nand modes of action and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible\nright for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election.\nFor you there is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place\nyourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates\nall whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to\nright, and a perfect contentment. Then you put all gainsayers in the\nwrong. Then you are the world, the measure of right, of truth, of\nbeauty. If we will not be marplots with our miserable interferences, the\nwork, the society, letters, arts, science, religion of men would go on\nfar better than now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the\nworld, and still predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize\nitself, as do now the rose, and the air, and the sun.\"\n\nThe poet declares that \"sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier\nthings,\" but there is a certain morbidness in even the sensitive\ndelicacy and intensity of feeling that broods too deeply over the past.\nIt is a great art to learn to let things go--let them pass. They are a\npart of the \"flowing conditions.\" Even the pain and sorrow that result\nfrom failures and changes in social relations; loss of friends, the\nvanishing of friendships in which one had trusted,--even this phase of\ntrial, which is truly the hardest of all, can be best endured by closing\nthe door of consciousness on it, and creating a new world by that\nmiracle-working power of the soul. Friendships that hold within\nthemselves any permanent, any spiritual reality, come to stay. \"Only\nthat soul can be my friend which I encounter on the line of my own\nmarch, that soul to which I do not decline and which does not decline to\nme, but, native of the same celestial altitude, repeats in its own all\nmy experience.\" Life has too many claims and privileges and resources to\nwaste it in lamentations. Let one look forward, not backward. Fairy\nrealms of enchantment beckon him on. These \"flowing conditions of life\"\nare, really, the conditions of joy, of exhilaration, of stimulus to\nenergy rather than the reverse. They invest each day, each week, each\nyear, with the enchantment of the unknown and the untried. They produce\nthe possibility of perpetual hope, and continuity of hope is continuity\nof endeavor. Without hope, faith, and courage, life would be impossible;\nand courage and all power of energy and endeavor depend entirely upon\nhope and faith. If a man believes in nothing and is in a state of\ndespair and not hope, his energies are paralyzed. But hope lends\nwings,--hope and faith are creative, and can both control and change the\ntrend of events. Circumstances are but the crude material, which is\nsubject to any degree of transformation by the alchemy of faith. \"When a\ngod wishes to ride, every chip and stone will bud and shoot out winged\nfeet to carry him,\" and it is hope and faith that give the power of the\ngods.\n\nThere is, perhaps, no adequate realization on the part of humanity of\nthe enormous extent to which the forces in the Unseen mingle with the\nforces of the Seen, and thus complete the magnetic battery of action.\nLife approaches perfection in just the degree to which it can\nintelligently and reverently avail itself of this aid which is a divine\nprovision. It is not only after death that the soul \"stands before God.\"\nThe soul that does not stand before God, now and here, in the ordinary\ndaily life, does not even live at all, in any true sense. \"I am come\nthat ye might have _life_,\" said Jesus, \"and have it more abundantly.\" It\nis only as one holds himself receptive to the divine currents that he\nhas life, and it rests with himself to have it \"more abundantly\" every\nday and hour.\n\nThis constant communion with Jesus, this living in constant receptivity\nto the divine energy, includes, too, the living in telepathic communion\nwith those who have gone on into the Unseen world. The spirituality of\nlife is conditioned on so developing our own spiritual powers by faith\nand prayer and communion with God, that one is sensitive to the presence\nand responsive to the thought of friends who have been released from the\nphysical life. Shall Phillips Brooks, the friend and helper and wise\ncounsellor when here, be less so now that he has entered into the next\nhigher scale of being? Shall the friend whom we loved, and who was at\nour side in visible presence yesterday, be less our friend because his\npresence is not visible to us to-day? Why is it not visible? Simply\nbecause the subtle spirit-body is in a state of far higher vibration\nthan the denser physical body, and the physical eye can only recognize\nobjects up to a certain vibratory degree. It is a scientific fact.\nMusicians and scientists know well that above a certain pitch the ear\ncannot recognize sound; it becomes silence. But as Saint Paul says,\n\"there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body,\" and the\nspiritual body also has its organs of sight and hearing. Clairvoyance\nand clairaudience are as natural, when the spiritual faculties are\nsufficiently developed, as are the ordinary sight and hearing. Even when\nthere is no clairvoyance and clairaudience, in the way of super-normal\ndevelopment, the mind kept in harmonious receptivity to the divine world\nmay be telepathically in more or less constant communion with those in\nthe unseen.\n\n\"The power of our own will to determine certain facts is, itself, one of\nthe facts of life,\" says Professor Josiah Royce. The power of our own\nwill is but another name for spiritual power--that positive force to\nwhich all events and circumstances are negative.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"There never was a right endeavor but it succeeded,\" says Emerson.\n\"Patience and patience, we shall win at the last. We must be very\nsuspicious of the deceptions of the element of time. It takes a good\ndeal of time to eat or to sleep, or to earn a hundred dollars, and a\nvery little time to entertain a hope and an insight which becomes the\nlight of our life. We dress our garden, eat our dinners, discuss the\nhousehold, and these things make no impression, are forgotten next week;\nbut in the solitude to which every man is always returning, he has a\nsanity and revelations which in his passage into new worlds he will\ncarry with him. Never mind the ridicule, never mind the defeat: up\nagain, old heart!--it seems to say,--there is victory yet for all\njustice; and the true romance which the world exists to realize will be\nthe transformation of genius into practical power.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Eliminating Anxieties.]\n\nA large percentage of the anxieties and perplexities of daily experience\ncould be eliminated at once and struck off the balance, never to return\nagain, if life were but viewed aright, and held in the scale of true\nvaluations. Nothing is more idle than to sell one's soul for a mess of\npottage; for the pottage is not worth the price. Seen in the most\npractical, every-day light, it is a bad bargain. Not only is it true\nthat a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of things that he\npossesseth, but, conversely, as a rule, the greater the mass of things\nthe less the life. The spiritual energy becomes clogged and fettered and\nstrangled amid its entanglement with things. The very power of finance,\nthat might and that ought to insure its possessor a certain peace of\nmind, a liberation from petty anxieties, and a power to devote himself\nto higher aims, too often reverses this and chains him as to a wheel.\nRecently there arrived at a fashionable hotel a family whose command of\nfinance might have redeemed every day from the sordid and from any\nanxious efforts, and enabled them to live in the realm of high thought,\nof generous and beautiful expressions of sympathy and love to all. Their\nvisit might have made the time a glorified interlude to every one with\nwhom they came in contact by its radiation of hope and happiness and\nsympathy and good cheer. Instead, each and all, individually and\ncollectively, were entangled in possessions,--weighted down with\n_things_, and quite illustrating the terse little couplet of Emerson,--\n\n  \"Things are in the saddle\n  And ride mankind.\"\n\nThe things which rode these unfortunate beings--for the\nmulti-millionaires may not unfrequently be so classed--were masses of\njewels, that could not be worn and enjoyed because too elaborate to be\nsuitable, and so must be instantly consigned to the safe. Such part of\nthese treasures as were in use, and left in rooms, suffered from losses\nor theft. They caused more or less vexation, anger, discord, and fret in\ngeneral to the owners and every one concerned, until the onlooker was\nready to exclaim, \"If this is the price of diamonds and rubies and pink\npearls, and rich and rare gems in general, let one escape the tyranny of\npurple and fine linen, and take simplicity and its accompanying peace of\nmind.\" After a certain limit of ordinary comfort, great possessions seem\nto enslave rather than to liberate. If the price of costly jewels is\npeace of mind, as well as a cheque of imposing figures, then, indeed,\nlet one keep his peace of mind, and go without the necklace. It is often\ncurious to see how little imagination goes into the spending of colossal\nfortunes. The possessors simply build more houses than they can live in;\neach one has more space and more impedimenta than he knows what to do\nwith, and the multiplication of all these possessions results in\nperpetual anxieties, and fret, and worry, until one would prefer a crust\nand a garret, and his spiritual freedom, to any such life as that\nentailed by the golden shower of fortune.\n\n\"Are you rich? rich enough to help somebody?\" There is the test. The\ndiamond and ruby necklace, whose chief use seems to be to incite\nanxieties, would give some aspiring youth or maiden a college course.\nThe costly ring left carelessly on the bureau, tempting theft, would\ngive a gifted young girl just the study in a musical conservatory that\nshe needs, or would make a young artist happy and encouraged by buying\nhis picture, and some one else might be made happy and helped on to new\nendeavor by having the gift of the picture. Money can be transmuted into\nspiritual gifts, and only when thus used is it of much importance in\npromoting any real comfort or enjoyment or stimulus to progress. The\nevent, the thing, is purely negative, and only when acted upon by force\nof spirit does it become positive.\n\nLet one go on through the days doing the beautiful thing in every human\nrelation. Life is a spiritual drama, perpetually being played. The\ncurtain never goes down. The actors come and go, but the stage is never\nvacant. To inform the drama with artistic feeling, with beauty, with\ngenerous purpose, is in the power of every one. It depends, not on\npossessions, but on sympathy, insight, and sweetness of spirit. These\ndetermine the Life Radiant.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  \"I will wait heaven's perfect hour\n  Through the innumerable years.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Heaven's Perfect Hour.]\n\nThe saving grace of life is the power to hold with serene and steadfast\nfidelity the vision, the ideal, that has revealed itself in happier\nhours; to realize that this, after all, is the true reality, and that it\nshines in the spiritual firmament as the sun does in the heavens,\nhowever long the period of storm and clouds that obscure its radiance.\nThe tendency to doubt and depression is often as prevalent as an\nepidemic. In extreme cases it becomes the suicidal mania; in others it\neffectually paralyzes the springs of action and leaves its victim\ndrifting helplessly and hopelessly with the current; and any such\nmental tendency as this is just as surely a definite evil to be\nrecognized and combated as would be any epidemic of disease. To rise in\nthe morning confronting a day that is full of exacting demands on his\nbest energies; on his serenest and sunniest poise; that require all the\nexhilaration and sparkle and radiance which have vanished from his\npossession, and yet to be forced, someway and somehow, to go through his\nappointed tasks,--no one can deny that here is a very real problem, and\none that certainly taxes every conceivable force of will far more than\nmight many great and visible calamities. For all this form of trial is\ninvisible and very largely incommunicable, and it is like trying to walk\nthrough deep waters that are undiscerned by those near, but which impede\nevery step, and threaten to rise and overwhelm one.\n\nThe poetic and artistic temperament is peculiarly susceptible to this\nform of trial. In work of an industrial or mechanical nature, a certain\ndegree of will force alone will serve to insure its accomplishment\nwhether one \"feels in the mood\" or not. The mood does not greatly\ncount. But in work of any creative sort, the mood, the condition of\nmind, is the determining factor. And is it within human power, by force\nof will alone, to call up this working mood of radiant energy when all\nenergy has ebbed away, leaving one as inert as an electric machine from\nwhich the current has been turned off?\n\nAnd yet--and yet--the saving gift and grace of life and achievement\ncomes, in that there is a power higher than one's own will, on which one\nmay lay hold with this serene and steadfast fidelity.\n\nPhysicians and scientists have long since recognized that intense mental\ndepression is as inevitably an accompaniment of _la grippe_ as are its\nphysical symptoms, and the more fully the patient himself understands\nthis, and is thus enabled to look at it objectively, so to speak, the\nbetter it is for him. The feeling is that he has not a friend on earth,\nand, on the whole, he is rather glad of it. He feels as if it were much\neasier to die than to live,--not to say that the former presents itself\nto him as far the preferable course. So he envelops himself in the\nblack shadows of gloom, and, on the whole, quite prefers drawing them\nconstantly deeper. And this is very largely the semi-irresponsible state\nof illness combined with ignorance of the real nature of the malady.\n\nThe knowledge of how to meet it with a degree of that \"sweet\nreasonableness\" which should invest one's daily living, is knowledge\nthat can hardly come amiss. One must treat it as a transient visitation\nof those\n\n  \"Black spirits or white, blue spirits or gray,\"\n\nwhich are to be exorcised by keeping close to beautiful thought,--to\nsomething high, poetic, reverent. \"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace\nwhose mind is stayed on Thee\" is one of the most practical aids in life.\nIt can be relied upon more fully than the visit of the physician. From\nthe Bible, from the poets, one may draw as from a sustaining fountain.\nAs this intense depression is a mental feature of the disease it must be\nmet by mental methods,--of resolutely holding the thoughts to high and\nbeautiful themes; by allying the imagination with serene and radiant\nideals. Emerson is the greatest of magicians. His words will work\nmarvels. His thought is as luminous as a Roentgen ray.\n\n\"Heaven's perfect hour\" is sure to sometime dawn if one but keep his\nface turned toward the morning. \"Heaven's perfect hour\" is within one's\nown possibilities of creation, if he live aright and think aright; and\nwith joy and radiance may he make it his perpetual experience; although\nit is the supreme anomaly in life that the social relations which are\ndesigned to offer the profoundest joy, the most perfect consolation for\ndisaster or sorrow, and to communicate the happy currents of electrical\nenergy, are yet those which not unfrequently make themselves the channel\nof the most intense suffering. There is something wrong in this. The\nfriendships of life, all forms and phases and degrees through which\nregard and friendship reveal themselves, are the one divinest, perhaps\nit may be said are the only, part of life on earth that is absolutely\ndivine, and the divine element should communicate perpetual joy. This is\nthe ideal view of the entire panorama of social interchange and social\nrelations, and being the purest ideal, it is also the most intensely and\nabsolutely real. For nothing is real, in the last analysis, save that\nwhich is ideal; and nothing is ideal that is not a spiritual reality.\nThen the question recurs,--how is it possible, how can it be accounted\nfor that the one phase of suffering which seems past even trying to\nendure, comes through the sources which should radiate only joy and\nblessedness?\n\nThe old proverb, \"Save me from my friends,\" is founded on a certain\nbasis of fact. \"Twenty enemies cannot do me the mischief of one friend,\"\nrather cynically, but perhaps not wholly untruly, said Gail Hamilton.\nFor it certainly is not the avowed enemy, or the person to whom one is\nindifferent, who has the power to greatly harm or pain him. So far as\ninjury goes, Emerson is probably right when he says, \"No one can work me\ninjury but myself.\" Misrepresentation, misinterpretation, there may be,\nbut in the long run truth is mighty, and will, and does, prevail. One\nneed not greatly concern himself with misinterpretations, but, rather,\nonly with striving to live the life of truth and righteousness.\n\nPerhaps one cause of much of the unhappiness and suffering that not\ninfrequently invests relations that should only be those of joy and\npeace and mutual inspiration, is an over and an undue emphasis on\nmaterial things. Now, when viewed in the light of absolute truth,\nmaterial things are of simply no consequence at all. They do not belong\nto the category of realities. Money, possessions,--the mere goods and\nchattels of life,--are, even at their best appraisal, a mere temporary\nconvenience. As a convenience they fill a place and are all very well.\nAs anything beyond that they have no place at all in one's\nconsciousness. Whatever luxury they can offer is simply in using them to\nthe best advantage, and human nature is so constituted that this best\nadvantage is usually more closely connected with those who are dear to\none than it is with himself. For himself alone, what does he want that\nmoney, mere money, can buy? He wants and needs the average conditions of\nlife, in the \"food, clothing, and shelter\" line; he needs and requires\ncertain conditions of beauty, of harmony, of gratification of tastes and\nenlargement of opportunities,--all these are legitimate needs, and are\npart of the working conditions of life; of the right development and\nprogress which one is in duty bound to make, both for his own personal\nprogress and as the vantage ground of his efforts for usefulness. Beyond\nthat, the luxury of life lies in doing what the heart prompts. The one\nheavenly joy of life is in the enlargement of social sympathies; it is\nin the offering of whatever appreciation and devotion it is possible to\noffer to those whose noble and beautiful lives inspire this devotion. To\nhave this accepted--not because it is of intrinsic value, not because it\nis of any particular importance _per se_, but because it is the visible\nrepresentation of the spiritual gift of reverence, appreciation, and\ndevotion--is the purest happiness one may experience, and that which\ninspires him anew to all endeavor and achievement. To have it refused or\ndenied is to have the golden portals close before one and shut him out\nin the darkness. Why, the heavenly privilege, the infinite obligation,\nis on the part of him who is permitted to offer his tribute of love and\ndevotion, expressed, if it so chances, in any material way,--and he is\ndenied his sweetest joy if this privilege be denied him. There are gifts\nthat are priceless, but they are not of the visible and tangible world.\nThey are the gifts of sympathy, of intuitive comprehension, of helpful\nregard; and, curiously, these--the priceless and precious--are never\nregarded as too valuable for acceptance, while regarding the material\nand temporal, which, at best, are the merest transient convenience,\nthere will be hesitation and pain. And this hesitation arises, too, from\nthe most beautiful and delicately exquisite qualities, but it produces\nthe pain that is\n\n    \"----the little rift within the lute,\n  That by and by will make the music mute.\"\n\nThere is in life a proportion of pain and jarring that is inevitable,\nprobably, to the imperfect conditions with which the experience on earth\nis temporarily invested; and because of this, all the range of\nfriendship should be held apart as divine, and any interchange of\nmaterial gifts should not receive this undue emphasis, but be regarded\nas the mere incidental trifle of momentary convenience, while all the\nregard and devotion that may lie behind should give its mutual joy as\nfree and as pure as the fragrance of a rose. Of all that a friend may be\nEmerson so truly says:--\n\n  \"I fancied he was fled,--\n  And, after many a year,\n  Glowed unexhausted kindliness\n  Like daily sunrise there.\n  My careful heart was free again.\n  O friend, my bosom said,\n  Through thee alone the sky is arched,\n  Through thee the rose is red;\n  All things through thee take nobler form.\"\n\nThat alone is what all the loves and friendships of life are for,--that\nthrough their ministry life may take on nobler form.\n\n  \"I fancied he was fled.\"\n\nBut a friendship that is true cannot flee; it is, by its very quality\nand nature, abiding. It may be silent forever; it may be invisible,\ninaudible, immaterial, impersonal; but once forged it is of the heavenly\nlife, the heavenly language, and the Word of the Lord abideth forever!\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Love and Good Will.]\n\nThe stress and storm of life, however, fade away very largely before the\npower of simple love and good will, which is the key to all situations\nand the solution of all problems. \"How shall I seem to love my people?\"\nasked a French king of his confessor. \"My son, you _must_ love them,\"\nwas the reply. When there is genuineness one does not need to engage in\nthe elaborate and arduous labor of counterfeiting qualities and\nmanufacturing appearances, and it is really easier--to say nothing of\nits being a somewhat more dignified process--to _be_ what one wishes the\nworld to regard him, than it is to endeavor to merely produce the effect\nof it.\n\nDoctor Holmes had a bit of counsel for those who were out at sea,--that\nthey should not waste any energy in asking how they looked from the\nshore; and the suggestion is not an infelicitous one in its general\napplication to life. It is quite enough for one to keep his feet, as\nbest he may, set on the upward and onward way, without concerning\nhimself too much as to the effect of his figure in the landscape. The\nenergy that goes towards attitudinizing is always wasted, while that\nwhich expends itself on the legitimate fulfilment of tasks contributes\nsomething of real importance to life.\n\nAnd so, any significance of achievement seems to be exactly conditioned\nby the degree of energy involved--the finer the energy, the more potent\nthe achievement. It would seem as if all the noble order of success\nhinged on two conditions,--the initial one of generating sufficient\nenergy, and the second that of applying it worthily.\n\nThe present age is characterized as that in which new forms of force\nappear,--in both the physical and the spiritual realms of life. What a\nmarvel is the new chemical force, thermite, of which the first\ndemonstration in America was made in 1902, by the Columbia University\nChemical Society in New York. Here is a force that dissolves iron and\nstone. An extremely interesting account of this new energy appeared in\nthe \"New York Herald,\" in which the writer vivifies the subject by\nsaying of thermite:--\n\n     \"Under its awful lightning blaze granite flows like water and big\n     steel rails are welded in the twinkling of an eye.... The interior\n     of Mount Pelee, whose fiery blast destroyed St. Pierre in a moment\n     and crumbled its buildings into dust, would be cool compared with\n     this temperature of 5400 deg. It would melt the White Mountains into\n     rivers of liquid fire. Nothing could withstand its consuming\n     power.... And what makes this stupendous force? The answer seems\n     incredible as the claims for the force itself. It is produced by\n     simply putting a match to a mixture of aluminum filings and oxide\n     of chromium, both metallic, and yet, as by magic, a mighty force is\n     instantly created.\"\n\nThe writer describes the discovery and processes at some length, and\nadds:--\n\n     \"Such are the wonders of chemistry suggesting Emerson's claim,\n     'Thought sets men free.' By a simple process--flame applied to\n     metal filings--prison bars melt and vaulted dungeons flow like\n     water.\"\n\nThe article closes with this wonderful paragraph:--\n\n     \"By chemistry the pale-faced modern Faust, working in his\n     laboratory, makes metals out of clay and many marvellous\n     combinations. What they will do when skilfully proportioned and\n     exposed to heat, the story related gives a hint,--accounting, as it\n     were, for the forces at work in space, creating heat and\n     electricity, making suns burn with indescribable fury, colliding\n     with peaceful planets, mixing their metals in a second of\n     time,--and new worlds seem to leap into vision, balls of molten\n     fire sweeping through space; vast cyclones of flame, making Pelee a\n     cold-storage vault by comparison. All this seems simple enough as\n     explained by modern chemistry, giving men unlimited power, making\n     them gods, as it were, to first master themselves and then the\n     universe.\"\n\nThis description of the new force, whose intensity is almost beyond\nrealization, is hardly less remarkable than is the energy described; and\nit lends itself, with perfect rhythm of correspondence, to analysis on\nthe side of the spiritual forces of life. \"Cast thyself into the will of\nGod and thou shalt become as God\" is one of the most illuminating of the\nmystic truths. The \"will of God\" is the supreme potency, the very\nhighest degree of energy, in the spiritual realm, which is the realm of\ncause, while the outer world is the realm of effects. Now if one may so\nally himself to the divine will as to share in its all-conquering power,\nhe partakes of creative power and eternal life, now and here, just in\nproportion to the degree to which he can identify his entire trend of\ndesire and purpose with this Infinite will. This energy is fairly\ntypified in the physical world by the stupendous new force called\n\"thermite,\" and it is as resistless as that attraction which holds the\nstars in their courses and the universe in their solar relations.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Diviner Possibilities.]\n\nIt is a fallacy to suppose that it is a hardship and a trial to live the\nmore divine and uplifting life, and that ease and pleasure are only to\nbe found in non-resistance to the faults and defects of character. The\ntruth is just the opposite of this, and the twentieth century will\nreveal a fairly revolutionary philosophy in this respect. Heretofore\npoet and prophet have always questioned despondently,--\n\n  \"Does the road wind up hill all the way?\"\n\nas if to wind up hill were the type of trial, and the \"descent of\nAvernus\" were the type of joy.\n\nDoes the road wind up hill? Most certainly, and thereby it leads on into\nthe purer light, the fairer radiance, the wider view. Does one prefer to\ngo down hill into some dark ravine or deep mountain gorge? It is a great\nfallacy that it is the hardship of life to live in the best instead of\nin the worst. It is the way of the _transgressor_ which is hard--not of\nhim who endeavors to follow the divine leading. The deeper truth is that\nthe moment one commits all his purposes and his aspirations into the\nDivine keeping he connects himself by that very act with a current of\nirresistible energy; one that reinforces him with power utterly\nundreamed of before.\n\nThere is no limit to the power one may draw from the unseen universe.\n\"It is possible, I dare to say,\" says a thoughtful writer, \"for those\nwho will indeed draw on their Lord's power for deliverance and victory,\nto live a life on which His promises are taken as they stand and found\nto be true. It is possible to cast every care on Him daily, and to be at\npeace amidst the pressure. It is possible to see the will of God in\neverything, and to find it not a sigh but a song. It is possible in the\nworld of inner act and motion to put away all bitterness, and wrath, and\nanger, and evil speaking, daily and hourly. It is possible, by\nunreserved resort to divine power, under divine conditions, to become\nstrongest at our weakest point; to find the thing which yesterday upset\nall our obligations to patience, an occasion to-day, through Him who\nloveth us and worketh in us, for a joyful consent to His will and a\ndelightful sense of His presence. These things are divinely possible.\"\n\nOne very practical question that cannot but confront the world at the\npresent time is as to whether there is any relation between religion, in\nits highest and most inclusive and spiritually uplifting sense, and the\npossibility of communication between those in this life and those who\nhave passed through the change we call death and have entered on the\nnext round of experience. It is a fact--albeit a rather curious and\nunaccountable one--that organized religion, as a whole, has been largely\nopposed to the idea of possible communication between what is currently\ntermed the living and the dead. Yet when one focusses the question to a\nmatter of personal individuality, it does not stand the test. Take, for\ninstance, the revered name of a man who was universally recognized as\none of the greatest spiritual leaders the world has known,--Phillips\nBrooks. When he was the rector of Trinity Church, or the Bishop of the\nMassachusetts diocese, no one who sought his companionship or counsel\nwould have been regarded as being wrong to do so. Now,--always provided\nthat there is full conviction of immortality,--why should it be wrong to\nseek his companionship or counsel from the unseen life? Death has no\npower over the essential individuality. Indeed, in being freed from the\nphysical body, the spiritual man becomes only more powerful, and with\nhis power acting from a higher plane of energy. Regarding ourselves as\nspiritual beings,--and if we are not that we are nothing,--regarding\nourselves as _temporarily inhabiting_ a physical body, but in no sense\nidentified with it save as we use this body for our instrument of\ncommunication with the physical world; what more logical or natural than\nthat the spiritual being, not yet released from his physical body,\nshould hold sweet and intimate communion with the spiritual being that\n_has_ been released from this physical environment? Telepathy has\nalready become a recognized law. That mind to mind, spirit to spirit,\nflashes its messages here in this present life, is a fact attested by\ntoo great an array of evidence to be doubted or denied. Now the\nspiritual being who is released from the physical body is infinitely\nmore sensitive to impression, more responsive to mental call, than was\npossible in conditions here. The experimental research and investigation\nin psychology, as shown in such work as that of Professor Muensterberg of\nHarvard in the university laboratory, reveals increasingly that the\nbrain is an electric battery of the most potent and sensitive order;\nthat it generates electric thought waves and receives them. Does it lose\nthis power by the change called death? Is this power only inherent in\nthe physical structure? On the contrary, Professor William James has\ndemonstrated with scientific accuracy in his book called \"Human\nFreedom,\" that this is not the case. If, then, intellectual energy\nsurvives the process of death,--and if it does not then there is no\nimmortality,--the communication between those in the Unseen and those in\nthe Seen is as perfectly natural as is any form of companionship or of\nsocial life here.\n\nAs all kinds of people live, so all kinds of people die, and the mere\nfact of death is not a transforming process, spiritually. He who has\nnot developed the spiritual faculties while here; who has lived the mere\nlife of the senses with the mere ordinary intelligence, or without it,\nbut never rising to the nobler intellectual and moral life--is no more\ndesirable as a companion because he has died than he was before he died.\nAnd the objection to any of the ordinary _seance_ phenomena is, that\nwhatever manifestations are genuine proceed very largely, if not\nentirely, from this strata of the crude and inconsequential, if not the\nvicious, with whom the high-minded man or woman would not have\nassociated in life, and after death their presence would be quite as\nmuch to be deplored. Granted all these exceptions. One may sweep them\noff and clear the decks. Then what remains? There remains the truth of\nthe unity of the spiritual universe; of the truth that the mere change\nof death is not a revolutionary one, transforming the individual into\nsome inconceivable state of being and removing him, in a geographical\nsense, into some unrevealed region in space; there remains the truth\nthat life is evolutionary in its processes; that there is no more\nviolent and arbitrary and instantaneous change by the event of death,\nthan there is in the change from infancy into childhood, from childhood\ninto manhood. There remains the truth that the ethereal and the physical\nworlds are inter-related, inter-blended; that man, now and here, lives\npartially in each, and that the more closely he can relate himself to\nthe diviner forces by prayer, by aspiration, by every thought and deed\nthat is noble and generous and true, and inspired by love, the more he\ndwells in this ethereal atmosphere and is in touch with its forces and\nin companionship with his chosen friends who have gone on into that\nworld. There is nothing in this theory that is incompatible with the\nteachings of the Church, with all that makes up for us the religious\nlife. On the contrary, it vitalizes and reinforces that life. This life\nof the spirit must be in God. Let one, indeed, on his first waking each\nday, place his entire life, all his heart, mind, and faculties, in God's\nhands; asking Him \"to take entire possession, to be the guide of the\nsoul.\" Thus one shall dwell hourly, daily, in the divine atmosphere, and\nspirit to spirit may enjoy their communion and companionship. The\nexperience of personal spiritual companionship between those here and\nthose on the next plane of life is included in the higher religious life\nof the spirit while living here on earth. It vivifies and lends joy to\nit; for the joy of sympathetic companionship is the one supreme and\ntranscendent happiness in life. And to live in this atmosphere requires\none absolute and inevitable condition, the constant exercise of the\nmoral virtues,--of truth, rectitude, generosity, and love. The life held\namenable to these, the life which commits itself utterly into the divine\nkeeping, is not a life of hardship; the \"road that winds up hill\" is the\nroad of perpetual interest and exhilaration. It is a fatal fallacy to\ninvest it with gloom and despair. It is the only possible source of the\nconstant, intellectual energy of life, of sweetness, of joy, of\nhappiness.\n\nThe only standard which is worthy for one to hold as that by which he\nmeasures his life is the divine one illustrated in the character of\nJesus. To measure one's quality of daily life by this is always to fall\nshort of satisfactory achievement; and still there is always the\nrealization that its achievement is only a question of persistence and\nof time. It is the direction in which one is moving that determines his\nfinal destination. There is the deepest inspiration to the soul in\ntaking for one's perpetual watchword, \"Be ye therefore perfect, even as\nyour Father in heaven is perfect.\" Not that this divine state is\nattained; but there is perpetual aid in the conviction that one's\nself--his spiritual self--_can_ \"press on to the high calling of God.\"\nMan is a divine being; the divine life is his only true life.\n\nThe deepest loyalty to the divine ideal involves, however, not only the\nstriving after perfection, but the charity for imperfection. To denounce\nevil is a part of rectitude; to condemn sin is a moral duty; but to\ncondemn the sinner is not infrequently to be more deeply at fault than\nis he who thus offended. An illustration of this point has recently been\nbefore the public. A New York clergyman preached on Easter Sunday a\nsermon that was not his own. He gave no credit to its writer. The sermon\nwas published, and a minister of another church, recognizing it, at once\nproceeded to \"expose\" the matter in the daily press. Not only did he\ncall public attention to the error, but he did it in a manner that\nseemed to rejoice in the opportunity; a manner so devoid of sorrow or\nsympathy as to fill the reader with despair at such an exhibition. Rev.\nE. Walpole Warren fittingly rebuked the evident malice with which the\nfault was exposed, and quoted the words of Saint Paul in the injunction:\n\"Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye who are spiritual\nrestore such an one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest\nthou also be tempted.\" To have gone, in a spirit of love, privately and\nquietly, and pointed out the error, would have been Christian-like; to\nexult in it must be described by a very different term. Devotion to\ntruth is good, but it is \"speaking the truth in love\" that is the ideal.\nIt is even possible to convey questioning, counsel, encouragement, or\nreproach without the spoken word; to send the message by the law of\nsuggestion from mind to mind. The mental intimation will reach the one\nto whom it is sent if the conditions for telepathy are observed, for\nthought is far more penetrative than the Roentgen ray, and the\natmosphere is magnetic, and carries it as the wire does the electric\ncurrent. All these finer conditions are beginning to make themselves\nfelt as practicable forces. Humanity is becoming \"plastic to the spirit\ntouch;\" sensitive to those vibrations too fine to be registered by the\noutward ear.\n\n  \"Thought is the wages\n  For which I sell days,\"\n\nsaid Emerson. Thought is the motor of the future. \"As a man thinketh, so\nis he,\" is one of the most practical and literal truths.\n\nIt is only by the divine law that one can measure the ethics of\ncompanionship. The frequent experiences in life of broken friendships;\nof those alliances of good will, of mutual sympathies and mutual\nenjoyment, that, at last, some way became entangled amid discords and\nbarriers, and thus come to a disastrous end,--such experiences could be\nescaped were life lived by the diviner standards. Friendship need never\ndeteriorate in quality if each lives nobly. If one conceives of life\nmore nobly and generously than the other, it may become, not a means of\nseparation and alienation, but a means and measure of just\nresponsibility. There are friendships whose shipwreck is on the rock of\nundue encroachment on one side and undue endurance--which has not the\nnoble and spontaneous character of generosity--on the other. One\nimposes, the other is imposed on,--and so things run on from bad to\nworse, till at last a crisis comes, and those who had once been much to\neach other are farther apart than strangers. In such circumstances there\nhas been a serious failure,--the failure of not speaking the truth in\nlove. The failure on the part of the one more spiritually enlightened\ntoward the one less enlightened. One should no more consent that his\nfriend should do an ignoble thing than he should consent to do an\nignoble thing himself. He should hold his friend in thought to the\ndivine standard. He should conceive of him nobly and expect from him\nonly honor and integrity. \"Those who trust us educate us,\" says George\nEliot; and still more do they who hold us in the highest thought draw us\nupward to that atmosphere through which no evil may pass. Each one is\nhis brother's keeper, and life achieves only its just and reasonable\npossibilities when it is held constantly amenable to the divine\nideal,--when it is lived according to that inspiring injunction of\nPhillips Brooks: \"Be such a man, live such a life, that if all lives\nwere like yours earth would be Paradise.\"\n\nLet one put aside sorrow and enter into the joy and radiance. \"Omit the\nnegative propositions. Nerve us with incessant affirmatives.\" If\nbiography teaches any lesson, it is that the events which occur in life\nare of far less consequence than the spirit in which they are received.\nIt is the attitude of mental receptivity which is the alchemy to\ntransmute events and circumstances into experience, and it is experience\nalone which determines both the quality and the trend of life. It is in\nactivity; in doing and giving and loving, that the joy of life must be\nsought. And it is joy which is the normal condition rather than\ndepression and sadness, as health and not illness is the normal state.\nDisease and sadness are abnormal, and if one finds himself \"blue,\" it is\nhis first business to escape from it, to change the conditions and the\natmosphere. The radiant life is the ideal state, both for achievement as\nwell as for that finer quality of personal influence which cannot\nemanate from gloom and depression. \"Everything good is on the highway,\"\nsaid Emerson, and the first and only lasting success is that of\ncharacter. It may not be, for the moment, exhilarating to realize that\none's ill fortune is usually the result of some defect in his selection,\nor error in his judgment, but, on the other hand, if the cause of his\nunhappiness lies in himself, the cause of his happiness may also lie\nwith himself, and thus it is in his power to so transform his attitude\nto life as to reverse the gloom and have the joy and sweetness rather\nthan the bitterness and sadness of life. Everything, in the last\nanalysis, is a matter of temperament. Nothing is hopeless, for life is\ninfinite, and new factors can be evolved whose working out will create\nthe new heaven and the new earth.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Here, in the earth life, we have it in our power to seize our\n     future destination.--FICHTE.\n\n[Sidenote: The Weight of the Past.]\n\nOne of the most inspiring injunctions of Saint Paul is that in which he\nbids us to \"lay aside every weight.\" Poet and prophet have always\nrecognized the weight of the past as a serious problem. One has made all\nsorts of mistakes; he is entangled in the consequences of his \"errors\nand ignorances,\" if not in his sins, and how can he enter on a Life\nRadiant with this burden? Well does Sidney Lanier express this feeling\nin the stanzas:--\n\n  \"My soul is sailing through the sea,\n  But the Past is heavy and hindereth me,\n  The Past hath crusted cumbrous shells\n  That hold the flesh of cold sea-mells\n    About my soul.\n  The huge waves wash, the high waves roll,\n  Each barnacle clingeth and worketh dole,\n    And hindereth me from sailing!\n\n  \"Old Past, let go and drop i' the sea\n  Till fathomless waters cover thee!\n  For I am living, but thou art dead;\n  Thou drawest back, I strive ahead\n    The day to find.\n  Thy shells unbind! Night comes behind,\n  I needs must hurry with the wind\n    And trim me best for sailing.\"\n\nThere is no question but that the past is heavy and hindereth every one.\nIts \"cumbrous shells\" cling like dead weights around man, and keep him\nfrom the larger, freer life. \"Man is not by any means convinced as yet\nof his immortality,\" says Sir Edwin Arnold; \"all the great religions\nhave in concert more or less positively affirmed it to him; but no safe\nlogic proves it, and no entirely accepted voice from some farther world\nproclaims it.\"\n\nThe one proof, of course, so far as absolute evidential demonstration\ngoes, lies in the communication from those who have passed through\ndeath. There unfolds an increasingly impressive mass of logical\nprobabilities that point to but one conclusion to every student of\nscience and of spiritual laws. Biology offers its important testimony.\nThe law of the conservation of forces,--of motion and matter,--which is\ndefinitely proven by actual demonstration, suggests with a potency which\nno one can evade that intellect, emotion, and will--the most intense and\nresistless forces of the universe--can hardly be extinguished when the\nforces of matter persist. The study of the nature of the ether alone\npours a flood of illumination on the theory of an ethereal world,--a\ntheory with which all the known facts of science and psychology accord,\nand with which they range themselves. Rev. Doctor Newman Smyth says that\nthe facts disclosed by a study of biology, as well as the theories\nadvanced by some trained biologists, fairly open the new and\ninteresting question whether death itself does not fall naturally under\nsome principle of selection and law of utility for life? \"It is of\nreligious concern as well as of scientific interest,\" he continues, \"for\nus to learn, as far as possible, all the facts and suggestions which\nmicroscopic researches may bring to our knowledge concerning the minute\nprocesses or most intimate and hidden laws of life and death. For if we,\nchildren of an age of questioning and change, are to keep a rational\nfaith in spiritual reality,--strong and genuine as was our fathers'\nfaith according to their light, ours must be a faith that shall strike\nits roots deep down into all knowledge, although light from above alone\nmay bring it to its perfect Christian trust and sweetness.... The least\nfacts of nature may be germinal with high spiritual significance and\nbeauty.\"\n\nThe twentieth century leads faith to the brink of knowledge. The deepest\nspiritual feeling must perpetually recognize that faith alone--Christ's\nwords alone--are enough for every human soul; but faith grows not less,\nbut more, when informed by knowledge. When man measures and weighs the\nstar and discovers their composition; when he sends messages without\nvisible means, then he may believe with Fichte, that \"here, in the earth\nlife, we have it in our power to seize our future destination.\" Mr.\nWeiss objected to any (possible) evidential demonstration of\nimmortality, because (as he said), \"If you owe your belief in\nimmortality to the assumed facts of a spiritual intercourse, your belief\nis at the mercy of your assumption.... It is merely an opinion derived\nfrom phenomena.\" But this reasoning would not hold good regarding any\nother trend of knowledge; the vital necessity of the soul to lay hold on\nGod and immortality is not lessened, but rather deepened and reinforced\nby understanding, when knowledge goes hand in hand with faith. And the\none supreme argument of all is that a truer knowledge of man's spiritual\nbeing--now and here--with a truer conception of his destiny in the part\nof life immediately succeeding the change of death, would make so\nmarvellous a difference in all his relations on earth, in all his\nconceptions of achievement, and would, as Sir Edwin Arnold says, \"turn\nnine-tenths of the sorrows of earth into glorious joys and abolish quite\nas large a proportion of the faults and vices of mankind.\"\n\nThe Past is heavy with misconceptions of the simple truths of life and\nimmortality as Jesus taught them. The Present seeks to throw off these\n\"cumbrous shells.\" Death is the liberator, the divinely appointed means\nfor ushering man into the more real, the more significant life, whose\n_degree_ of reality and significance depends wholly on ourselves; which\nis simply the achievement--better or poorer--which man creates now and\nhere, in the same manner in which the quality of manhood and womanhood\ndepends wholly on the degree of achievement in childhood and youth. We\ndo not \"find,\" but instead, create our lives. As we are perpetually\ncreating, we are perpetually making them anew. If we must, this year,\nlive out the errors that we made last year, there is an encouragement\nrather than a penalty in the fact, as this truth argues that if we now\nenter on a loftier plane and realize in outward life a nobler\nexperience, we shall, next year, or in some future time, find ourselves\nentirely free from the weight of the errors we have abandoned, the\nmistakes we have learned not to make, and the entanglements that our\n\"negligences and ignorances\" created. If we have caused our own sorrow,\nwe can cause our own joy. For the Golden Age lies onward.\n\n\n\n\nDISCERNING THE FUTURE.\n\n                      _As the sun,\n  Ere it is risen, sometimes paints its image\n  In the atmosphere, so often do the spirits\n  Of great events stride on before the events,\n  And in to-day already walks to-morrow._\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  _There exist moments in the life of man\n  When he is nearer the great Soul of the world\n  Than is man's custom, and possesses freely\n  The power of questioning his destiny._\n\n                        --COLERIDGE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     Think of the power of anticipation everywhere! Think of the\n     difference it would make to us if events rose above the horizon of\n     our lives with no twilight that announced their coming. God has\n     given man the powers which compel him to anticipate the future _for\n     something_.\n\n                                   --PHILLIPS BROOKS.\n\n\nThe unexpected and the unaccountable play so large a part in human life\nthat they may well incite study. It is not conceivable that man should\nalways remain at the mercy of events without conscious and intelligent\nchoice in selecting and grouping them. Is there no Roentgen ray that\nwill pierce the horizon of the future and disclose to us what lies\nbeyond? Of course it is a sort of stock-in-trade, axiomatic assertion,\nthat if it were intended for man to know the future God would have\nrevealed it to him; and as it is not thus revealed, it is unwise, or\nunlawful, or immoral to seek to read it. On the same principle and with\njust as much logic, it might be solemnly declared that we have no right\nto endeavor to surprise any of the secrets of the Universe; that if it\nhad been intended for us to know the weight and composition of the\nstars, to understand the laws that hold them in their courses, or to\nknow what is conquered by the scientist in geology, or chemistry, or\nanything else, that the knowledge would have been ready made, and as it\nis not so, it is not lawful for man to explore any of these territories\nof the unknown. Or this assertion could be carried to a still further\nabsurdity, and construed that if man had been intended to read he would\nhave been born with the knowledge, and have had no need of learning the\nalphabet; or that if God had intended man to dwell in cities they would\nhave sprung up spontaneously like forests. As a matter of fact, the\nextending of the horizon line of knowledge in every direction is man's\nbusiness in this part of life; and why, indeed, if he can weigh and\nmeasure the stars in space, shall he not be able to compel some magic\nmirror to reveal to him his future? As it is, we all tread on quicksands\nof mystery, that may open and engulf us at any instant. It is simply\nappalling when one stops to think of it,--to realize the degree to\nwhich all one's achievements, and possibilities, and success, and\nhappiness depend on causes apparently outside his own control. One\nawakens to begin the day without the remotest idea of what that day\nholds for him. All his powers of accomplishment, all his energy, all his\npeace of mind,--even the very matter of life or death hangs in the\nbalance, and the scales are to him invisible and intangible. The chance\nof a moment may make or mar. A letter, a telegram, with some revelation\nor expression that paralyzes all his powers; the arrival of an\nunforeseen friend or guest, a sudden summons to an unexpected\nmatter,--all these and a thousand other nebulous possibilities that may,\nat any instant, fairly revolutionize his life, are in the air, and may\nat any moment precipitate themselves.\n\nIs not the next step in scientific progress to be into the invisible and\nthe unknown?\n\nDoctor Loeb conceived the idea that the forces which rule in the realm\nof living things are not different from the forces that we know in the\ninanimate world. He has made some very striking and arresting\nexperiments with protoplasm and chemical stimuli and opened a new field\nof problems in biology. If the physical universe can be so increasingly\nexplored, shall not the spiritual universe be also penetrated by the\nspiritual powers of man?\n\nThere is no reason why clairvoyance should not be developed into a\nscience as rational as any form of optical research or experiment. Not\nan exact science, like mathematics, for the future is a combination of\nthe results of the past with the will and power and purposes of the\nindividual in the present, and of those events that have been in train\nand are already on their way. It is a sort of spiritual chemistry. But\nit seems reasonably clear that all the experiences on this plane have\nalready transpired in the life of the spirit on the other plane of that\ntwofold life that we live, and they occur here because they have already\noccurred there. They are precipitated into the denser world after having\ntaken place in the ethereal world. And so, if the vision can be\ncultivated that penetrates into this ethereal world, the future can\nthereby be read. It is the law and the prophets.\n\nNow as the present largely determines the future, the things that shall\nbe are partly of our own creation.\n\n  \"We shape ourselves the joy or fear\n    Of which our coming life is made,\n  And fill our future's atmosphere\n    With sunshine or with shade.\"\n\nThere are no conditions of being that are not plastic to the potency of\nthought. As one learns to control his thought he controls the issues of\nlife. He becomes increasingly clear in intuition, in perceptions, and in\nspiritual vision.\n\nAs the planets and the stars and the solar systems are evolved out of\nnebulae through attraction and motion and perpetual combination, so the\npresent and the future is evolved for each individual out of his past,\nand he is perpetually creating it. Nothing is absolute, but\nrelative,--\"no truth so sublime but that it may become trivial to-morrow\nin the light of new thoughts.\" There is no relationship, no casual\nmeeting, no accident or incident of the moment, however trivial it may\nseem, but that is a sign, a hint, an illustration of the human drama,\nperpetually moving onward, and demanding from each and all insight, as\nwell as outlook, and a consciousness of the absolute realities involved\nin the manifestation of the moment. \"The present moment is like an\nambassador which declares the will of God,\" says the writer of a little\nCatholic book of devotions; \"the events of each moment are divine\nthoughts expressed by created objects,\" and the one serious hindrance,\nit may be, to the acceptance of events in this spirit, lies in the fact\nof not being prepared for their acceptance. The problem of life, then,\nresolves itself into the question of so ordering one's course of living\nas to be prepared to receive the event of the moment; but the entire\nrush and ceaseless demands of the life of the present form the obstacle\nin the way of this harmonious recognition. One cannot accept the event\nof the moment because he is absorbed in the event of yesterday, or last\nweek, and his life is not, thereby, \"up-to-date.\" To be always\nbehindhand is to be under a perpetual and ever-increasing burden.\nEmpedocles under Mt. Etna was no more imprisoned than is the life of\nto-day which is filled with the things of yesterday. Yet where does the\nremedy lie? It is the problem of the hour. \"In nature every moment is\nnew,\" says Emerson, and it is that sense of freshness and exhilaration\nthat one needs in order successfully to enter into the experiences of\nthe present hour.\n\nThe world of mechanism keeps pace in the most curiously interesting way\nwith the world of thought. Inventions came as material correspondences\nto the immaterial growth and demand. When in the middle of the\nnineteenth century the human race had achieved a degree of development\nthat made swift communication essential to the common life, the\ntelegraph and the ocean cable were invented; or it might rather be said,\nthe laws that make them possible were discerned, and were taken\nadvantage of to utilize for this purpose. The constant developments in\nrapid transit, in the instantaneous conveniences of telephonic\ncommunication, and, latest of all, in wireless telegraphy, are all in\nthe line of absolute correspondence with the advancing needs of\nhumanity.\n\nMore than a decade ago Doctor Edward Everett Hale made the prediction in\nan article in \"The Forum\" that writing (in the mechanical sense) would\nbecome a lost art, and that the people of future centuries would point\nto us as \"the ancients,\" who communicated our ideas by means of this\nslow and clumsy process. According to Doctor Hale's vision, the writing\nof all this present period would come to be regarded in much the same\nlight as that in which we look at the Egyptian hieroglyphics or the\npapyrus. At that time the phonograph, if invented, was not in any way\nbrought to the practical perfection of the present, and telepathy was\nmore a theory than an accepted fact; but Doctor Hale has the prophetic\ncast of mind, and already his theory is more in the light of probability\nthan that of mere possibility. The demands of modern life absolutely\nrequire the development of some means of communication that shall\nobviate the necessity of the present laborious means of handwriting.\nThere is needed the mechanism that shall transfer the thought in the\nmind to some species of record without the intervention of the hand.\nWhether the phonograph can be popularized to meet this need; whether\nsome still finer means that photograph thought shall be evolved, remains\nto be seen. Thought is already photographed in the ether, but whether\nthis image can be transferred to a material medium is the question.\nThat telepathy shall yet come to be so well understood; its laws\nformulated as to bring it within the range of the definite sciences,\nthere can be no doubt; but this result can only attend a higher\ndevelopment of the spiritual power of humanity. In its present status\ntelepathy is seen as a result of wholly unconscious and unanalyzed\nprocesses that open a new region of life and a new range of\npossibilities. It is the discovery of a new keyboard, so to speak, in\nthe individual, enabling him to still more \"live in thought,\" and to\n\"act with energies that are immortal.\" Science is continually revealing\nthe truth that the world, the solar system, the infinite universes are\nall created as the theatre of man's evolutionary development. As Emerson\nso truly says, \"the world is the perennial miracle which the soul\nworketh.\"\n\n\"The Discovery of the Future\" was the title of an interesting lecture by\nMr. H. G. Wells, given in London early in 1901, before the Royal\nInstitute, in which the subject was speculatively discussed, and in the\ncourse of his lecture Mr. Wells said:--\n\n     \"Along certain lines, with certain limitations, he argued, a\n     working knowledge of the things of the future was practicable and\n     possible. As during the past century the amazing searchlights of\n     inference had been passed into the remoter past, so by seeking for\n     operating causes instead of for fossils the searchlight of\n     inference might be thrown into the future. The man of science would\n     believe at last that events in A. D. 4000 were as fixed, settled,\n     and unchangeable as those of A. D. 1600, with the exception of the\n     affairs of man and his children. It is as simple and sure to work\n     out the changing orbit of the earth in future until the tidal drag\n     hauls one unchanging face at last toward the sun, as it is to work\n     back to its blazing, molten past. We are at the beginning of the\n     greatest change that humanity has ever undergone. There will be no\n     shock, as there is no shock at a cloudy daybreak. We are creatures\n     of twilight, but out of our minds and the lineage of our minds will\n     spring minds that will reach forward fearlessly. A day will\n     come--one day in the unending succession of days--when the beings\n     now latent in our thoughts, hidden in our loins, shall stand on\n     this earth as one stands on a footstool, and they shall laugh and\n     reach out their hands among the stars.\"\n\nMr. Wells is a disciple of Darwin, and he is applying to the life of\nhumanity certain laws of evolution. In this lecture he argued that great\nmen are merely \"the images and symbols and instruments taken at\nhaphazard by the incessant, consistent forces behind them. They were the\npen nibs which fate used in her writing, and the more one was inclined\nto trust these forces behind individuals, the more one could believe in\nthe possibility of a reasoned inductive view of the future that would\nserve us in politics, morals, social contrivances, and in a thousand\nways.\"\n\nThe lecturer argued that \"a deliberate direction of historical,\neconomic, and social study toward the future, and a deliberate and\ncourageous reference to the future in moral and religious discussion,\nwould be enormously stimulating and profitable to the intellectual\nlife.\"\n\nOne incalculable aid in thus throwing a spiritual searchlight forward\nand discussing the future is the realization embodied by Dr. Lyman\nAbbott, that there is no death, and no dead; that the entire universe is\nlife; and that we are encompassed round about by invisible companions\nand friends; sustained, guided, helped by forces that we see not.\n\nTo see the future as clearly as we see the past, what does it require?\n\nSaint Paul tells us that \"spiritual things are spiritually discerned.\"\nThe future is visible to the spiritual sight. No one doubts but that the\nfuture is known to God, for it is He who creates and controls it. And\nman is the child of God, and his true life is in co-operating with God\nin every form of the higher activity. So far as he may co-operate with\nGod he becomes, himself, a creative force; making, shaping, and\ndetermining this future, and thus, to an increasing degree, he becomes\naware of it, or sees it, before it is realized on the outward plane. The\nday is not, indeed, distant, when humanity will live far less blindly\nthan now. As man develops his psychic self and lives the life of the\nspirit,--the life of intellect and thought and purpose and prayer,\nrather than the life of the senses, he will perceive his future. To just\nthe degree that one lives in the energies which are immortal does he\nperceive the future. Knowledge penetrates into the unknown and the\nunseen. Leverrier postulated Neptune long before his \"long-distance\"\ntheory was verified. The intelligent recognition of the unseen forces\nand unseen presences, the intelligent conception of the manner in which\nthese unseen forces are working out the problems of destiny, alone\nenables one to consciously combine with them; to enter into the\nprocesses of evolution as an intelligent factor, and thus redeem his\nindividual life to harmony, beauty, and happiness.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Determining Question.]\n\nThe question confronts one as a very determining problem in life,--can\nman control his circumstances? To go deeper still, can he create them?\nOr is he the product of his environment? Is every life just that which\nit is made? Or does there work, under all our human will and endeavor, a\nforce resistless as gravitation and as constant as attraction? A writer,\nconsidering this subject, thus expresses his own convictions:--\n\n     \"I believe that every life is the exact and necessary outcome of\n     its _environment_, and that there is in reality not one particle of\n     actual freedom in this respect from the cradle to the grave. I\n     cannot here go into any extended proof of my position. The\n     syllogism may be stated as follows:\n\n     \"Every phenomenon is the necessary result of pre-existing causes:\n\n     \"Life is but a succession of phenomena.\n\n     \"Therefore every life is necessarily determined by pre-existing\n     causes.\n\n     \"I do not see how the conclusion can be escaped that from the time\n     we open our eyes upon the world and receive our first impressions,\n     we are thrust forward between insurmountable walls of fate that\n     leave no room for freedom. It is true that so far as external or\n     objective forces are concerned we may be, as a rule, under no\n     compulsion to follow one more than another; but _subjectively_ we\n     are in no sense free, because the peculiar way in which the _will_\n     will act under given conditions must depend upon the preponderating\n     _subjective_ force. To hold otherwise is to contend that a lesser\n     force can overcome a greater,--which is absurd.\"\n\nCertainly the problem as to the degree to which environment determines\nlife is an interesting one, but may it not be reversed and stand as the\nproblem to what degree life controls and fashions the environment? Does\nnot the environment change with the life in a corresponding evolutionary\nprocess? \"Every spirit builds its house.\" Then, too, the thing we call\nlife is not composed exclusively of character and circumstances. There\nenters into it a third element,--that of the unknown.\n\nThe environment of Tennyson, for instance, in his early youth, was that\nof the limited, even though thoughtful and refined life of the son of a\ncountry clergyman of modest means; as his powers expanded and developed\nhis environment kept pace with it in extension of breadth. Is it not,\nthen, true that a life really belongs to the environment it creates for\nhimself, rather than to that in which it is first nurtured? \"It doth not\nyet appear what we shall be\" applies to the possibilities of life in the\npresent as well as in that future which lies beyond the change we call\ndeath. The divine electric spark leaps through the atmosphere and\ncommunicates its kindling power. The inner force of the spirit works\noutward and begins to shape and fashion its own world. Environment is\nsimply another name for that series \"of the more stately mansions\" that\neach one may build according to the power that worketh in him. A great\nsorrow comes; or an overwhelming joy, on which one rises to heights of\necstasy, to the very Mount of Transfiguration itself, and thus\ntranscends all former limits and creates his new environment, whose\nwalls are transparent to the sunrise flame and through which the glory\nenters in. What has he to do with that far-away, opaque, limited\nenvironment into which he was born? No more than has the giant oak,\ntossing its branches under the stars, to do with the acorn cup out of\nwhich it sprang. Let one realize, ever so faintly, even, the miracle of\npossibilities that may unfold, and his life is uplifted into a richness\nand a peace, and a serene confidence that carries with it the essential\nessence of all that is best and noblest in its past, and all that is\npotential in its infinite future. The problem evolves into a definite\nwork to be fulfilled, and this work, in turn, leads to another problem\ninvolving its demonstration, in actual performance, as well; and by this\nalternation life progresses,--growing ever larger and deeper and more\nexalted with its increasing power. In this way man produces his\ncircumstances--creates his outer conditions. His successive environments\nbecome the expressions of his inner life and energy in their series of\ndevelopment and growth.\n\nBut this growth, this development, may be stimulated or retarded. It\ndepends entirely upon the degree to which one may relate himself to the\nspiritual energy of the divine atmosphere, ever ready to pour itself,\nwith unlimited power, through every receptive channel. And this energy\nis the Divine Will, and entering into it man does not lose his own free\nchoice, but only enters into that which makes his conscious choice vital\nand magnetic with infinite power of achievement.\n\nMaurice Maeterlinck offered a fascinating contribution to this range of\ndiscussion, in the course of which he said:--\n\n     \"One would say that man had always the feeling that a mere\n     infirmity of his mind separates him from the future. He knows it to\n     be there, living, actual, perfect, behind a kind of wall, around\n     which he has never ceased to turn since the first days of his\n     coming on this earth. Or rather, he feels it within himself and\n     known to a part of himself; only, that importunate and disquieting\n     knowledge is unable to travel, through the too narrow channels of\n     his senses, to his consciousness, which is the only place where\n     knowledge acquires a name, a useful strength, and, so to speak, the\n     freedom of the human city. It is only by glimmers, by casual and\n     passing infiltrations, that future years, of which he is full, of\n     which the imperious realities surround him on every hand, penetrate\n     to his brain. He marvels that an extraordinary accident should have\n     closed almost hermetically to the future that brain which plunges\n     into it entirely, even as a sealed vessel plunges, without mixing\n     with it, into the depths of a monstrous sea that overwhelms it,\n     entreats it, teases it, and caresses it with a thousand billows.\"\n\nTime and space are the two dimensions which differentiate the physical\nand the spiritual worlds; the higher the degree of spiritual development\nand advancement, the less is the individual limited and hampered and\nfettered by these two conditions. One may get a certain analogy on it by\nrealizing to how much greater extent the infant or the child is bound by\nthe conditions of Space and Time than is the man or the woman. To the\nchild the idea of the next year is, practically, an eternity; while the\nman calmly and confidently makes his plans for the next year, or for\nfive years or ten years later; with a matter-of-course assurance. The\nnext year to the man is not so remote as the next day is to the child.\nSo by this analogy it is not difficult to realize that when one is\nreleased from the physical world and advances into the realm of the\nsubtle and potent forces of the ethereal world, with his faculties\nresponsive to the larger environment,--it is not difficult to realize\nthat he is increasingly free from these conditions that are so strong in\ntheir power of limitation over the mortal life.\n\n\"It is,\" continues Maurice Maeterlinck, \"quite incomprehensible that we\nshould not know the future. Probably a mere nothing, the displacement of\na cerebral lobe, the resetting of Broca's convolution in a different\nmanner, the addition of a slender network of nerves to those which form\nour consciousness,--any one of these would be enough to make the future\nunfold itself before us with the same clearness, the same majestic\namplitude as that with which the past is displayed on the horizon, not\nonly of our individual life? but also of the life of the species to\nwhich we belong. A singular infirmity, a curious limitation of our\nintellect, causes us not to know what is going to happen to us, when we\nare fully aware of what has befallen us. From the absolute point of view\nto which our imagination succeeds in rising, although it cannot live\nthere, there is no reason why we should not see that which does not yet\nexist, considering that that which does not yet exist in its relation to\nus must necessarily have its being already, and manifest itself\nsomewhere. If not, it would have to be said that, where Time is\nconcerned, we form the centre of the world, that we are the only\nwitnesses for whom events wait so that they may have the right to appear\nand to count in the eternal history of causes and effects. It would be\nas absurd to assert this for Time as it would be for Space,--that other\nnot quite so incomprehensible form of the twofold infinite mystery in\nwhich our whole life floats.\"\n\nThe latest progress in this new century is that of overcoming space. It\nis being overcome; it is being almost annihilated. When on the Atlantic\nCoast we call up a friend in Chicago and speak with him any hour; when\nwe cable across three thousand miles of water and receive a speedy\nreply; when wireless telegraphy wafts its message through the etheric\ncurrents of the air; when the electric motor is about to revolutionize\nall our preconceived ideas of distance and journeyings,--we see how\nspace is being dominated and is no longer to be one of the conditions\nthat limit man's activities. To a degree, overcoming space is also\novercoming time. In an essay of Emerson's, written somewhere in the\nmiddle of the nineteenth century, he speaks of something as being worth\n\"going fifty miles to see.\" Fifty miles, at that time, represented a\ngreater space than three thousand miles represent at the present.\nRegarding the condition of space Maeterlinck further says: \"Space is\nmore familiar to us, because the accidents of our organism place us more\ndirectly in relation with it and make it more concrete. We can move in\nit pretty freely, in a certain number of directions, before and behind\nus. That is why no traveller would take it into his head to maintain\nthat the towns which he has not yet visited will become real only at the\nmoment when he sets his foot within their walls. Yet this is very nearly\nwhat we do when we persuade ourselves that an event which has not yet\nhappened does not yet exist.\"\n\nThe only explanation of certain phases of the phenomena of life is in\nthe theory that life is twofold; that what we call life--in the sense of\nexperiences and events and circumstances--is simply the result, the\nprecipitation into the physical world, of the events and experiences\nthat have already occurred to us on the spiritual side of life, and that\nthey occur here _because_ they have occurred there. Maeterlinck says\nfurther (in this paper entitled \"The Foretelling of the Future\"): \"But I\ndo not intend, in the wake of so many others, to lose myself in the most\ninsoluble of enigmas. Let us say no more about it, except this\nalone,--that Time is a mystery which we have arbitrarily divided into a\npast and a future, in order to try to understand something of it. In\nitself, it is almost certain that it is but an immense, eternal,\nmotionless Present, in which all that takes place and all that will take\nplace takes place immutably, in which To-morrow, save in the ephemeral\nmind of man, is indistinguishable from Yesterday or To-day.\" The\nquestion is raised by Mr. Maeterlinck as to whether the clairvoyant who\nforetells to one future events gets his knowledge from the subliminal\nconsciousness of the person himself. He relates a series of experiences\nthat he had in Paris with all sorts and degrees of the professed seers,\nand he says:--\n\n     \"It is very astonishing that others can thus penetrate into the\n     last refuge of our being, and there, better than ourselves, read\n     thoughts and sentiments at times forgotten or rejected, but always\n     long-lived, or as yet unformulated. It is really disconcerting that\n     a stranger should see further than ourselves into our own hearts.\n     That sheds a singular light on the nature of our inner lives. It is\n     vain for us to keep watch upon ourselves, to shut ourselves up\n     within ourselves; our consciousness is not water-tight, it escapes,\n     it does not belong to us, and though it requires special\n     circumstances for another to install himself there and take\n     possession of it, nevertheless it is certain that, in normal life,\n     our spiritual tribunal, our _for interieur_,--as the French have\n     called it, with that profound intuition which we often discover in\n     the etymology of words,--is a kind of _forum_, or spiritual market\n     place, in which the majority of those who have business there come\n     and go at will, look about them and pick out the truths, in a very\n     different fashion and much more freely than we would have to this\n     day believed.\"\n\nMr. Maeterlinck reiterates that it is incredible that we should not know\nthe future. The truth is that it is even more than incredible; it is\nunpardonably stupid, and the great desideratum is to so develop and\nunfold the spiritual faculties that they will discern the experiences on\nthe spiritual side,--those which will, later on, precipitate themselves\ninto the mortal life, and that will be \"knowing the future.\" That is to\nsay, if we can read our spiritual past, we then know our earthly future;\nfor that which _has_ been, in the inner experience, _shall be_, in the\nouter experience. Mr. Maeterlinck says:--\n\n     \"I cannot think that we are not qualified to know beforehand the\n     disturbances of the elements, the destiny of the planets, of the\n     earth, of empires, peoples, and races. All this does not touch us\n     directly, and we know it in the past, thanks only to the artifices\n     of history. But that which regards us, that which is within our\n     reach, that which is to unfold itself within the little sphere of\n     years, a secretion of our spiritual organism, that envelops us in\n     Time, even as the shell or the cocoon envelops the mollusc or the\n     insect in space; that, together with all the external events\n     relating to it, is probably recorded in that sphere. In any case,\n     it would be much more natural that it were so recorded than\n     comprehensible that it be not. There we have realities struggling\n     with an illusion; and there is nothing to prevent us from believing\n     that, here as elsewhere, realities will end by overcoming illusion.\n     Realities are what will happen to us, having already happened in\n     the history that overhangs our own, the motionless and superhuman\n     history of the universe. Illusion is the opaque veil woven with the\n     ephemeral threads called Yesterday, To-day, and To-morrow, which we\n     embroider on those realities. But it is not indispensable that our\n     existence should continue the eternal dupe of that illusion. We may\n     even ask ourselves whether our extraordinary unfitness for knowing\n     a thing so simple, so incontestable, so perfect and so necessary as\n     the future, would not form one of the greatest subjects for\n     astonishment to an inhabitant of another star who should visit\n     us....\n\n     \"Moreover, we must not believe that the march of events would be\n     completely upset if we knew it beforehand. First, only they would\n     know the future, or a part of the future, who would take the\n     trouble to learn it; even as only they know the past, or a part of\n     their own present, who have the courage and the intelligence to\n     examine it. We should quickly accommodate ourselves to the lessons\n     of this new science, even as we have accommodated ourselves to\n     those of history. We should soon make allowance for the evils we\n     could not escape and for inevitable evils. The wiser among us, for\n     themselves, would lessen the sum total of the latter; and the\n     others would meet them half-way, even as now they go to meet many\n     certain disasters which are easily foretold. The amount of our\n     vexations would be somewhat decreased, but less than we hope; for\n     already our reason is able to foresee a portion of our future, if\n     not with the material evidence that we dream of, at least with a\n     moral certainty that is often satisfying; yet we observe that the\n     majority of men derive hardly any profit from this easy\n     fore-knowledge. Such men would neglect the counsels of the future,\n     even as they hear, without following it, the advice of the past.\"\n\nNot to know the future is extremely inconvenient, to say the least, and\nit may present itself as the next most needed advance in progress. The\nquestion is in the air; the demand for its solution may increase, and\ndemands penetrate the unknown and reconstruct it for the higher use of\nman. Meanwhile, as Mr. Maeterlinck continues:--\n\n     \"Our life must be lived while we wait for the word that shall solve\n     the enigma, and the happier, the nobler our life, the more vigorous\n     shall it become, and we shall have the more courage,\n     clear-sightedness, boldness to seek and desire the truth.... We\n     should live as though we were always on the eve of the great\n     revelation, and we should be ready with welcome, with, warmest and\n     keenest and fullest, most heartfelt and intimate welcome. And\n     whatever the form it shall take on the day that it comes to us, the\n     best way of all to prepare for its fitting reception is to crave\n     for it now, to desire it as lofty, as perfect, as vast, as\n     ennobling as the soul can conceive. It must needs be more\n     beautiful, glorious, and ample than the best of our hopes. For when\n     it differs therefrom or even frustrates them, it must of necessity\n     bring something nobler, loftier, nearer to the nature of man, for\n     it will bring us truth. To man, though all that he value go under,\n     the intimate truth of the universe must be wholly, pre-eminently\n     admirable. And though on the day it unveils, our meekest desires\n     turn to ashes and float on the wind, still there shall linger\n     within us all we have prepared; and the admirable will enter into\n     our soul, the volume of its waters being as the depth of the\n     channel that our expectation has fashioned.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: In Proportion to Power.]\n\nMay it not be that the degree to which one is enabled to dominate his\nown life in the sense of controlling and selecting and grouping its\nouter events is precisely in proportion to the spiritual power that he\nhas achieved? Nor has this spiritual power any conceivable relation to\nwhat is currently known as occultism, or a thing to be attained by any\nseries of prescribed outer actions. There has sprung up a species of\nliterature with explicit directions for \"concentration\" and \"meditation\"\nand one knows not what,--directions to spend certain hours of the day\ngazing upon a ten-penny nail or something quite as inconsequential, and\na more totally demoralizing and negative series of performances can\nhardly be imagined. But all this is not even worth denunciation. The\nonly real spiritual power is that of the union of the soul with the\ndivine.\n\n  \"Lift up your hearts.\"\n  \"We lift them up unto the Lord.\"\n\nIn these lines lies the secret of all that makes for that mental and\nmoral energy whose union is spiritual power. The question of what\nhappens to one daily and constantly, as weeks and months go on, is the\none most practical question of life. In it is involved all one's\npersonal happiness as well as all his power for usefulness. To feel\nthat this ever-flowing current of events is something entirely outside\none's own choice or volition is to stand helpless--if not\nhopeless--before the spectacle of life. It is out of this aimless and\nchaotic state that resort is had to the seeking of all kinds of\ndivination, omens, prophecies, and foreshadowings, with the result of\nmore and more completely separating the individual from his legitimate\nactivities and endeavor, and leading him to substitute for spiritual\nrealities a mere false and mirage-like outlook,--and instead of that\nrational activity and high endeavor that create events and increasingly\ncontrol their conditions, there is merely an impatient and restless\nexpectation of something or other that may suddenly occur to transform\nthe entire outlook.\n\nThe unforeseen events do occur, and they are the crowning gift and grace\nand sweetness of life. But they are the product, the result, the fine\ninflorescence of intense spiritual activity, not of stagnation and\nidleness. \"It might almost be said that there happens to one only that\nwhich he desires,\" says Maeterlinck: \"it is time that on certain\nexternal events an influence is of the feeblest, but we have\nall-powerful action on that which these events shall become in\nourselves--in other words on their spiritual part, on what is radiant,\nundying within them.... There are those with whom this immortal part\nabsorbs all; these are like islands that have sprung up in the ocean;\nfor they have found immovable anchorage whence they issue commands that\ntheir destiny must needs obey.... Whatever may happen is lit up by their\ninward life. When you love, it is not your love that forms part of your\ndestiny, but the knowledge of self that you will have found, deep down\nin your love--this it is that will help you to fashion your life. If you\nhave been deceived, it is not the deception that matters, but the\nforgiveness whereto it leads, and the loftiness, wisdom, completeness of\nthis forgiveness--by these shall your life be steered to destiny's haven\nof brightness and peace; by these shall your eyes see more clearly....\nLet us always remember that nothing befalls us that is not of the nature\nof ourselves. There comes no adventure but means to our soul the shape\nof our every-day thoughts.... And none but yourself shall you meet on\nthe highway of fate.... Events seem as the watch for the signal we hoist\nfrom within.\"\n\nThe inner life that is lived--the life of thought, purpose, aspiration,\nand prayer--dominates and determines the outer life. It creates it. And\nwhen one feels helplessly drifting, at the mercy of events, his only\nsafety lies in a more positive and abounding energy; in deeper purpose\nand a firmer grasp on his work, a higher and diviner trend to his\nthought, and a closer clinging to the divine promises.\n\n\"In man,\" says Balzac, \"culminates a visible finite universe; in him\nbegins a universe invisible and infinite,--two worlds unknown to each\nother.\" But one's life always belongs far more to his future than to his\npast. He is more closely and truly related to that which he shall be\nthan to that which he has been; as the flower, the plant, the tree, is\nin more intimate and vital relation with the air and sunshine than with\nthe dark ground in which the seed germinated. It retains its hold on the\nkingdom of the earth, but it has achieved a new and a higher relation\nwith the kingdom of the air. Man's relations with the invisible and the\ninfinite universe are his truest and most determining relations. And\nthese are governed and are constantly extended by his power of will. The\npower of will is so akin to the divine energy that it is the power\nthrough which, and by means of which, the closest relation with the\ndivine energy can be effected. Man, by the power of will, unites his\nlife with the life of God; he so relates himself to the divine energy\nthat he becomes receptive to it, and when this irresistible force pours\nitself into his life all nobler realizations become possible; all\nsublimest aspiration may express itself in the daily quality of life,\nand fulfil its visions in actual tasks and deeds.\n\nNothing is ever hopeless. There is no situation nor complication that\nhas not its key simply in lifting up the heart to God; in willing,\nthrough prayer, to work, as well as to walk, with Him; and in praying,\nthrough power of will brought to bear in all its resistless intensity of\naspiration, that the power of God may work through all the conditions of\nthe human life.\n\nThe subjective or subliminal self is capable of extending the mental\nfaculties in a way almost undreamed of by the ordinary consciousness.\n\"There is in the mind a faculty,\" says a writer on this subject, \"which,\nif it receives the correct impression, is able to correct the mental and\nphysical life of a person and produce a manifest impression on his\nenvironment, the secret of which is conscious and concentrated attention\nunder direction of the will of the individual.\n\n\"The subjective mind is a distinct entity. It occupies the whole human\nbody, and, when not opposed in any way, it has absolute control over all\nthe functions, conditions, and sensations of the body. While the\nobjective mind has control of all our voluntary functions and motions,\nthe subjective mind controls all the silent, involuntary, and vegetative\nfunctions. This subjective mind can see without the use of physical\neyes. It perceives by intuition. It has the power to communicate with\nothers without the use of ordinary physical means. It can read the\nthoughts of others. It receives intelligence and transmits it to people\nat a distance. Distance offers no resistance against the successful\nmissions of the subjective mind. It never forgets anything, It never\nsleeps. It is capable of sustaining an existence independent of the\nbody. It never dies. It is the living soul.\"\n\nThat \"distinct entity\" which has been called the \"subjective mind\" is\nprobably more accurately defined as the real person, the man himself,\nthe immortal being who inhabits for a time the physical body. The\ndevelopment of this immortal self by an intellectual and moral and\nreligious progress is the real business of life,--the _raison d'etre_ of\nman's sojourn on earth. There is no more important truth to be grasped\nat the present time than that this culture and development of the\nspiritual self, or this spiritualization of life, is in no sense a\nmatter of incantations and mysterious rites, but is only to be achieved\nthrough faith in God, through prayer and the constant uplifting of the\nspirit to the Divine. The inspiration of life lies in the unceasing\neffort to unite all the conscious inner life with the Divine will and\nguidance. The problem that presents itself to the instructors of the\ndeaf, dumb, and blind is in this development and liberation of the\nspiritual self, that the psychic powers may, to some extent, take the\nplace of the outer senses that are closed. The physical mechanism of\ncommunication with the visible world is defective, and that perception,\nwhich is spiritual sight, must overcome blindness; that swift\nrecognition which is spiritual hearing must overcome deafness; and the\nwonderful delicacy and intense keenness that these perceptions develop\nin those with defective senses is itself an incontrovertible proof of\nthe reality of the inner spiritual being that for a time inhabits the\nphysical body. The observation of the deaf and blind leads one to see\nthat sight and hearing in all people vary in degree, and that a vast\nnumber of people are partially defective in these senses, and that all\nmankind are defective beyond a given point. There are vibrations too\nfine to be detected by the human ear; and the sight of the eye is, as is\nwell known, entirely limited to a certain degree of distance even in\nthose whose eyesight is the keenest. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are\nconsidered as abnormal and phenomenal gifts, and as in no way\nconceivable, nor even desirable, as general and usual powers for every\none. Yet what are they but the sight and hearing of the spiritual man,\nthe development of the powers of the subtle body transcending those of\nthe physical body? This ethereal or psychic body is in correspondence\nwith the ethereal world. It is formed to be an inhabitant of that world\nin which it finds itself the moment it is released by death. But if\nsufficiently developed to take command, so to speak, while here, of the\nwill and the consciousness and all the mechanism of the physical body,\nit then brings to bear upon practical, daily life all this infinite and\nirresistible energy of the higher planes with which it is in receptive\nrelation. Then, whether in the body or out of the body matters little in\nthe responsive communion with those who have passed through death.\n\"Could the spiritual vision of the present man be unfolded but for a\nmoment, to realize the mighty forces of nature that will one day be at\nhis command, he would become dizzy at the contemplation of such wondrous\npossibilities,\" says a recent writer. \"The electro-magnetic energy that\nholds worlds in their orbits, and neutralizes the power of gravitation,\nis but one of those powers that awaits the growing genius of man to\nutilize. The magnetic force is the attractive or centripetal power; the\nelectric force is the repellent or centrifugal power. A machine will be\ninvented, in the near future, that will combine these into a single\nelectro-magnetic force, and with this force the power of gravitation\nwill be neutralized. Then the world's traffic will be as readily carried\nin the air as now it is upon the ground. The forces of the Universe\nawait only the dissipation of ignorance, selfishness, and greed to bless\nand harmonize the world.\"\n\nThe outlook for the twentieth century in its grandeur; in the unfolding\nand expanding powers of man, and the new and deeper insights into the\nhidden forces of nature, can hardly be exaggerated. We stand on the\nthreshold of a new heaven and a new earth. The drama of life is to be\nuplifted to a higher plane, to the realm of beauty and blessedness and\nradiance and joy.\n\n\n\n\nTHE ETHEREAL REALM.\n\n     It is henceforth open to science to transcend all we now think we\n     know of matter and to gain new glimpses of a profounder scheme of\n     cosmic law.\n\n                                    --SIR WILLIAM CROOKES.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     _We exist also in a world of ether;--that is to say, we are\n     constructed to respond to a system of laws,--ultimately continuous,\n     no doubt, with the laws of matter, but affording a new, a\n     generalized, a profounder conception of the Cosmos. So widely\n     different, indeed, is this new aspect of things from the old, that\n     it is common to speak of the ether as a newly-known environment. On\n     this environment our organic existence depends as absolutely as on\n     the material environment, although less obviously. In ways which we\n     cannot fathom, the ether is at the foundation of our physical\n     being. Perceiving heat, light, electricity, we do but recognise in\n     certain conspicuous ways,--as in perceiving the \"X rays\" we\n     recognise in a way less conspicuous,--the pervading influence of\n     ethereal vibrations which in range and variety far transcend our\n     capacity of response._\n\n     _Within, beyond, the world of ether,--as a still profounder, still\n     more generalized aspect of the Cosmos,--must lie, as I believe, the\n     world of spiritual life. That the world of spiritual life does not\n     depend upon the existence of the material world I hold as now\n     proved by actual evidence. That it is in some way continuous with\n     the world of ether I can well suppose. But for our minds there must\n     needs be a \"critical point\" in any such imagined continuity; so\n     that the world where life and thought are carried on apart from\n     matter, must certainly rank again as a new, a =metetherial=\n     environment. In giving it this name I expressly imply only that\n     from our human point of view it lies after or beyond the ether, as\n     metaphysic lies after or beyond physics. I say only that what does\n     not originate in matter or ether originates =there=; but I well\n     believe that beyond the ether there must be not one stage only, but\n     countless stages in the infinity of things._\n\n                                          --HUMAN PERSONALITY.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     The glorious consummation toward which organic evolution is tending\n     is the production of the highest and most perfect psychical\n     life.--JOHN FISKE.\n\n\nThe recognition of the untold force of thought is productive of\nmarvellous results and opens as unlimited possibilities as the discovery\nand the increasing application of the power of electricity. The force of\nthought--the most intense potency in the universe--has always existed,\nas has that of electricity. It only awaited recognition. Telepathy is\njust as entirely the manifestation of a law as is gravitation; and\ngravitation existed long before it was recognized. The entire question\nof the conduct of life is included in the true development and right use\nof thought. The entire problem of achievement, of success, lies in it.\nThe supreme end of all religious teaching is the culture of right\nthought. It is the power that determines all social relations, all\nopportunities for usefulness, and all personal achievement. The right\nthought opens the right door. There is absolutely no limit to its power,\nand each individual may increase and strengthen his grasp of it and\ndevelop it to an indefinite and unforeseen degree. One actual method of\nthe use of thought is to use it, creatively, for the immediate future.\nThe time that is just before one is plastic to any impress. It has not\nyet taken form in events or circumstances, and it can, therefore, be\ncontrolled and determined. One may sit quietly and alone for a little\ntime at night, calling up all his thought force, and by means of it\ncreate the next day. The events of the day will follow the impression\nmade by the thought. One can thus will himself, so to speak, with the\nsuccessful currents. He can create his atmosphere and environment, and\ncan open wide the portals of his life to beauty and happiness.\n\nThe law of telepathy is as supreme in the spiritual universe as are the\nlaws of gravitation and attraction in the physical universe. The law\nthat holds the constellations in their courses is not more in absolute\nevidence than that which governs the flashes of perception between two\npersons in a finer and more subtle communication than words, spoken or\nwritten, could possibly convey. But while there is no law more\nuniversally and impressively in evidence, there is also no law so\ntotally unformulated, so entirely, it would seem, outside the domain of\nconscious recognition and will. One endeavors to send a telepathic\nmessage to his friend--and no impress is made. Again, when he has made\nno effort at all, nor even thought of trying, the telepathic message is\nreceived. The magnetic sensitiveness of the spirit to thought currents\nis astounding. It has long seemed to many persons that the very air\nconveyed messages--and so it does. One may \"call up\" another, in either\nthis world or in the ethereal world, at any time, simply by directing to\nhim a strong current of thought. The thousand little things generally\nranked as coincidence are really illustrations of this law. One thinks\nintently of a friend whom, perhaps, he has not met, or heard from, for\nyears, and, presto, a letter, or the person himself appears. One can\nsettle misunderstandings, convey counsel, entreaty, instruction, or\ncomprehension,--all by the quality of the thought he sends forth. All\nthis is a part of the phenomena of spiritual life. We must not make the\nmistake of imagining we become spiritual beings only by death. We are\nspiritual beings now and here, and our real life is, even in the\npresent, in the spiritual world, and carried on by means of spiritual\nforces. Everything which is intellectual and moral is of the spirit.\nSuch men as Edison and Tesla and Marconi are dealing with the higher\nspiritual forces. When Cyrus Field laid the Atlantic cable, it was a\nwork of the spiritual rather than of the physical world. So are the vast\nworks of commerce, of transportation, of building, the discovery of new\ncountries, and the promulgation of the higher civilization in every\nform. We must not regard spiritual life as limited to mere religious or\ndevotional rites and ceremonies. These have their place, and an\nimportant one; but they are included among a thousand other things that\nmake up the life of the spirit. Man is primarily and permanently a\nspiritual being, and only incidentally and temporarily a physical being.\n\nStill the further problem confronts us: How shall we consciously and\nintelligently control telepathic communication as we now control our\ncommunication by speech, letters, or telegrams? A curious instance of\nunconscious and unaccountable telepathy is the following: There were two\nindividuals who had never met, but who held some mutually antagonistic\nconceptions of each other,--conceptions that were, too, perhaps more or\nless mutually erroneous, and this condition had lasted over a prolonged\nperiod of time. Then one of these persons had the experience of waking\nin the night, simply engulfed in an overwhelming wave of tender and\ncompassionate feeling toward the other: seeing, as if with spiritual\nvision, a nature unstrung, hardly responsible, and one that invited only\nthe most infinite tenderness and care. This wave of new and perfectly\nclear perception was like a magnetic trance. It was an hour of absolute\nspiritual clairvoyance, and the evidence was furnished by a letter\nreceived, the next morning, from a mutual friend, which entirely\nsubstantiated and corroborated the telepathic impression that had been\nexperienced in the night. Now the scientific question is: From whence\ndid this impression proceed? Was it direct telepathy between the two\npersons concerned? Was it a clairvoyant reading of the letter that was\nen route during the night? Who can decide? The special point here is\nthat these most vivid and intense experiences are largely, if not\nentirely, encountered unconsciously. They suddenly--come. One asks for\nthem--and they do not come? Now how are we to pluck out the heart of the\nmystery?\n\nThe moment one realizes himself as a spiritual being, belonging by right\nto the spiritual world; one whose true interests are in and of that\nrealm, and to whom communion with the Divine is the very breath of\nexistence, the one elixir of life, that moment he asserts himself\naright. From that hour his life becomes a significant factor in true\nprogress. Prayer may be a formal and ceremonial act, and mean nothing:\nit may be the absolute surrender of one's soul to the Divine, when it\nenters behind the veil into the very glory of God. This spiritual truth\nis closely linked with certain scientific facts. The scientists have\ntheories of inner ether by means of which psychic power is conveyed and\nwhich translate it into action, as the wire translates the electric\ncurrent to express a message. A scientist asserts a new theory that\nthere are no varying states of ether, but that all space is filled with\nmatter in various states of vibration; and that what we had heretofore\ncalled air and ether is simply all one substance in degrees of lower and\nhigher range. It is conceivable that this latest idea may approximate to\nthe truth more than any previous theory. No one has yet discovered those\nforces of nature by means of which sense relates itself to spirit. There\nis certainly some great law, still unrecognized and unformulated, which\nacts, and which is acted upon by human beings, irrespective of any\nphysical means; but why these laws sometimes do and sometimes do not\nproduce given results, no one can tell. There are other existing laws in\nthe physical world that transcend scientific scrutiny. The marvellous\nresults of chemical combinations, the miracle nature of electricity and\nall its phenomena, fade into absolute nothingness beside the higher\nmarvels of the action of spirit. The crude and merely approximate truth\nmust be that in each human being is a part of the divine being; that\nthis divine element may be nurtured and strengthened by living in its\nnative atmosphere of spiritual life,--in the atmosphere of peace, joy,\nand love; and that this potency of God and of man, so far as he relates\nhimself to God, can act upon that substance that fills all space; that\nthis substance, whether it be ether, or whether it be matter\ndifferentiated in degree of vibration, is intensely susceptible, in the\nmost infinitely delicate way, to thought, which acts upon it as physical\nforce can act on physical matter. To realize intelligently one's\nrelatedness to God, and one's own power over this subtle matter,\nwhatever it be that fills all space, is to arise in newness of life. It\nis to realize one's self as a spiritual being, here and now, and an\ninhabitant of the spiritual world. It is to realize that one's relation\nto the physical world is a merely incidental thing,--a fact that has its\npurpose, its responsibilities, as a phase of development, and which it\nis most important to use aright; but which is inevitably transient.\n\nDay-dreams, the habitual meditations that go on of themselves in the\nmind, are prophecies and potencies. They are the creative factors of\nfuture states. \"Out of the heart are the issues of life.\"\n\nIt is a question of degree,--so much love, so much force to act upon\nouter affairs. He who finds his currents of thought verging to the\nunkind, the ungenerous, the inimical; whose mind, in its unconscious\naction, is in a discordant state, fretting at circumstances, or\npersons,--is doing himself the gravest injury. He is creating, on the\nunseen side, which is the most potent and determining side, conditions\nwhich he must live out sooner or later.\n\nIt would seem, if one may judge from the data of telepathic experiences,\nthat the power belongs to the sub-conscious self, or, as we may prefer\nto call it, to the spiritual self, and does not relate itself to the\nconscious intellectual life and the conscious will. If this deduction is\ntrue--what then? Can we not relate our consciously intelligent life to\nour unconscious spiritual life? Not only, indeed, that we may, but that\nwe must,--for it is the next step in spiritual advancement.\n\nThe time has come in the era of progress when humanity begins to realize\nits spiritual development. All the signs of the times point it out. The\ndiscoveries of higher laws constantly being made, are an impressive\nattestation that register the movement. With the new century came in\nTesla's discovery of the vacuum tube and its wonderful light; and hardly\na week later came the announcement of the discovery of a perpetual light\nfound by a certain chemical combination placed in a glass globe, which,\nwhen the air was exhausted and the globe sealed, would burn as long as\nthe globe lasts. The discoverer claims that there is but one force in\nall nature,--that of vibration; that all space is pervaded by matter,\nwhich is energy. Certainly the world is on the eve of new revelations,\nand life is to be lifted up, even here and now, to the Divine plane.\n\nPerhaps the most practical counsel in the way of determining one's own\nfuture control of these telepathic conditions is conveyed in the words:\n\"Begin now the eternal life of trustful consecration and sanctified\nservice, consciously drawing your innermost life from God.\"\n\nThis absolute personal control of each man over his own future lies in a\ntwofold power: the one being that integrity, moral purpose, aspirations,\nhave a creative power of the most potent character; and the other being\nin that one attracts to himself the spiritual companionship and\nsympathetic co-operation of just such quality as his own. There is an\nobjection, often made to the faith in the companionship and communion\nwith those in the Unseen,--that only those of a lower order in the life\nbeyond death are attracted into the sphere of this world. Nothing could\nbe more remote from the truth. One might as well refuse all social\nintercourse with those in this world, on the plea that if he have\ncompanionship at all it would be of a lower order, and therefore he will\nhave none. Now the order of one's companions and associates depends on\nhimself. If he is noble and exalted, he does not attract nor is he\nattracted to the base and the unworthy: and only more deeply and\nunfailingly does this law hold true in the realm of spirit. One attracts\nto himself from the unseen world companionship of the same order and\nquality as that of his own spirit, with the exception that in proportion\nto the purity of his aspiration does this quality of companionship come\nto him of a still higher order than his own. Thus one creates his own\nworld. He need not abjectly feel that he must accept sorrow, trial,\ndefeat, and disaster at the moment, because compensation somewhere\nawaits him. The law of transmutation supersedes the law of compensation.\nOne may bring to bear, at the moment, the potent force that transforms\nall: that changes dullness into radiance, trial into joy, depression\ninto exaltation. And how? Simply by bringing to bear on the events and\nconditions of the hour the intense and creative potency of spiritual\npower. By means of this we shall certainly gain those \"new glimpses of a\nprofounder scheme of cosmic law\" to which Sir William Crookes refers and\nwhich his vision discerns as open to science.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Scientific Fact.]\n\nIt is a scientific fact that any vibration set up in the ether persists\nto an unlimited degree, communicating itself to that which is in\ncorrespondence with its rate of vibration. This, of course, is the\nexplanation of the phenomena involved in wireless telegraphy, and is\nequally the explanation of the phenomena involved in telepathy. At a\nmeeting of the Society of Arts in May of 1901, Professor Ayrton,\ncommenting on Marconi's system, said that we \"are gradually coming\nwithin thinkable distance of the realization of a prophecy he had\nventured to make four years before, at a time when, if a person wanted\nto call to a friend he knew not where, he would call in a very loud\nelectro-magnetic voice, heard by him who had the electro-magnetic ear,\nsilent to him who had it not. 'Where are you?' he would say. A faint\nreply would come, 'I am at the bottom of a coal mine, or crossing the\nAndes, or in the middle of the Atlantic.' Or, perhaps, in spite of all\nthe calling, no reply would come, and the person would then know that\nhis friend was dead. Think of what this would mean, of the calling which\ngoes on every day from room to room of a house, and then think of that\ncalling extending from pole to pole,--not a noisy babble, but a call\naudible to him who wants to hear, and absolutely silent to all others.\nIt would be almost like dreamland and ghostland,--not the ghostland\ncultivated by a heated imagination, but a real communication from a\ndistance, based on true physical laws.\"\n\nYet even this speculation fails to keep pace with the advance of truth,\nfor there is no death, in the sense in which Professor Ayrton refers to\nit here, as a state of unconsciousness which no message can reach, and\nfrom which no reply can come. On the contrary, that transformation we\ncall death is a condition of far more intense consciousness, of being\nfar more alive and far more responsive to the call and the thought. We\nare learning to realize the literal truth of the phrase in the Bible,\n\"dead in trespasses and sins.\" So far as one is in sins and faults and\ndefects he is dead. Spiritual vitality is in goodness alone. So far as\none endeavors to follow after righteousness, to achieve and live in\ntruth, honor, and love, he is alive; so far as he fails in this he is\ndead, and this, quite irrespective of the fact as to whether he is in or\nout of his physical body. This present world has its dead people walking\naround, it is true: eating, drinking, dressing, travelling, taking part\nin the average activities of daily life, but dead, all the same, or, at\nmost, only partially alive,--the \"dead souls,\" as Gogol well terms them.\nThe vital truth of immortality is to be immortal now, to-day; to be\nspiritually alive, spiritually conscious, and with this achieved,\nwhether in or out of the body is immaterial. That becomes a mere detail\nof no special significance. Given the condition of spiritual vitality,\nand the electro-magnetic call would receive its reply from the friend\nwho had \"shed\" his body.\n\nSir William Preece, in a recent address before the Royal Society,\nremarked:--\n\n     \"If any of the planets be populated (say Mars) with beings like\n     ourselves, having the gift of language and the knowledge to adapt\n     the great forces of nature to their wants, then if they could\n     oscillate immense stores of electrical energy to and fro in\n     electrical order, it would be possible for us to hold\n     communication, by telephone, with the people of Mars.\"\n\nIt is hardly a bolder or more startling speculation to contemplate the\nestablishment of intelligent and definite communication with Mars than\nit would have been, a half-century ago, to contemplate communication\nacross three thousand miles of ocean without visible means. An evening's\nobservation of the heavens, made recently through the great telescope of\nthe Naval Observatory in Washington, revealed, in one of its phases, a\nsunrise in the moon. One gazed at the dark edge of a mountain range to\nsee it suddenly grow light; to see the illumination increase both in\narea and intensity, precisely like a sunrise over a mountain range here\non earth. The spectacle was as suggestive as it was sublime. It brought\nthe observer into a new relation to the universe. The sun that lights\nthe earth was then rising on the moon. One realized a new conception of\nthe unity of the solar system.\n\nNow it is this unity in the universe that scientists are everywhere\naffirming. This is the new note in science, and it is only one aspect of\nthis truth to realize that wireless telegraphy and telepathy are both\nmanifestations of the same principle,--that of setting up a magnetic\ndisturbance in the ether, by utilizing the electricity in etheric\ncurrents. Thought is the most potent form of energy, and given the\nconditions of a certain _rapport_ between two minds, and the result is\nthe same as that discerned and verified by Marconi, in setting up two\ninstruments that are attuned to each other.\n\nIn the end telepathy will take entire precedence of all other forms of\ncommunication. It will supersede the telegraph, the telephone, the\ncable, and wireless telegraphy. It will serve every demand, public and\nprivate. Distance will interpose no obstacle or difficulty, for thought\novercomes space and time.\n\nWe are spiritual beings here and now. We are living in a spiritual\nuniverse. We are entering in more and more to the grasp and knowledge of\nspiritual appliances, and we can only say, reverently, that \"it doth not\nyet appear what we shall be.\"\n\nIs thought, itself, photographed on the ether? Does the vibration of the\nspoken word linger in the place where it is uttered? The question cannot\nbut recur to one after recognizing phenomena that, apparently, point to\nthis solution,--when, for instance, a caller comes, and, taking the\nchair of a preceding guest, repeats, substantially, the same words that\nthe other had spoken regarding some subject or event. This is something\nthat frequently occurs. Just what is the explanation? Do thoughts\nregister themselves magnetically on the air, and is this magnetic\nwriting perceived, unconsciously, by one sensitive to it? The question\nis certainly one of curious interest.\n\nAgain, are the daily occurrences of life pre-destined? How far do we\nmake our own life? How far is it made for us? An individual was led in\ndreams one night through rooms that seemed to have granite walls, to be\nvery bare, cold, and vast. The next evening he was leaving on a journey,\nand did start; but after he had taken his seat in the palace car, the\ndiscovery of a mistake caused him hastily to leave the train before it\nstarted, and return. In consequence of the mistake discovered he was\nobliged to seek a certain official in a great granite building, whose\ninterior had, heretofore, been entirely unknown to him. Entering it,\nhis way led through the same cold, vast, bare rooms that the preceding\nnight in dreams he had traversed. Now the mistake that delayed his\njourney and brought about these results was not even his own mistake,\nbut one made by another person. Was all this series of events--trifles\nof no importance in themselves, but very curious in their\ncombination--foreordained? and if not, how was it that they were partly\nperceived, in the passive state of sleep, twenty-four hours before they\noccurred? It often seems true that the spirit, in the unconscious\ncondition of sleep, has a certain clairvoyance, and looks out beholding\nand reporting to the consciousness the immediate future; but if the\nevents it reports were not already formed, how could they be seen? The\nquestion involves many psychic complexities.\n\nThere can be little question that the atmosphere is electric, magnetic,\nand conducts thought from mind to mind, as the wire does the electric\ncurrent. The higher spirituality to which the race has advanced enables\none to perceive and experience this truth more or less, some to a great\ndegree, some only in a minor; but some sort of perception is universal,\nand is seen as phenomena, or as indications of the working of spiritual\nlaws, according to the individual who recognizes it. One of these\nstriking phases may be seen in the experience that results from absence\nand separation. Let two persons who are mutually sympathetic and\nresponsive to each other meet, and they at once strike the chord of\nardent social enjoyment in their companionship, and the note of prelude\nto an enthusiastic friendship. Let a sudden separation come in the\nexternal world, and the mutual spiritual experience is strangely full\nof color, of vital sympathy, of vivid perceptions. Evidently, the\nspirits of each meet and mingle, independent of the fact that a thousand\nmiles of distance lie between the individuals. What is distance to the\nspiritual being? It is not an element which bears any significance to\nthat part of the nature which has transcended time and place. In such an\nexperience as this, and one that occurred recently between two persons,\none writes to the other:--\n\n\"I talk to you incessantly. I find currents from my life continually\nrunning out like telegraph wires to yours.\"\n\nAnd a letter written by the other person, crossing this one on the way,\nhad borne a message something to the effect:--\n\n\"I go about companioned by you. Far more actually present you are to me\nthan those by whom I am surrounded. Everything I read and think keeps\nreferring itself to you for response.\"\n\nBetween these two persons telepathy was working perfectly. Absence and\nseparation made no blank, but rather a season filled with the most\nintense and direct sense of psychical communion. They were\nmeeting--spirit to spirit--more closely, more clearly, indeed, than\nwould have been possible had they been dwelling under one roof. For\npersonality, and all the incidents and accidents and interruptions\nhinder rather than help actual companionship, when it is on this higher\nplane of spirit to spirit in mutual, swift, unerring response.\n\nIn this phase of actual experience may we not find a hint from which to\nstudy the words of Jesus to his disciples,--\"It is expedient for you\nthat I go away.\" Through that mystic silence that fell between them on\nHis departure from the visible world, there thrilled the sense of a\ncommunion so near, so exalted, so divinely sweet, that it could never\nhave been theirs in the external life. To give this it was expedient\nthat He should go away. Here we find the key to the separations that\nmust occur between friends by the demands of life, or that occur by\ndeath, but that may be in either case infinitely deeper in spiritual\ncommunion. The friend with whom we are in any real relations is nearer,\neven when the ocean rolls between, than one in the same room can be with\nwhom we are not in special sympathy; and one who has gone into the\ninvisible world is nearer still, as out of the realm of pure spirit the\ncommunion is still stronger and more direct and more intense. For this\nis \"a universe of reciprocal forces.\" The very ether is the medium of\ncommunication between spirit and spirit.\n\nMarconi has recently completed a new wonder in the shape of a ship\ndetector. By means of this instrument the course of any ship having one\naboard can be traced, wherever she may be in mid-ocean. It acts on the\nprinciple of the wireless telegraph, but does not require a wireless\nplant to operate it. No operator is needed on the ship, the shore\nstations locating the ships by a system of tunings. It is proposed to\ninstall this system on the leading liners, and the home office can thus\nknow at every moment the exact position of a ship and note her progress\nas she moves along her course. Should the vessel become disabled it will\nbecome noted, and by means of the chart her position can be known and\nassistance can be sent to her.\n\nHere is one of the most marvellous among the new illustrations of the\nfiner forces. But this \"ship detector,\" which acts on the principle of\nwireless telegraphy, is less potent than are the electric forces in\nevery human being, if it were known how to control and utilize these to\nserve the purposes of perception. For perception is a faculty that may\nfar transcend both sight and hearing. Perception is a faculty of the\nsoul--often undeveloped; rarely developed to anything like its full\npossibilities, but capable of locating objects or of discerning persons\nand events, or of apprehending states of mind in others, regardless of\nspace, as the ship's detector and the shore stations become aware of\neach other through their relation of finer vibrations. A recent\nexperimenter in electric and super-physical force, M. Tessier\nd'Helbaicy, states this theory: \"Taking as his premise the fundamental\nlaw of physical science, that all chemical reaction is accompanied by a\ngeneration of heat and electricity, he said to himself that the human\nbody, with the innumerable and incessant chemical reactions presented by\nall its cells, should create a thermo-electric pile of great power. In\nany case, the Austrian savant, Reichenbach, in his remarkable series of\nexperiments, has already proved, fifty years ago, that we radiate\nelectric waves of a special kind, visible in the dark under certain\nconditions, and these present positive and negative poles.\" This being\ngranted, M. d'Helbaicy has measured the yielding power of the human\nmachine in heat and electricity, and has compared these with what the\nheat industrial machines can do, such as those run by steam, dynamos,\nand electric piles.\n\n[Sidenote: A Glorious Inauguration.]\n\nThe new year of 1903 was inaugurated by the scientific success of the\nmost remarkable, the most marvellous achievement of any age,--that of\nwireless telegraphy. \"Before you write 1903 I will have demonstrated the\nsuccess of wireless communication,\" exclaimed Marconi, early in 1902;\nand ten days before the dawning of the year he named, the achievement\nwas an undisputed success. It is so marvellous a thing that thought,\nwithout visible mechanism, can be flashed through the air, across the\nocean, and record itself, that the success of Marconi can be held as\nnothing less than sublime. It is the most impressive of all the\nrealizations of the past decade in entering on the unseen and intangible\npotencies. It has become a familiar thing to see the cars in city\nstreets, and carriages move swiftly by a motor power that is invisible\nto the eye; a power that no one can analyze or detect save in its\neffects and its results. It has become so familiar a thing that one can\ncarry on a conversation with a friend at a thousand miles' distance,\nthat one forgets how wonderful it really is. Within the memory of men\nstill living is the time when it required forty days to make the voyage\nto Europe, and to obtain, or to send, news between the two countries.\nNow, within forty minutes, the news is flashed under the ocean. All\nthese discoveries that annihilate Time and Space are simply the result\nof the evolution of life to higher stages; of the advance of man into\nthe ethereal realm. For is not the underlying and fundamental truth\nthis: that all is spirit? One may talk of \"the spiritual life,\" but\nthere is no other life! Withdraw the spiritual element, and there is no\nlife at all! The difference, then, between the physical and the material\nworlds is only a difference of degree,--as ice-water, steam, and vapor\nare only different degrees and conditions of the same element. Progress\nis the transformation of the physical into the spiritual; of the lower\nand cruder and denser life into the finer, the more potent, the more\nethereal. Energy is proportioned in potency to its ethereal aspects. In\nits cruder and denser form there is only a low degree of potency, and in\nits more ethereal forms is there higher potency. The ox-team is a dense\nand crude form of potency, and the electric motor is the more ethereal\nand intense form of energy. Now the progress of humanity is unfailingly\nregistered by its advance into the employment of the ethereal forces and\nthe more intense energies, as these form conditions that react upon\nlife. How far more intelligent a nation may be when its facilities for\nswift intercommunication foster and stimulate and instantly disseminate\nthe knowledge of all events, discoveries, and experiences; and when its\nfacilities for swift transportation facilitate all economic and social\nintercourse! Judged, then, by their unfailing measurements, how\nsignificant was the triumphal achievement of wireless telegraphy on the\neve of the dawn of 1903.\n\nIf telepathy is \"the science of the soul's interchange with God--of the\ninterchange of the thought of one soul with another;\" if it \"reveal\nthat realm of consciousness where all God's thought is interpreted to\nthe soul:\" if \"its vibration never dies out of the atmosphere of\nthought;\" the discovery of this great law must indeed take precedence of\nthat of any other achievement of the past century.\n\nThe nature of Human Personality holds the secret of spiritual evolution.\nIt doth not yet appear what man may be; but the increasing knowledge of\nhis powers; the development of those heretofore latent and unrecognized,\nare combining to throw a new illumination on not only the aspects, but\nthe purposes of life. Man is coming into enlightenment concerning the\nenvironment of the spiritual world as one more immediately controlling\nhim, as well as one far more profound and significant, than the\nenvironment of matter and of ether. As things go, the chief emphasis has\nalways been placed upon the material environment. Man has not\ninfrequently been willing to sell his soul for a mess of pottage--his\nchief concern being, not the loss of his soul, but the gain of the\npottage. He has been willing to exchange the entire devotion of all his\nenergies for a finer and more resplendent quality of food, clothing, and\nshelter,--for a palace in which to live, for private cars and steam\nyachts in which to go about, and all the paraphernalia accessible to the\nmulti-millionaire. But it is not all that these possessions typify which\nconstitutes his most important environment. It is that degree of the\nspiritual world with which his own quality of spiritual life is fitted\nto ally itself. \"The life of the organism consists in its power of\ninterchanging energy with that of its environment,\" says Frederic W. H.\nMyers,--\"of appropriating by its own action some fraction of that\npre-existent and limitless power. We human beings exist, in the first\nplace, in a world of matter,\" he continues, \"whence we draw the obvious\nsustenance of our bodily functions. We exist also in a world of ether;\nthat is to say, we are constructed to respond to a system of laws,\nultimately continuous, no doubt, with the laws of matter, but affording\na new, a generalized, a profounder conception of the Cosmos. On this\nenvironment our organic existence depends as absolutely as on the\nmaterial environment, although less obviously,--but ... within, beyond\nthe world of ether, as a still profounder, still more generalized aspect\nof the Cosmos, must lie, as I believe, the world of spiritual life.\"\n\nThis world of spiritual life, a deeper reality, a profounder realm of\nenergy than the ethereal world, is the true environment of the spirit\neven while embodied in physical form; and the secret of all success, of\nall achievement, of all progress, of all happiness, is to discover\nincreasing means by which we may thus relate ourselves to our native\nrealm. Science and Psychical Research are supplementing Religion; are,\nindeed, incorporating themselves into Religion as vital factors of the\nspiritual progress of humanity. Far from being hostile elements to the\nrevelation of the Divine Power given in the Bible, they explain, they\nextend, they interpret that revelation. As Archdeacon Wilberforce so\nfinely points out, God is ever the same, \"but what men see of Him\nchanges,--changes without contradiction of the past conceptions.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"It was a definite promise of God that He should unfold, develop,\nspiritualize the conceptions of the early Christian faith, revealing\ngradually, as men should be able to assimilate them, higher, nobler\nviews of the nature, character, and purpose of the Eternal Father,\"\ncontinued Archdeacon Wilberforce in a memorable sermon preached in\nWestminster Abbey, and he added:--\n\n     \"It is, I suppose, inevitable that timid hearts, rooted in the\n     traditions of the past, iron-bound in antiquated definitions,\n     should imagine that the foundations of faith are shaken. They\n     forget that the Christ told us that when His visible presence was\n     removed He would speak by His spirit, as He had only delivered the\n     preliminaries of His full message; that there were truths yet to be\n     unfolded which men would receive and assimilate as the generations\n     succeeded one another,--'as the thoughts of men widened with the\n     progress of the suns.' I have been told by experts that the\n     astronomers who built those marvels of antiquity, the Pyramids of\n     the Nile, pierced a slanting shaft through the larger pyramid which\n     pointed direct to the Pole-star, and that in those days had you\n     gazed heavenward through the shaft into the Eastern night, the\n     Pole-star alone would have met your eye. It was in the ages of the\n     past, it was when the Southern Cross was visible from the British\n     Isles. Slowly, imperceptibly, the orientation of the planet has\n     changed. Did you now look up into the midnight sky through the\n     shaft in the Great Pyramid you would not see the Pole-star; new\n     brilliant space-worlds would shine down on you. But the heavens\n     have not altered, and the shaft of the pyramid is not guilty, so to\n     speak, of unorthodoxy. A new view of the heavens has quietly come,\n     for the earth's axis has changed its place. Similarly, it is the\n     work of the spirit of the ascended Jesus to advance the axis of the\n     Church of God from glory to glory. Conceptions of the Universal\n     Soul once prominent before the telescope of human faith and\n     aspiration grow, enlarge, expand. He changeth not; He is ever the\n     same. And these conceptions will change until knowledge, in the\n     sense of the acquisition of facts, shall be no more, and intuitive\n     perception of the transcendent majesty of the Universal Life shall\n     fill our souls forever.\"\n\nIn these latter days one may hold all his old faith and add to it\nknowledge, as Saint Paul himself enjoins. One of these powers of the\nspiritual man now being rapidly developed is that of telepathy. We shall\nlearn to _talk in thought_, as well as in oral speech. We shall learn to\n\"call up\" the friend at a distance, or the friend in the Unseen, as\nunmistakably as we now call up a friend by telephone. Time and Space are\nthe limits which define the terrestrial life as distinct from the\ncelestial. But man is, primarily, a celestial being. He is, first of\nall, a spirit, belonging to the spiritual world, and only secondarily\nand temporarily a denizen of earth. He can regain, to some extent, at\nleast, his celestial faculties. For centuries he has accepted\nimprisonment in the senses. His release is at hand. He has but to assert\nhis own pre-eminence as a spiritual being with spiritual powers. He has\nbut to exert these in order to prove to himself their existence, and to\ndevelop them to their increasing use. Extension of power over the\nmaterial universe, more wonderful and more potent, and more\nall-comprehending than even Marconi's wonderful wireless telegraphy, is\nat hand. \"It doth not yet appear what we shall be;\" but that man can\ncreate and control his destiny to an increasing extent, is true. It is\nthe evolution of religion,--of that faith which has added to itself\nknowledge. Thought is the highest manifestation of energy; and when man\nlearns to live in thought he acts upon all his environment with energies\nthat are immortal.\n\nProfessor Leavenworth of the State University Observatory in Minnesota\nphotographed the new asteroid Eros at a distance estimated to be some\nthirty-six millions of miles,--a distance that renders it impossible to\ndiscern this planet even through the strongest telescope. Exact\nmathematical calculation had worked out the problem of the location of\nEros, and the sensitive photographic plate caught it, even though it is\nbeyond the power of the telescope.\n\nThis scientific fact illustrates perfectly the way in which an unseen\nuniverse exists about us, registering its existence on the sensitive\nplate of spiritual impression. Science has long since established the\ntruth of the different rates of vibration that characterize different\nthings. The reason that the psychic (or spiritual) body of those who\nhave passed from the physical to the ethereal world is unseen is simply\nthat the ethereal body is in a state of vibration too high for the eye\nto follow. Stephen Phillips expresses a deep scientific truth when he\nsays:--\n\n  \"I tell you we are fooled by the eye, the ear;\n  These organs muffle as from that real world\n  That lies about us.\"\n\nYet in every human being there lies latent the inner sight and the inner\nhearing, which can be increasingly developed by psycho-physical\nculture; by such habits of life as make the physical body more flexible,\nmore subtle, and which thus raise to a far higher rate its degree of\nvibration, and enable the organs of sight and hearing to be far less\n\"muffled\" than they are in those who live more in the mere life of the\nsenses. This unseen world that lies about us may be explored; the unseen\nfriends who encompass us may be recognized by those who will so live as\nto develop the psychic senses, and so as to allow the psychic body to\ntake greater control of its physical instrument; this unseen world is\nsimply the natural continuation of the physical universe in the scale of\nevolution. Science is every day penetrating its space, and the horizon\nline of mystery constantly recedes. What is wireless telegraphy but one\nof those marvels which a decade ago we should have considered as quite\nbeyond the horizon line of our experimental knowledge, and as belonging\nto the unrevealed mysteries of the spiritual universe? The ordinary\ntrolley car of to-day--moving without visible means--would have been\nregarded as a miracle a century ago. There is no hard and fast line\nbetween the physical and the ethereal worlds. They melt into one\nanother and are determined only by degrees. Any element may exist as a\nsolid, a liquid, a gas, or in the etheric condition, and one state is no\nless real than another. The trend of progress is leading humanity\nconstantly into the realm of finer forces; of more subtle forms of\nexpression. The trend of progress is constantly discarding the more\nponderous and clumsy for the subtle, the swift, and the more ethereal\nform of mechanism. Instead of the stage coach, with two, four, or six\nhorses, we have the automobile; instead of the sailing ship, the\ntwin-screw propeller; instead of stoves or fireplaces, with fuel to be\ncarried in and refuse to be carried out, we have the hot-water radiator,\nand are on the eve of having heat, as we already have light, from\nelectricity.\n\nNow when science provides the explanation of this ethereal universe\nsurrounding and interpenetrating that in which we live and psychic\nscience begins to explore it and formulate its means and methods, there\nare persons who object on the ground of its \"materializing heaven.\" If\none were to inquire as to what this idea of heaven is he would probably\nreceive no more definite reply than that it was supposed to be a\ncondition of playing on golden harps and waving palm branches. The\nfigurative pictures of the New Testament have largely been accepted as\nliteral ones, and it may be an open question as to which condition would\nbe the more \"material,\" that of walking golden streets, waving branches\nof palms and devoting one's time to the harp, or the life that\nprefigures itself as a development and expansion of our present\nintellectual, artistic, and spiritual life.\n\n\"Unless some insight is gained into the psychical side of things, some\ncommunications realized with intelligences outside our own, some light\nthrown upon a more than corporeal descent and destiny of man,\" wrote\nFrederick W. H. Myers in that monumental work entitled \"Human\nPersonality,\" which offers a rich mine of suggestion, \"it would seem\nthat the shells to be picked up on the shore of the ocean of truth will\never become scantier, and the agnostics of the future will gaze forth\never more hopelessly on that gloomy and unvoyageable sea. For vast as is\nthe visible universe, infinite as may have been the intelligence that\nwent to its evolution, yet while viewed in the external way in which we\nalone can view it--while seen as a product and not as a plan--it cannot\npossibly suggest to us an indefinite number of universal laws. Such\ncosmic generalizations as gravitation, evolution, correlation of forces,\nconservation of energy, though assuredly as yet unexhausted, cannot, in\nthe nature of things, be even approximately inexhaustible.\"\n\n[Sidenote: Finer Cosmic Forces.]\n\nThe entire trend of progress is toward the continued discovery of finer\ncosmic forces and their utilization in practical affairs. Within the\npast five years this tendency has strikingly demonstrated itself. The\nevolution of the ways and means of travel offers, in itself, an\nimpressive illustration of this tendency. The visitor to the Musee Cluny\nin Paris will find, among the masses of relics of an historic pass, the\nstate carriages used in the time of Louis XV. and Marie Antoinette. They\nare incredibly clumsy and gigantic,--the carriage itself mounted on four\ngreat wheels, two of which are very large, with the two front ones\nsmaller,--the entire vehicle occupying about twice the space of a modern\nconveyance, and its weight must be something to reckon with. Several of\nthese are standing in the Cluny and offer a strange contrast with the\ncarriages of to-day. But when these, with their lumbering motion, are\ncontrasted,--not merely with the modern carriage, but with the flying\nautomobile,--one realizes, indeed, the evolution in the methods of local\ntransportation.\n\nAgain, let one compare the traditions of the sailing vessels on which\npassengers crossed to Europe within the memory of men still living,--the\nforty days' passage between Boston and Liverpool which is well within\nthe memory of Doctor Hale,--with the passage on this latest floating\npalace of the ocean, the Kaiser Wilhelm II.,--and he realizes how far\nscience has penetrated into the more subtle forces, where lightness and\nspeed take the place of clumsy device and slow motion. To go up to the\nhurricane deck of the wonderful Kaiser Wilhelm and look down through the\nopenings on the six mighty engines, with their intense throb of\nvibration day and night, is to behold an object lesson in the\npossibilities of motion. With the precision and the persistence of fate,\nthe great beams fly up--and down. The vibration pervades the entire\nvast spaces of the great steamer. It becomes like an electric current, a\nthing of life, to be missed when one leaves the steamer as if one had\nleft there a part of his own life. There is an exhilaration in it that\ncommunicates itself to mind and body. It is like a dynamo generating\nvitality. And still more swift and subtle methods of loco-motion are in\nthe air. Doctor Albertson, an electrical engineer of the Royal\nUniversity of Denmark, has an invention for a railroad train without\nwheels to make a speed of three hundred miles an hour. \"Two things\ndefeated the attainment of speed above the present maximum (sixty miles\nan hour),\" says a writer in the \"New York Herald,\" and these are\nspecified as \"the dead weight of the train, and aerial resistance.\n\n\"Now comes the announcement that there has been discovered a method of\nabolishing the dead weight of the train, leaving only aerial resistance\nto be contended with. If this can be done, as Mr. Albertson asserts,\nhalf of the battle is won, and the world may yet be able to travel on\nthe earth's surface with the much-dreamed-of speed of hundreds of miles\nan hour. For many years the great principle of magnetism has been known\nto electricians and used in practical work by laymen. Steel companies\nhave found the magnet useful in lifting huge metal girders. At one end\nof their lifting apparatuses they have placed a magnet which, when\ncharged, grips the steel bars and lifts them, no matter how great their\nweight. It has been noticed that a magnet would move to come in contact\nwith the steel bar as soon as it arrived within the drawing radius,\ncarrying any amount of weight with it which happened to be attached at\nthe time.\n\n\"It is this principle which Doctor Albertson sought to make use of--the\nlifting power of a magnet when attracted to a fixed rail of steel. He\narranged a series of magnets under a miniature car running on a steel\nrailway track. The magnets were insulated and attached to the bottom of\nthe car so that they came under the rail and about an inch below it.\nThen he turned on enough electricity to make the magnets active. They\nrose upward toward the rail, lifting the car bodily in the air. The\nweight of the train was thus simply overcome!\"\n\nThe electro-magnetic train has demonstrated its principle to the\nsatisfaction of scientific engineers. Professor Roberts, in charge of\nthe chemical works at Niagara Falls, says of it:--\n\n     \"It is the electrical discovery of the age, and so simple in\n     application that the marvel is that it has escaped us so long. The\n     lightening power of magnetism has been known for years, the\n     greatest saving power to overcome gravity, but it seems it had to\n     wait for Doctor Albertson to discover it.\"\n\nThe air-ship promises, however, to eclipse the greatest and swiftest of\nlatter-day steamers. The air, rather than the ocean, is to be navigated.\n\nAll these marvellous developments in scientific activity correspond to\nthe developments of man's mental and spiritual powers. Telepathy\nestablishes its communication from spirit to spirit, as wireless\ntelegraphy establishes its sending of messages without visible means. On\nboth planes,--the physical and the psychical,--the subtle and finer\nforces are being utilized, and the horizon line of the unknown\ncontinually recedes before the progress of man.\n\nSir Oliver Lodge, LL.D., presented a new phase of the problem of\npersonality in an address in London, in the following statement of a\nspeculative belief:--\n\n     \"To tell the truth, I do not myself hold that the whole of any one\n     of us is incarnated in these terrestrial bodies; certainly not in\n     childhood; more, but perhaps not so very much more, in adult life.\n     What is manifested in this body is, I venture to think likely, only\n     a portion--an individualized, a definite portion--of a much larger\n     whole. What the rest of me may be doing, for these few years while\n     I am here, I do not know, perhaps it is asleep; but probably it is\n     not so entirely asleep with men of genius; nor, perhaps, is it all\n     completely inactive with the people called 'mediums.'\n\n     \"Imagination in science is permissible, provided one's imaginations\n     are not treated as fact, or even theory, but only as working\n     hypotheses,--a kind of hypotheses which, properly treated, is\n     essential to the progress of every scientific man. Let us imagine,\n     then, as a working hypothesis, that our subliminal self--the other,\n     the greater part of us--is in touch with another order of\n     existence, and that it is occasionally able to communicate, or\n     somehow, perhaps unconsciously, transmit to the fragment in the\n     body something of the information accessible to it. This guess, if\n     permissible, would contain a clue to a possible explanation of\n     clairvoyance. We should then be like icebergs floating in an ocean,\n     with only a fraction exposed to sun and air and observation: the\n     rest--by far the greater bulk--submerged and occasionally in\n     subliminal contact, while still their peaks, their visible peaks,\n     were far separate.\"\n\nThat which Doctor Lodge expresses in the form of a speculative theory is\nby many realized as an actual experience; an absolute consciousness that\nover and above and outside of the ordinary intelligent consciousness is\nanother being more one's self than is his conscious self; with whom he\nis in a very varied degree of communion; clearer and more immediate at\ntimes; clouded, confused, even shut off by some dense state at others;\nintermittent always, yet often sufficiently clear and impressive to\ncompel his attention to the phenomena and compel recognition of the\ntruth. In fact, as one comes into still clearer recognition of this\n\"other\" self,--which is far more the true self than is the lower and\nlesser manifestation,--one comes to absolutely realize that his larger,\nhigher, more comprehensive life is being lived in this higher realm, or\ncondition, and that his entire being on the plane of the lower\nconsciousness is a series of effects of which the causes lie in this\nother larger and more real life. That is, the individual has two lives\nnot precisely corresponding in chronological sequence. The experiences\nof the day are his because, _before the day has dawned_, they have been\nthe experiences of the higher life lived in the larger realm. The\nspiritual self has realized that train of experiences in the spiritual\nrealm; therefore, and as a result inevitable, these experiences\nprecipitate themselves into the physical life, and are manifested on the\nphysical plane of being. One does a given thing to-day, or meets a given\nevent, _because_ his spiritual or subliminal or even real self has\nalready done that thing or met that event on the higher plane. The real\nbeing is all the time dwelling in the more real world. As all planes of\nlife are spiritual planes,--even that which we call the physical, being\nbut the cruder and denser quality of the spiritual,--it makes the theory\nclearer to designate the realm just above our present one as the\nethereal. In this ethereal realm dwells the ethereal body. A certain\nportion of its consciousness animates the physical structure and works\nthrough the physical brain. It lies with ourselves as to how closely we\nmay establish the relation between the higher and the lower self. This\nrelation may constantly be increased in the degree of receptivity of the\nlower to the higher self by living the life of the spirit. And what is\nthe life of the spirit? The life of joy and peace; and the life of\nstudy, thought, and endeavor; the life of both intellectual and\nspiritual culture; the life in which the physical body is subordinated\nto its true place as a mechanism, an instrument for carrying out the\nwill of the spiritual self.\n\nThus, by study, thought, and prayer, may one more and more consciously\nand entirely control and determine his active life, and constantly\nrefine and exalt it in quality. As this is done its potency increases,\nfor spirit alone is power.\n\nOf telepathy Doctor Lodge says:--\n\n     \"Telepathy itself, however, is in need of explanation. An idea or\n     thought in the mind of one person reverberates, and dimly appears\n     in the mind of another. How does this occur? Is it a physical\n     process going on in some physical medium or ether connecting the\n     two brains? Is it a primary physiological function of the brain, or\n     is it primarily psychological? If psychological only, what does\n     that mean? Perhaps it may not be a direct immediate action between\n     the two minds at all; perhaps a third intelligence is in\n     communication with both.\"\n\nWill this theory furnish the basis for a true interpretation of\ntelepathy?\n\nThe relations between the individual and the forces of the ethereal\nrealm are also determining as regards health.\n\n[Sidenote: Health and Happiness.]\n\nFor health and illness are by no means the mere and exclusive\nconsideration of the physical life. Health, in its complete\nsignificance, is mental and even moral, and involves, in its higher\naspects, the entire question of the spiritual life. Health, successful\nachievement, and happiness are an indissoluble trinity, when interpreted\nin their full integrity and in their inter-relations. Ideally\nconsidered, they are in closest interpenetration. As a matter of actual\nfact each is often partially manifest,--good physical health without any\nspecial achievement; or a high degree of achievement with defective\nhealth; or both, without much resultant happiness; or happiness even,\nwithout outward success or physical health, resulting only from a deeper\nspiritual insight and recognition of eternal laws. Still, ideally\nconsidered, as this world goes, health should be the basis of successful\nachievement, and this achievement should rest on health; and the union\nof both should produce the inflorescence of happiness; for the true\nsense of all successful achievement is in that it makes for the forces\nof righteousness, and a successful swindler or criminal could hardly be\nincluded under these general definitions. And so, to have good health,\nand to achieve good and noble work, must produce a good degree of\npersonal happiness as inevitably as that certain numerical combinations\nproduce certain numerical results. So much we may concede. The question\nis then before us: How can we secure and hold unvarying, from day to\nday, from year to year, this basis of physical health on which the\nsuperstructure of all endeavor and realization must rest? Just how shall\none be well and keep well?\n\nIt is certainly a question not restricted to the physician nor yet to\nthe metaphysician. For health is not merely a physical condition. It is\nthe question of the poise, the harmony of the entire psychical being.\n\nProfessor John D. Quackenbos has recently said of Hypnotism:--\n\n     \"Investigations extending over many years have led me to a belief\n     in the dual personality of man--that is, each human unit exists in\n     two distinct states of superior consciousness. One of these states\n     is called the primary or superliminal consciousness,--the\n     personality by which a man is known to his objective associates,\n     which takes cognizance through the senses of the outside world, and\n     carries on the ordinary business of every-day life. The second or\n     subliminal personality is the superior spiritual self, the man's\n     own oversoul, which automatically superintends all physical\n     functions and procedures, and influences mental and moral\n     attitudes.\n\n     \"It happens to be a fact of mind that in sleep--natural or\n     induced--this subliminal or submerged self may be brought into\n     active control of the objective life. My experiments have forced me\n     to the conclusion that there is no difference as regards\n     suggestibility between natural sleep and the so-called hypnotic\n     trance. In the induced sleep the subject is in _rapport_\n     exclusively with the operator; in natural sleep only with his own\n     objective self, perhaps with a multitude of discarnate\n     personalities, who think and feel in common with him, and, in case\n     he be of superior parts, possibly with all well-wishing\n     extra-human intelligences.\"\n\nHere we have the basis of truth. That condition of vigor, poise,\nvitality, and harmony which we call good health depends on the degree of\ncontrol exercised over the physical body by that \"second or subliminal\npersonality, the superior spiritual self, the man's own oversoul,\nwhich,\" as Doctor Quackenbos so truly observes, \"superintends all\nphysical functions and procedures, and influences mental and moral\nattitudes.\"\n\nThe problem, then, becomes that of bringing the psychical body into this\nreceptive relation to the physical self? How shall the perfect spiritual\nsupremacy be established? This question reveals, of itself, to how great\na degree health is a mental and moral as well as a physical affair.\n\nPerhaps the initial step is that of clearly realizing--of holding the\nluminous conception--of one's self as a spiritual being in the psychical\nbody, _temporarily inhabiting_ a physical body,--a spiritual being using\nas its instrument a physical body so long as it is at work in the\nphysical world, or on the physical plane. One may thus conceive of his\nphysical body as being really as objective as is the pen of the writer;\nthe palette and brushes of the painter; the machine, or mechanism, or\ninstrument used by any one. And the moment one learns to thus hold the\nphysical instrument objectively, he thus brings it under the control of\nthought. He is no longer so a part of it; so entangled and involved in\nit that he cannot control it. The moment he holds this clear, vivid\nmental realization of it as his instrument, he is in command. This may\nbe illustrated by an electric car and a motor-man. If the man were bound\nup and entangled among the cogs and wheels he could not guide and\ncontrol the car; but in his place, free from all its mechanism, his hand\non the motor, the course and the degree of speed obeys his mental\ndirection applied through his control.\n\nThis realization of the true relation of the spiritual man to his body\nis the initial condition of health, and this involves as a matter of\ncourse the spiritual relations with the Divine Power, and receptivity to\nthe infinite energy.\n\nIt also involves an intelligent care of the physical mechanism. A\nclogged pen would repress the recording of the noblest sonnet or epic; a\ndefective brush, or pigment, would ruin the picture of the greatest\nartist; a broken wire would prevent the transmission of the most\nimportant telegraphic or cable message. And so, however intelligently\nand completely one holds the faith of supremacy of the spiritual over\nthe physical, he must realize the absolute necessity of fidelity to\nhygienic laws. Food, in its quantity and quality; bathing, exercise,\nfresh air, sleep,--these are the conditions on which the state of the\nphysical mechanism depends, and which involve that perfection of health\nwhich determines exhilaration, power, achievement, and happiness.\n\nCanon Scott Holland of St. Paul's Cathedral has ably discussed these new\nproblems of the finer forces in the ethereal realm; and in a discourse\nentitled \"Other World Activities\" he drew the following analogy:--\n\n     \"The text is from the Book of Daniel, a Book which takes us into a\n     world of visions and trances and mystical imagery. There is a world\n     within the world; a life beyond life. That world is not only the\n     sphere of God, but of recognizable beings, meditating presences\n     subject to rule, with organization and degrees, activities and\n     authorities. It is a host, a kingdom, swayed by law and purpose. In\n     the Bible there is much of this, learnt probably by the Hebrews\n     from their captors. They had gone far afield: their horizon had\n     been widened: they had been taught how to enter largely into this\n     mysterious region. But, fortunately, they dealt soberly with this\n     weltering flood of occult knowledge. These hosts of unseen\n     presences are marshalled into order: they are not mere genii,\n     fantastic and magical; they pass under the control of the sole\n     directive will of the Most High. They are solemn instruments of\n     spiritual destiny: they are semi-human, and the record is, 'one\n     like unto a man touched me.'\"\n\nCanon Holland proceeds to arraign modern teachings. \"We have drifted\nfrom this tremendous reality,\" he says. \"We have tried to isolate the\nfield of known experience, and to cut it off from disturbing\nsupernatural imaginings. We have set ourselves to purge out from our\nscheme of things anything that seemed to interfere with it. The unseen\nwas the unknown and the unknowable. But our agnostic programme has\nbroken down. Facts have been too much for it. The isolation desired by\nit is impossible. In and out of the life that we can cover with our\nrationalized experiences, there are influences, forces, powers which are\nforever at work, and belong to a world beyond our scientific methods. We\nfloat in a mysterious ether to which no physical limitations apply.\nSounds, motions, transmit themselves through this medium, under\nconditions which transform our whole idea of what space or time they\nmean. Through and beyond the semi-physical mystery, a world of spiritual\nactivity opens upon us. It has capacities of which we have never\ndreamed. It allows of apparent contact of spirit with spirit, in spite\nof material distance and physical obstruction. There are modes of\ncommunication which are utterly unintelligible to our ordinary\nscientific assumptions, yet which actual experience tends more and more\nto verify.\"\n\nYes, as Canon Holland well says, \"Facts have been too much\" for those\nwho would cling to the old and the less intelligent ideas of the future\nlife. The ethereal world will even cease to be mysterious before\nadvancing scientific investigation and knowledge. Through the ether, as\nCanon Holland notes, sounds and motions transmit themselves \"under\nconditions which transform our whole idea of what space or time may\nmean.\" In the realm of present life the same assertion may be made. Who\ncan contemplate wireless telegraphy without having opened to him a range\nof activities and conditions undreamed of heretofore? \"We become sure,\"\ncontinues Canon Holland, \"that both above and below our normal\nconsciousness we are in touch with mysteries that travel far, and that\nwe lie open to spiritual acts done unto us from a far distance, that we\nassimilate intimations and intuitions that reach us by inexplicable\nchannels.\n\n\"This world of spirit powers and activities has been opened afresh; and\nnow even physical science is compelled to recognize the evidence for it,\nand a new psychological language is coming into being to describe its\nphenomena. We are only slowly recovering our hold upon this life of\nmystic intuition, of exalted spiritual communications; we are only\nbeginning to recognize the abnormal and exceptional spiritual condition\nwith which Saint Paul was familiar, when, whether in the body or out of\nit, he could not say,--God only knows,--he was transported to the third\nHeaven and heard unutterable things.\"\n\nThis remarkable sermon is an initiation of a new era of religious\nteaching. The light is breaking and the full illumination is only a\nquestion of time.\n\nLife is exalted in its purpose and refined in its quality by holding the\nperpetual consciousness of the two worlds in which we dwell; by the\nconstant realization that\n\n  \"The spirit world around this world of sense\n  Floats like an atmosphere....\"\n\nThis atmosphere is all peopled, and it is magnetic with intelligence.\nEvery spirit-call for aid, for guidance, for support, is answered. If a\nman fall on a crowded street in the city, how instantaneous is the aid\nthat cares for him. He is lifted and conveyed tenderly to his home, or\nto a hospital, or to some temporary resting-place if the ill be but a\nslight one. Strangers or friends, it matters not, rush to his rescue.\nThis, which occurs in the tangible and visible world, is but a feeble\nillustration of the more profound tenderness, the clearer\nunderstanding, the more potent aid that is given instantly to man from\nthe unseen helpers and friends in this spirit world which floats like an\natmosphere around this world of sense. It is all and equally the help of\nGod; it is the Divine answer to the call; but the Heavenly Father works\nthrough ways and means. If a man fall on the street God does not cause a\nmiracle to be wrought and a bed to descend from the clouds, but He works\nthrough the sympathies of the bystanders. Is it not equally conceivable\nthat the appeal for leading and for light sent into spirit spheres meets\nthe response of spirit-aid; that it awakens the interest and the\ninfinite tenderness and care of those who have passed from this life\ninto that of the next stage beyond, and that they are, according to\ntheir development and powers, co-workers with God, even as we who are\nyet on earth aim and pray to be?\n\nNow it is just this faith that is so largely pervading the religious\nworld to-day. Spirituality includes all the convictions that constitute\nethics. Spirituality is the unchanging quality in all forms of organized\nreligion. And it is found, in greater or in less degree, in every sect\nand every creed. Outward forms come and go; they multiply, or they\ndecrease, and the change in the expression of religious faith is a\nmatter largely determined by the trend of general progress; but the\nessentials of religion, under all organized forms, remain the same, for\nthe essential element is spirituality. In and around Copley Square in\nBoston, within the radius of one block, are several denominations whose\norder of worship varies, the one from another. The Baptist believes in\nimmersion as the outer sign of the inner newness of life; the\nEpiscopalian holds dear his ritual; the Unitarian and the Presbyterian,\nand perhaps a half-dozen other sects in close proximity (which express\nthe various forms of what they call \"new thought\"), each and all exist\nand have their being by virtue of the one essential faith held in common\nby all,--the one aim to which all are tending,--that of the\nspiritualization of life. The larger recognition of the spiritual\nuniverse includes the recognition of this interpenetration of the life\nin the Seen and the Unseen. Every thought and decision is like an\naction on the spiritual side. A thought has the force of a deed, and\nthere is a literal truth in the line,--\n\n  \"The good, though only thought, has life and breath;\"\n\nand in Lowell's words:--\n\n  \"Ah! let us hope that to our praise\n    Good God not only reckons\n  The moments when we tread His ways,\n    But when the spirit beckons.\"\n\nThe thought-life is, indeed, the most real of the two lives, and\ndominates the other. The events and achievements, held in thought and\nwill, precipitate themselves into outer circumstance and action.\n\nTo live in this perfect sympathy of companionship with the forces and\nthe powers of the unseen world is to dwell amid perpetual reinforcement\nof energy, solace, and sustaining aid, and with faith vitalized by\nspiritual perception.\n\nAll scientific problems are ethical, and even spiritual, problems. They\nare discoveries in the divine laws. \"Can man by searching find out God?\"\nApparently he approaches constantly to this possibility, and finds that\n\n      \"--through the ages one increasing purpose runs,\n  And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns.\"\n\nEvery succeeding century brings humanity to a somewhat clearer\nperception of the nature of the Divine Creation. However slowly, yet\nnone the less surely, does the comprehension of man and his place in the\nuniverse and his oneness with the Divine life increase with every\ncentury. Jonathan Edwards taught that while Nature might reflect the\nDivine image, man could not, as he was in a \"fallen\" state, until he was\nregenerated. Putting aside the mere dogma involved in the \"fall\" of man,\nthe other matter--that of regeneration, of redemption--is undeniable,\neven though we may interpret this process in a different manner from\nthat of the great eighteenth-century theologian. The redemption, the\nregeneration of man, lies in faith. In that is the _substance_ through\nwhich and by means of which man comes into conscious communion with God.\nIt is by the intense activity possible to this mental attitude that he\nconquers the problems of the universe, that he advances in knowledge,\nand advances in the increasing capacity to receive the Divine messages\nand to follow the Divine leadings.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A New Force.]\n\nOf late years a new force has been discovered in the line of\nethico-spiritual aid in the higher order of hypnotism, as discovered and\npracticed by Doctor Quackenbos, who may, indeed, without exaggeration,\nbe called the discoverer of this higher phase of applied suggestion. \"I\nhave been brought,\" he says, \"into closest touch with the human soul.\nFirst objectively; subsequently in the realm of subliminal life, where,\npractically liberated in the hypnotic slumber from its entanglement with\na perishable body, it has been open to approach by the objective mind in\nwhich it elected to confide, dynamically absorptive of creative\nstimulation by that mind, and lavish in dispensing to the personality in\n_rapport_ the suddenly apprehended riches of its own higher spiritual\nnature.\"\n\nOf the nature of this power, we again find Doctor Quackenbos saying:\n\"Hypnotic suggestion is a summoning into ascendancy of the true man; an\naccentuation of insight into life and its procedures; a revealing, in\nall its beauty and strength and significance, of absolute, universal,\nand necessary truth; and a portraiture of happiness as the assured\noutcome of living in consonance with this truth.\" The learned doctor\nregards hypnotism, indeed, as \"a transfusion of personality.\"\n\nThe truth is that there lies in every nature forces which, if recognized\nand developed, would lift one to higher planes and induce in him such an\naccession of activities and energies as to fairly transform his entire\nbeing and achievement. This would be effected, too, on an absolutely\nnormal plane. The development of the spiritual faculties is just as\nnormal as is that of the intellectual. And it is to this development\nthat we must look for the true communion with those who have passed into\nthe Unseen. The objective life must be spiritualized. The soul can come\ninto a deeper realization of its own dignity and the worth of its higher\nnature; can discern the spiritual efficiency, the energy commensurate to\nevery draft upon it.\n\nAll, however, that is done by the highest phase of hypnotism, as exerted\nby Doctor Quackenbos, can be done by auto-suggestion. The soul has only\nto call upon its own higher forces. It has only to act from love and\ncompassion,--from sympathy and generous aims, and all the infinite power\nof the Divine world is at its service.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Service of the Gods.]\n\n\"We had letters to send; couriers could not go fast enough, not far\nenough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring,\nsnowdrifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a\nwalk.\n\n\"But we found out that the air and earth were full of Electricity, and\nalways going our way--just the way we wanted to send. _Would he take a\nmessage?_ Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in\nno time. Only one doubt occurred one staggering objection--he had no\ncarpet bag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to\ncarry a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed\nto meet the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible,\ncompact form as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never\nwrought by needle and thread--and it went like a charm.\n\n     \"Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor,\n     to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chores done by the gods\n     themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might\n     of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light,\n     magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing.\"\n\nWith his wonderful insight into conditions, Emerson thus expresses a\nprovision of conditions that are now being realized to an even greater\ndegree than he consciously knew, although he unconsciously foretold\nthem. Now it is wireless telegraphy that is the ultimate fulfilment of\nwhat he saw,--the method that will reduce to practical realization his\ncounsel to hitch one's wagon to a star, and \"see his chores done by the\ngods themselves.\"\n\nIt is not only humanity--civilization--the onward sweep and march by the\nprogress of the world, but the individual life also that can take\nadvantage of \"the might of the elements.\" The one irresistible element\nis the power of will, the power that results from the perfect uniting of\nthe human will with the divine will. People talk of fate, and\nconditions, and burdens, and limitations. They are all merely negative,\nand are easily and instantly subject to the infinite and irresistible\npotency of the will brought to bear upon them.\n\nOn the threshold of any endeavor when one takes account of his\npossessions and conditions,--material and immaterial; when he again,\nfrom a new vantage ground, surveys his future, it is his salvation and\nsuccess to realize the depth and height of his own personal power over\nhis own life.\n\n  \"There are points from which we may command our life,\n  When the soul sweeps the future like a glass,\n  And coming things, full freighted with our fate,\n  Jut out on the dark offing of the mind.\"\n\nBut when these points appear they must be taken advantage of at the\nmoment. They are the result of an occultation of events that may never\noccur again within the limits of a lifetime. The swift intuition that\nleaps over all conceivable processes is the heaven-appointed monitor. It\nis the divine voice speaking. It is the word which must be obeyed. When\none\n\n  \"... by the Vision splendid\n  Is on his way attended,\"\n\nhe must give heed to the vision or it vanishes and returns no more.\n\nWe need a new, a deeper, a far more practical realization that the\nideals and visions which flash before us are the real mechanism of life;\nthat they are the working model by which one is to pattern his\nexperience, in outward selection and in grouping by means of his own\nforce of will. Somewhere has Emerson said,--\n\n  \"All is waste and worthless till\n  Arrives the wise selecting will,\"\n\nwhich is, to the potential circumstances, like a magnet introduced among\nfilings that suddenly attracts to itself and draws all into related and\norderly groups. Circumstances are thus amenable to the power of will\nbrought to bear that selects, arranges, combines, after the pattern of\nthe revealed ideal held in view.\n\nEach individual life may \"borrow the might of the elements.\" Man is\ncreated, not only in the image of God, but with God-like faculties and\npotency, which, if he but truly relate them to the divine potency, if he\nunite his will with God's will, there is then no limit, no bound to that\nwhich he may achieve.\n\nIn one of the most wonderful creations of Vedder, the artist shows us\nthe figure of a woman whose eyes are closed, and whose hands, lying in\nher lap, are inextricably entangled amid crewels and threads that bind\nand hold them. But one sees, also, that she has but to open her eyes,\nand lift her hands, and all the entanglement would fall off of itself.\nThe picture offers the most typical lesson of life. All imprisonment of\nconditions is dissolved into thin air the instant one impresses his own\nwill-power on the affairs and circumstances of his life. He _can_ do\nthat which he _desires_ to do. The desire has only to be intensified\ninto conscious, intelligent choice, into absolute will,--and all the\nminor barriers melt away and are no more. Every life may hitch its wagon\nto a star. It may borrow the might of the elements. It has but to\nresolve to hold its ideal firmly and clearly in mind, and it will then\nbe realized as the sculptor's dream in clay is realized in the marble.\n\"All things are yours,\" said Saint Paul. One has but to take his own; to\nwisely and clearly select the elements and combine them by that\nirresistible potency of mental magnetism and energy.\n\n\n\n\nTHE POWER OF THE EXALTED MOMENT.\n\n     \"The salvation of Christ is the complete occupation of the human\n     life by the divine life.\"\n\n     _It is in our best moments, not in our worst moments, that we are\n     most truly ourselves. Oh believe in your noblest impulses, in your\n     purest instincts, in your most unworldly and spiritual thoughts!\n     You see man most truly when he seems to you to be made for the best\n     things. You see your true self when you believe that the best and\n     purest and devoutest moment which ever came to you is only the\n     suggestion of what you were meant to be and might be all the time.\n     Believe that, O children of God! This is the way in which a soul\n     lives forever in the light which first began to burn around it when\n     it was with Jesus in the Holy Mount._--PHILLIPS BROOKS.\n\n\nThe power of the exalted moment is the very motor of human life. The\nexalted moment is the dynamo that generates the working energy. The\nmoment itself fades; it passes into the region of memory where its true\nservice is to shine, with the unfailing continuance of radium, as a\nperpetual illumination of life. It is the greatest, the saddest, the\nmost hopelessly fatal error that can be made,--to cast away from one the\nexalted moment because it has not fulfilled itself in outer condition\nand circumstance. Vision and prophecy are given by God for a working\nmodel, which the long patient days--days of monotony, of trial, of\ncommonplace work under commonplace conditions, amid commonplace people\nand events--are yet to fashion and fulfil. These are the material,--the\nordinary events, the commonplace daily duty. The perplexity of problems\nrather than the clear grasping of their significance; the\nmisunderstanding and the misconstruction of motive that make the tragedy\nof life; the interpretation of evil where one only meant all that was\ntrue, and sympathetic, and appreciative, and holy; the torture and\ntrial, where should be only sweetness of spirit and true\nrecognition,--of all these are the days made; all these are a part of\n\"the flowing conditions of life,\" which it is the business, the\nresponsibility, the personal duty, to transmute into noble living, into\npoetry and ecstasy and exaltation, and into that perfect faith in God\nthat can truly say, \"Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.\" Though\nHe slay all that made life seem worth the living; the enchantment, the\nresponse of sympathy; recognition rather than misconstruction,--though\nall these be obscured in what may seem a total eclipse,--still let one\nnot forget \"The Gleam;\" still let one keep faith with the power of the\nexalted moment. It came from God and held its deep significance. It laid\nupon its beholder consecration of divinest aspiration and unfaltering\neffort. \"If I could uncover the hearts of you who are listening to me\nthis morning,\" said Phillips Brooks, in a memorable sermon, \"I should\nfind in almost all--perhaps in all--of them a sacred chamber where burns\nthe bright memory of some loftiest moment, some supreme experience,\nwhich is your transfiguration time. Once on a certain morning you felt\nthe glory of living, and the misery of life has never since that been\nable quite to take possession of your soul. Once for a few days you knew\nthe delight of a perfect friendship. Once you saw for an inspired\ninstant the idea of your profession blaze out of the midst of its dull\ndrudgery. Once, just for a glorious moment, you saw the very truth, and\nbelieved it, without the shadow of a cloud. And so the question\ncomes,--What do they mean? What value shall I give to those\ntransformation experiences?\"\n\nOn the personal answer to that question depends all the success or the\nfailure; all the nobleness or the unworthiness of the individual life.\nNo one can estimate too ardently, or too earnestly, the spiritual\nsalvation of keeping faith with the exalted moment,--\n\n  \"Delayed, it may be, for more lives yet,\n  Through worlds I shall traverse--not a few,\n  With much to learn and much to forget\"--\n\nere the golden hour of fulfilment shall come; but faith in the exalted\nmoment is but another name for faith in God.\n\nThe great truth of life--that which we may well hold as its central and\ncontrolling and dominating truth--is that \"our best moments are not\ndepartures from ourselves, but are really the only moments in which we\nhave truly been ourselves.\" These moments flash upon the horizon of the\nsoul and vanish; they image themselves before us as in vision, and fade;\nbut the fact of their appearance is its own proof of their deep reality.\nThey are the substance compared with which all the lower and lesser\nexperiences are mere phantasmagoria.\n\nAnd this fulfilment is not found, but made. It is a spiritual\nachievement. So let one not reject, or ignore, or be despairing before\nundreamed-of, unexplained, and incomprehensible forms of trial, but know\nthat it is trial that worketh patience; know that \"no chastening for the\npresent seemeth to be joyous, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it\nyieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness unto them which are\nexercised thereby.\"\n\n\"It was given unto me,\" wrote Dante in the _Vita Nuova_, \"to behold a\nvery wonderful vision; wherein I saw things that determined me.\"\n\nIt may be given to any one at any time to behold the vision.\nCircumstances are fluidic and impressionable, and take on any form that\nthe mental power has achieved sufficient strength to stamp, and because\nof this--which is the explanation of the outward phenomena whose\nsignificance, on the spiritual side, is all condensed in prayer--one\nneed never despond or despair. At any instant he can so unite his own\nwill with the divine will that new combinations of event and\ncircumstance will appear in his life. A writer on this line of thought\nhas recently said:--\n\n     \"There is an elemental essence--a strange living essence--which\n     surrounds us on every side, and which is singularly susceptible to\n     the influence of human thought.\n\n     \"This essence responds with the most wonderful delicacy to the\n     faintest action of our minds or desires, and this being so, it is\n     interesting to note how it is affected when the human mind\n     formulates a definite, purposeful thought or wish.\"\n\nThere is a phase of occult thought represented at its best by Mr. C. W.\nLeadbeater of London, and at its worst by a host of miscellaneous\nwriters, whose speculations are more or less grotesque and devoid of\nevery claim to attention, who materialize thought and purpose, and\ninvest it with an organism which they name \"an elemental,\" and one finds\nMr. Leadbeater saying things like this, of the results of an intensely\nheld thought:--\n\n     \"The effect produced is of the most striking nature. The thought\n     seizes upon the plastic essence, and moulds it instantly into a\n     living being of appropriate form,--a being which when once thus\n     created is in no way under the control of its creator, but lives\n     out a life of its own, the length of which is proportionate to the\n     intensity of the thought or wish which called it into existence. It\n     lasts, in fact, just as long as the thought force holds it\n     together.\"\n\nMr. Leadbeater continues:--\n\n     \"Still more pregnant of results for good or evil are a man's\n     thought about other people, for in that case they hover not about\n     the thinker, but about the object of the thought. A kindly thought\n     about any person or any earnest wish for his good will form and\n     project toward him a friendly artificial elemental; if the wish be\n     a definite one, as, for example, that he may recover from some\n     sickness, then the elemental will be a force ever hovering over him\n     to promote his recovery, or to ward off any influence that might\n     tend to hinder it, and in doing this it will display what appears\n     like a very considerable amount of intelligence and adaptability,\n     though really it is simply a force acting along the line of the\n     least resistance--pressing steadily in one direction all the time,\n     and taking advantage of any channel that it can find, just as the\n     water in a cistern would in a moment find the one open pipe among a\n     dozen closed ones, and proceed to empty itself through that.\"\n\nThis train of speculation, which if one is to reject he must first\nconfront, is demoralizing. It leads nowhere save into mental quagmires\nand quicksands. It leads into materiality and not into spirituality. Of\ncourse with all this the one question is as to whether such conceptions\nare true; but judged by intuition, which is the Roentgen ray of\nspirit--judged by the data reached by scholars and thinkers, by\npsychologists and scientists--it has no claim to recognition. That\nthought is the most intense form of energy, its potency far exceeding\nthat of even electricity, is certainly true, and that one can think\nhimself--or another person--into new and different outward phases and\ncircumstances is most true.\n\nTesla, in a paper discussing the problem of how to increase the sum of\nhuman energy, considers the possibility of the existence of organized\nbeings under conditions impossible for us. \"We cannot even positively\nassert that some are not present in this, our world, in the very midst\nof us,\" he says, \"for their constitution and life manifestation may be\nsuch that we are unable to perceive them.\"\n\nThis speculative possibility opens the gate to the scientific\nrecognition of the truth that \"all the company of heaven\" may companion\nus, here and now, in the terrestrial life, invisible, intangible,\ninaudible to the perceptions of sense. It may largely be through their\nministry and mediation that the unforeseen and unexpected opportunities,\nprivileges, gifts fall upon man,--gifts that the gods provide.\n\nDreams, visions, and ideals are given that they may be realized. The\nvision is projected from the higher spiritual realm as the working\nmodel, the pattern of the life here. A dream is something to be carried\nout; not put aside and neglected and lost in over-lying and\never-accumulating stratas of experience. The dream, once clearly\nrecognized, becomes a personal responsibility. It has been revealed for\na purpose. It is the Divine revelation to the individual life, and these\nvisions are given to the individual as well as to humanity, and they are\nthe most significant occurrences in the entire experience of life. To\nonce clearly recognize this divine ideal, this glorious vision of\npossibilities that shines once and for all upon the individual, and then\nto turn away from it and leave it unrealized in the outward life: to put\nit by, because the effort to transform the vision into external and\nvisible conditions is surrounded with difficulties and invested with\nperplexities, is to wander into the maze of confusion. Difficulties are\nmerely incidental. They are neither here nor there. If God give the\ndream He will lead the way. If He gives it, He means something by it,\nand its significance should be appreciated and taken into life as a\nworking energy. It is the will of the Lord, and to pray sincerely that\nthe Divine will be done, is also to accept the obligation of entering\ninto the doing of it. Indeed, difficulties and perplexities in the way\ndo not count and should not. Briars and brambles there will always be,\nbut one's path lies onward all the same. Who would relinquish a right\npurpose because its achievement were hard? All the more should he press\non and gain the strength of the obstacles that he overcomes.\n\nDoctor William T. Harris says, \"Realize your ideals quickly.\" That is,\nan ideal is a responsibility; it is the working model that God has set\nbefore the individual; the pattern after which and by which he shall\nshape his life. If he accept and follow it with fidelity and energy;\nwith that energy born of absolute faith in the Divine leading,--he will\nfind himself miraculously led; he will find that the obstacle which\nappears so insurmountable in perspective vanishes as he comes near; that\na way is made, a path appears.\n\nIt chanced to the writer of these papers to take a long day's stage\ndrive one summer through the Colorado mountain region. For a distance of\nforty-five miles the solitary road wound on and on, ever ascending\nthrough the dreamy, purple mountains. The entire route was a series of\nvistas that apparently came to an abrupt end at the base of an\ninsurmountable height. The mountain wall seemed to utterly arrest\nprogress, as it rose across the ascending valley through which the\ndriver urged his \"four-in-hand,\" and no way to pass beyond the next\nmountain ahead could possibly be discerned. But as the stage drew near,\na way, unseen before, revealed itself, and the winding road found its\noutlet and onward course in another valley opening by a natural pass\nbetween the hills, and one that apparently in its turn was as inevitably\nblocked at its end by another mountain range. It was a constant interest\nto watch the changing landscape and discover the new ways that\nconstantly came in sight as fast as the need for them came. That day\namid the dreamy purple of the Colorado mountains was one to translate\nitself into renewed trust in the Divine guidance on the journey of life.\nSome wonderful words of Phillips Brooks seemed to write themselves on\nthe air:--\n\n     \"Look up, poor soul, out of the valley and know that on the top of\n     yonder shining mountain lies folded safe the secret of your life,\n     the oracle which would, if you could read it, solve all your\n     mysteries and tell you just exactly how you ought to live. Look up\n     out of the valley and know that it is there; and then turn back\n     again into the valley, for in the valley is the home where you must\n     live, and you can never read the oracle which you know is there\n     upon the mountain top.\"\n\nThat day, alone with the mountains and with God, was one to leave its\nimpress forever upon life. It was a day of solutions as well as of\nimpressions--of solutions of the problem of living. One has but to\nfollow the path that God has revealed to him, and however insurmountable\nthe difficulties that seem to hedge him in and to limit his progress,\nthey vanish as they are drawn near, and a way is revealed.\n\n[Sidenote: Obey the Vision.]\n\nTo forsake a dream as being impracticable and impossible of realization\nis to take the wrong turning in life, like one who leaves the mountain\nroad,--which winds in and out of the passes, on and on, and leads to a\ndefinite place at last,--and, because he sees an apparently impassable\nmountain wall across the path, forsakes this and wanders off into some\nother valley and defile that looks more open, but in whose mazes he\nloses himself and makes no progress toward his true destination.\n\nNo,--when the vision shines suddenly upon one's life, it is God's call\nto him to realize in it outward expression. The difficulties that hedge\nit round about will vanish as he approaches them. A dream is given to be\nrealized. It is the working model that God sends into one's life for\nthat full expression which alone is at once his best service and truest\nsuccess. It is the common daily work of fulfilling duties add meeting\nclaims. \"Not by the exceptional,\" says Maeterlinck, \"shall the last word\never be spoken; and, indeed, what we call the sublime should be only a\nclearer, profounder insight into all that is perfectly normal.\" It is of\nservice, often, to watch those on the peaks who do battle; but it is\nwell, too, not to forget those in the valley below who fight not at all.\nAs we see all that happens to these whose life knows no struggle; as we\nrealize how much must be conquered in us before we can rightly\ndistinguish their narrower joys from the joy known to them who are\nstriving on high, then, perhaps does the struggle itself appear to\nbecome less important; but, for all that, we love it the more. This\nnormal fulfilment of the due claims of ordinary life leads to that order\nof success which is a beautiful and desirable one, and which is almost a\nuniversal aim and purpose. Aspirations and energy are its factors, and\nthese are of all various and varying degrees of excellence according to\nthe specific aim in view. Success itself, therefore, is merely a\nrepresentative term, and may be used regarding almost every variety of\nachievement, from the triumphant winning of a game of football, the\nmaking of a great fortune, the attainment of professional or political\nrank, the production of great art, the acquirement of world-wide fame,\nor the achievement of character that is potent for fine and ennobling\ninfluence. All these are typical of myriad forms of the thing the world\ncalls success, and while it involves a vast amount of competition, of\nselfishness, of greed, of injustice, it is yet a matter of the progress\nof humanity that each individual should strive after the highest form\nof attainment that he is capable of conceiving. In the long run, and as\na general principle, this is advantageous and desirable. It involves and\nindeed develops many of the lower and baser qualities; but these are the\ntares among the wheat, and the wheat is essential. The great enterprise\nthat builds a railway across the continent, tunneling under mountains,\nor climbing the precipitous inclines; that inaugurates a new steamer\nline, or that exerts itself for the founding of institutions for culture\nor technical instruction; that concerns itself with municipal reforms\nand improvements,--all these expressions of energy are manifestations of\nsuccessful effort, and are necessary to the onward march of\ncivilization. Yet the visible achievement is not, after all, the\nrealization of the highest ideal of success.\n\nThe conditions of success may best be approached by a clearly defined\nidea of what success itself means, what it stands for to us, what\nproportion of our real life it represents. Success is the watchword of\nAmerican life--one might almost, indeed, say that it is made the test of\nour national life to a far greater degree than in any other country.\nThe elements are well defined in Emerson's phrase of \"the _flowing_\nconditions of life.\" They are, indeed, more than merely plastic and\nmalleable; they are fluid, flowing, and the constant advance into higher\nstates of life is precisely in proportion to the mental and moral force\nof the individual brought to bear upon them. Even this assertion,\nhowever, is to hold in the light of the true conception of success\nitself. We see a man whose life is conspicuously that of mental and\nmoral force, working faithfully and ably day by day, year by year, and\nyet never being free from certain financial anxieties, if not financial\nneeds; while his neighbor, who is neither very learned nor able, nor yet\nin any wise remarkable in his moral development, is living much after\nthe fashion of Midas, whose touch turned everything to gold. But is gold\nthe test of success?\n\nThe panorama of life is a complicated one. It used to be the fashion of\nthe novelists to represent the world of riches and fashion as the world\ndevoid of sympathy and love, and often, indeed, as devoid even of moral\nprinciple; while the world of poverty and toil was held up as composed\nof men and women whose lives were all unselfishness and sacrifice, and\nas those who truly followed the example of Him who was meek and lowly of\nheart. But the panorama of actual life reveals no such sharply defined\ndivisions as that. Virtue and vice are not checked off into special and\nseparate regions; wealth has its greatness of mind and beneficence of\nsympathy and love, and poverty has its selfishness and cruelty and\ninjustice. Other things being equal, the command of unlimited means may\nbe so used as to make it one of the great blessings of life, and this\nfact is attended and illustrated by such an increasing array of evidence\nas to make the statement merely the trite one of every-day fact. Again,\nthat prominence in affairs that we call position is good if rightly\nused, and to an increasing degree it is so used. _Noblesse oblige_ is\nthe watchword of modern life.\n\n  \"Success in thyself, which is best of all.\"\n\nThat line from a poem of Emerson's most clearly defines true success.\nThe \"power of conduct, the power of intellect and knowledge, the power\nof beauty, and the power of social life and manners,\"--to achieve such\npower as is thus enumerated by Matthew Arnold, and adding to it that\nwhich is greater than all, and that without which all else is useless\nand unvitalized, the power of the Divine energy received through\nprayer,--these are the powers and achievements that tend to the true and\nonly success,--the success of character.\n\nNew conceptions of the old watchwords of life are in the air. In\n\"Culture\" President Eliot of Harvard sees new points of view; he finds a\nnew definition of the cultivated man, who is not, in this\nTwentieth-Century reading of the term, to be \"a weak, critical,\nfastidious creature, vain of a little exclusive information or of an\nuncommon knack in Latin verse or mathematical logic; he is to be a man\nof quick perceptions, broad sympathies, and wide affinities, responsive\nbut independent, self-reliant but deferential, loving truth and candor,\nbut also moderation and proportion, courageous but gentle, not finished\nbut perfecting.\"\n\n\"The situation that has not its ideal was never yet occupied by man,\"\nwell said Goethe; and perhaps one of the greatest aids to both\nachievement and happiness would be to recognize this ideal as the\nstandard placed before one, the model after which he is to fashion his\nlife, because he is, now and here, in the Divine Presence, because now\nand here he \"stands before God.\" Nor is this too sublime a test for the\ntrivialities of every day. As a matter of truth, nothing is trivial that\nhas to do with the life of the spirit. The petty irritations,\nimpatience, vexations, and disappointments of life are things that\naffect one's spiritual quality, that make or mar his higher self, that\naccelerate or retard his progress in the upward way, according as these\nfeelings are allowed to take control or are resolutely conquered. The\noccurrences that excite them are, to the life of the spirit, like the\n\"gifts\" in a kindergarten,--they are the object lessons by means of\nwhich growth and progress are attained. Now, if one can conceive of his\nlife, every day, every hour, as lived in the very presence of the\nDivine; if he can realize himself at all times as \"standing before God,\"\nhow this recognition transforms all the conditions and circumstances!\nThe drama of living is instantly lifted up to a higher plane. That which\nwas hard becomes easy; that which was sad, or dull, or unattractive,\nbecomes invested with interest. One is living, not unto himself, but\nunto God. He is living within that marvellous, all-enfolding charm and\nradiance. He is an actor in the great spiritual drama, and he feels the\nstimulus of playing his part nobly and well.\n\nAnd they who have gone behind the curtain come forth and minister to\nhim. He is aware of the courage of companionship.\n\n  \"'Mortal,' they softly say,\n    'Peace to thy heart.\n  We, too, yes, mortal,\n    Have been as thou art.'\"\n\nVoices unheard by the outer ear speak to the soul; presences unseen by\nthe eye are yet felt, giving their sympathy and stimulus.\n\nIt is good to remember that it is not only after death that the soul\nstands before God; that here and now is the heavenly test to which life\nmust be held amenable; here and now must one make his thought and his\nacts those that know only the ideals of love and generosity and\nsweetness and courage. One may thus call up all his higher forces to\nmeet misunderstandings with patience and with love: to meet adverse\nfortune with courage and with stronger and more intense endeavor; to\nlive above the tide of jar or fret so as to dwell in perpetual radiance\nand sunshine of spirit. This is to \"stand before God\" here and now,\nthrough the days and the experiences of the life that is, as well as to\nanticipate standing before His Presence in that which is to come.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Open Door.]\n\nVisions and enthusiasms are the only true guides in life. To keep true\nto the ideal dream that in some rare and exalted moment falls upon the\nsoul, is to set one's steps toward that success which lies in\nfulfilment. Such dreams may be obscured by passing clouds; they may\nbecome entangled with the transient and the trivial; but nothing that is\ntemporary holds over them any power to disintegrate or to destroy, for\nthey are made of heavenly revealings and illuminations.\n\nThe ideal that reveals itself in a sudden vision of the higher harmonies\nand achievements possible to human life is but another name for the\nOpportunity which Shakespeare defines,--the opportunity that, if one\nfail to accept it, vanishes, to leave all the remainder of life \"bound\nin shallows and in miseries.\"\n\nThere is something about hesitation and reconsiderations that is\ncuriously fatal to successful achievement. Good fortune is in going\non,--not in going back. The parable of Lot's wife, who turned into a\npillar of salt because she looked back, is by no means inapplicable to\nthe life of to-day. Let one on whom the vision has shone look backward\ninstead of forward and he becomes paralyzed and immovable. He has\ninvoked inimical influences. He is impeded by the shallows and the\nmiseries. He has withdrawn himself from all the heavenly forces that\nlead him on. The fidelity to the vision is the vital motor. It gives\nthat exhilaration of energy which makes possible the impossible.\n\n\"The Americans have many virtues,\" said Emerson, \"but they have not\nFaith and Hope. I know no two words whose meaning is more lost sight of.\nWe use these words as if they were as obsolete as Selah. And yet they\nhave the broadest meaning and the most cogent application. The opening\nof the spiritual senses,\" continues Emerson, \"disposes men even to\ngreater sacrifices, to leave their signal talents, their means and skill\nof procuring a present success, their power and their fame,--to cast all\nthings behind in the insatiable thirst for divine communications. A\npurer fame, a greater power, rewards the sacrifice.\"\n\nEach recurring New Year is an open door. However arbitrary are the\ndivisions of Time, there is inspiration and exaltation in standing on\nthe threshold of an untried year, with its fresh pages awaiting record.\nIt is, again, the era of possibilities. The imaginative faculty of the\nsoul must, indeed, be \"fed with objects immense and eternal.\" Life\nstretches before one in its diviner unity,--even in the wholeness of the\nlife that is and that which is to come. There is not one set of motives\nand purposes to be applied to this life, and another set to that which\nawaits us. This is the spiritual world, here and now, and it is the\nbusiness of man to live divinely in it; to be responsive to the\nenthusiasms that enchant his thought; to be faithful to the vision that\nbeckons him on. It is well to drop the old that one may seize the new.\nProgress lies in a successive series of new conditions. Let one give all\nand ask for nothing,--let him yield himself wholly to the overpowering\nenthusiasm; let him not look backward from his vision of the Morning\nStar and the Promised Land, and thus shall the New Year fulfil itself in\never widening glory and that enchanting loveliness which invests the\nhigher fulfilments of life.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Interruptions as Opportunities.]\n\n\"To work, to help and to be helped, to learn sympathy through suffering,\nto learn faith by perplexity, to reach truth through wonder,--behold!\nthis is what it is to prosper, this is what it is to live,\" said\nPhillips Brooks. When Herbert Spencer produced his great \"Data of\nEthics\" he did not consider in it the ethics of interruptions which\nsometimes assume a formidable place in the strenuous life. One is\nperhaps exceptionally patient and tolerant when it is a question of\ngreat trial or calamity, and not infrequently very impatient with the\ntrifling annoyances and demands and interruptions that occur. Yet, is\nthere not just here a richness of opportunity in the aim to \"do good to\nall men\" that may often be unrecognized? A writer who may be pressed for\ntime finds in his mail-matter a number of personal requests from\nstrangers. One package contains manuscripts, perhaps, which a woman in\nMontana entreats shall be read and returned with advice or suggestion.\nSome one in Texas wants a paragraph copied that he may use it in\ncompiling a calendar. An individual in Indiana has a collection of\nautographs for sale and begs to know of the ways and means for disposing\nof them. And an author in Arizona desires that a possible publisher be\nsecured for her novel; and so the requests run on. Strictly speaking,\nperhaps, no one of these has any real right to thus tax the time and\nenergy of a stranger; but is there not another side to it? Here are an\narray of interruptions, but why not give them another name--that of\nopportunities? One has, perhaps, his theories and his convictions\nregarding the service of humanity. He holds it to be a duty,--a\nprivilege. He believes that it is through entering into this service\nthat he may even co-operate with God in the onward progress. To \"help\nhumanity\" is a very attractive and high-sounding term. But what is\nhumanity? Is it not, after all, composed of individuals? And here are\nindividuals to be helped; here they are, with their several individual\nrequests, and the injunction of the apostle suggests itself, \"_As ye\nhave therefore opportunity_, ... do good unto all men.\" Do not the\ninterruptions assume a new form, and are they not, thereby, transfigured\ninto glad and golden opportunity?\n\nAnd it is the will of God,--that great, resistless, and unceasing force,\nworking underneath all our human wills--it is the will of God\nmanifesting itself in small things as well as in those that seem\noutwardly more important, that has grouped all these special things\ntogether and sent them on an especially busy morning. Shall not one\nrejoice and recognize that the need of another is brought as a privilege\nto himself? The blessedness of giving is not limited to cheques and\nbank-bills. There are gifts that far transcend these,--gifts of\npatience, sympathy, thought, and counsel, and (such is the blessedness\nof the Divine Law) these are gifts that the poorest can give. The need\non the one side may be the luxury on the other, for it invites\nsympathetic comprehension and the enlargement of friendly relations. And\nas for one's time,--even in a full and busy life,--it is not so much\ntime that one requires as it is right conditions. An hour will do the\nwork of a day, when the conditions are harmonious; and nothing so\nincreases the degree of spiritual energy as the glow and ardor and joy\nof doing some little service for another. In this lies the real\nblessedness, the real luxury of life, and one reads the profound\nsignificance in the words of Maeterlinck: \"It is well to believe that\nthere needs but a little more courage, more love, more devotion to life,\na little more eagerness, one day to fling open wide the portals of joy\nand truth.\" These qualities redeem the temporal to the immortal, for\nimmortality is a condition of the soul, not a definite period in time.\nThe soul, now and here, may put on immortality. Life is, after all, an\naffair of the immortal self, and it is the invisible powers which are\nits stay, its guide, and its inspiration. We live and move and have our\nbeing on the divine side of things. We only live--in any true sense--as\nwe are filled with the heavenly magnetism. \"Thou hast made known to me\nthe ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance,\"\nsays the apostle. Here is the true gospel to live by. There _are_ \"ways\nof life;\" even through toil and trial they shall be reached. The one is\neternal, the other temporal. It is unwise to lay too much stress on the\ninfelicities of the moment. Exaltation alone is real; depression is\nunreal. The obstacle before one is not intended to stop progress, but to\nstimulate new energies to the overcoming.\n\n     \"By living so purely in thought and in deed as to prevent the\n     interposition of any barrier between his phenomenal and substantial\n     self; and by steadfastly cultivating harmonious relations between\n     these two,--by substantiating the whole of his system to the Divine\n     Central Will, whose seat is in the soul,--the man gains full access\n     to the stores of knowledge laid up in his soul, and attains to the\n     cognition of God and the universe.\"\n\nAmong the \"devastators of a day\" there is encountered, however, a vast\narmy of persons who advertise themselves vociferously as being\nwonder-workers of human life. According to their insistent\nproclamations, poverty is a \"disease,\" and is to be cured by a course\nof correspondence lessons; beauty, address, gifts and graces and power,\nare secrets of which they hold the key; even death, too, is but another\nmental malady and is easily to be overcome by their recipes. All these\nfraudulent representations--as absurd as they are false--are but the\ngross distortion of the underlying truth that thought creates conditions\nand controls results. Thought cannot transform poverty into wealth by\nmeans of six lessons; but the right quality of thought can set in motion\nthe causes which, carried on to fulfilment, result in an increasing\nprosperity and welfare. One may thus achieve the top of his condition\nthrough serenity and poise of spirit, and thus be enabled to see events\nand combinations in their true perspective. He is not overwhelmed and\nswept into abysses of despair because some momentary disaster has\noccurred, but he regards it in its relative significance to the general\ntrend of matters, and thus remains master of the situation.\n\nStill, if there are spurious claims to the power of the magician, and if\nthese claims, paraded by the idle, invade disastrously the realms of\nthe industrious in a continual procession of interruptions, there is\nsomething, too, to be said on the side of another--and a very genuine\nsort of wonder-working,--to transmute these interruptions into\nopportunities.\n\nIndividuality is the incalculable factor in life, and it is one, too,\nthat must be fully allowed for, if one would proceed as harmoniously as\npossible among the unseen brambles and pitfalls that may beset his\nonward pathway. A very large proportion of the discords of life arise\nfrom the failure to take into consideration the special qualities in\ntheir special grouping that determine the person with whom one has to\ndo,--qualities which are, practically, unalterable, and must simply be\naccepted and borne with as best one may. There is the person, for\ninstance, who is always and invariably behind time in every movement of\nhis life. He leaves undone the things that ought to be done, until there\nis little use in doing them at all. He exhausts the patience and excites\nthe irritability of his friend, who is, by nature, prompt and always up\nwith the hour. There is the person who, from some latent cause in his\ncharacter, always manages badly; who reduces all his own affairs to\nconfusion; who contrives to waste more money, time, and energy than\nindustry and energy can produce; whose normal condition is a crisis of\ndisaster, and who, if extricated from this seventy times seven, will\ncontrive to fall into it again. All these, and a thousand variations on\ncharacters of this type, we see around us, or within ourselves,\nconstantly, and a liberal proportion of the trial or discord incident to\nfamily life, or to friendship and companionship, is simply in constantly\ndemanding of another that which he cannot give, which he does not\npossess. To ask of the habitual procrastinator that he shall be prompt;\nor of the defective manager that he shall keep his affairs in order and\nmake the most and the best out of his possessions, is totally useless.\nIn the evolutionary progress of life, he will probably, sometime and\nsomewhere, learn wisdom and do better; but habit and temperament are not\nliable to meet a sea change into something new and strange all in the\nflash of a moment, and it is worse than useless to demand this, or to be\nirritated, or impatient, or even too sorrowful, because of this fact.\nThere are things that cannot be cured,--at least, not immediately.\nTherefore they must be endured. When one once makes up his mind to the\nacceptance of this theory it is astonishing to see how it simplifies the\nproblem. The philosophy is merely to do one's own part, but not to make\nany superhuman effort to do the other person's part also. Let it go.\nThere is no use in making a _casus belli_ of the matter. Nothing is ever\nhelped by irritation over it,--even the irritation of generosity and\nlove, which seeks only the good of the other.\n\nThere is, for instance, the procrastinating correspondent. You write,\nand you want a reply, and you want it straightway. On your own part you\nwould make it with the promptness and despatch of the United States mail\nitself, but your correspondent is not constructed after the fashion of a\ngalvanic battery, and although he means to respond at once, he doesn't.\nHe has not the temperamental apparatus that works in that way. He has,\nperhaps, a thousand qualities that are better, finer, more important,\nbut he does not happen to have that particular one. What then? Shall you\nmake his life and your own a burden with complaint and reproach? By no\nmeans. Let it pass. It is a part of his individuality, and cannot--at\nthe moment, at least--be altered. This one must frankly accept as the\ndefect of his friend. But recognizing the defect need not blind one to\nthe thousand virtues that his friend possesses.\n\nIn fact, as we have each and all our individual sins, negligences, and\nweaknesses, we may well limit our zeal for reform to our own needs, at\nleast until we have achieved such perfection that we are entitled to\nrequire perfection on the part of our associates.\n\nTo the orderly, thrifty type of New England temperament nothing is more\nincompatible with sympathy than the bad management of the person not\nendowed with \"faculty,\" as Mrs. Stowe well expresses it. And it must be\nconceded that a lack of the power essential to dominate the general\naffairs of life and keep them in due subordination and order, is an\nunmistakable draft on the affections. It is a problem as to just how far\naid and sympathy do any good, and not infrequently the greater the real\ncare and affection, the greater, too, is the irritation and the\nannoyance. But even the annoyance born of tender interest and love, it\nis better not to feel too keenly. Let one do what he can,--do all that\nis reasonable and right to assist in counterbalancing the ills that\narise from defective management, and then let it pass, and not take it\ninto his mind as a source of constant anxiety. We have all our lessons\nto learn, and every failure brings its own discipline as the inevitable\nresult. \"Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer,\" as\nEmerson so well says; \"if not, attend to your own work, and already the\nevil begins to be repaired.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Charm of Companionship.]\n\nOf society, in the true sense, social life offers comparatively little.\nIn the midst of ceremonial assembling one is starved for companionship.\nOne may live in the very heart of what is held to be a brilliant social\nseason and be as unutterably lonely as if in a desert solitude. Indeed,\nthe latter offers compensations which the former denies. There is a\ngreat deal of companionship, however unrecognized, in the cloud of\nwitnesses that encompass us round about, and whose presence is less\nvividly felt in the gleam and glitter of ceremonial society. The more\ngeneral assemblages of clubs, teas, and receptions are so incorporated\ninto the social system that no one could cancel these if he would, nor\nwould he if he could. They have their uses. All exchange of human\nsympathies is good, even if it be somewhat superficial and spectacular.\nThe more exclusive dinners are not without their special charm as\noccasions when conversation becomes possible on a less unsatisfactory\nscale than the exchange of inanities in crowded receptions. Yet, with\ndue recognition of the stimulus and the brilliancy that may flash from a\nselect group of people, the deeper truth remains that it is only in a\nmore personal companionship that is found the supreme luxury of life,\nand that companionship is a relation existing solely between two,\nrefusing its spell when that number is increased.\n\nNothing is less considered by society than companionship. It is\nconsidered an unheard-of waste of time to devote an entire evening to\none guest, when, indeed, five, ten, or fifty might be warmed, lighted,\nand fed in the same time. The fashionable hostess invites her friends to\npay off her social debts. If she can pay off fifty or five hundred--in\nthe time that she would give to one, she felicitates herself on her\nclever management. The idea of inviting her friends because she really\nwishes to talk with them would bewilder her. She does not converse; she\n\"receives.\" She arrays herself in her smartest gown, and her social\ninterchange with each guest consists in a graceful greeting and a no\nless graceful adieu, followed by an epoch of private gratitude that the\nrequired entertainment is over. She consults her visiting list and\nconscientiously arranges for her next reception, or dinner, or dance, in\nthe fulfilment of what she is pleased to call her social duties. And all\nthis, however superficial or spectacular it may be, has its place, and\nserves, with more or less success, to promote social meeting,\npreliminary acquaintance, out of which the choicest friendships\nsometimes spring. But it is quite possible to concede that certain\nformalities and ceremonial observances have their legitimate place\nwithout conceding that they monopolize the resources of social\nenjoyment. When one comes to that--it is quite another matter.\n\nThe supreme gift and grace and enchantment of life is in sympathetic\ncompanionship. And this, in its truer sense, is a relation of spirit, an\nelective affinity, rather than a mere concurrence of intellectual or\nartistic tastes. It is quite possible for two persons to like Sargent's\npictures, or to draw the line at the inane \"society\" play without, after\nall, finding themselves in any relations of especial sympathy. \"Only\nthat soul can be my friend,\" said Emerson, \"which I encounter on the\nline of my own march; that soul to which I do not decline, and which\ndoes not decline to me, but, native of the same celestial latitude,\nrepeats in its own all my experience.\" Margaret Fuller defined this\nsympathy as that of beings born under the same star. But phrases are of\nlittle worth,--the experience eludes all definitions and defies all\nphrasings. It exists by divine right, or it does not exist at all. It is\na law unto itself. It is a recognition that has to do with the inward\nsprings of thought and action.\n\nCompanionship is the inflorescence of social life,--its finest result,\nits most exquisite and perfect ideal. But it requires a certain degree\nof fitness. It requires the choice organization, the nobler and the\nfiner degree of spiritual development. The crude person can pass well\nenough in a social assemblage, but only the choicer individuality is fit\nfor that finer and more subtle relation of companionship.\n\nYet this highest realization of social enjoyment is, for the most part,\nrelegated to shreds and patches of time. The mornings must be given to\nlectures, readings, receptions, clubs, and teas; the evenings must be\ndevoted to dinners, dances, opera, concerts, plays, or musicales. For\ncommunion of friend with friend, spirit with spirit, there is no time.\nThe crowning joy of life, in its possibilities for sympathetic\ncompanionship, is ignored. For companionship is a spiritual joy, and\nsociety recognizes only the spectacular pleasures. The finer order of\nsocial life for which the world were well lost, awaits its evolution.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"The life a man lives and the life he ought to live belong together. The\nreal and the ideal lie side by side in the thought of God.\"\n\nThe distractions of life are every day's tragedy. The mutilation of\npurpose, the disintegration of time, the neutralization of all endeavor,\nwhich result from the perpetual occurrence of the unforeseen, cannot but\nprefigure itself as a theme for meditation to the worker who looks back\non a day, a week, a month, an entire season, in which \"the flighty\npurpose\" has never been overtaken. The calendar has the inexorableness\nof fate. The day, the month, goes by, unrelenting. It may be shattered\nwith feeble and inexpressive demands, but all the same it is gone, and\nit is unreturning. Whether freighted richly with the essential, or\nmerely burdened with the ineffectual, it is equally irretrievable.\n\nThis involves a problem of life full of spiritual perplexity. Certainly,\nno man liveth to himself, or, if he does, his living is a selfish and\nworthless thing. Certainly a man _is_ his brother's keeper--to a degree.\nThe poet whose dream is about to crystallize in verse is assured that\nlife is more than art, and that to sustain the spirits of the depressed\ncaller who appears at that precise instant, with the unfailing instinct\nwith which the depressed do invariably appear at a literary crisis,--he\nis assured that this act is a \"nobler poem\" than any he could write. And\nsuch is the tremendous impression that the gospel in the air of the\nservice of humanity makes on us all, that he dare not disregard this\npossibility. He is not absolutely sure, it is true, that he is \"serving\nhumanity\" in this individual instance, but he is not at all sure that it\nis _not_ true; and he reflects that other days are coming, when,\nperhaps, by some divine dispensation, the depressed caller will _not_\nappear! But there are no days on which he, or his prototype, is not on\nhand, and so the problem ever remains a present, an immediate, and,\nalas! an insoluble one. For this is an age when the depressed, who have\nnothing to do, require, to sustain their drooping spirits, the\nsympathetic ministrations of those who are too busy to indulge in the\nlanguid luxury of gentle and romantic sadness. In fact, they feel a\ncertain inalienable right to demand that current of sympathetic interest\nwhich otherwise would express itself in the specific work in which one\nis engaged. \"You desire to 'serve humanity,' do you?\" the depressed\ncaller says, virtually, as he fixes the mere worker with his glittering\neye. \"Well, I am Humanity. What is a book compared to a human soul?\nHere, before you, in living personality, is a need. Can you forsake it\nfor abstract literature?\"\n\nIf the unfortunate worker has any species of the New England conscience\nhe is at a disadvantage. He has nothing to say for himself. There are\nbehind him more than two centuries of his ancestors who have preached\nand practiced self-sacrifice, generosity, love. In one sense he is even\nenfeebled by his ethical nature. It possesses him, rather than enables\nhim to clearly and consciously possess it. He feels a certain magnetic\nattraction to the fulfilment of a definite purpose; but after all, the\nworld is full of purposes and of far greater and abler persons than\nhimself to carry them on; and perhaps this particular appeal is from one\nof those \"little ones\" whom the Christ he holds in reverence bids him\ncare for first of all. Perhaps the immediate human need should take\nprecedence over specific work. Perhaps it _is_ a real human need. \"Treat\nthe people as if they were real,\" said Emerson; \"perhaps they are so.\"\nAnd so he becomes the victim rather than the master of his own diviner\nlife. He sees through a glass darkly. He is not in the least sure that\nhe can do any good, but he is fearful he may do evil. And so he espouses\nwhat is really a negative side; a side of blind chance; a mere spiritual\ngambling, so to speak, and throws his stakes on the side of what _may_\nbe useful, as he cannot prove to himself that it is not, and his life\nbecomes a poor, mean, weak, ineffectual thing. He recalls Sir Hugo's\ncounsel to Daniel Deronda: \"Be courteous, be obliging, Dan; but don't\ngive yourself over to be melted down for the tallow trade.\" He becomes\nsadly conscious that his entire time, purpose, energies are being\nsimply, with his own dull consent, \"melted down for the tallow trade,\"\nand that he himself is by way of being on a far more perilous margin\nthan that of any one of the gently depressed spirits who devastate his\ndays, and command him to create for them,--not energy, purpose,\nwill,--but, instead, external conditions in which they may more\nluxuriously enjoy their romantic languor and their comforting\nconsciousness of superior qualities.\n\nNow is it not more than an open question that when temptation assumes\nthe masque of \"service,\" it is no less temptation, and that it is evil\ndisguised as good? The woman who reads the infinitely uplifting sermons\nof Rev. Doctor Charles G. Ames; who solaces what she is pleased to call\nher soul in that marvelously great work, \"The Expansion of Religion,\" by\nRev. Doctor E. Winchester Donald; who is excited--and mistakes it for\nbeing aroused--by Rev. Doctor Philip Moxom's noble book called \"The\nReligion of Hope;\" or who entertains similar emotions over recent new\nand great and uplifting books by Rev. Doctor George A. Gordon or Rev.\nDoctor Lyman Abbott, or many another, often evolves the pleasing fantasy\nthat all she requires for producing the same quality of work is the\nillumination of personal interviews or personal correspondence with\nthem. \"Surely,\" she reasons, \"these men are servants of the Lord, and I\nam one of the least of these whose needs they are divinely commanded to\nserve. Is not the life more than meat? Should not the minister break off\nhis morning meditation--an abstract thing, at best--to see me, who needs\nan immediate infusion of encouragement?\"\n\nAnd the tragedy of this is that the worker, who is true to his own\npurpose,--through good report or through ill report,--to the duties he\nis divinely commissioned to perform, is not infrequently entirely\nmisunderstood. The woman who sends him a voluminous manuscript,\naccompanying pretty phrasings regarding his work, and modestly\nrequesting that he shall read it, give his \"views\" on it, and decide\njust what editor or publisher will be rejoiced to issue it,--and who\nreceives her pages of outpouring back by return mail with a note,\nhowever courteous, expressing his inability to fulfil this\ncommission,--this woman becomes, as a rule, the enemy of the person who\ndeclines to be \"melted down for the tallow trade.\" She may do no\nparticular harm, but the antagonism is there. This, however, could be\nborne; but the nature sensitive to shades of human need is always liable\nto torture itself because of any failure to meet a specific demand. And\nthis torture is disintegrating to that force of positive energy which a\nspecial work requires.\n\nIs there not, then, a need for the gospel of one's own endeavor? that a\ngiven line of work, plainly revealed in hours of mystic communion with\nthe Divine, indicated by the subtle trend of circumstance and\ncondition,--is there not a need of realizing so clearly that it is the\nduty apportioned to the one fitted for it, that it shall inspire\nfidelity and reverence,--even at the risk of what the unthinking may\ndescribe as selfish absorption? For there are vast varieties of\nministering for ministering spirits. The work of the social settlement\nis divine; but the poet and the painter, if they produce poems and\npaintings, cannot devote their time to its work. And the poems and the\npictures have their value, as well as service in giving food and\nclothing to those in need. The special gift does require special\nconditions, and it is not selfish to insist on those conditions, when\nthe special work is held as unto the Lord. It often requires more\nheroism, more faith, more love to deny than to accede to a given\nrequest. To yield is often easy; to be steadfast to one's own purpose,\nshining like a star upon the horizon, is not infrequently very\ndifficult.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Summer Pilgrimage in Arizona.]\n\nNo pilgrimage of the Crusaders of old could be more impressive in its\nspiritual results than that which can be made to-day to the Grand Canyon\nof the Colorado in Arizona. The majesty and sublimity of the scene\nsuggest another world, not, indeed, an \"Inferno,\" but a \"Paradiso.\" It\nis a sea of color, a very New Jerusalem, on which one looks down from\nthe rim of this Titanic chasm. It is a vision not less wonderful than\nthat beheld by Saint John in the Isle of Patmos.\n\nThe term \"canyon\" is a misnomer for this supreme marvel of earth. One\njourneys to it anticipating a colossal variation on Cheyenne Canon or\nthe Royal Gorge. Instead, what does the tourist see?\n\nThe ridge of a vast mountain-chain over two hundred miles in length\nsplit asunder in a yawning chasm eighteen miles in width and over seven\nthousand feet deep; one in which a thousand Niagaras would be lost; in\nwhich a cliff that, relatively to the scene, does not impress one as\nespecially lofty, yet which exceeds in height the Eiffel Tower in Paris;\nand another which does not arrest special attention, yet is taller than\nthe Washington Monument. But the splendor of apparent architectural\ncreations arrests the eye. \"Solomon's Temple,\" the \"Temple of Vishnu,\"\nand altars, minarets, towers, pagodas, colonnades, as if designed by\narchitectural art, lie grouped in wonderful combinations of form and\ncolor.\n\n     \"An Inferno, swathed in soft, celestial fires; a whole chaotic\n     underworld, just emptied of primeval floods, and waiting for a new\n     creative word; a boding, terrible thing, unflinchingly real, yet\n     spectral as a dream, eluding all sense of perspective or dimension,\n     outstretching the faculty of measurement, overlapping the confines\n     of definite apprehension. The beholder is at first unimpressed by\n     any detail; he is overwhelmed by the _ensemble_ of a stupendous\n     panorama, a thousand square miles in extent, that lies wholly\n     beneath the eye, as if he stood upon a mountain peak instead of the\n     level brink of a fearful chasm in the plateau whose opposite shore\n     is thirteen miles away. A labyrinth of huge architectural forms,\n     endlessly varied in design, fretted with ornamental devices,\n     festooned with lace-like webs formed of talus from the upper\n     cliffs, and painted with every color known to the palette in pure\n     transparent tones of marvellous delicacy. Never was picture more\n     harmonious, never flower more exquisitely beautiful. It flashes\n     instant communication of all that architecture and painting and\n     music for a thousand years have gropingly striven to express. It is\n     the soul of Michael Angelo and of Beethoven.\n\n     \"The spectacle is so symmetrical, and so completely excludes the\n     outside world and its accustomed standards, it is with difficulty\n     one can acquire any notion of its immensity. Were it half as deep,\n     half as broad, it would be no less bewildering, so utterly does it\n     baffle human grasp. Something may be gleaned from the account given\n     by geologists. What is known to them as the Grand Canyon district\n     lies principally in northwestern Arizona, its length from northwest\n     to southeast in a straight line being about one hundred and eighty\n     miles, its width one hundred and twenty-five miles, and its total\n     area some fifteen thousand square miles. Its northerly beginning,\n     at the high plateaus in southern Utah, is a series of terraces,\n     many miles broad, dropping like a stairway step by step to\n     successively lower geological formations, until in Arizona the\n     platform is reached which borders the real chasm and extends\n     southward beyond, far into the central part of that territory. It\n     is the theory of geologists that ten thousand feet of strata have\n     been swept by erosion from the surface of this entire platform,\n     whose present uppermost formation is the Carboniferous; the\n     deduction being based upon the fact that the missing Permian,\n     Mesozoic, and Tertiary formations, which belong above this\n     Carboniferous in the series, are found in their place at the\n     beginning of the northern terraces referred to. The theory is\n     fortified by many evidences supplied by examination of the\n     district, where, more than anywhere else, mother earth has laid\n     bare the secrets of her girlhood. The climax in this extraordinary\n     example of erosion is, of course, the chasm of the Grand Canyon\n     proper, which, were the missing strata restored to the adjacent\n     plateau, would be sixteen thousand feet deep. The layman is apt to\n     stigmatize such an assertion as a vagary of theorists, and until\n     the argument has been heard it does seem incredible that water\n     should have carved such a trough in solid rock. It is easier for\n     the imagination to conceive it as a work of violence, a sudden\n     rending of earth's crust in some huge volcanic fury; but it appears\n     to be true that the whole region was repeatedly lifted and\n     submerged, both under the ocean and under a fresh-water sea, and\n     that during the period of the last upheaval the river cut its\n     gorge. Existing as the drainage system of a vast territory, it had\n     the right of way, and as the plateau deliberately rose before the\n     pressure of the internal forces, slowly, as grinds the mills of the\n     gods, through a period to be measured by thousands of centuries,\n     the river kept its bed worn down to the level of erosion; sawed its\n     channel free, as the saw cuts the log that is thrust against it.\n     Tributaries, traceable now only by dry lateral gorges, and the\n     gradual but no less effective process of weathering, did the rest.\"\n\nIn the innermost depths of this colossal chasm runs the Colorado River.\nDescending the stupendous crags and terraces by one of the two or three\n\"trails,\" the traveller at last stands upon a sandy rift confronted by\nnearly vertical walls many hundred feet high, at whose base a black\ntorrent pitches in a giddying onward slide that gives him momentarily\nthe sensation of slipping into an abyss.\n\n\"With so little labor may one come to the Colorado River in the heart of\nits most tremendous channel, and gaze upon a sight that heretofore has\nhad fewer witnesses than have the wilds of Africa. Dwarfed by such\nprodigious mountain shores, which rise immediately from the water at an\nangle that would deny footing to a mountain sheep, it is not easy to\nestimate confidently the width and volume of the river. Choked by the\nstubborn granite at this point, its width is probably between two\nhundred and fifty and three hundred feet, its velocity fifteen miles an\nhour, and its volume and turmoil equal to the Whirlpool Rapids of\nNiagara. Its rise in time of heavy rain is rapid and appalling, for the\nwalls shed almost instantly all the water that falls upon them. Drift is\nlodged in the crevices thirty feet overhead.\"\n\nDescending to this ledge the tourist \"can hardly credit Powell's\nachievement, in spite of its absolute authenticity. Never was a more\nmagnificent self-reliance displayed than by the man who not only\nundertook the passage of the Colorado River, but won his way. And after\nviewing a fraction of the scene at close range, one cannot hold it to\nthe discredit of three of Major Powell's companions that they abandoned\nthe undertaking not far below this point. The fact that those who\npersisted got through alive is hardly more astonishing than that any\nshould have had the hardihood to persist. For it could not have been\nalone the privation, the infinite toil, the unending suspense in\nconstant menace of death that assaulted their courage; these they had\nlooked for; it was rather the unlifted gloom of those tartarean depths,\nthe unspeakable horrors of an endless valley of the shadow of death, in\nwhich every step was irrevocable....\n\n\"Not the most fervid pictures of a poet's fancy could transcend the\nglories revealed in the depths of the Canyon; inky shadows, pale gildings\nof lofty spires, golden splendors of sun beating full on facades of red\nand yellow, obscurations of distant peaks by veils of transient shower,\nglimpses of white towers half drowned in purple haze, suffusions of rosy\nlight blended in reflection from a hundred tinted walls. Caught up to\nexalted emotional heights, the beholder becomes unmindful of fatigue. He\nmounts on wings. He drives the chariot of the sun.\"\n\nThe language is not yet invented that can suggest any adequate idea of\nthe Grand Canyon. Nor can it be painted or photographed, or in any way\npictorially reproduced in a manner to afford any suggestion, even, of\nits sublimity in design and its perpetual enchantment of color. One\nbeholds the temples and towers and mosques and pagodas glowing in\nrose-red, sapphire blue, with emerald and amber and amethyst, all\nblending, and swimming, apparently, in a sea of purple, or of pearl gray\nmist, the colors flashing through like flame under alabaster. The\nsunlight changes as the day wears on, and so this play of color\nchanges,--glowing, fading, paling, flaming. Watching these magical\neffects from dawn to sunset, watching the panorama of color as it\ndeepens into mysterious shadows and spectral illusions under the\nmoonlight, one can only say, \"What hath God wrought!\" To contemplate\nthis marvellous and sublime spectacle is to come into a new perception\nof the Divine creation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFormerly almost as inaccessible as the Himalayas, the Grand Canyon in\nArizona can now be reached by the most luxurious methods of modern\ntravelling. From Williams, on the Santa Fe road, a branch line of sixty\nmiles runs over the rolling mesas to the \"Bright Angel\" hotel at the\n\"Bright Angel Trail.\" The journey is enchanted by beautiful views of\nthe San Francisco mountains seen through a purple haze.\n\nThe entire journey through Arizona offers one of the most unique\nexperiences of a lifetime. Is this \"The Country God Forgot\"? The vast\nstretch of the plains offer effects as infinite as the sea. The vista\nincludes only land and sky. The cloud forms and the atmospheric effects\nare singularly beautiful. As one flies on into Arizona this wonderful\ncolor effect in the air becomes more vivid. Mountains appear here and\nthere: the journey is up a high grade, and one realizes that he is\nentering the altitudes.\n\nA special feature of interest in Arizona is the town of Flagstaff,\nfamous for the great Lowell Observatory, established there by Percival\nLowell, a nephew of the noble John Lowell, who founded the Lowell\nInstitute in Boston. Professor Percival Lowell is a man of broad and\nvaried culture, a great traveller, who has familiarized himself with\nmost things worth seeing in this sublunary sphere, and has only failed\nto explore Mars from reasons quite beyond his own control. At his own\nexpense he has founded here an Observatory, with a telescope of great\npower, by means of which he is making astronomical researches of the\ngreatest value to science. The special advantage of Arizona in\nastronomical study is not the altitude, but in the fact that there is\nthe least possible vibration in the air here. Mr. Lowell's work makes\nFlagstaff a scientific centre of cosmopolitan importance, and scholars\nand great scientists from all over the world are constantly arriving in\nthe little Arizona mountain town to visit the Observatory.\n\nFlagstaff has no little archaeological interest, also; the famous cliff\ndwellings of the Zuni tribe, which Frank Cushing explored and studied so\ndeeply, are within a few miles of the town, located on the summit and\nsides of an extinct volcano. They now present the appearance of black\nholes, a few yards deep, often surrounded with loose and broken stone\nwalls, and broken pottery abounds all over the vicinity. The most\nremarkable group of the cliff dwellers is to be seen in Walnut Canyon,\neight miles from Flagstaff. This is one of the deep gorges, the cliffs\nrising several hundred feet above the valley; and they are sheer\nterraced walls of limestone, running for over three miles. In these\nterraces, in the most singularly inaccessible places, are dozens of the\ncliff dwellings. Some of them are divided into compartments by means of\ncemented walls, and they retain traces of quite a degree of\ncivilization.\n\nThe petrified forests of Arizona are a most extraordinary spectacle,\nwith its acres of utter desolation in its giant masses of dead trees\nlying prostrate on the ground. Arizona is a land of the most mysterious\ncharm. The Grand Canyon alone is worth a pilgrimage around the world to\nsee,--a spectacle so bewildering that words are powerless to suggest the\nliving, changing picture. \"Long may the visitor loiter upon the rim,\npowerless to shake loose from the charm, tirelessly intent upon the\nsilent transformations until the sun is low in the west. Then the canyon\nsinks into mysterious purple shadow, the far Shinumo Altar is tipped\nwith a golden ray, and against a leaden horizon the long line of the\nEcho Cliffs reflects a soft brilliance of indescribable beauty, a light\nthat, elsewhere, surely never was on sea or land. Then darkness falls,\nand should there be a moon, the scene in part revives in silver light, a\nthousand spectral forms projected from inscrutable gloom; dreams of\nmountains, as in their sleep they brood on things eternal.\"\n\n[Sidenote: A Tragic Idyl of Colorado.]\n\n  I hung my verses in the wind,\n  Time and tide their faults may find.\n  All were winnowed through and through,\n  Five lines lasted sound and true;\n  Five were smelted in a pot\n  Than the South more fierce and hot;\n  These the siroc could not melt,\n  Fire their fiercer flaming felt,\n  And the meaning was more white\n  Than July's meridian light.\n  Sunshine cannot bleach the snow,\n  Nor time unmake what poets know.\n  Have you eyes to find the five\n  Which five hundred did survive?\n\n                    --EMERSON.\n\nNot only verses, but lives, are \"winnowed through and through,\" and time\nand tide reveal their faults and their virtues. In the history of the\nState of Colorado there is one man whose life and work stand out in\nnoble pre-eminence; whose character is one to inspire and to reward\nstudy as an example of intellectual and moral greatness. This man is\nNathan Cook Meeker, the founder of the town of Greeley, Colorado; the\nfounder and for many years the editor of the Greeley \"Tribune;\" later\nappointed by President Hayes, in a somewhat confidential capacity, the\nIndian Commissioner at White River, where he died the death of a hero,\nand where, marking the spot of the tragic massacre, the town of Meeker\nnow stands, among the mountains of the Snowy Range.\n\nMr. Meeker, who is one of the heroes of pioneer civilization, founded\nthis town in the very desert of sand and sage-brush. Its first inception\nis a wonderful idyl of the extension of progress into the unknown West.\nThe vision of the bands of singing angels in the air that fell upon the\nshepherds in the Judean plains was hardly more wonderful than the vision\nout of which the town of Greeley arose from the desert. On a December\nnight in the late sixties Mr. Meeker found himself one evening standing\nunder the brilliant starry skies of Colorado near the foot of Pike's\nPeak. The marvellous splendor of the scene filled his mind with sublime\npicturings. In the very air before him he seemed to see a city arise in\nthe desert--a city of beautiful ideals, of high purposes, of temperance,\neducation, culture, and religion. The vision made upon him that\npermanent impression which the heavenly vision, revealed for one instant\nto a life, forever makes, however swiftly it may be withdrawn; however\ndeep and dark the eclipse into which it fades and seems forever lost.\n\nTo Mr. Meeker had been granted the angelic vision. The ideal had been\nrevealed, and it was revealed in order that it might be realized in the\nouter and actual world. He felt the power, the nameless thrill of\nenchantment that pervades this wonderful country. One who is a poet in\nheart and soul has said of this Pike's Peak region:--\n\n     \"Over the range is another world--a happy valley hundreds of miles\n     in extent, fenced in with beauty and joy; palisaded with God's own\n     temples; roofed with crystal and gold, and afloat in dream life;\n     perpetual youth in thought and growth--all of it life to the soul;\n     music and rapture to the weary traveller of earth. Oh, the leaping\n     ecstasy of it by day and by night, and at the dawn!\"\n\nThis indescribable ecstasy of the Colorado air communicated itself to\nMr. Meeker. He went home to New York; he called a meeting in Cooper\nInstitute; Horace Greeley presided, and Mr. Meeker outlined his plans to\nthe large audience. He presented them, also, in full detail in the\ncolumns of the \"Tribune,\" and the result was that in 1870 he led a\ncolony of some seven hundred to this most favorable site--now mid-way\nbetween two state capitols--fifty miles north of Denver and fifty miles\nsouth of Cheyenne; he laid out the town with broad boulevards and double\nrows of shade-trees while yet they lived in tents, and the shade-trees\nseen in his imagination are now an established fact. Greeley is to-day a\ntown embowered in trees. The first work was to dig a canal at a cost of\nsixty thousand dollars, this being the initial experiment of upland\nirrigation. Such is, in outline, the history of Greeley, which the\ncolony desired to name Meeker--for its founder--but which Horace\nGreeley's friend and associate editor insisted should bear its present\nname. Greeley is known as the \"garden city\" of Colorado, and that it was\nfounded in faith and in ideals has been a determining fact in its\nquality of life and its phenomenal progress.\n\nNathan Cook Meeker was born in the \"Western Reserve,\" in Ohio, in 1814,\ncoming of the order of people whom Emerson characterized as those \"who\ngo without the new carpet and send the boy to college.\" Behind him were\na long list of distinguished ancestry, men who through successive\ngenerations had stood for achievements. Mr. Meeker in his youth taught\nschool, went into journalism, was connected with the New York \"Mirror,\"\nand later was associated with George D. Prentice on the Louisville\n\"Journal,\" now the \"Courier-Journal,\" edited by the brilliant Henry\nWatterson. A versatile writer in both prose and verse, he wrote two or\nthree books, one of which he dedicated to President Pierce. He married a\nwoman of great force and exaltation of character, a native of\nConnecticut, and a descendant of Elder Brewster. She shared his aims and\nideals.\n\nIn the decade of 1860-70 Horace Greeley, who was always waving his\ndivining rod to see if it indicated the proximity of genius, discovered\nMr. Meeker, and invited him to become the agricultural editor of the\n\"Tribune,\" succeeding Solon Robinson. Mr. Meeker's work made a strong\nimpression on the reading public of the day, and even Emerson inquired\nas to the authorship of some of Mr. Meeker's editorial work, which won\nthe appreciation of the Concord seer.\n\nIn 1868 Mr. Meeker made a trip to the West for the \"Tribune,\" writing a\nseries of valuable letters embodying his observations of the country. It\nwas during this journey that the night came which lends itself to\nimaginative picturing with dramatic vividness when, just after\nChristmas, he stood in the Garden of the Gods near the foot of Pike's\nPeak, while the stars of the Colorado skies blazed above him, and, as if\nby a flash of vision saw a town arise in the desert. The vision fell\nupon him like an inspiration. Founding towns seemed, indeed, to run in\nthe family, as one of his ancestors had founded the town of Elizabeth,\nNew Jersey, naming it after his wife.\n\nMr. Meeker returned to the Tribune office with his dream of a beautiful\ncity to arise out of the sand and sage-brush of the desert. An idealist\nhimself, Mr. Meeker had also the good fortune of having married a woman\ncapable of sharing ideal dreams and of rising to the heights of\nsacrifice, and she, too, embraced his new enthusiasm.\n\n\"Go ahead,\" replied Mr. Greeley, when Mr. Meeker mentioned his new\nproject, \"the 'Tribune' will back you.\"\n\nA meeting was then called in Cooper Institute, as before stated, Horace\nGreeley presiding, and John Russell Young entering into the idea with\nsympathy. Mr. Meeker presented his project of a Union colony to\nestablish itself in Colorado. Of the conditions he said:--\n\n\"The persons with whom I would be willing to associate must be\ntemperance men and ambitious to establish good society, and among as\nmany as fifty, ten should have as much as ten thousand dollars each, or\ntwenty should have five thousand dollars each, while others may have\nfrom two thousand to one thousand dollars and upward. For many to go so\nfar without means could only result in disaster.\"\n\nThe members were to each contribute one hundred and fifty-five dollars\nto a fund to purchase and prepare the land. It was in April of 1869 that\nthe committee made the purchase of forty thousand acres, located between\nthe Cache la Poudre and the South Platte rivers, twenty-five miles from\nthe Rocky Mountains and in full sight of Long's Peak. Greeley has a\nbeautiful situation, and a perfection of climate that perhaps exists\nhardly anywhere else in all Colorado. Whatever the heat of the day, the\nnights are cool. The days are so bright, so beautiful, that they seem a\nvery foretaste of paradise.\n\nIn the spring of 1870 the seven hundred members of Union Colony, with\ntheir families, arrived.\n\nMr. Meeker further stipulated:--\n\n\"In particular should moral and religious sentiments prevail, for\nwithout these qualities man is nothing. At the same time tolerance and\nliberality should also prevail. One thing more is equally important.\nHappiness, wealth, and the glory of a state spring from the family, and\nit should be our aim and a high ambition to preserve the family pure in\nall its relations, and to labor with the best efforts life and strength\ncan give to make the home comfortable, to beautify and to adorn it, and\nto supply it with whatever will make it attractive and loved.\"\n\nHe added: \"I make the point that two important objects will be gained\nby such a colony. First, schools, refined society, and all the\nadvantages of life in an old country; while, on the contrary, where\nsettlements are made by the old method, people are obliged to wait\ntwenty, forty, or more years. Second, with free homesteads as a basis,\nwith the sale of reserved lots for the general good, the greatly\nincreased value of real estate will be for the benefit of all the\npeople, and not for schemers and speculators. In the success of this\ncolony a model will be presented for settling the remainder of the vast\nterritory of our country.\"\n\nEvery deed granted forbade the sale of intoxicating liquors. The town\nwas founded in the purest moral ideals of education, culture, faith, and\nprayer, and Greeley is everywhere pointed out to the tourist in Colorado\nas one of the most interesting features of the Centennial state.\n\nOf the town Mr. Meeker himself said in one of his letters to the\n\"Tribune\": \"Individuals may rise or fall, may live or die; property may\nbe lost or gained; but the colony as a whole will prosper, and the spot\non which we labor so long as the world stands will be a centre of\nintelligence and activity.\"\n\nIn 1876 Mr. Meeker was appointed commissioner from Colorado to the\nCentennial Exposition. He was strongly talked of for Congress, but his\ndestiny led elsewhere.\n\nEarly in the seventies he founded \"The Greeley Tribune,\" which he edited\nwith conspicuous ability, making it the leading country paper of that\npart of the state.\n\nThe Indian troubles became a prominent problem of the government in the\ndecade of the seventies, and this question deeply engaged Mr. Meeker's\nattention. He had his own theories regarding their treatment--ideas much\nin advance of his time, and which in some respects have been adopted in\nthe best Indian legislation in Washington within the past two years. One\npoint in Mr. Meeker's policy was that \"work should go hand in hand and\nto some extent precede school education\"--an insight comprising much of\nthe truth taught to-day by the more eminent leaders of industrial\neducation, and one which the recent Indian legislation, during the\nfifty-seventh Congress, has recognized. Mr. Meeker believed that the\nIndian could be advanced into the peaceful arts of civilized life, and\nthis aim he held with conspicuous courage and fidelity.\n\nWith a desire to carry out these theories, Mr. Meeker applied for and\nreceived, under President Hayes, the post of commissioner to the Utes on\nWhite River in Colorado, his appointment being, as before stated, of a\nsomewhat confidential nature, and charged with more important\nresponsibilities than are usually included in this office. Mr. Meeker\nentered on the duties of this position with much that same high and\nnoble purpose that inspired General Armstrong in his work at Hampton.\n\nGeneral Hall of Colorado, who is said to be the most authoritative\nhistorian of that state, thus wrote of Mr. Meeker's entrance on the\nagency at White River.\n\n     \"In the spring of 1878 Mr. Meeker, founder of Union Colony and the\n     now beautiful city of Greeley, at his own solicitation was\n     appointed resident agent, succeeding several who had attempted to\n     carry this benevolent enterprise into effect, but without material\n     success. He was a venerable philanthropist, eminently representing\n     the humanitarian school of the Atlantic seaboard, under the example\n     of Horace Greeley, whom he revered above all the public men of his\n     time.\n\n     \"Thoroughly imbued with the purpose of educating, refining, and\n     Christianizing the wild rovers of the mountains, and longing for an\n     opportunity to put his cherished theories into practice, confident\n     of his ability to bring about a complete transformation of their\n     lives and character, he entered upon the work with deep enthusiasm.\n     His ideals were splendid, eminently worthy of the man and the\n     cause; but, unhappily, he had to deal with savages, of whose\n     natures he was profoundly ignorant. He took with him his wife and\n     youngest daughter, Josephine, and also a number of mechanics from\n     Union Colony to aid in the great work of regeneration and\n     redemption.\"\n\nThe Honorable Alva Adams of Pueblo, Colorado, ex-Governor of the state,\nwriting of Nathan Cook Meeker, said:--\n\n     \"Meeker was a patriot, and no soldier upon the field of battle was\n     more loyal, and no one in the annals of our country has ever made a\n     more awful sacrifice than the Meekers. But I need not tell the\n     story. Back of it is the incompetent treatment of the Indians that\n     was responsible for the Meeker massacre. Upon the government rests\n     the blood and outrage of the Meekers. Nor can I recall that the\n     Indians were ever adequately punished for the crime. It is a black\n     spot.\"\n\nMrs. Meeker entered into the views and the work of her husband in this\nnew field with sympathetic comprehension and sustaining aid. Their\nyoungest daughter, Josephine, who shared the idealism of the family,\nopened a free school for the Indians.\n\nMr. Meeker encountered peculiar difficulties over a period of several\nmonths, during which he appealed, unsuccessfully, for government aid and\nprotection. General William T. Sherman, in his report (1879) to the\nSecretary of War, alludes to these troubles; General Pope was familiar\nwith the situation, and Major Thornburg, at Fort Steele, held himself\nready to send protection to Mr. Meeker at a day's notice; but the\ngovernment failed to give that notice.\n\nThe tragedy came swiftly and suddenly, like the fates in a Greek drama,\nand on September 29, 1879, Mr. Meeker was brutally massacred, his wife\nand daughter were taken into captivity, where, for twenty-three days,\nuntil rescued by General Adams, they endured unspeakable sufferings, and\nthe agency buildings and their contents were burned.\n\nTo the awful spectacle of her husband's mutilated body, his wife--a\nwoman of gentle birth and breeding--was led by the Indians, in their\nsavage cruelty, to thus first learn of the tragedy. Through her agony of\ntears she pleaded to be allowed to stop and kiss the cold lips of him\nwhose faithful, tender companion and wife she had been for thirty-five\nyears. This last sacred consolation was denied her. With diabolical glee\nthey reviled her tears and her prayers.\n\nHer daughter Josephine, a girl of twenty, with the Evangeline type of\nface, was torn from her arms and hurried away into a deep, lonely canyon,\nwhich is now called \"Josephine Valley.\" Mrs. Meeker herself was shot in\nher hip and left lame for life. She was thrust on a horse without even a\nsaddle and carried off into the lonely mountains in this terrible\ncaptivity. Yet so sublime is the character of Mrs. Meeker in her deep\nreligious feeling that in this moment of supreme desolation,--her\nhusband's murdered body left alone on the ground; her daughter snatched\nfrom her arms; her home in smoking ruins behind her,--so remarkable is\nher character in its religious exaltation, that even in this hour of\nsupreme agony she could say, \"_Though He slay me_, yet will I trust in\nHim!\"\n\nA little mountain town of some five hundred inhabitants, named Meeker,\nfor the heroic man who there met his tragic death, now marks the site of\nthe massacre. Even at this day it is forty-five miles from the nearest\nrailroad station, Rifle, on the Denver and Rio Grand scenic route. The\nlittle town reminds one of Florence, Italy, in the way it is surrounded\nby amethyst mountains, and the White River on which it is located is far\nmore beautiful than the turbid Arno. The name of Nathan Cook Meeker is\nheld in the greatest reverence by the people of the entire region.\n\nOn an August afternoon more than twenty years after this tragedy a\nvisitor to Colorado stood on the site of the massacre under a sky whose\nintense blue rivalled that of Italy. With the peaceful flow of the river\nmurmuring in the air and the hum of insects in the purple-flowered\nalfalfa, the tragic scene seemed to rise again and impressed its\nlesson,--the ethical lesson of apparent defeat, disaster, and death in\nthe outer and temporal world, while, on the spiritual side, it was\ntriumph and glory and the entrance to the life more abundant. The man\nmight be massacred,--the idea for which he stood cannot die. It rises\nfrom the apparent death and is resurrected in the form of new and nobler\nand more widely pervading ideals which communicate their inspiration to\nall humanity.\n\nIn the cemetery of Greeley lie buried the body of Mr. Meeker and of his\ndaughter Josephine, whose early death followed close upon the tragedy.\nThe aged widow, now in her eighty-ninth year, still survives, occupying\nher home in this Colorado town. Mrs. Meeker retains all her clearness of\nintellect; all her keen interest in the affairs of the day. She reads\nher daily newspapers, writes letters that are models of beautiful\nthought and exquisite feeling, and still continues to write the verse\nwhich through life has been the natural expression of her poetic nature.\nMrs. Meeker writes verses as a bird sings--with a natural gift full of\nspontaneous music.\n\nThe work of Nathan Cook Meeker in all that makes for industrial and\nsocial progress and moral ideals contributed incalculable aid to\nColorado. All over the state the tourist is asked, \"Have you seen\nGreeley? That is our ideal town.\"\n\nDuring all the years of Mr. Meeker's residence in Colorado he remained a\nstaff correspondent of the \"Tribune.\" Horace Greeley went to the West\nand visited the Colony; and in the fine high school building of Greeley\nto-day, there hang, side by side, the portraits of Horace Greeley and\nNathan Cook Meeker.\n\nIn this world in which we live events are not finished when they have\nreceded into the past. They persist in the texture of life. They stand\nfor certain fulfilments, and, like Banquo's ghost, they will \"not down\"\nuntil their complete significance is worked out to its final conclusion.\n\n     \"Say not the struggle naught availeth.\"\n\nIt always avails. It matters little as to amassing of possessions; but\nit matters greatly as to the purity of a man's motives and the degree to\nwhich he keeps faith with his ideals. Unfalteringly, even unto death,\ndid Nathan Cook Meeker keep faith with those ideals that revealed\nthemselves to him.\n\nA noble work like that of Mr. Meeker is like the seed sown which is not\nquickened except it die. Sown in weakness, it is raised in power; sown\nin dishonor, it is raised in glory. The three years of the ministry of\nJesus on earth ended in defeat, disaster, and death. Was his life\nthereby a failure? Who has won the triumph's evidence--Pilate or Christ?\nLincoln had to die that the nation might live. Heroism is forever being\ncrowned with martyrdom.\n\nAll life is better to-day for every noble individual life that has been\nlived in the world. Nathan Cook Meeker was one who literally gave his\nlife to lofty ideals, and this hero whom the Silver State holds in honor\nand reverence merits the recognition of the nation.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Remarkable Mystic.]\n\n     \"The only affections which live eternally are those of the\n     soul--those which have struck deep into the man and made part of\n     his inmost being. The loves of the earthly mind die with it and\n     form no part of the permanent man.... To enter the heavenly sphere\n     and to come into communion with souls a generated state is\n     necessary. There are four atmospheres surrounding us, and only in\n     the highest of these do we find the freed soul. Interior knowledge,\n     earnest aspiration, and purity of thought and life, are the keys by\n     which alone can be opened the gates of the inmost and highest\n     sphere. The lowest is enlightened by the natural sun. It is that of\n     the present life of the body. The next is enlightened by the astral\n     or magnetic light, and it is that of the sidereal body. The next is\n     that of the soul, and it is enlightened by the spiritual sun. And\n     the highest is the immediate presence of God.\"\n\nSince the days of Jacob Behmen there have been no such remarkable series\nof mystic writings as are contained in the two volumes called \"The\nPerfect Way\" and \"Clothed with the Sun,\" by Doctor Anna Kingsford. Her\nbelief and her illuminations were crystallized in the affirmation, \"Life\nis the elaboration of soul through the varied transformations of\nmatter.\" She saw the entire purpose of creation to be the evolution and\nelaboration of the soul. Very little is generally known of Doctor\nKingsford. She was descended from an old Italian family, one of whom had\nbeen the architect of the Vatican, and, on her mother's side, from\nmingled German and Irish ancestry. She was the daughter of John Bonus,\nborn in England in 1846, and she married, in 1867, Algernon Godfrey\nKingsford, who subsequently took orders in the English Church. Three\nyears later Mrs. Kingsford entered the Catholic communion, and some\nyears afterward she studied medicine in Paris and received her degree.\nShe is said to have been very beautiful, with great talent in painting\nand in music, a poet of lyric gifts, and from her childhood she saw\nvisions and dreamed dreams. She died in 1888, and is buried in Atcham,\nnear Shrewsbury, where her husband had his parish.\n\nIn 1881 Doctor Kingsford delivered in London, before drawing-room\naudiences, comprising representatives of literature, art, fashion, and\nthe peerage,--audiences inclusive of the most notable people in London,\nthe nine lectures that are published under the title of \"The Perfect\nWay,\" and at the time these lectures inspired a profound interest. Their\ncentral theme is the Pre-existence and Perfectibility of the soul. \"The\nintuition,\" she says, \"is that portion of the mind whereby we are\nenabled to gain access to the interior and permanent region of our\nnature, and there to possess ourselves of the knowledge which in the\nlong ages of her past existence the soul has made her own. For that in\nus which perceives and permanently remembers is the soul. And all that\nshe has once learned is at the service of those who duly cultivate\nrelations with her.\" And those relations, she taught, are cultivated by\nliving so purely in thought and deed as to prevent the interposition of\nany barrier between the phenomenal (or the outer) and the substantial\n(or the inner) self; and by steadfastly cultivating harmonious relations\nbetween those two, by subordinating the whole system to the Divine\nwill,--thus does one gain full access to the stores of knowledge in the\nsoul. Doctor Kingsford further explains:--\n\n     \"For, placed as is the soul between the outer and the inner\n     mediator, between the material and the spiritual, she looks inwards\n     as well as outwards, and by experience learns the nature and method\n     of God; and according to the degree of her elevation, purity, and\n     desire, sees, reflects, and transmits God. It is in virtue of the\n     soul's position between the worlds of substance and of phenomenon,\n     and her consequent ability to refer _things_ to their essential\n     _ideas_, that in her, and her alone, resides an instrument of\n     knowledge competent for the comprehension of truth, even the\n     highest, which she only is able to behold face to face. It is no\n     hyperbole that is involved in the saying, 'The pure in heart see\n     God.' True, the _man_ cannot see God. But the divine in man sees\n     God. And this occurs when, by means of his soul's union with God,\n     the man becomes 'one with the Father', and beholds God _with the\n     eyes of God_....\n\n     \"And he to whom the soul lends her ears and eyes, may have\n     knowledge not only of his own past history, but of the past history\n     of the planet, as beheld in the pictures imprinted in the magnetic\n     light whereof the planet's memory consists. For there are actually\n     ghosts of events, manes of past circumstances, shadows on the\n     protoplasmic mirror, which can be evoked.\n\n     \"But beyond and above the power to read the memory of himself or of\n     the planet, is the power to penetrate to that innermost sphere\n     wherein the soul obtains and treasures up her knowledge of God.\n     This is the faculty whereby true revelation occurs. And revelation,\n     even in this, its highest sense, is, no less than reason, a natural\n     appanage of man, and belongs of right to man in his highest and\n     completest measure of development.\"\n\nDoctor Kingsford was an evolutionist, holding that development along\nevolutionary lines is a true doctrine, but she held that this\ndevelopment was not of the original substance, because that, being\ninfinite and eternal, is always perfect; and that the development lay in\nthe manifestation of the qualities of that substance, in the individual.\n\"The highest product, man,\" she said, \"is the result of the spirit\nworking intelligently within. But man attains his highest and becomes\nperfect _only through his own voluntary_ co-operation with the Spirit.\"\n\nDoctor Kingsford regarded Jesus as a spiritual Ideal and an Eternal\nVerity, and Religion as an ever-present actuality.\n\nWe find her saying:--\n\n     \"For every man makes his own fate, and nothing is truer than that\n     character is destiny. It is by their own hands that the lines of\n     some are cast in pleasant places, of some in vicious, and of some\n     in virtuous ones, so that there is nothing arbitrary or unjust. But\n     in what manner soever a soul conducts itself in one incarnation,\n     by that conduct, by that order of thought and habit, it builds for\n     itself its destiny in a future incarnation. For the soul is\n     enchained by these prenatal influences, which irresistibly force it\n     into a new nativity at the time of such conjunction of planets and\n     signs as oblige it into certain courses and incline it strongly\n     thereto. But if the soul oppose itself to these influences and\n     adopt some other course,--as it well may to its own real\n     advantage,--it brings itself under a 'curse' for such period as the\n     planets and ruling signs of that incarnation have power. But though\n     this means misfortune in a worldly sense, it is true fortune for\n     the soul in a spiritual sense. For the soul is therein striving to\n     atone and make restitution for the evil done in its own past; and\n     thus striving, it advances towards higher and happier conditions.\n     Wherefore man is, strictly, his own creator, in that he makes\n     himself and his conditions, according to the tendencies he\n     encourages. The process of such reformation, however, may be a long\n     one. For tendencies encouraged for ages cannot be cured in a single\n     lifetime, but may require ages for their cure. And herein is a\n     reflection to make us as patient towards the faults of others as we\n     ought to be impatient of our own faults.\"\n\nThe entire interpretation of life, as given by Doctor Kingsford in these\nbooks, is remarkable, and is one of singular clearness in tracing the\nlaw of cause and effect.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Momentous Question.]\n\n     \"The question for man most momentous of all is whether or no he has\n     an immortal soul; or--to avoid the word immortal, which belongs to\n     the realm of infinities--whether or no his personality involves any\n     element which can survive bodily death. In this direction have\n     always lain the gravest fears, the farthest reaching hopes, which\n     could either oppress or stimulate mortal minds.... The method of\n     modern science--that process which consists in an interrogation of\n     Nature entirely dispassionate, patient, systematic ... has never\n     yet been applied to the all-important problem of the existence, the\n     powers, the destiny of the human soul.\"\n\nThe Rev. Doctor Alexander Whyte of Edinborough, one of the few greatest\nand most celebrated preachers in Europe, said, in a sermon recently\ndelivered in London, that the spiritual, like the physical life,\nrequired constant sustenance. Doctor Whyte dwelt with marked emphasis\non the important truth that no one who does not give at least one hour\nof the day to the concentration of thought on the higher purposes of\nlife, and devote himself, essentially and especially, to aspiration and\nprayer, can live aright, and live up to his higher possibilities. Doctor\nWhyte especially recommended the last hour before sleep as the best\nseason for this uplift of the soul to its native atmosphere. \"It is not\nnecessary,\" he said, \"that one should be kneeling, in the attitude of\nprayer, all the time. Walk about. Go out and look at the stars. Read, if\nyou prefer, some ennobling book. But, in whatever form thought and\nmeditation may take, keep the key held to the divinest melody of life.\nIn that way shall the spiritual life gather its rich strength and\ninfinite energy.\" The principle is one that every life which has given\nto the world noble results, has acted upon, consciously or\nunconsciously, as may be. No one can live, in the sense of that life\nwhich is alone worth the living, without definite and constant periods\nof seeking that refreshment which is found in communion with God, and in\nsetting one's spiritual forces in touch anew with the infinite\nspiritual energy. Poet and prophet have emphasized this truth. Stephen\nPhillips, in his poem of \"The Dead Soul,\" touches it most impressively.\nWithout its own sustenance from the spiritual world, how could it\nsurvive?\n\n  \"She felt it die a little every day,\n  Flutter more wildly and more feebly pray.\"\n\nThe soul is ever \"imploring dimly something beautiful,\" and it must have\nthis or its powers remain latent and undeveloped. \"Not in dead matter do\nwe live,\" said Lord Kelvin, in his recent address before the British\nscientists, \"but we live and move in the creative and directing power\nthat science compels to be accepted as an article of faith. We are\nforced to believe, with absolute confidence, in a directive power,--in\nan influence other than the physical, dynamic, and electric powers.\nScience is not antagonistic to religion, but a help to religion,\" he\nadded; \"science positively affirms creative power, and makes every one\nfeel a miracle in himself.\"\n\nThe soul has certainly a door into infinite beauty, and through the\nportals must it fare forth to renew its activities in its own\natmosphere. The question as to whether the individual survives bodily\ndeath is one that the Twentieth Century will answer with no unmistakable\nreply. The investigation into the very nature of man is one possible on\nstrictly scientific lines, whose results agree with and confirm all that\nFaith has intuitively divined.\n\nThis investigation--pursued in many ways--is best of all pursued in\nkeeping some hour apart, each day, for absolute _re_union and\n_com_munion with the Holy Spirit. To lift up the heart to God in deepest\naspiration and prayer is to come into an increasing knowledge of one's\nown spiritual self, and into increasing harmony with the divine world in\nwhose atmosphere, alone, we live and breathe and have our being. In love\nand sympathy lie the daily solution of all the problems of the spiritual\nlife.\n\nThese are the divine attributes, and they are as indispensable to life\nto-day as they were when Christ walked in Galilee. Compassion and love\nare the handmaids of hope and faith and joy. The heart to sympathize,\nthe love to aid, lead on to the radiant atmosphere of happiness.\n\nThere is a deep and impressive significance in the lesson of the\nmusic-drama of \"Parsifal.\" \"Only those of pure heart can be strong.\" And\nthat \"the Knights in the play were saved by Parsifal _who was willing to\nencounter anything_.\" This alone is the diviner quality of love,--to be\nwilling to \"encounter anything;\"--to meet pain, disaster, defeat, if so\nit be the appointed way to serve. There is a consecration in pain that\npurifies and refines and exalts all effort. It may be the very divine\nsign and seal of approval when the way leads to personal sacrifice\nrather than to personal joy.\n\n\"The Magi,\" it is said, \"have but to follow their Star in peace.... The\nDivine action marvellously adjusts all things. The order of God sends\neach moment the appropriate instrument for its work, and the soul,\nenlightened by faith, finds all things good, desiring neither more nor\nless than she possesses.\"\n\nOne may tread,--not the \"whole round of creation,\" as Browning phrases\nit, but a minor segment of it, at least, and come back with added and\nmore profound conviction that happiness is a condition of the spirit;\nthat \"the soul is ceaselessly joyful\"; that the incidents and accidents\nof the outward life cannot mar nor lessen that sense of higher peace and\njoy and harmony which is the atmosphere of any true spiritual life. One\nmay recognize and affirm this truth by spiritual intuition, and he may\nthen be led through many phases of actual tests in actual life; he may,\nfor a time, lose his hold on it and come to say that happiness is a\nthing that depends on so many causes outside one's own control; that\nillness, death, loss of friends, adverse circumstances, failures and\ntrials of all kinds may come into his experience, and that one is at the\nmercy of all these vicissitudes. Can the individual be happy, he will\nask, when all that made happiness is taken away? Can he be happy if he\nhas lost all his worldly goods? or if death has taken those nearest and\ndearest to him? or if the separations of life, far harder to bear than\nthose of death, have come into his experience with their almost hopeless\nsense of desolation? And yet, until he has learned to answer these\nquestions with the most triumphant affirmative, he has not learned the\nmeasure nor sounded the depth of a true and noble order of Happiness.\nThe difference is that of being safely on board a great steamer when\nwind and wave are tempest-tossed, or of being helpless in the raging\nwaters. The storm may be precisely the same; the tempest may rage as it\nwill, but safe and secure in the cabin or stateroom, the voyager does\nnot mind its fury. Truly may this analogy be held in life. It is\npossible to emerge from the winds and waves; to enter so entirely into\nthe sense of security in the Divine; to hold so absolutely the faith in\nthe Divine leading, that even in the midst of trial and loss and\ndeprivation and sorrow, one shall come to _know_, through his own\nexperience, that \"the soul is ceaselessly joyful.\" For it is one thing\nto accept a truth theoretically, to believe it intuitively, and another\nto prove it through experience that shall test the quality of faith and\nconviction. Learning this supreme truth of life through outward\nexperiences as well as though inner revelation, is a victory of the will\nthat may even make itself an epoch, a landmark, in spiritual progress.\n\nOne of the great discourses of Phillips Brooks had for its theme the\nlesson of not laying too much stress on the recognition of one's\nmotives or on any return of sympathetic consideration. \"Let me not\nthink,\" said Bishop Brooks, \"that I get nothing from the man who\nmisunderstands all my attempts to serve him and who scorns me when I\nknow that I deserve his sympathy. Ah! it would be sad enough if only the\nmen who understood us and were grateful to us when we gave ourselves to\nthem had help to give us in return. The good reformer whom you try to\nhelp in his reform, and who turns off from you contemptuously because he\ndistrusts you, seeing that your ways are different from his, does not\nmake you happy,--he makes you unhappy; but he makes you good, he leads\nyou to a truer insight, a more profound unselfishness. And so (it is the\nold lesson), not until goodness becomes the one thing that you desire,\nnot until you gauge all growth and gain by that, not until then can you\nreally know that the law has worked, the promise has been fulfilled.\nWith what measure you gave yourself to him, he has given himself--the\nheart of himself, which is not his favor, not his love, but his\ngoodness, the real heart of himself to you. For the rest you can easily\nwait until you both come to the better world, where misconceptions shall\nhave passed away and the outward forms and envelopes of things shall\ncorrespond perfectly with their inner substances forever.\"\n\nIn the last analysis one comes to realize that happiness is a condition\ndepending solely on the relation of his soul to God; that neither life,\nnor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor\nany living creature can separate him from it, because happiness and the\nlove of God are one and identical, and it is not in the power of this\nworld to give, or to take away, this sense of absolute oneness with the\nDivine life that comes when man gives himself, his soul and body, his\nhopes and aspirations and ideals, in complete consecration to the will\nof God.\n\nFor this alone is happiness. It may not be ease nor pleasure, but it is\nthat ceaseless joy of the soul that may be the daily experience of every\nhuman being. And to gain the deep inner conviction of this sublime truth\nis worth whatever it may cost of tears or trial or desolation of spirit.\nIt is the threshold of joy. It is the initiation into a higher spiritual\nstate which one may gain during his progress on earth as well as in\nheaven. In fact, no one is really fitted for the highest privileges and\nsweetness he may crave, until he has learned to live well, to live\njoyfully, without these. No one is fitted _for_ joy until he can live\nwell _without_ joy. It is the law and the prophets.\n\n\n\n\nTHE NECTAR OF THE HOUR.\n\n  I share the good with every flower,\n  I drink the nectar of the hour.\n\n                        --EMERSON.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     _If we knew how to greet each moment as the manifestation of the\n     divine will we could find in it all the heart could desire. Nor\n     what indeed is more reasonable, more perfect, more divine, than the\n     will of God? Can its infinite value be increased by the paltry\n     difference of time, place, or circumstance? The present moment is\n     always filled with infinite treasures; it contains more than one is\n     capable of receiving. Faith is the measure of these blessings; in\n     proportion to your faith will you receive. By love also are they\n     measured; the more your heart loves the more it desires, and the\n     more it desires the more it receives. The will of God is constantly\n     before you as an unfathomable sea, which the heart cannot exhaust;\n     only in proportion as the heart is expanded by faith, confidence,\n     and love can it receive of its fulness.... The divine will is an\n     abyss of which the present moment is the entrance; plunge\n     fearlessly therein and you will find it more boundless than your\n     desires._--THE REV. J. P. DE CAUSSADE, in \"Holy Abandonment.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n     \"The moment we desire God and His will, that moment we enjoy them,\n     and our enjoyment corresponds to the order of our desires.\"\n\n     What though the bough beneath thee break?\n     Remember, thou hast wings.\n\n                                    --VICTOR HUGO.\n\n\nTo enter into the will of God is an initiation of such power and beauty\nthat language falters in any effort to interpret this supreme\nexperience. It can be indicated only in the words of the poet:--\n\n  \"I share the good with every flower,\n  I drink the nectar of the hour.\"\n\nThat wonderful test of seeing every event of life from the point of view\nof the will of God simply transforms and revolutionizes the entire scale\nof human experience. It simplifies all perplexities, it offers the\nsolution for all problems. It illuminates the small and the apparently\ninsignificant occurrences which, nevertheless, contrive to play so large\nand often so determining a part in our days, as well as places in high\nrelief the great questions that beset one in his varied round.\n\nThe little book from which the extract on the preceding page is taken--a\nCatholic book of devotion--is one of the most illuminating in all\nspiritual literature. It offers to one instruction and guidance in that\nlife which alone is progress, peace, and joy,--and one who comes to use\nit daily will place it almost next to the Bible in its practical and\nalmost miraculous helpfulness. Catholic or Protestant,--what matters it\nso that one who listens may hear the word? It is in no wise necessary to\nembrace Catholicism in order to concede that some of the most vital\nliterature of the spiritual life is written by the priests and thinkers\nof that communion; and it is good to take help wherever one can find\nit,--regardless of sect or creed.\n\nA French priest, preaching in an impassioned and sublime abandon of\nenthusiasm; caught up in a rapture of the heavenly life, poured out\nthese wonderful words to audiences that thronged the dim shades of Saint\nSulpice, in Paris. His theme was the consecration of life to the divine\nwill. He called upon all humanity to recognize that this divine will is\nrevealed,--not exclusively in the cloister or the silence, but in the\ncommon trend of daily life. \"The field is the world.\" \"All things,\" said\nthis priest, \"may further the soul's union with God; all things perfect\nit, save sin, and that which is contrary to duty;\" and he added: \"When\nGod thus gives Himself to a soul, all that is ordinary becomes\nextraordinary; therefore it is that nothing appears of the great work\nwhich is going on in the soul; the way itself is so marvellous that it\nneeds not the embellishment of marvels which belong not to it. It is a\nmiracle, a revelation, a continuous enjoyment of God, interrupted only\nby little faults; but in itself it is characterized by the absence of\nanything remarkable, while it renders marvellous all ordinary and\nsensible things.\"\n\nThe entire discourse was a fervent and illuminating illustration of how\nGod's will reveals itself through the most common things. \"O Divine\nAction,\" Pere De Caussade exclaims, \"I will cease to prescribe to Thee\nhours or methods; Thou shalt be ever welcome. O Divine Action, Thou\nseemest to have revealed to me Thy immensity. I will walk henceforth in\nThy infinity. No longer will I seek Thee within the narrow limits of a\nbook, or the life of a saint, or a sublime thought. No longer will I\nseek Thy action alone in spiritual intercourse. For since the divine\nlife labors incessantly and by means of all things for our advancement,\nI would draw my life from this boundless reservoir. The will of God\nimparts to its every instrument an original and incomparable action. We\ndo not sufficiently regard things in the supernatural light which the\ndivine action gives them. We must always receive and worthily meet the\ndivine action with an open heart, full confidence and generosity: for to\nthose who thus receive it, it can work no ill. The divine action killeth\nwhile it quickeneth; the more we feel death, the firmer our faith that\nit will give life.\"\n\nThese words invest the truth of the constant revelation of God's will\nthrough ordinary events, with a burning intensity and vividness that\ncan hardly fail to leave a permanent impress upon the reader.\n\nThere is probably no thoughtful observer of the phenomena of life with\nwhom spiritual aspiration is ever present, who is not often honestly\npuzzled as to what extent the ordinary tide of events that attend him\nmust be accepted as the will of God, and to what degree he should modify\nthese by his own power of will in selection and grouping. He is engaged,\nfor instance, in important work. To what extent should he yield to the\n\"devastator of the day\"? To what extent should he allow his general\nonward course of pursuits and interests to be deflected or changed by\nthe unforeseen events that attend his pathway?\n\nIt may be accepted as a fundamental truth that good sense, good\njudgment, discretion, poise, are not unworthy to be ranked among the\nChristian virtues. Jesus was eminently sane. He was no fanatic. He gave\nboth by precept and example the ideal of a rational and reasonable life.\nThe individual has no right to rush off and kill himself because his\ndearest hope is denied or his most cherished purpose defeated. Nor has\nhe any more right to commit what may be called intellectual suicide, by\nrelinquishing his aspirations and endeavors, merely because things go\nwrong, or because he thinks they are wrong. The conditions of life are\nnot necessarily wrong because contrary to what one might desire. Perhaps\nit is the desire itself which was wrong, and the conditions which are\nright; and which are the expression of God's will and are thus to be\njoyfully accepted. The test of all circumstances and influence lies in\nunchanging fidelity, in unswerving allegiance to the divine ideal of\nlife. The \"devastator of a day\" need not be welcomed to make unlimited\nwaste of time and energy that have their due channels, but the\ninterruption may be met with patience and sweetness, as well as with\nfirmness of purpose in declining to be turned aside from the duty in\nhand. The adverse circumstances of life,--loss of money, of friends,\ndisaster in one way or another, that may come without visible relation\nto any error on one's own part,--shall not such adverse conditions teach\na divine lesson of patience and incite new springs of energy to overcome\ntrial, and to gain by it a higher spiritual vantage-ground on which to\nlive? Cannot even denial and defeat be held as developing qualities that\nmight otherwise lie latent? May they not teach the divinest lesson of\nall,--the one most invaluable to human life,--absolute trust in God?\n\nGaining this, the soul really gains all that it was sent on earth to\nlearn through all the varied phenomena of joy and sorrow, of triumph and\nfailure. There is a common expression of one's \"embracing religion and\nturning away from the world.\" It is a contradiction of terms. The world\nis the place in which any real religion is tested and proved, and it is\nthere that the soul must recognize and receive the Divine Action.\n\nIn the marvellous sermons of Pere Lacordaire are found suggestions that\nmight well serve as a daily manual on this sublime and vital truth of\nthe relation between the will of God and the daily experience. These\nsermons are among the world's treasures of help toward a higher\nspirituality. The argument of Pere De Caussade--one equally entitled to\nconsideration--is that God reveals himself to us now, in ordinary\nevents, as mysteriously and as adorably and with as much reality as in\nthe great events of history or in the Holy Scriptures. \"When the will of\nGod reveals itself to a soul manifesting a desire to wholly possess\nher,\" says Pere De Caussade, \"if the soul freely gives herself in\nreturn, she experiences most powerful assistance in all difficulties;\nshe then tastes by experience the happiness of that coming of the Lord,\nand her enjoyment is in proportion to the degree in which she has\nlearned to practice that self-abandonment which must bring her at all\nmoments face to face with this ever adorable will.\"\n\nThe entire philosophy of this is that the events of life are the\nlanguage in which God speaks to us. The thought is as simple as it is\nimpressive, and it is yet so great as to be fairly epoch-making in its\ncomplete realization. And it is more than an open question whether, even\nto a large majority of the most prayerful and ardent of Christian\nbelievers, there is not still a new aspect of life revealed in this\nsimple acceptance of the common details of the day, the events of the\nhour, as the divine language which is to be read and followed.\n\nBecause there is a more or less widespread conviction that events,\ncircumstances, conditions are things to be battled with, in case they\nare not agreeable, and that there is a signal virtue in overcoming them.\nNor is this conviction without value, too, and a large measure of truth,\nfor aspiration and achievement must always be among the vital forces in\ncreating the immediate future; and we must create the future as well as\naccept the present.\n\n  \"Thou speakest, Lord, to all mankind by general events.\n  Thou speakest to each one in particular by the events of his\n      every moment.\"\n\nPere De Caussade proceeds to say:--\n\n     \"But instead of respecting the mystery of Thy words and hearing Thy\n     voice in all the occurrences of life, they only see therein chance,\n     the acts, the caprice of men; they find fault with everything; they\n     would add to, diminish, reform. They revere the word of the Lord,\n     but have they no respect for words which are not conveyed by means\n     of ink and paper, but by what they have to do and suffer from\n     moment to moment,--do these words merit nothing?\"\n\nThis handwriting on the wall in the guise of the daily events is a\nmessage to be read by faith alone. Just here is the parting of the ways.\n\nOne fares forth in a certain direction, intent on a given\naccomplishment, and unforeseen circumstances arise that hinder, annoy,\ndelay, or prevent the fulfilment of the intention. From one point of\nview, one would say that interruptions and disasters were things to be\novercome as speedily as possible, and that the virtue lay in pressing\non. But the theory of life so wonderfully set forth by this great\npreacher teaches, instead, that these very obstacles, delays and\nembarrassments are a signal and an important thing in and of themselves;\nthat they are nothing less than the divine voice; the appointed means\nthrough which the voice of God speaks to us; that each moment, each\nhour, is just as valuable during delay and enforced pause as it could be\nfor the most strenuous action, because,--the only important thing we\nhave to do in this life is to bring our own will into harmony with the\nwill of God; to learn to recognize His leading and to _love_ this\nleading.\n\nNor does this interpretation of the divine purposes of life lead the\nleast in the world to inertia and dull passivity. On the contrary, it\nis, in essence, the theory to do all one can, ceaselessly and\nconstantly; but, having done this, then await the results in a believing\ntrust which is peace and love of harmony. The larger part of the events\nand circumstances that have to do with our lives are not under our\npersonal control. No man liveth to himself. Regarding this large part of\nour lives that are not under our personal control, there is a perpetual\ntendency to fret, to worry, to impatience, to irritation, or to\ndespondency, and the consequent loss of that cheerfulness and radiant\nexhilaration in which one should live if he live aright. Could one,\nthen, regard all this part of his life which he cannot change, nor\nhasten, nor delay, nor alter in the slightest degree, one way or the\nother,--could he but recognize all this as the divine language and meet\nit,--not only with resignation but with that joyful acceptance of\nperfect faith which absolutely realizes the oneness of the will between\nhimself and God,--then would not life gain, at once, immeasurably in\npeace and happiness?\n\n\"Can the divine will err?\" questions Pere De Caussade. \"Can anything\nthat it sends be amiss? But I have this to do; I need such a thing; I\nhave been deprived of the necessary means; that man thwarts me in such\ngood works; this illness overtakes me when I most need my health.\"\n\nThe answer is: \"No; the will of God is all that is absolutely necessary\nto you, therefore you do not need what He withholds from you--you lack\nnothing. If you could read aright these things which you call accidents,\ndisappointments, misfortunes, contradictions, which you find\nunreasonable, untimely, you would blush with confusion, but you do not\nreflect that all these things are simply the will of God.\"\n\nThe life of faith, that perfect faith which is perfect peace, consists\nin this ever-present recognition, and, tested by its results,--tested by\nthe absolute peace and the larger energy which is liberated by the\ncheerful and believing rather than the sad and distrusting state of\nmind,--tried by all those tests of actual experience, this attitude of\nperfect faith is the attitude most favorable to progress and\nachievement.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: A Profound Experience.]\n\nRenunciation is a word that stands for a great experience, and it is,\nperhaps, too often conceived of as relating to the material rather than\nto the spiritual life. The question as to whether one shall give up this\nor that article, or practice, during Lent, for instance, is sometimes in\nthe air,--always with the saving clause that the renunciation is merely\ntemporal, and if given up for forty days in the year, is to be fully\nenjoyed and revelled in on the other three hundred and twenty-five,--a\nclause that degrades a religious theory to a purely material plane. If\nit is better for one's command of his higher powers not to take coffee,\nfor instance, during Lent, then it is better not to take it for the\ngreater proportion of the year aside from Lent. If it is better to be\ngentle, tolerant, forgiving, and generous for forty days, it is still\nbetter to be so for three hundred and sixty-five days. There is really\nsomething absolutely absurd as well as repellent in the apparent\nacceptation that to live the higher, sweeter, fuller, nobler life is a\npenitential affair,--to be endured but not enjoyed, and limited chiefly\nto Lenten periods and the special holy days of the Christian Church.\nFor religion is the life, the continual life of every hour and moment,\nand consists in the quality of that constant life. The offices of\nreligion, the ceremonial forms, are quite another matter. They have\ntheir place, and a most important one. The gathering together at stated\nhours and periods for the devotions of religious worship is so great an\naid to the Christian life as well to be ranked indispensable to the\ncommunity and the nation; and while it is true that the letter killeth\nbut the spirit giveth life, yet the letter, rightly interpreted, is\nfilled with the Spirit, and conveys it to us. The cry of certain\nreformers (?) that society has outgrown the Church, has little claim to\nconsideration, for the Church itself is a progressive institution, and\nmoves forward and enlarges itself with still larger revelations of the\nDivine Truth. The great opportunities for renunciation come not in the\nguise of temporal and material things; whether one shall eat or drink\nthis thing or the other; whether he shall forego the theatre, or deprive\nhimself of music, or array himself in sackcloth and ashes, or in purple\nand fine linen. The real question comes in the guise of the spiritual\nproblems.\n\nOne comes to know, for instance, of an act of his neighbor's which is\nreally one of treachery and betrayal of trust. Circumstances arise in\nwhich he could put his finger upon the evidential chain revealing this\nlapse from integrity. Shall he do it? Perhaps in the spiritual vista\nthree ways open to him. The one would be to reveal the affair publicly;\nbut this is crude if not cruel, and to touch the spring that\nprecipitates discord and controversy is hardly less disastrous than to\nprecipitate war. Discord only engenders evil, and it never produces good\nresults. Evil things must, of course, be resisted, and combat inevitably\nresults,--but discord for the sake of revealing some one's inadvertences\nis invariably disastrous as well as morally wrong. Then there is the\nmethod of seeking the person directly, and laying before him his error,\nthus giving him the opportunity of any extenuating explanation, and\nprotecting his reputation in the genuineness of true friendship, from\nthe world. And this course is often the wisest as well as the noblest,\nand really requires more heroism than the former one. Yet, after these\nthere is still another, and it is absolutely the most potent, the most\nsuccessful in its results, the most truly uplifting for all concerned.\nHas one been wronged, or misrepresented, or in any way injured? Let him\ncommit it all, unreservedly, to the very immediate, the very real, the\ninfinitely potent power of the divine world. Let him, as his own form of\npersonal renunciation, absolutely forgive whatever annoyance or injury\nhe has received, and let him pray, not for any vengeance against the\nwrong-doer, but that the Divine Love and Light would so envelop and\ndirect the one who has erred as to enable him to free his own spirit\nfrom whatever fault he had been led into, and to rise into such regions\nof spiritual life that never again would he repeat it. How beautiful is\nthe counsel given by Whittier:--\n\n  \"My heart was heavy, for its trust had been\n    Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong.\n  So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,\n    One summer Sabbath day I strolled among\n  The green mounds of the village burial-place;\n    Where, pondering how all human love and hate\n    Find one sad level, and how, soon or late,\n  Wronged and wrong-doer, each with meekened face,\n    And cold hands folded over a still heart,\n  Pass the green threshold of our common grave,\n    Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,\n  Awed for myself, and pitying my race,\n  Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,\n  Swept all my pride away, and trembling\n        I forgave!\"\n\nForgiveness,--forgiveness in love, and in readiness to aid and to\nrejoice in all future success of the one who had erred,--is not this the\nhighest renunciation of the Christian life? Is it not this which is set\nbefore us in the progress of spirituality? Mutual forgiveness, mutual\naid, mutual trust and sustaining, realizing that we all err and need to\nbe forgiven even as we need to forgive,--shall we not in these touch the\n_blessedness_ of sacrifice rather than its barren husk, and find in it\nthat \"soul of happiness\" which should be the perpetual atmosphere of the\nhigher life? For \"this is the life eternal--to know Thee, the only true\nGod,\" and humanity knows God just in proportion to the degree in which\nit is able to partake of the Divine Spirit and translate its religious\naspiration into practical guidance for the affairs of the day.\n\nProbably the one solution of the problem of life in all its intricacies\nand its perplexing and baffling experiences lies in that trust in God\nwhich is the soul's absolute surrender to the Divine will. Even in this\nsolution, however, perplexities not unfrequently lie, from the fact that\nit is not always easy to separate that inevitableness which runs through\nhuman affairs from the results that we, ourselves, produce by our own\nseries of choices and our habitual currents of thought. \"A good will has\nnothing to fear,\" says Pere De Caussade; \"it can but fall under that\nall-powerful hand which guides and sustains it in all its wanderings. It\nis this divine Hand which draws it toward the goal when it has wandered\ntherefrom, which restores it to the path. The work of the divine action\nis not in proportion to the capacity of a simple, holy soul, but to her\npurity of intention; nor does it correspond to the means she adopts, the\nprojects she forms, the counsel she follows. The soul may err in all\nthese, and this not rarely happens; but with a good will and pure\nintention she can never be misled. When God sees this good disposition\nHe overlooks all the rest, and accepts as done what the soul would\nassuredly do if circumstances seconded her good will.\"\n\nNevertheless, as things go in this world, the good will may encounter\nthe most peculiarly trying experiences. The most entire and absolute\ndevotion of thought and interest, of love, friendship, regard,--whatever\nmay be,--pouring itself out lavishly, asking nothing but to give of the\nbest the soul conceives, meets the experience of total indifference in\nreturn. Had it given coldness instead of ardent regard, selfish scheming\ninstead of infinite and vital interest and absorbing devotion, the\nresult could not be less devoid of response or recognition. Nor is this,\nperhaps, as life goes, an exceptional experience, though the\nmultiplication of instances does not tend to make any single one less\nbitter or less tragically sad. Loss is common, but that statistical\ntruth does not make one's own losses less disastrous or less difficult\nto bear.\n\nYet, accepting all these experiences that are encountered as absolute\nfacts in life, facts from which there is no appeal, and for which, alas,\nthere is no mitigation, what remains? One may feel as if he would gladly\ngive up the whole business of trying to live at all, but that is not a\nmatter that is optional with the individual. One has to live out his\nappointed days in this phase of being, and it is only the person of\ndefective intellect as well as defective moral power who will not take\nthe gift of life and make the best--not the worst--of it. Mr.\nLongfellow's familiar lines,\n\n  \"Not enjoyment and not sorrow\n    Is our destined end or way;\n  But to act, that each to-morrow\n    Find us further than to-day,\"\n\nhave often been pronounced trite, but they contain a vital philosophy.\nIt is not enjoyment, or the reverse, which is the aim; but development.\nAnd the culture of the soul lies in these mingled experiences; in the\nbaffled efforts, the devotion that gives itself without return or\nresponse,--it lies in the doing and the giving, and not in the\nreceiving. Nor does one fare onward uncompanioned by the friends and\nhelpers unseen, as well as by those in this visible world.\n\n  \"'Mortal,' they softly say,\n    'Peace to thy heart!\n  We, too, yes, mortal,\n    Have been as thou art,\n\n  Hope-lifted, doubt-depressed,\n    Seeing in part;\n  Tried, troubled, tempted,\n    Sustained as thou art.'\"\n\nThe spiritual faith and that courage and persistence of energy which is\nthe fruition of faith,--and which are both results of the recognition\nand acceptance of the great truth so luminously revealed by Bishop\nBrooks when he says, \"Jesus never treated his life as if it were a\ntemporary deposit of the divine life on the earth, cut off and\nindependent of its source; he always treated it as if it lived by its\nassociation with the Father's life, on which it rested,\"--this faith and\ncourage go forward to complete themselves in exhilaration, in firmness\nof purpose, and in actual achievement. One finds that he not only gains\nthe strength of that which he overcomes, but that he gains a higher\nplane of life altogether, a more exalted view and a purer atmosphere by\naccepting cheerfully and lovingly the discipline of denial and\nlimitation, and using the experience as a stepping-stone, and not as an\nobstacle to his endeavors. There are three ways of meeting the\ndisappointments and denials that are--for the most part--somewhat\ninevitable to every human life: one of sheer despair, of the\nrelinquishing of every effort, and, in the extreme degree of this\nfeeling, resorting to the apparent extinction of life by suicide; the\nsecond, of resignation, that is still, however, a hopeless and passive\nand negative state, in which the man anchors himself to some mere\nplatitudes of submission to the Divine Will, misunderstanding and\nmisinterpreting and misapplying the great and sublime law of obedience\nand translating it into conditions of spiritual and mental inactivity\nthat are only a degree less degrading than the cowardice and ignorance\nthat rushes into suicide; and the third, of learning the great lesson\ninvolved in the disappointment. Submission to the Divine Will is all\nvery well; it is one of the sublimest of the divine laws; but it is not\nfulfilled by a hopeless and inert evasion of all the duties and demands\nof life,--it is, instead, in its integrity and its deep significance,\nfulfilled by the _joyful_ acceptance of the leading, the _willing_\nsurrender that opens a still wider view and a still more vital faith in\nthe divine wisdom.\n\nAnother way in which denial and defeat and thwarted desires or plans can\nbe met is one still higher and greater, and is that path by which true\nspiritual advancement is made. This is, not despair and hopelessness\nbecause an apparently impassable wall arises across the pathway; not\neven mere content, and cordial or joyful submission however noble that\nattitude may be; but there is a loftier state in which the denial can be\nmet; it is not merely an acceptance of God's manifest leading that is so\ninformed with faith that it becomes ceaselessly joyful, but it is to\neven discern in limitation, in denial, new and sublime opportunities.\n\nOne's dearest hopes are suddenly, by circumstances and conditions\nentirely outside his control, totally cut off. What then? At that moment\nan entire world of new possibilities opens, and it rests with the man\nhimself to develop these into something far greater than the scope of\nhis former hope or expectation could reveal. He can bring to bear a\npower of spiritual energy that shall transform the very ill-fortune\nitself into one transcendently beautiful and even angelic. He can lift\nall the factors of his individual problem to the divine plane of love.\nFor love is the spiritual alchemy,--not merely the love for friends and\nfor those near and dear to us; not merely the love for those who are\nagreeable and winning and whose high qualities inspire it,--but love,\nlove and good will for all. The command to love one's enemies is not an\nidle nor even an impossible one. The whole law--the whole philosophy, it\nmay be--of life can be read in the counsel, \"As ye have therefore\nopportunity, do good unto all men.\" Do good,--do the right thing, the\nkind, the generous thing, regardless of return (for which one usually\ncares little or not at all), or even of recognition (for which one\nusually cares a great deal), regardless of the recognition,--let the\ngood be done. Let one, finding himself suddenly confronted by disaster\nor defeat, resolve: All that has been, every factor and every\ncircumstance that has led up to this moment, shall be for good and never\nfor evil. It shall be for good to each and all and every one involved in\nit. Even loss or sadness shall be transmuted into gain and joy on a\nhigher than the mere earthly plane. For life \"shall be kept open, that\nthe Father's life may flow through it.\" Always may one realize the\nprofound truth that \"the going down of the walls between our life and\nour Lord's life, though it consisted of the failure of our dearest\ntheories and the disappointment of our dearest plans,--that, too, could\nbe music to us if through the breach we saw the hope that henceforth our\nlife was to be one with His life, and His was to be ours.\"\n\nPrayer, in its relation to God and the divine laws; its practical effect\nupon the immediate events of life, and its power to transform the\nspiritual self, is one of the great problems of the intellectual and the\nscientific as well as of the religious life. One day a prayer seems\nabsolutely and undoubtedly answered,--the relation between the prayer\nand the fulfilment being too direct to admit of classing it under\ncoincidence; and again the purpose that is made a continual supplication\nperhaps recedes from the realm of the possible to that of the\nimpossible, and the more fervent the entreaty, the more absolute and\nhopeless seems the denial. By means of which, it may be, one learns a\nvery high spiritual lesson,--that of not desiring any specific event or\nfulfilment, but of praying, instead, to be kept in harmony with the\ndivine laws, to be enabled to make his life a means of aid and true\nservice to others, and to think as little as possible about any special\nconditions for himself. \"He that loseth his life shall find it,\" is the\naffirmation of a very deep philosophy as well as of sacred truth. To\nentirely emancipate one's mind from thoughts of himself, and to fill it\nwith the inspiration and the sweetness and exhilaration of making his\nlife a quest after every good, and an increasing means for service to\nhumanity, is the only way to find it in the truest and largest sense.\nSo, for the most part, the highest use of prayer is not to ask for the\nspecific gift or event.\n\nIn a work entitled \"Esoteric Christianity\" by Annie Besant there is a\nchapter on prayer in which we find Mrs. Besant saying:--\n\n     \"In the invisible world there exist many kinds of Intelligences,\n     which come into relationship with man,--a veritable Jacob's ladder,\n     on which the Angels of God ascend and descend, and above which\n     stands the Lord Himself. Some of these Intelligences are mighty\n     spiritual Powers, others are exceedingly limited beings, inferior\n     in consciousness to man. This occult side of Nature is a fact\n     recognized by all religions. All the world is filled with living\n     things, invisible to fleshy eyes. The invisible worlds\n     interpenetrate the visible, the crowds of intelligent beings throng\n     round us on every side. Some of these are accessible to human\n     requests and others are amenable to the human will. Christianity\n     recognizes the existence of the higher classes of Intelligences\n     under the general name of angels, and teaches that they are\n     'ministering spirits;' but what is their ministry, what the nature\n     of their work, what their relationship to human beings?--all that\n     was part of the instruction given in the Lesser Mysteries, as the\n     actual communication with them was enjoyed in the Greater, but in\n     modern days these truths have sunk into the background. For the\n     Protestant the ministry of angels is little more than a phrase.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Law of Prayer.]\n\nMrs. Besant notes that it seems almost impossible for the ordinary\nstudent to discover the law according to which a prayer is or is not\nproductive. \"And the first thing necessary in seeking to understand this\nlaw,\" she says, \"is to analyze prayer itself.\" Mrs. Besant classifies\nprayers as: (1) those which are for definite worldly advantages; (2)\nthose which are for help in moral and intellectual difficulties, and for\nspiritual growth; and lastly, those which consist in meditation on, and\nadoration of, the Divine Perfection; and then we find her saying:--\n\n     \"In addition to all these man is himself a constant creator of\n     invisible beings, for the vibrations of his thoughts and desires\n     create forms of subtle matter, the only life of which is the\n     thought or the desire which ensouls them; he thus creates an army\n     of invisible servants who range through the invisible worlds\n     seeking to do his will. Yet, again, there are in the world human\n     helpers, who work there in their subtle bodies while their physical\n     bodies are sleeping, whose attentive ear may catch a cry for help.\n     And to crown all, there is the ever-present, ever-conscious life of\n     God Himself, potent and responsive at every point of his\n     realm,--that all-pervading, all-embracing, all-sustaining Life of\n     Love, in which we live and move. As naught that can give pleasure\n     or pain can touch the human body without the sensory nerves\n     carrying the message of its impact to the brain centres, so does\n     every vibration in the universe, which is His body, touch the\n     consciousness of God, and draw thence responsive action. Nerve\n     cells, nerve threads, and muscular fibres may be the agents of\n     feeling and moving, but it is the man who feels and acts; so may\n     myriads of intelligences be the agents, but it is God who knows and\n     answers. Nothing can be so small as not to affect that delicate\n     omnipresent consciousness, nothing so vast as to transcend it.\"\n\nIn the most literal sense we live and move and have our being in the\nrealm of spiritual forces. \"Our life is hid with Christ in God.\" That\nassertion is no mere mystic phase, but a plain and direct assertion of\nan absolute spiritual truth. Our real life, all our significant action,\nis in the invisible realm, and the manifestation in the physical sphere\nis simply the results and effects of which the processes and causes are\nall in the ethereal world. Prayer, in all its many and varied phases, is\nsimply activity on the spiritual side, and because of this it is the\nmotor of life. It is the key to that intense form of energy which is the\ndivine life, and its highest development is reached when the soul asks\nonly for one thing,--the one that includes all others,--that of union\nwith God.\n\n\"Anxiety and misgiving,\" wrote Fenelon, \"proceed solely from love of\nself. The love of God accomplishes all things quietly and completely; it\nis not anxious or uncertain. The spirit of God rests continually in\nquietness. Perfect love casteth out fear. It is in forgetfulness of self\nthat we find peace. Happy is he who yields himself completely,\nunconsciously, and finally to God. Listen to the inward whisper of His\nSpirit and follow it--that is enough; but to listen one must be silent,\nand to follow one must yield.\"\n\nThe quiet and perfect obedience to the divine will, taught by Fenelon,\nhas nothing in common with a mere passive and blind acceptance of events\nas they occur. Obedience to the Heavenly Vision is not in standing\nstill, but in following. It finds its best expression in energy and not\nin inactivity. The more absolutely one abandons himself to the divine\nwill, the more unceasingly will he fill every hour with effort toward\nthe working out of the higher and the more ideal conditions. An ideal\nonce revealed is meant to be realized. That is the sole reason for its\nbeing revealed at all, and the way of life is to unfalteringly work\ntoward its realization. It is a curious fact that there can be no\nachievement of life so improbable or so impossible that it cannot be\nrealized by the power--the absolutely invincible power--of mental\nfidelity. Let one hold his purpose in thought, and the unseen forces\nthus generated are working for it day and night. Like one of the new\ninventions in electricity, so thought--a force infinitely more potent\nthan electricity--sets up a certain rate of vibration in the spiritual\natmosphere and works as with irresistible sway. The individual who is\nheld to possess great strength of will is, really, simply the one\ncapable of holding the thought, of keeping a certain tenacity of\npurpose. This power alone redeems one from living on shifting sands, and\nbeing perhaps, at last, engulfed and swallowed up in the quicksands of\nhis own shattered visions and ideals, which never grew to fulfilment\nbecause of his infirmity of will and his closing his eyes to the star\nthat had shone in his firmament.\n\nThe very pain and trial and multiplying obstacles that one may encounter\nwho definitely sets his steps along a certain way, are only helps, not\nhindrances. One gains the strength of that which he overcomes. He\ntransforms obstacles into stepping-stones. For we live and move and have\nour being in an ethereal atmosphere, which is universal, and which\nunerringly registers every thought and every energy, and transmutes\nthese into living forces. Thought is creative, and if the thought be\nheld with sufficient intensity, it acts upon every element that has to\ndo with the final achievement. Imagination--which is simply clairvoyant\nvision--discerns the ideal in the dim distance, and thought is the\nmotive force by means of which it is achieved. To be \"infirm of will\"\nis, therefore, the greatest of misfortunes, as it inevitably produces\ncomplete failure in all the affairs of life. However hopeless a certain\ncombination of events may look, it really is not so. Nothing is ever\nhopeless, because nothing is final. Conditions are forever flowing like\na river, and may be modified and transformed at any moment.\n\nFailure or success is optional with the individual, for each lies in\ncharacter, and is not a matter of possessions or external conditions. To\nbecome cynical, despondent, indifferent, is failure, and one has no\nmoral right to fall to that level. Associations that induce these\nfeelings should be abandoned. The happy conditions of life are to be had\non the same terms. The fretful, the ill-tempered, the selfish, the\nexacting, must, somewhere and some way, learn their lesson and grow\ntoward the light; but their influence should not be allowed to poison\nthe spiritual atmosphere. It is neither a moral duty, nor is it even\ntrue sympathy to share the gloom and depression generated by these\nqualities. The inward whisper of the Spirit is the summons to a nobler\nplane on which all the higher powers find their expression. It is a\nfatal mistake to enter into the dark and unreasoning moods of every\nunfortunately constituted person. To do this habitually is to so deplete\nthe forces of the spirit that one has nothing left. Let one keep his\nheart and mind in the currents of the Divine Power; let him actively\nfollow the vision that is revealed to him, and he shall achieve and\nrealize his ideals. It is the law and the prophets. A force as\nresistless as that of the attraction that holds the stars in their\ncourses will lead him on. \"The love of God accomplishes all things\nquietly and completely.\"\n\nThe mystic truth that lies enfolded in the words, \"Cast thyself into the\nwill of God and thou shalt become as God,\" is one of marvellous potency.\nTo achieve the state of absolute peace and reconcilement with the Divine\nwill is to achieve poise and power. For to be thus \"cast into the will\nof God\" means no mere languid acquiescence or hopeless, despairing\nacceptance; it means no merely negative and passive state that accepts\nthe will of God for lack of sufficient stamina to assert its own will.\nBut, instead, it means an intelligent recognition of the divine order;\nit means the will to gain the higher plane of life; it means the glad\nentering into a new and finer atmosphere charged with the utmost\npotency, and to become so receptive to it, so much a part of this energy\nas to command its expression in various forms of activity. The \"will of\nGod\" is, indeed, the atmosphere of heavenly magnetism; it is liberation,\nnot captivity; it is achievement, not renunciation. People talk about\nbeing \"resigned\" to the will of God; as well might they phrase being\n\"resigned\" to Paradise! That has been an inconceivably false tradition\nthat repeated the prayer, \"Thy will be done,\" as if it were the most\nsorrowful, instead of the most joyful, petition.\n\nThere is another phase of experience into which those of a certain\nsensitiveness of temperament are apt to fall when encountering the loss\nor pain that, in one form or another, seems a part of the discipline of\nthe present life; a phase that can only be described as spiritual\nloneliness and desolation, in which no effort seems possible. It is an\nexperience portrayed in the following stanzas:--\n\n  \"I see a Spirit by thy side,\n  Purple-winged and eagle-eyed,\n  Looking like a heavenly guide.\n\n  Though he seems so bright and fair,\n  Ere thou trust his proffered care,\n  Pause a little, and beware!\n\n  If he bid thee dwell apart,\n  Tending some ideal smart\n  In a sick and coward heart;\n\n  In self-worship wrapped alone,\n  Dreaming thy poor griefs are grown\n  More than other men have known;\n\n  Though his words seem true and wise,\n  Soul, I say to thee, Arise,\n  He is a Demon in disguise!\"\n\nIt is a phase in which one feels his own peculiar sorrow as the most\nunendurable of all. Perhaps it is--but one _must_ abandon that point of\nview. \"That way madness lies.\" His life may be desolate, but he must not\nallow himself to meditate on that conviction. It is moral as well as\nmental disaster, and as life is a divine responsibility, not to be\nevaded because things in general go wrong, one has no right to live in\nless than his best expression every day and hour. In darkness and\ndesolation, even, one may find a spiritual exaltation. Such a period in\nlife may be like that of the seed, isolated and buried in the\nground--that it may germinate and grow; that it may spring up in leaf\nand flower and fruit, and reach out to life and light with multiplied\nforces in the transfiguration of new power. A period that seems empty\nand devoid of stimulus may be, after all, that of highest potency. When\nnothing crystallizes into events, all the elements are plastic to the\nimpress of spiritual energy. \"Cast thyself into the will of God.\" This\nis the crucible from which is distilled the alembic of power. One may\nstamp the image of noblest achievement upon this plastic period. It is\nthe time in which to create on the spiritual side.\n\nTo live in poise, and beauty, and harmony is the finest of all the fine\narts. It is, in itself, the occupation of life. \"I am primarily engaged\nto myself,\" said Emerson, \"to be a public servant of the gods; to\ndemonstrate to all men that there is good will and intelligence at the\nheart of things, and ever higher and yet higher leadings. These are my\nengagements. If there be power in good intention, in fidelity, and in\ntoil, the north wind shall be purer, the stars in heaven shall glow with\na kindlier beam, that I have lived.\"\n\nIt is in the will of God that perfect serenity and joy shall be found.\n\"In His will is our peace,\" says Dante. The acceptance of this profound\ntruth is the absolute key to all harmony and happiness. When sorrow is\nfelt as a dark cloud, a crushing weight, the energies are paralyzed; but\nwhen one can rise above this inertia and cease questioning that which he\nregards as a mysterious and--in all humility--undeserved calamity; when\nhe can simply accept it as an expression of the divine action that is\nmoulding the soul, and thus leave it all in peace of spirit; when,\nforgetting the past, he can press onward to the things that are\nbefore,--then, indeed, does he receive of the true ministry of pain.\n\n\"Every consecration made in the darkness is reaching out toward the\nlight, and in the end it must come into the light, strong in the\nstrength which it won in its life and struggle in the dark.\"\n\nThere is a great renewal and regeneration of life in the actual\nrealization of Saint Paul's admonition as to forgetting the things that\nare behind to press onward to those before. One should force himself,\nsimply by an act of will and by his rational convictions of the beauty\nand value of life, to let go past experiences that chain him to sorrow,\nand, instead, link himself in that magnetism of spiritual apprehension\npossible to achieve, to the enchantment and power of the future. Even\nthe most tragic sorrows lose their hold over one if he will reflect that\nthese, as well as his joys, are alike expressions of the divine will.\n\"Seek you,\" said a devout Catholic priest, \"the secret of union with\nGod? There is none other than to avail yourselves of all that He sends\nyou. You have but to accept all that He sends, and let it do its work in\nyou.... No created mind or heart can teach you what this divine action\nwill do in you; you will learn it by successive experiences. Your life\nunceasingly flows into this incomprehensible abyss, where we have but to\nlove and accept as best that which the present moment brings, with\nperfect confidence in this divine action which of itself can only work\nyou good.\"\n\nWhen the divine action comes in the guise of joy and happiness, one is\nswift to give thanks. But when it comes in the guise of pain, shall he\nnot also see in it the expression of God's will, and accept it with that\nabsolute confidence in the wisdom and beneficence of the divine action\nthat is, in itself, peace and sweetness? For it is a \"light affliction\nwhich is but for a moment,\" and the promise is ours that it \"worketh for\nus a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.\" And this is not\nmerely nor mostly a religious enthusiasm; it is the only practical\nworking basis on which one whom experiences touch deeply can live at\nall. Without this philosophy sorrow would undermine the health and\nparalyze all the energy that should express itself in achievements. But\nthe secret of joy is hidden in pain.\n\n  \"For what God deigns to try with sorrow\n  He means not to decay to-morrow;\n  But through that fiery trial last\n  When earthly ties and bonds are past.\"\n\nAn experience that receives this test must hold deep significance. Let\none accept it,--not only with patience and trust, but triumphantly,\nradiantly, as in the exquisite realization of the divine words: \"For ye\nhave need of patience, that after ye have done the will of God, ye shall\nreceive the promise.\" And the promise is sure if the conditions have\nbeen fulfilled. It is only a question of time. Even heaven itself is but\n\"the perfect sight of Christ,\" and why shall not this radiant vision\nflash upon us, now and here in the earthly life, and make heaven of\nevery day? It is not merely by the change called death that we enter\ninto the spiritual world. The turn of thought, the thrill of love and\nsacrifice and generous outgoing, carries one, at any instant, into the\nheavenly life. It is only the qualities that find there their native\natmosphere which give beauty, depth, and significance to this human\nlife. It is only as one lives _divinely_ that he lives at all,--only as\none recognizes \"the perfect sight of the Christ\" that he recognizes the\nfull scope of his responsibility and enters on his truest experiences.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Conduct and Beauty.]\n\nMatthew Arnold dwells often upon \"our need for conduct, our need for\nbeauty;\" and he finds the springs of the supply to be, not in the\n\"strenuous\" life, always at high pressure and extreme tension, but in\nthe thoughtful leisure, in the serenity of repose, in the devotion to\npoetry and art. \"How,\" he questions, \"are poetry and eloquence to\nexercise the power of relating the modern results of natural science to\nman's instinct for conduct, his instinct for beauty? And here again I\nanswer that I do not know _how_ they will exercise it, but that they can\nand will exercise it I am sure. I do not mean that modern philosophical\npoets and modern philosophical moralists are to come and relate for us,\nin express terms, the results of modern scientific research to our\ninstinct for conduct, our instinct for beauty. But I mean that we shall\nfind, as a matter of experience, if we know the best that has been\nthought and uttered in the world, we shall find that the art and poetry\nand eloquence of men who lived, perhaps, long ago, who had the most\nlimited natural knowledge, who had the most erroneous conceptions about\nmany important matters,--we shall find that this art, and poetry, and\neloquence, have, in fact, not only the power of refreshing and\ndelighting us, they have also the power,--such is the strength and\nworth, in essentials, of their author's criticism of life,--they have a\nfortifying, and elevating, and quickening, and suggestive power, capable\nof wonderfully helping us to relate the results of modern science to our\nneed for conduct, our need for beauty.\"\n\nLife has a tendency to become far too \"strenuous\" with the best one can\ndo, even; and the need is not for greater pressure of intensity, but for\ngreater receptivity of intellectual and spiritual refreshment; for a\ncalmer trust and a loftier faith.\n\nThe joy of faith in its inspiration and emotion is wonderfully renewed\nfrom the Divine Word. \"The Lord shall be unto thee an everlasting\nlight, and thy God thy glory.\" The gospels are full of these positive\nand radiant assurances that invest faith with the most absolute joy of\nconfidence and positiveness of trust. These assurances meet the eye and\nenter the heart with the certainty of a personal message, directly given\nfrom God. And it is in this realm of the higher thought, of that culture\nof the soul which is the true object and aim of the temporary life on\nearth, that the relief from the too strenuous pressure of affairs must\nbe found. The human soul is so constituted that it cannot live unless it\nbreathes its native air of inspiration and joy and divineness. It is\nstifled in the \"strenuous\" lower life, its energies are paralyzed unless\nit seek renewal at the divine springs. It is this strenuousness of\nlatter-day life, unrelieved by love and by prayer; unrelieved by the\nspiritual luxury of loving service and outgoing thought; this strenuous\nattitude, intent on getting and greed and gain and personal advantage,\nthat, at last, ends in the discords and the crimes, the despair and the\nsuicides, whose records fill the daily press. The cure for all these\nills is to be found only in the higher life of conduct and of beauty.\n\"Thou shalt show me the way of life: Thou shalt make me full of joy\nwith Thy countenance.\" Here, and here alone, is the cure, the relief,\nthe leading into peace and serenity and exaltation. It is not that the\n\"fierce energy\" of life is in excess, but that its application is in\nwrong and unmeaning directions. Let the soul find its true refreshment\nand infinitely sustaining tide of energy in God, and immediately \"old\nthings have passed away,\" and \"all have become new,\" and life is full of\nexhilaration and joy. \"Every day we ought to renew our purpose, saying\nto ourselves: This day let us make a sound beginning, for what we have\nhitherto done is naught.\" Every day is a new and definite re-entrance\nupon life. Nor is it worth while to linger too much on the mistakes, the\nerrors of yesterday. True, the consequences of errors and mistakes\nlinger in life until they are worked out; but the working out is, after\nall, only a question of time and of unfaltering persistence in the\nupward way, and thus a new foundation of life is laid: \"old things have\npassed away and all things have become new.\" It is in the serene and\njoyous exaltation of life alone that one truly lives; in that sweetness\nof mutual trust and generous aims and over-flowing love that radiates\nits joy and beauty to all with whom it comes in contact, and which is\nperpetually fed and perpetually renewed by the constant communion of the\nsoul with God.\n\nOn the New Year's eve of 1902 there was a wonderful phenomenon\ntranspiring in the stellar universe, which continued during several\nweeks. That night was one of the utmost beauty. The air was as clear as\ncrystal, and the constellation of Orion gleamed and sparkled like a\ncolossal group of diamonds against an azure background. The entire sky\nwas a scene of unparalleled grandeur and magnificence. The superb\nconstellations of Orion and Ursa Major (familiarly known as the\n\"Dipper\") blazed with an intense brilliancy that seemed the very\nincarnation and concentration of electric vitality. Five of the stars in\nUrsa Major were then receding from our atmosphere at the rate of twenty\nthousand miles a second; the other two were approaching; and the\nphenomenon of these weeks was in the changing aspect of that\nconstellation which the astronomers hold will require some two thousand\nyears to complete. Then will Ursa Major, as seen from the earth, be\nentirely changed. Such facts as these, and the speculation they suggest,\noffer to us a new basis for the contemplation of life. If it require a\nperiod of two thousand years to produce the appreciable change of\ngrouping in a constellation whose stars are moving at the rate of twenty\nthousand miles a second, this fact indicates to us the infinite spaces\nand the unlimited time in which the universe moves onward in its\nappointed path.\n\nWith the individual life, as with the star,--it is the direction in\nwhich it is moving that determines the results. In this truth lies\ninfinite encouragement. Let one set his feet in the upward way, and keep\nsteadfastly to his aim; let him keep unfaltering faith with his\nideals,--and his success in whatever direction he is moving, his\nultimate achievement of every aim he follows, is assured. It becomes\nsimply a question of time when the entire aspect of his life shall be\nchanged even as that of constellations in their appointed course.\n\nIt is in this manner alone that one may control his life,--not by the\nworking of an instantaneous miracle, but by absolute fidelity to a\ndefinite ideal of progressive change.\n\n  \"Quicksand years that whirl me I know not whither,\n  Your schemes, politics, fail, lines give way, substances mock and\n      elude me,\n  Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-poss'd soul, eludes not,\n  One's self must never give way--that is the final substance--that out\n      of all is sure,\n  Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?\n  When shows break up what but one's self is sure?\"\n\nThe \"quicksand years\" whirl away many things. Schemes dissolve and\nvanish; new combinations constantly arise; every day is, indeed, a new\nbeginning, and\n\n  \"Every morn is the world made new.\"\n\nBut a purpose that remains unchanged amid all the shifting scenery of\nperpetual new environments must eventually fulfil itself. The stars in\ntheir courses fight for it. The celestial laws insure its final goal.\n\n  \"Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life, what at last finally remains?\n  When shows break up, what but one's self is sure?\"\n\nOne has this sure self only in proportion as he relates his life to the\ndivine life. The only permanence is to be found in the currents of\ndivine energy, infinite and exhaustless.\n\nThere are many ways of watching the New Year in; but the somewhat unique\npersonal experience of welcoming it on that eve of 1902, gazing at the\nvast expanse of the brilliant skies through the windows of a\nsleeping-car, had its claim to beauty and sacredness. The rush of the\ntrain gave a sense of almost floating out into the ethereal spaces.\nThere was a detachment from earth that hardly comes even in the sacred\nservice of the church on that mystic midnight of a New Year. One seemed\nalone with the infinite Powers, and a new and deeper trust in the Giver\nof all Good was inspired. The beautiful lines of Whittier came to\nmemory:--\n\n  \"I know not what the future hath\n    Of marvel and surprise,\n  Assured alone that life and death\n    His mercy underlies.\"\n\nThus might one remember and dream while flying on under the New Year's\nskies, and realize anew that any trend of thought is inevitably\ncreating its future. Auto-suggestion is the most potent of forces, and\nthe assertion that \"as a man thinketh so is he,\" is literally true. As\nhe thinketh, so he _shall_ be, also; and he can thus think himself into\nnew conditions and attract to himself new forces. He has the power to\nkeep his feet set in this upward pathway, and so sure as is the destiny\nof the stars and the constellations on their course through the heavenly\nspaces, so sure is his own arrival at the point toward which he is\nmoving, and his achievement of the supreme end he holds steadfastly in\nview. Thus life will be to him no period of mere \"quicksand years,\" but,\ninstead, a series of advancing realization and beautiful states. Ideals\nmay be swiftly realized by the accelerated energy of concentration and\nprayer, and the secret of transformation from defeat and denial to the\nperfect hour of triumph and happiness lies, for each one, within his own\nkeeping.\n\n  \"One's self must never give way--that is the final substance.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: The Divine Panorama.]\n\n\"Do we not all wish that we could live our lives over again in the light\nof our present experience?\" remarked Rev. Doctor Charles Gordon Ames;\n\"but this is just what God lets us do.\"\n\nHere, in a word, was that divine panorama of the completeness of life\nrevealed; the part of it lived in this present phase of experience being\ninfinitely less in its relation, compared to the whole, than is one day\nin its relation to the longest life possible on earth. One day out of\nseventy, eighty, ninety years, would not seem so much; yet this entire\nperiod of even the longest life on earth, in its relative proportion to\nthe life of all the eternities, is far less than is one day out of a\nlifetime in its proportional relation to Immortality. This spiritual\npanorama suggests its infinite energy of hope; it reinforces courage; it\nreveals in the most impressive manner the significance of living. For it\nis the tendency which always determines the result.\n\nThere can hardly be a question but that distrust of conditions is a\nfatal element in all effort and achievement. Depression might, indeed,\nwell take its place among the seven deadly sins that Dante names. There\nare serious errors whose effect is less disastrous than is that of\nhabitual depression of spirits. Mental power is one's working capital,\nand the degree of power depends, absolutely, on the quality of thought,\nor, as the phrase goes, on \"the state of mind.\" Conditions determine\nevents, but conditions are plastic to thought. On them one may stamp the\nimpress. If he persist in regarding himself as a victim to fate and his\nlife as a sacrifice and burnt offering, he can very soon work this\nconception into actuality. He can--indeed he will, and he inevitably\nmust--become that which he continually sees himself, in mental vision.\nBut if he will take his stand, with poise and serenity, on spiritual\ntruth; if he will amend his life according to spiritual laws; if he will\naccept failure as merely a stepping-stone to ultimate success,--as \"the\ntriumph's evidence,\"--ill fortune can establish no dominant power over\nhis life. That things have gone wrong is only, after all, a proof that\nthey _may_ go right. The consequences of error or mistake warn one not\nto make the same error or mistake again; and therefore the consequences,\nhowever unpleasant or sad at the moment, are really educative in their\nnature, and their very trial or pain becomes, if truly recognized, a\nfriendly and redemptive power. Then, too, time is a variable factor. It\nis degree, not duration, that it means. The consequences of an error may\nbe accepted and annulled swiftly. Intensity of feeling will condense a\nyear, an eternity, even, into an hour. And the \"new day,\" days in which,\nas Doctor Ames so charmingly wrote,--\n\n      \"--God sets for you\n  A fair clean page to write anew\n  The lesson blotted hitherto,\"--\n\na new day may be a new lifetime as well as that \"next life\" beyond the\nchange we call death.\n\nHow wonderfully Emerson unfolds the magic possible to a day. \"One of the\nillusions,\" he says, \"is that the present hour is not the critical,\ndecisive hour. _Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in\nthe year._ No man has learned anything rightly, until he knows that\nevery day is Doomsday. There are days which are the carnival of the\nyear. The angels assume flesh, and repeatedly become visible. The\nimagination of the gods is excited, and rushes on every side into forms.\nYesterday not a bird peeped; the world was barren, peaked, and pining:\nto-day 't is inconceivably populous; creation swarms and meliorates.\"\n\nThe speculative idea that immortality is an achievement rather than a\ngift is not new, but whenever it is formulated, as in a recent sermon by\nRev. Doctor Parkhurst, it startles many people and arouses antagonism,\nso far as it is not truly understood. Yet it has its deepest aspects of\nspiritual truth, and it is the idea constantly, persistently, and most\nimpressively taught by Saint Paul throughout the entire gospels. We are\nconstantly besought to _lay hold_ on the eternal life; to press forward\ntoward immortal things; to be renewed in the spirit; to \"put on the new\nman, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness; to\nfollow Him, who is the Life, the Truth, the Way.\" The entire teaching of\nthe gospels is one forcible system of active and unfaltering endeavor in\nthe growing achievement of spirituality, which determines Immortality.\nIt is the exact accountant--measure for measure. So much spirituality,\nso much immortality. Nor does this assertion partake in the slightest\ndegree of the nature of a metaphysical problem, to be comprehended only\nby the theologian and the philosopher. It is the most simple, clear, and\ndirect of propositions. We all accept Saint Paul's assertion that flesh\nand blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven. So far as one lives only\nin the processes of the physical life he is not living the life of those\nspiritual energies which alone lay hold on immortality. There is a\ncertain degree of intelligent consciousness that is inseparable from\nthis physical life; an intelligence that buys and sells, and bargains\nand calculates on the physical plane, and is sufficient to produce a\ncertain rational status of life. There are not wanting individuals who\nnever rise above this plane. They may, and often do, acquire possessions\nand even power on the limited plane of the outward life; they may even\nhave some formal and ceremonial religious observances which they mistake\nfor Christianity, but which are the framework ready and able to inspire\nthem if filled with the spirit, but which, to them, remain empty and\ndead. The man whose body, simply, occupies his church pew on Sunday, and\nwho on Monday proceeds to cheat his neighbor, is not, we will all agree,\nthe man who has really entered into the true privileges offered by the\nChurch. The sacrament of Sunday must become the consecration of Monday.\nUnless this be true the man has not _laid hold_ on Immortality. So we\nsee that this lower plane of considerable intelligence and\nconsciousness, related exclusively to the visible and the tangible, must\nbe eliminated from our conceptions of Immortality. There is nothing at\nall in this that can possibly survive death. Doctor John Fiske gives a\nfine and comprehensive definition of that degree of achievement which is\nabove the level of death when he says:--\n\n     \"In the highest of creatures the Divine immanence has acquired\n     sufficient concentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution\n     of the flesh, and assert an individuality untrammelled by the\n     limitations which in the present life everywhere persistently\n     surround it.\"\n\nHere we have the initial truth. The acquirement of \"sufficient\nconcentration and steadiness to survive the dissolution of the\nflesh,\"--_and_ \"to assert an individuality untrammelled by the\nlimitations of the present life,\"--when man has progressed so far as\nthis, then, and then alone, has he _achieved_ immortality. He has laid\nhold on its initial phase. For immortality is infinite beyond\nconception. It is as infinite as space, and as the idea of God. To have\nachieved enough of this \"concentration and steadiness\"--which is merely\nanother phrase for spirituality--to survive death, is no more achieving\nimmortality, in its wholeness and completeness, than learning the\nalphabet is the achievement of scholarship in its infinite resources. It\ncannot be conceived of as complete, but, instead, as an endless chain of\ninfinite possibilities, of ever new and ever widening vistas.\n\nOne of the noblest men and loftiest thinkers of the day, referring, in a\nprivate letter, to this sermon of Doctor Parkhurst that inspired such\nwide discussion, thus wrote:--\n\n     \"That paragraph from Doctor Parkhurst expresses my idea regarding\n     immortality. There must be a master (good) thought or passion. It\n     is the angel with wings that wafts the soul where the man most\n     longed to be in life,--with the purest and best. 'As one thinks, so\n     he shall be,' is sound doctrine. All this embodies what I once read\n     of Sappho, who counselled her pupils to cultivate their thoughts\n     and grow, or they would have nothing to carry with them, nothing to\n     make a soul of, nothing to survive the grave.\n\n     \"I believe that on this idea rests the scheme of life through faith\n     in Christ. As He is the highest, the ideal, the supreme, the soul\n     finds rest in Him, and there grows into a life that death cannot\n     annihilate. In the presence of the great master passion, with the\n     soul thrilling with nobleness, as when dying for another, burned at\n     the stake for righteousness' sake, the spirit goes straight to God,\n     into the infinite bosom, an angel fit for only heaven.\n\n     \"If the soul hungers and thirsts for God it will reach him. If, at\n     the last moment, a man's whole nature cries longingly in faith to\n     Christ,--that will save him, waft him, draw him into the divine\n     abode. And this explains the Christian plan of so-called salvation.\n     Faith in Christ is the master passion, and love the magnet that\n     draws the soul to its own kind. It may be set down as true that\n     vice and sin have no vitality. Wickedness is death. Virtue and love\n     of God are life.\"\n\nBut the question recurs just here, Is there absolutely no possibility of\nimmortality for him who does not advance beyond a certain conscious and\npartly automatic intelligence on the physical plane? Does the gate of\npossibilities, does the door of opportunity close with this brief mortal\nlife? To that question science as well as faith answers \"no.\" The law of\nEvolution is the law of eternal possibility and opportunity. The spark\nof immortality--the divine spark, implanted by God, when he made man in\nHis image,--this is eternal in its nature, and unquestionably survives\ndeath. But immortality is the result of man's co-operation with the\nDivine. God has implanted the spark. He has placed man in an environment\nof discipline and of opportunity. The individual _may be_ whatever he,\nhimself, decides and chooses to be. Not all in an hour, or in a year;\nnot, perhaps, even in this entire lifetime; but sometime and somewhere\nhe who is unfaltering in his allegiance to his ideal shall realize it at\nlast. And the degree of immediateness and celerity with which he\nrealizes it depends entirely on the degree of spiritual energy that he\nbrings to bear on his purpose. The higher the potency, the swifter the\nresult.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n[Sidenote: Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.]\n\nScience as well as ethics recognizes the reality of the unseen\npotencies. Science is, indeed, pointing the way. \"The influence of the\nHoly Spirit, exquisitely called the Comforter,\" says Professor William\nJames, \"is a matter of actual experience, as solid a reality as that of\nelectro-magnetism,\" and he adds:--\n\n     \"The further limits of our being plunge, it seems to me, into an\n     altogether other dimension of existence from the sensible and\n     merely understandable world. Name it the mystical region, or the\n     supernatural region, whichever you choose. So far as an ideal\n     impulse originates in this region (and most of them do originate in\n     it, for we find them possessing it in a way for which we cannot\n     otherwise account); we belong to it in a more intimate sense than\n     that in which we belong to the visible world, for we belong in the\n     most intimate sense wherever our ideals belong. Yet the unseen\n     region in question is not merely ideal, for it produces effects in\n     the world. When we commune with it, work is absolutely done upon\n     our finite personality, for we are turned into new men, and\n     consequences in the way of conduct follow in the natural world upon\n     our regenerative change. But that which produces effects in\n     another reality must be termed a reality itself, so I feel as if we\n     had no philosophic excuse for calling the unseen or mystical world\n     unreal.\"\n\nNot unreal. On the contrary, the unseen is the realm of that which is\nalone real and abiding. The positiveness of the divine life is a quality\nthat has too little recognition from the world of philosophy and\nspeculation. It is an infinite reservoir of infinite energy, from which\nmay be drawn at any moment, peace, courage, and power. \"Man can learn to\ntranscend the limitations of finite thought at will. The Divine Presence\nis known through experience. The turning to a higher plane is a distinct\nact of consciousness. It is not a vague twilight, or semi-conscious\nexperience. It is not an ecstasy. It is not a trance. It is not\nsuper-consciousness in the Vedantic sense. It is not due to\nself-hypnotization. It is a perfectly calm, sane, sound, rational,\ncommon-sense shifting of consciousness from the phenomena of sense\nperception to the phenomena of seer-ship, from the thought of self to a\ndistinctively higher realm. For example, if the lower self be nervous,\nanxious, tense, one can in a few moments compel it to be calm. This is\nnot done by a word simply. Nor is it done by hypnotism. It is by the\nexercise of power. One feels the spirit of peace as definitely as heat\nis perceived on a hot summer day. The power can be as surely used as the\nsun's rays can be focussed and made to do work, to set fire to wood.\"\n\nIn these words there is very clearly set forth a certain spiritual\nachievement of a definite nature. It is simply the act of liberating the\nspiritual self from entanglement with the lower self,--the summoning\ninto ascendency of the higher powers. This intense degree of spiritual\nenergy may be achieved with the force and suddenness of a special\ncreation.\n\nThe physical universe in which man finds himself is not only surrounded\nby the spiritual universe, but the two are so absolutely interpenetrated\nthat he may live in both, and, as a matter of fact, whoever lives the\nlife of the spirit does live now and here, as an inhabitant of both\nthese realms. The spiritual universe is the reservoir of energy. \"The\nthings that are seen are temporal, but those that are unseen are\neternal,\" and faith, as _the substance_ of those things not seen, is a\ndefinite potency which is practically related to daily affairs. That is\nto say, it is an absolute power, by means of which one can fulfil the\npractical duties of every day. The degree of one's ability to draw from\nthis energy and assimilate it into his life measures his degree of\nsuccess.\n\nDoctor Ostwald, a German scientist, claims that in energy he has\ndiscovered the actual bridge, the missing link, between mind and matter,\nbetween the spiritual and the physical worlds; that it is a bridge\n\"which covers the chasm between force and substance,\" and \"which is of a\nnature sufficiently manifest to embrace the totality of our experiences,\nthe interior as well as the exterior.\" Doctor Ostwald claims that there\nis an immaterial factor, one endowed with neither weight nor mass, which\nin a quantitative way is just as unchangeable as the mass and weight of\nmaterial substances, and which, exactly like these, can undergo\nqualitative transformations of all kinds. He holds that energy may be\nconverted from every one of its forms into every other, and its power of\ntransformation is therefore unlimited, and that every change which\ntakes place in the outer world, and every process, may be described by a\nstatement of the kind and amount of energy that has undergone\nconversion.\n\nThis conception of energy is a very clear and remarkable one, placing it\nas the infinite power from which any form of force, spiritual or\nmechanical, can be derived.\n\nIn the moral universe the true expression of this energy upon which one\nmay draw infinitely lies in service. It is in so enlarging the personal\nsphere of life as to include the widest possible range of sympathy and\ncomprehension. The mystic spirit is full of value in reaching out into\nthe realm of spiritual forces, but when these forces are gained they\nmust be applied. The old religious idea used to include a great deal of\ndiscussion about saving the soul; but the larger spiritual enlightenment\nof to-day sees that the phrase \"saving the soul\" implies a present\ncondition,--the state of love, sympathy, service, by which the soul is\nsaved to-day, and not a vague condition to be only realized in some\nremote eternity. _Now_ is the day of salvation. The success of life\nlies not in possessions; it lies in keeping the harmonious and perfectly\nreceptive relation with the spiritual realm of forces, and using these\nforces in every duty and need and opportunity that presents itself. As\nfor always compassing desires, or achieving the possession of this thing\nor that, is in reality immaterial. The best things in life are often the\nthings one does not have; but they produce effects in the visible world,\nand often, just in proportion as the things themselves remain in the\nethereal realm, is the potency of the effects they produce in the\nphysical realm. This other dimension of existence is one with which the\nfinal reckoning must be made. It is no longer length of days, but\nintensity of energy, that determines results. Not length of time, but\nintensity of purpose, energy of action,--in these lie the secret of\nachievement. The power that lies in brief moments is the power required\nfor effective life and work. Emerson truly says that we talk of the\nshortness of life, but that life is unnecessarily long. Degree and not\nduration is the test of power in any work, and the application of this\ntruth to the ordinary affairs of life would render it possible to have\nevery day hold in itself the value of a week or a month as usually\nestimated. The entire trend of progress is toward that intensity of\ncreative energy that fairly speaks things into being. A business man has\nnow on his desk a long-distance telephone, connecting him with far-away\ncities; he answers his letters by speaking into the phonograph; his\ntypewriting clerk copies them from this, and an hour of his morning\nrepresents as much accomplishment as by the old and slower methods would\nhave required days; and thus time is constantly made more valuable.\n\nThe discoveries in nature are in a perfect correspondence with the\nadvancing requirements of human life.\n\nThe deeper researches of science are revealing the absolute unity of the\nentire universe. The earth and the most remote stars are composed of the\nsame matter. The wonderful discovery of spectrum analysis by Kirchoff\nand Bunsen in 1861 has shown that the whole stellar universe is made up\nof the same chemical materials as those with which we are familiar upon\nthe earth. A part of the dazzling brilliance of the noonday sun is due\nto the vapor of iron floating in his atmosphere, and the faint\nluminosity of the remotest cloudlike nebula is the glow of just such\nhydrogen as enters into every drop of water that we drink....\n\n\"... The generalization of the metamorphosis of forces, which was begun a\ncentury ago by Count Rumford when he recognized heat as a mode of\nmolecular motion, was consummated about the middle of the century, when\nDoctor Joule showed mathematically just how much heat is equivalent to\njust how much visible motion, and when the researches of Helmholtz,\nMayer, and Faraday completed the grand demonstration that light and heat\nand magnetism and electricity and visible motion are all interchangeable\none into the other, and are continually thus interchanging from moment\nto moment.\"\n\nIt is not a far cry from these scientific data to the recognition that\nforce, in all its various forms of manifestation, proceeds from the same\nenergy, and that the curious manifestation of it in radium is explained\nby the possibility that this substance is merely a remarkable conductor\nof this intense energy in the ether. The human organism may make itself\nincreasingly a conductor and transmitter of this energy, and the secret\nof coming into perfectly harmonious relations with this energy is the\nsecret of all achievement. \"Life is a search after power,\" says Emerson,\n\"and this is an element with which the world is so saturated,--there is\nno chink or crevice in which it is not lodged,--that no honest seeking\ngoes unrewarded.... All power,\" he adds, \"is of one kind; a sharing of\nthe nature of the world.\"\n\nWith his characteristically marvellous insight, Emerson has, in this\nparagraph, recognized the truth that, in these latter days, is a matter\nof absolute scientific discovery.\n\nThe \"life that now is and that which is to come\" are no more definitely\nseparable than are the periods of childhood and youth, or youth and\nmanhood. The advance is by evolutionary progress, with no sudden, or\nvisible, change from day to day. The life that now is creates and\ndetermines the life that is to come. A man is what he is to-day because\nof the life he lived yesterday, and last year, and a decade, or several\ndecades, ago. That which we call life--environment, circumstances,\nconditions--is the sum of the expression of all its past experiences,\nthought, aspirations, energy, or the lack of thought, aspirations, and\nenergy. One's life is in his own hands; it is subject to his own will\npower, to his own energy of aspiration. He must aspire and go forward or\nhe will degenerate. There is no possibility of an epoch that is\nstationary. Both in any form of work or art, as well as in mental and\nspiritual life, one must constantly go forward, or he will find himself\ngoing backward. Even a pianist as great as Paderewski must keep his\nfingers in practice on the keyboard every day. The painter cannot long\nabsent himself from his canvas without losing in his art. The thinker,\nthe student, must be forever conquering new realms.\n\nScience is demonstrating the actual existence of another world,\ntranscending, pervading, surrounding this one; a world which\ninterpenetrates our own,--the ethereal in the atmospheric,--and there is\none part of the personality of man that dwells continually on this\nethereal side. The physical body only conveys a partial expression of\nthe entire being. The spiritual self lived long before it tenanted this\npresent body, and it will continue to live after it has discarded this\nbody. The life that is constantly proceeds to create the life that is to\ncome.\n\nIn this ethereal world,--which interpenetrates our atmosphere and in\nwhich the higher part of man's being continually dwells,--there are\nstored the finer forces which humanity is now discovering and learning\nto use. In this realm spirit speaks to spirit, telepathically. The power\nto thus communicate is an attribute of the spirit, and, whether in or\nout of the body, does not seem to affect the power. In this ethereal\nrealm are the currents that make possible wireless telegraphy. The\ngrouping and combination of these finer and more intense potencies\nresult in great inventions. This realm is, in short, the miracle world;\nbut a miracle is not something outside the laws of nature. Indeed, as\nPhillips Brooks truly said, \"A miracle is an essential part of the plan\nof God.\" It is simply an occurrence under the higher laws, and on a\nhigher plane. The great truths of spiritual life are pouring themselves\nout to this age with larger revelations of God. They teach the\ndeepening necessity for constant love, for larger service, for a more\ncomplete consecration to the Divine life that may contribute more and\nmore of usefulness to the human life. To achieve that \"closer walk with\nGod\" that alone gives power, one must constantly seek larger fields of\neffort and endeavor, and bring himself face to face with great problems.\n\nTo live the higher life, the life of the spirit, is not to seek\ncloistered seclusion, but to enter into all the great opportunities, the\ndifficulties, the privileges, or the penalties, that attend every real\nendeavor. In this, alone, does one find the life more abundant. In this,\nalone, lies the secret of making noble the life that now is and\nglorifying that which is to come.\n\nThe profound significance, and the illumination brought to the problem\nof living by simply giving one's self entirely, with belief, and love,\nand joy, to the will of God, is an experience that transcends human\nlanguage. Too often has the acceptance of God's will been held to be a\nspirit of the abandonment of despair, or of the mere inertia that ceases\nfrom striving and from aspiration. On the contrary, it is the most\nintense form of action. It embodies the loftiest aspiration. It compels\nthe highest degree of energy. It calls into play every intellectual\nfaculty; it arouses and inspires. It is the regeneration of the\nindividual. He does not know what life is; he does not even begin to\nlive, at all, in any sense worth the name, until he lives and moves and\nhas his being in the will of God. It is, indeed, as Professor Carl Hilty\nhas said, a sense of initiative and power. \"What is the happy life?\"\nquestions Professor Hilty. \"It is a life of conscious harmony with the\nDivine order of the world, a sense, that is to say, of God's\ncompanionship.... The better world we enter is, indeed, entered by faith\nand not by sight; but this faith grows more confident and more\nsupporting, until it is like an inward faculty of life itself. To\nsubstitute for this a world of the outward senses is to find no meaning\nin life which can convey confidence. Faith in God,\" continues Professor\nHilty, \"is a form of experience, not a form of proof.... Here then, is\nthe first step toward the discovery of the meaning of life. It is an act\nof will, a moral venture, a listening to experience. No man can omit\nthis initial step, and no man can teach another the lesson which lies in\nhis own experience. The prophets of the Old Testament found an accurate\nexpression for this act of will when they described it as a 'turning,'\nand they went on to assure their people of the perfect inward peace and\nthe sense of confidence which followed this act. 'Look unto me and be ye\nsaved,' says Isaiah; 'Incline your ear and come unto me; hear, and your\nsoul shall live.' From that time to this, thousands of those who have\nthus changed the direction of their wills have entered into the same\nsense of peace; while no man who has thus given his will to God has ever\nfelt himself permanently bewildered or forsaken.\n\n\"Here, also, in this free act of the will is attained that sense of\nliberty which is described as righteousness. It is a sense of initiative\nand power, as though one were not wholly the subject of arbitrary grace,\nbut had a certain positive companionship with God.... This step once\ntaken both the world in which one lives and one's own personal life get\na clear and intelligible meaning.\"\n\nMrs. Browning has a line in \"Aurora Leigh\" that runs,--\n\n  \"And having tried all other ways, to just try God's.\"\n\nIgnorance and blindness may \"try all other ways,\" and they prove\nunavailing. There is no success, there is no happiness, there is no\nprogress, until there is the clear inner recognition and the profound\nand loving and joyful acceptance of the Divine will; of coming into such\nperfect acceptance of it as to make one's own will identified with its\nharmony.\n\nThus, when Jesus said, \"I am the way, the truth, and the life,\" He\nsimply expressed a fact that cannot be negatived nor ignored. It is an\nactual, a positive law, as impossible to evade as the law of\ngravitation. One may refuse \"the way, the truth, and the life,\" and\nwander in bewilderment and inaction; but he will never be able to\nachieve worthy work, or personal peace, until he accepts and lives by\nthis law. As Professor Hilty so well says, this, alone, gives life an\nintelligent meaning. \"As one follows the way, he gains, first of all,\ncourage, so that he dares to go on in his search. He goes still\nfurther, and the way opens into the assurance that life, with all its\nmystery, is not lived in vain. He pushes on, and the way issues into\nhealth, not only of the soul, but even of the body; for bodily health is\nmore dependent on spiritual condition than spiritual condition is on\nbodily health; and modern medicine can never restore and assure health\nto the body if it limit its problem to physical relief alone. Nor is\neven this the end of the 'way' of Christ. Here alone is positive social\nredemption.... Finally, the way is sure to lead every life which follows\nit, and is willing to pay the price for the possession of truth, into\nthe region of spiritual peace.\"\n\nThus, in the end, \"out of the midst of evil, issues at last the mastery\nof the good.\" Thus moral progress itself is the witness of God.\n\nLiving by this faith, life becomes strong, serene, and radiant. \"The\nMagi have but to follow their Star in peace.... The Divine action\nmarvellously adjusts all things. The order of God sends each moment the\nappropriate instrument for its work; and the soul, enlightened by faith,\nfinds all things good, desiring neither more nor less than she\npossesses.\"\n\nOne of the great discourses of Phillips Brooks had for its theme the\nlesson of not laying too much stress on the recognition of one's motives\nor on any return of sympathetic consideration. \"Let me not think,\" said\nDoctor Brooks, \"that I get nothing from the man who misunderstands all\nmy attempts to serve him, and who scorns me when I know that I deserve\nhis sympathy. Ah! it would be sad enough if only the men who understood\nus and were grateful to us when we gave ourselves to them had help to\ngive us in return. The good reformer whom you try to help in his reform,\nand who turns off from you contemptuously because he distrusts you,\nseeing that your ways are different from his, he does not make you\nhappy,--he makes you unhappy; but he makes you good, he leads you to a\ntruer insight, a more profound unselfishness. And so (it is the old\nlesson), not until goodness becomes the one thing that you desire, not\nuntil you gauge all growth and gain by that, not until then can you\nreally know that the law has worked, the promise has been fulfilled.\nWith what measure you gave yourself to him, he has given himself--the\nheart of himself,--which is not his favor, not his love, but his\ngoodness, the real heart of himself to you. For the rest you can easily\nwait until you both come to the better world, where misconceptions shall\nhave passed away, and the outward forms and envelopes of things shall\ncorrespond perfectly with their inner substances forever.\"\n\nIn the last analysis one comes to realize that happiness is a condition\ndepending solely on the relation of his soul to God; that neither life,\nnor death, nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor\nany living creature can separate him from it, because happiness and the\nlove of God are one and identical, and it is not in the power of this\nworld to give, or to take away, this sense of absolute oneness with the\nDivine life that comes when man gives himself, his soul and body, his\nhopes and aspirations and ideals, in complete consecration to the will\nof God.\n\nFor this alone is the Life Radiant. It may not be ease or pleasure, but\nit is that ceaseless joy of the soul that may be the daily experience of\nevery human being. And to gain the deep inner conviction of this sublime\ntruth is worth whatever it may cost of tears or trial. It is the\nthreshold of joy. It is the initiation into a higher spiritual state\nwhich one may gain in his progress while on earth as well as in heaven.\nIn fact, no one is really fitted for the highest privileges and\nsweetness he may crave until he has learned to live well, to live\njoyfully, without them. No one is fitted for joy until he can live well\n_without_ joy. It is the law and the prophets.\n\nOne may tread,--not the \"whole round of creation,\" as Browning phrases\nit, but a minor segment of it, at least, and come back with added and\nmore profound conviction that happiness is a condition of the spirit;\nthat \"the soul is ceaselessly joyful;\" that the incidents and accidents\nof the outward life cannot mar nor lessen that sense of higher peace and\njoy and harmony which is the atmosphere of any true spiritual life. One\nmay recognize and affirm this truth by spiritual intuition, and he may\nthen be led through many phases of actual tests in actual life; he may\nfor a time lose his hold on it and come to say that happiness is a thing\nthat depends on so many causes outside one's own control; that illness,\ndeath, loss of friends, adverse circumstances, failures and trials of\nall kinds, may come into his experience, and that one is at the mercy of\nall these vicissitudes. Can the individual be happy, he will ask, when\nall that made happiness is taken away? Can he be happy if he has lost\nall his worldly goods? or if death has taken those nearest and dearest\nto him? or if the separations of life, far harder to bear than those of\ndeath, have come to him? And yet, until he has learned to answer these\nquestions with the most triumphant affirmative, he has not learned the\nmeasure nor sounded the depth of a true and noble order of Happiness.\nThe difference is that of being safely on board a great steamer when\nwind and wave are tempest-tossed, or of being helpless in the raging\nwaters. The storm may be precisely the same; the tempest may rage as it\nwill, but safe and secure in the cabin or stateroom, the voyager does\nnot mind its fury. And truly may this analogy be held in life. It is\npossible to emerge from the winds and waves; to enter so entirely into\nthe sense of security in the Divine; to hold so absolutely the faith in\nthe Divine leading, that even in the midst of trial and loss and\ndeprivation and sorrow, one shall come to _know_, through his own\nexperience, that \"the soul is ceaselessly joyful.\" For it is one thing\nto accept a truth theoretically, or believe it intuitively, and another\nto prove it through experience that shall test the quality of faith and\nconviction. Learning this supreme truth of life through outward\nexperiences as well as through inner revelation is a victory of the will\nthat may even make itself an epoch, a landmark, in spiritual progress.\n\nIt is the complete recognition of that invincible aid given to the soul\nthrough the \"ever-present\" aid of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.\n\n\"Jesus, the Christ, this one perfect character, has come into the world\nand lived in it; filling all the moulds of action, all the terms of\nduty, and love, with His own divine manners, works, and charities,\"\nwrote Doctor Horace Bushnell. \"All the conditions of our life are raised\nthus by the meaning He has shown to be in them and the grace He has put\nupon them. The world itself is changed and is no more the same that it\nwas; it has never been the same since Jesus left it. The air is charged\nwith heavenly odors, and a kind of celestial consciousness, a sense of\nother worlds, is wafted on us in its breath. It were easier to untwist\nall the beams of light in the sky, separating and expunging one of the\ncolors, than to get the character of Jesus, which is the real gospel,\nout of the world.\"\n\nThe one deepest need of the world to-day; the one deepest need of each\nindividual, is the more actual realization of the personality of Christ.\nThe perspective of nineteen hundred years only brings more vividly\nbefore the mind, more close to the spiritual apprehension, the personal\nholiness of Jesus, and enforces the truth that shall redeem\nhumanity,--the practical possibility of the increasing achievement of\nthis personal holiness for every man and woman. \"Because I live ye shall\nlive also,\" He said. But what is it to live? Certainly, something far\nabove and beyond mere existence. Life, in its true sense, is to know\nGod. This is the life eternal. No one can \"know God\" save in just the\ndegree to which he lives God's life,--the divine life,--and in the\ndegree to which he is living the divine life does he live the life\neternal. The life eternal may be lived to-day as well as after death, in\nsome vague eternity. The life eternal is simply the life of spiritual\nqualities. It is the life in which truth, honor, integrity, sacrifice,\npatience, and love abound, and in which all that is selfish and false is\ncast out. Now, however exalted a definition of the present, daily life\nthis may seem to be, it is in no sense an impossible one. The more\nexalted is one's standard for the perpetual quality of his life, the\nmore stimulating it becomes. The exalted ideal inspires; the low\nstandard depresses. An invincible energy sweeps instantly through the\natmosphere to sustain him who allies himself with his noblest ideals. A\nforce that disintegrates and baffles sweeps down upon him who abandons\nhis nobler ideals, and substitutes for them the mere selfish, the\ncommonplace, or the base. The \"Choose ye this day whom ye will serve\" is\nno merely abstract phrase or trick of rhetoric. Every hour is an hour of\ndestiny. Every hour is an hour of choice. Legions of angels are in the\nunseen world surrounding humanity. Not one thought, one aspiration, one\nprayer, is unheard and unnoted. No conditions or circumstances are\nsordid or material unless he whom they invest make them so by sordid and\nmaterial thought; by turning away from that life of the spirit whose\nvery reality is made and is tested by these circumstances. \"All the\nconditions of life are raised,\" says Doctor Bushnell, in the extract\nquoted above, \"by the meaning He has shown to be in them, and the grace\nHe has put upon them.\" Might not one, with profit, dwell for a moment\nupon this statement?\n\nThere is a current sweeping through latter-day life and reflecting\nitself largely in miscellaneous literature, to the effect that what the\nwriters are pleased to call \"success in life\" is achieved by\nself-reliance; that a man must believe in himself; and the final triumph\nis illustrated as that of the man who begins as an errand boy at two\ndollars a week and ends as a multi-millionaire. Between these two points\nin space the arc of success subtends, according to this order of\nliterature, and the word is: make a million, or a hundred millions of\ndollars,--honestly if you can, dishonestly if you must, but, at all\nevents, the point is to \"arrive.\" Now there is both a most demoralizing\nfallacy and a strong and valuable truth mixed up in these exhortations.\n\"Trust thyself,\" said Emerson; \"every heart vibrates to that iron\nstring.\"\n\n  \"I thank whatever gods there be\n  For my unconquerable soul,\"\n\nsings William Ernest Henley, and he closes with the ringing lines,--\n\n  \"I am the Captain of my fate,\n  I am the master of my soul.\"\n\nAnd Emerson and Henley are right--so far as they go. And the man who has\nbeen industrious, and economical, and has accumulated a fortune, has, at\nall times, some elements that are right; and rigid economy is far better\nthan selfish indulgence. But whether a rigid economy is always a\nvirtue--depends. \"There is that scattereth, yet increaseth.\" Whether it\nis nobler to increase one's bank account at the expense of all the\npersonal expansion of life, through study, social life, travel,--all\nthat makes up a choice and fine culture, and at the expense of depriving\none's self of the untold luxury of service, as needs come in view,--is\ncertainly an open question, and one in which there is a good deal to say\nfor other uses of money than that of establishing an impressive bank\naccount; but leaving this aspect of the problem, one returns to that\nphase of it represented by self-reliance. It is a great hindrance to the\ninfinite development of man to conceive of courage and self-reliance as\ncapacities or powers of his own rather than as fed from the divine\nenergy. A stream might as well cut itself off from its source, and from\nits tributaries, and expect to flow on, in undiminished current to the\nsea, as for man to regard courage and force of will as generated in\nhimself. Thus he dwarfs and hinders all his spiritual powers that are\nfound to lay hold upon God. Thus he stifles himself, rather than open\nhis windows into the pure air. \"All the conditions of life are raised by\nthe meaning Jesus has shown to be in them.\"\n\nCertainly, it was not for nothing that Christ came into the conditions\nof the human life. His experience on earth comprehended every privation,\nevery limitation, known to the physical life. Not only these,--but He\nexperienced every phase of sorrow, of trial, of mental pain, of\nspiritual anguish. He was misunderstood, He was misrepresented, He was\nassailed and crucified. He understood the needs of the body as well as\nof the spirit. He had no contempt nor condemnation for comfort,\nprosperity, or wealth, in and of themselves. He simply regarded them as\nmeans to an end, and if nobly used to noble ends, life was the better\nfor whatever phases and factors of power it possessed. But He taught the\ntruth that here we have no continuing city; that this temporary sojourn\non earth is designed as a period in which to develop qualities rather\nthan to heap up accumulations. \"What shall it profit a man,\" He well\nsaid, \"if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?\"\n\nSo here was a man, living the earthly and physical life; comprehending\nall the earthly and physical problems involved in relation with the\nphysical world; not ignoring or denying them like a mere fanatic, but\nestimating them in the true scale of values,--here was a man who by his\nexperience and example proved that personal holiness of life is not\nincompatible with personal attention to every detail of human affairs.\nJesus did not isolate Himself in a monastic cell in order to live the\nlife of the spirit. He practically taught that the very supreme test of\nthe life of the spirit is to live it in the heart of human activities.\nIt is in the resistless tide of daily affairs,--in the office of the\nlawyer, the journalist, the physician, the architect; in the studio of\nthe artist, in the counting-room, the bank, the salesroom, and the\nmarket-place, that the life of personal holiness is possible, and it is\npossible to man because Jesus, taking upon Himself the human life, so\nlived it in these very circumstances and under these conditions. Christ\nand His all-quickening life remain in the world. They did not leave it\nwith His physical death. They remain as the incorruptible, the glorious,\nthe priceless possession of every man and woman to-day. To this divine\nexample of a perfect character revealed in the guise of the human life,\neach individual in the world to-day can turn, as the most practical\nideal by which to shape his own life and to ultimately realize the\ncommand, \"Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.\" If this\ntranscendent ideal were not a possibility for the soul, surely God would\nnot have given it as an idle command; but man, as a spiritual being, is\ndesigned to live the spiritual life, and this life is that of perpetual\nspiritual progress and ideal achievement; of entering into that golden\natmosphere in which he shall not only\n\n  \"--dream of summers and dream of flowers\n  That last alway,\"\n\nbut find, in an ever-increasing degree, that the dream is merged into\nthe profoundest reality of experience.\n\n\"Present suffering is not enjoyable,\" said the late Rev. Doctor Maltbie\nDavenport Babcock, \"but life would be worth little without it. The\ndifference between iron and steel is fire, but steel is worth all it\ncosts. Iron ore may think itself senselessly tortured in the furnace,\nbut when the watch-spring looks back it knows better. David enjoyed pain\nand trouble no more than we do, but the time came when he admitted that\nthey had been good for him. Though the aspect of suffering is hard, the\nprospect is hopeful.... The tests of life are to make, not break us. The\nblow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man.\nIf God, then, puts, or permits, anything hard in our lives, be sure that\nthe real peril, the real trouble, is what we shall lose if we flinch or\nrebel.\"\n\nDoctor Babcock's words suggest that there is perhaps nothing in all the\ndivine teachings that is less understood and less accepted than the\nassertion of Saint Paul, \"We glory in tribulation also.\" The general\nreader of the gospels and epistles--even the prayerful and reverent\nreader--relegates this expression to some abstract conditions, as\nsomething that might do very well for Saint Paul and a rudimentary\ncivilization; as something that might be a very appropriate and decorous\nsentiment for Saint Sebastian on his gridiron, or Saint Catherine\nkeeping her vigils in the vast and gloomy old church in Siena, but which\ncertainly can bear no relation and hold no message for the modern\nreader. For the electric life of the hour,--full of color and vitality;\nthrobbing with achievement; the life that craves prosperity as its\ntruest expression, and finds adversity a poor and mean failure quite\nunsuitable to a man of brilliant gifts and energy; the life that\nbelieves in its own right of way and mistakes possessions for\npower,--what has _it_ to do with \"tribulation\" except to refuse it? If\nit comes it is met with indignant protest rather than as a phase of\nexperience in which to \"glory;\" it is evaded, if possible; and if it\ncannot be evaded it is received with rebellion, with gloom, with\ndespondency, and perhaps, at last, an enforced and hopeless endurance,\nwhich is not, by the way, to be mistaken for resignation. Endurance is a\npassive condition that cannot, and does not even try, to help itself.\nResignation, in its true reading, is wholly another matter; it is\nactive, it is alive, it is conscious and intelligent and in joyful\nco-operation with the will of God. It is no poor and negative mental\nstate; it is rich in vitality and in hope, as well, for in its absolute\nidentification of itself, this human will with the divine will, it\nenters into a kingdom of untold glory, whose paths lead by the river of\nlife to the noblest and most exalted heights of achievement and of\nundreamed-of joy.\n\nIf this be true of resignation, what shall be said of tribulation,--of\nglorying in tribulation? A man awakens to find himself in poverty\ninstead of in wealth; his possessions suddenly swept away; or from\nhealth, he, or some one whose life is still dearer to him than his own,\nprostrated with illness; or to find himself unjustly accused or\nmaligned, or misunderstood, or to encounter some other of the myriad\nphases of what he calls misfortune and tribulation. How is he to endure\nit? How is he to go on, living his life, in all this pain, perplexity,\ntrial, or annoyance, much less to \"glory\" in this atmosphere of\ntribulation? One is engaged, it may be, in a work for which it would\nseem that peace of mind and joy and radiance were his only working\ncapital; his essential resources; and suddenly these vanish, and his\nworld is in ruins. Clouds of misapprehension envelop him round about,\nand he can neither understand, himself, what has produced them, nor can\nhe, by any entreaty or appeal, be permitted the vantage ground of full\nand clear explanation. And his energies are paralyzed; the golden glory\nthat enfolded his days investing them with a magical enchantment, has\ngone, and a leaden sky shuts him into a gloomy and leaden atmosphere. It\nis not only himself, but his work; not only what he may feel, but what,\nalso, he may not accomplish. And his work is of a nature that is not\nonly his own expression, his contribution to the sum of living, but one\nwhich involves responsibility to others, and some way,--well or ill, as\nmay be,--it must be done. Shall he, _can_ he, \"glory\" in this\nparalyzing pain and torture that so mysteriously has fallen upon\nhim,--whose causes do not, so far as he can discern, lie in his own\nconduct, but in some impenetrable mystery of misapprehensions and\nmisunderstandings; a tangled labyrinth to which he is denied the clue?\nCan he, indeed, facing all this torture and tragedy, with all that made\nthe joy and light of life withdrawn,--can he encounter this form of\ntribulation with serene poise, with unfaltering purpose, with an intense\nand exalted faith? It is \"not enjoyable,\" indeed, as Doctor Babcock, in\nthe quotation above, at once concedes; but that the experience has a\nmeaning,--a very profound meaning, one must believe; and believing this,\nhe must feel that the responsibility rests on himself to accept this new\nsignificance that has, in an undreamed-of way, fallen into his life; to\nread its hidden lesson; to transmute it, by the miracle of divine grace,\ninto something fairer and sweeter; to let its scorching fire make steel\nof that which was only iron. To accept, to believe, to _feel_ this, in\nevery fibre of his nature, is to \"glory\" in the tribulation. It is to\nextract its best meaning, and to go on in life better equipped than\nbefore. \"The tests of life are to _make_ and not _break_ us.\" Here is\nthe truer view, and one that reveals the divine significance in all\nmysteries of human experience. Beyond all these views, also, is that\ninflorescence of joy that springs from this more complete identification\nof one's own will with that of the divine. One comes into the full glow\nand beauty of that wonderful assurance of Jesus: \"These things have I\nspoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy\nmight be full.\"\n\nThis fulness of joy is a condition freely offered for perfect\nacceptance. The varied experiences are, as Browning has said, \"just a\nstuff to try the soul's strength on.\" The kingdom of heaven lies open to\nall; it is _at hand_, not waiting afar in some vague futurity. Shall we\nnot enter to-day into this kingdom of heaven which is at hand? Shall we\nnot enter to-day into the very joy of the Lord? Pain and sorrow may\ninvest the conditions of the moment, but they are forces which are\ntransmuting the inconsequential into the significant; the common and\ntrivial into the exalted and the sublime. The discord is merged into\nsublime harmonies that thrill the air; the glory of the Lord shines\nround about, and we enter into its illumination; we are ascending the\nMount of Vision and the soul looketh steadily onward, discerning the\nbeauty of holiness, in whose transfiguration gleams the fairest ideal\nrevealed to humanity,--even the Life Radiant.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n  Abbott, Rev. Dr. Lyman, 83, 223.\n  Academy of Science, 10.\n  Adams, Hon. Alva, his tribute to Nathan Cook Meeker, 248.\n  ----, General, 250.\n  Africa, 230.\n  Albertson, Dr., his invention, 151, 152, 153.\n  Altar of Perpetual Adoration, 19.\n  Ames, Dr. Charles Gordon, his uplifting sermons, 223, 322, 324.\n  Andes, the, 125.\n  Arizona, 205, 226.\n  Armstrong, Gen. Samuel Chapman, 247.\n  Arno, the, 251.\n  Arnold, Sir Edwin, 65, 68.\n  ----, Matthew, 198, 313.\n  Atlantic, the, 125.\n  ---- cable, 116.\n  ---- coast, 92.\n  \"Aurora Leigh,\" 345.\n  Austrian, 135.\n  Avernus, 51.\n  Ayrton, Prof. W. E., 124, 126.\n\n  Babcock, Rev. Dr. Maltbie Davenport, his noble words, 359, 360, 363.\n  Balzac, Honore de, 103.\n  \"Banquo,\" 253.\n  Baptist belief, 169.\n  Beethoven, 228.\n  Behmen, Jacob, 255.\n  Besant, Annie, her theories on Prayer, 298, 299, 300.\n  Bible, the, 126.\n  Bonus, John, 256.\n  Boston, 150, 234.\n  Brewster, Elder, 241.\n  \"Bright Angel Trail, The,\" 233.\n  British Isles, 142.\n  Brooks, Rt. Rev. Dr. Phillips, 31, 53, 62, 183, 192, 204, 267,\n      268, 293, 347.\n  Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 345.\n  ----, Robert, 265, 364.\n  Bunsen, Dr. Robert Wilhelm, 337.\n  Bushnell, Rev. Dr. Horace, 351.\n\n  Cache la Poudre, 244.\n  Carboniferous, 229.\n  Centennial Exhibition, the, 245, 246.\n  Chemical Society, 48.\n  Cheyenne, 240.\n  ---- Canyon, 226, 232, 233.\n  Chicago, 93.\n  Christmas, 242.\n  \"Clothed with the Sun,\" 255.\n  Colorado River, 230.\n  ----, State of, 191, 237, 238, 239, 240, 242, 243, 244, 245,\n      246, 247, 248, 251, 252, 253.\n  Columbia University Chemical Society, 48.\n  Congress, 246.\n  Connecticut, 241.\n  Cooper Institute, 240, 243.\n  Copley Square, 169.\n  Cosmos, the, 140.\n  \"Courier Journal,\" 238, 241.\n  Crookes, Sir William, 9, 11.\n  Crusaders, the, 226.\n  \"Culture,\" 198.\n  Curie, Professor, Radium discovered by, 9, 10.\n  ----, Madame, 9, 10.\n  Cushing, Frank, 235.\n\n  Daniel, Book of, 163.\n  \"Daniel Deronda,\" 222.\n  Dante, 185, 309.\n  \"Data of Ethics,\" 204.\n  Darwin, Dr. Charles, 83.\n  De Caussade, Pere, 275, 280, 281, 284, 290.\n  Denver, 240.\n  Denver and Rio Grande Railroad, 251.\n  Discovery of the Future, 81.\n  Donald, Rev. Dr. E. Winchester, 223.\n  Divine Creation, 171.\n  ---- Love, 206, 288.\n  ---- Perfection, 300.\n  ---- Pressure, 199, 332.\n  ---- Truth, 286.\n  ---- Word, 314.\n  ---- Will, 89, 294.\n\n  Echo Cliffs, 236.\n  Edison, Thomas, 116.\n  Edwards, Jonathan, 171.\n  Egyptian, 80.\n  Eiffel Tower, 226.\n  Electricity, 174.\n  Eliot, President Charles W., 198.\n  Elizabeth, 242.\n  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 32, 40, 42, 45, 49, 61, 78, 81, 93, 175,\n      177, 196, 197, 202, 203, 214, 217, 221, 237, 241, 242, 309,\n      324, 339, 354, 355.\n  Empedocles, 78.\n  England, 256.\n  Episcopalian, 169.\n  Eros, 145.\n  \"Esoteric Christianity,\" 298.\n  Europe, 137, 150.\n  \"Evangeline,\" 250.\n  Evolution, 330.\n  \"Expansion of Religion,\" 223.\n\n  Faraday, Michael, 338.\n  Faust, 49.\n  Fenelon, 302.\n  Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 68.\n  Field, Cyrus, 116.\n  Fiske, Dr. John, consummation of organic evolution, 113;\n    degree of achievement above the level of death, 327.\n  Flagstaff, 234;\n    cosmopolitan influence of, 235.\n  Florence, 251.\n  Foretelling of the future, 24.\n  Fort Steele, 249.\n  \"Forum, The,\" article of Edward Everett Hale in, 79.\n  Fuller, Margaret, defines social sympathies, 217.\n\n  Galilee, 264.\n  Garden of the Gods, 242.\n  German, 334.\n  \"Giver of all Good,\" 320.\n  Goethe, 198.\n  Gogol, 126.\n  Gordon, Rev. Dr. George A., 223.\n  Grand Canyon of the Colorado, 226, 228, 229, 233, 236.\n  Greek, 249.\n  Greeley, Horace, presided at meeting in Cooper Institute, 240;\n    invited Nathan Cook Meeker to place on \"Tribune,\" 241;\n    encouraged founding of town, 243, 248;\n    portrait of, 253.\n  ----, town of, founded by Nathan Cook Meeker, 237, 240;\n    beautiful situation of, 244;\n    interest of, 245, 247.\n  \"----, Tribune, The,\" founding of, 238.\n\n  Hale, Rev. Dr. Edward Everett, prediction of, 79, 80;\n    memory of, 150.\n  Hall, General, writes of Nathan Cook Meeker, 247.\n  Hamilton, Gail, 42.\n  Harris, Dr. William Torrey, 190.\n  Harvard, 55, 198.\n  Hayes, Hon. Rutherford B., appoints Nathan Cook Meeker Indian\n      Commissioner, 236, 247.\n  Heavenly Vision, 302.\n  Helbaicy, M. Tessier d', theory of, 135, 136.\n  Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig, 338.\n  Henley, William Ernest, 355.\n  Hilty, Carl, his ideas on Happiness, 343.\n  Himalayas, 233.\n  Holland, Canon Scott, discussions of, 163;\n    arraigns modern teachings, 164, 165;\n    characterizes the ether, 166.\n  Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, counsel of, 47.\n  Holy Spirit, the, 280, 331.\n  \"Hope of Religion,\" 223.\n  Hugo, Victor, lines of, 273.\n  \"Human Freedom,\" 55.\n  \"Human Personality,\" 129, 148.\n  Humanity, 221.\n\n  Indian, the, 247.\n  Indian Commissioner, 238.\n  Indiana, 205.\n  Indians, legislation for, 246, 248, 249, 250.\n  Isles of Patmos, 226.\n  Italy, 257.\n\n  Jacob's ladder, 298.\n  James, Prof. William, demonstration of, 55;\n    depicts power of the Holy Spirit, 331.\n  Jesus, 277.\n  Joule, Dr., 338.\n\n Kaiser Wilhelm II., the, 150.\n  Kelvin, Lord, 263.\n  Kerchsoff, 337.\n  Kingsford, Dr. Anna, nee Bonus, remarkable mystic writings of, 255;\n    marriage of, 256;\n    theories of, 257, 259;\n    remarkable interpretation of life of, 261.\n\n  Lacordaire, Pere, 229.\n  Lanier, Sidney, 65.\n  Latin, 198.\n  Leadbeater, C. W., 186.\n  Leavenworth, Professor, 144.\n  Lent, 285.\n  Leverrier, Urbain John Joseph, 84.\n  \"Life Radiant, The,\" 3, 5, 6, 16, 24, 25. 26, 37, 348.\n  Lincoln, Abraham 7, 254.\n  Liverpool, 150.\n  Lodge, Sir Oliver, 9;\n    new problems presented, by, 153, 154, 155;\n    his theories regarding telepathy, 157.\n  Loeb, Dr., 25.\n  London, 86, 154, 216.\n  Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 292.\n  Long's Peak, 244.\n  Lot, 202.\n  Louis XV., 149.\n  Lowell Institute, 234.\n  Lowell, James Russell, 170.\n  ----, John, 234.\n  ---- Observatory, 234.\n  ----, Prof. Percival, his astronomical work, 234, 235.\n\n  Maeterlinck, Maurice, the future discussed by, 91, 93, 94, 96;\n    theories of, 98, 101;\n    insights of, 193, 207.\n  Magi, the, 265, 346.\n  Marconi, Guglielmo, genius of, 5, 116;\n    system of, 125;\n    ship detector of, 134;\n    predictions of, fulfilled, 136.\n  Marie Antoinette, 149.\n  Mars, 127, 234.\n  Massachusetts, diocese of, 54.\n  ----, Bishop of, 54.\n  Mayer, Julius Robert von, 338.\n  Meeker, Arvilla Delight, nee Smith (Mrs. Nathan Cook Meeker), 249,\n      250, 252.\n  ----, Nathan Cook, town of Greeley, Colo., founded by, 237;\n    visions of, 238, 239;\n    outlines plans, 240;\n    birth of, 241;\n    editorial work of, praised by Emerson, 242;\n    municipal principles of, 243, 244, 245;\n    appointed commissioner to Centennial Exposition, 246;\n    \"The Greeley Tribune\" founded by, 246;\n    Indian policy of, 246, 247;\n    difficulties encountered by, 247;\n    massacre of, 247;\n    estimation of, 251, 252;\n    work of, 253;\n    noble ideals of, 254.\n  ----, Josephine, 248, 249, 250, 252.\n  Mesozoic age, 229.\n  Michael Angelo, 228.\n  Mont Pelee, 48, 50.\n  Montana, 205.\n  Morning Star, 204.\n  Mount Etna, 78.\n  ---- of Transfiguration, 88.\n  ---- of Vision, 365.\n  Moxom, Rev. Dr. Philip, 223.\n  Muensterberg, Prof. Hugo, 55.\n  Musee Cluny, the, 149, 150.\n  Myers, Frederic, W. H. 140, 148.\n\n  Nature, 171.\n  Naval Observatory, 127.\n  Neptune, 84.\n  New England, 213.\n  New Jersey, 242.\n  New Jerusalem, 226.\n  New Testament, 148.\n  New Year, the, 203, 204, 320.\n  New York, 240.\n  \"New York Herald,\" 48, 151.\n  \"---- Mirror,\" 241.\n  \"---- Tribune,\" 238.\n  Niagara, 153, 226, 231.\n  Nile, 142\n\n  Observatory, the Minnesota University, 144.\n  Ohio, 241.\n  Orion, 317.\n  Ostwald, Dr., 334.\n\n  Paderewski, Ignace, 340.\n  Paradise, 63.\n  \"Paradiso,\" 226.\n  Paris, 95, 149, 226, 275.\n  Parkhurst, Rev. Dr., 325, 328.\n  \"Parsival,\" 265.\n  Permian, 229.\n  Phillips, Stephen, 145, 263.\n  Pierce, Hon. Franklin, 241.\n  Pike's Peak, 238, 239, 244.\n  Pope, General, 249.\n  Powell, Major John W., 231.\n  Preece, Sir William, 127.\n  Prentice, George D., 241.\n  Presbyterian, 169.\n  Promised Land, 204.\n  Protestant, 274.\n  Prudhomme, Sully, 8.\n  Psychical Research, 141.\n  Pueblo, 248.\n  Pyramids, 142, 143.\n\n  Quackenbos, Dr. John D., 160, 161, 172.\n\n  Reichenbach, Anton Benedict, remarkable experiments of, 135.\n  Roberts, Professor, electrical work of, 153.\n  Robinson, Solon, 241.\n  Rocky Mountains, the, 244.\n  Roentgen ray, 41, 60, 73.\n  Royal Gorge, 226.\n  ---- Institute, 81.\n  ---- Society, 12.\n  ---- University of Denmark, 151.\n  Royce, Prof. Josiah, 32.\n  Rumford, Count, experiments of, 338.\n\n  Saint John, 226.\n  ---- Paul, the two bodies described by, 32;\n    counsel of, 64;\n    spiritual things discerned by, 84, 143, 178;\n    admonitions of, 310, 325, 326;\n    Cathedral of, 163.\n  ---- Pierre, 48.\n  ---- Sulpice, 275.\n  San Francisco, 234.\n  Santa Fe road, 233.\n  Secretary of War, the, 249.\n  Shakespeare, 201.\n  Sherman, Gen. W. T., 249.\n  Shinumo Altar, 236.\n  Silver State, the, 254.\n  Sir Hugo, 222.\n  Smyth, Rev. Dr. Newman, 66.\n  Snowy Range, the, 238.\n  Society of Arts, 124.\n  Solomon's Temple, 227.\n  South Platte River, 244.\n  Southern Cross, 142.\n  Spencer, Herbert, 204.\n  Spirit, whisper of the, 305.\n  State University Observatory, Minnesota, 144.\n  Stowe, Mrs. Harriet, nee Beecher, 213.\n\n  Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 87.\n  Tertiary, 229.\n  Tesla, Nicola, 116;\n    discovery of, 122;\n    human energy discussed by, 188.\n  Texas, 205.\n  \"The Gleam,\" 182.\n  \"The Inferno,\" 226.\n  \"The Country God Forgot,\" 234.\n  \"The Perfect Way,\" 255, 256.\n  \"The World Beautiful,\" 25.\n  Thompson, Prof. J. J., 9.\n  Thornburg, Major, 249.\n  Titanic, 226.\n  Trinity Church, 54.\n  Twentieth Century, 198, 264.\n\n  Union Colony, 244, 247, 248, 253.\n  Unitarian, 169.\n  United States, 42.\n  Universe, 109.\n  Unseen, the, 173.\n  Ursa Major, 317, 318.\n  Utah, 228.\n  Utes, the, 247.\n\n  Vatican, the, 256.\n  Vedantic, 332.\n  Vedder, Elihu, 177.\n  \"Vita Nuova,\" 185.\n\n  Walnut Canyon, 235.\n  Warren, Rev. Dr. Walpole, 60.\n  Washington, 127, 246.\n  Washington Monument, 227.\n  Watterson, Col. Henry, 241.\n  Wells, H. G., theories of, on foretelling the future, 81, 83.\n  West, the, 238.\n  Western Reserve, the, 241.\n  Westminster Abbey, 142.\n  White Mountains, the, 48.\n  White River, 238, 247, 251, 261.\n  Whittier, John Greenleaf, 288, 320.\n  Whyte, Rev. Dr. Alexander, 212.\n  Wilberforce, Rev. Dr. Basil, Archdeacon of Westminster, 141, 142.\n  Will of God, 282, 284.\n\n  Young, John Russell, 243.\n\n  Zuni, 235.\n\n\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\n\n_Lilian Whiting's Works_\n\n\n  THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. First Series\n\n  THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. Second Series\n\n  THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. Third Series\n\n  AFTER HER DEATH. The Story of a Summer\n\n  THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE\n\n  KATE FIELD: A Record\n\n  FROM DREAMLAND SENT. Verses of the Life to Come\n\n  A STUDY OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING\n\n  THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL IN BOOKS\n\n  BOSTON DAYS\n\n  THE LIFE RADIANT\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe World Beautiful\n\nBy LILIAN WHITING\n\n\n     I know of no volumes of sermons published in recent years which are\n     so well fitted to uplift the reader, and inspire all that is finest\n     and best in his nature, as are the series of essays entitled \"The\n     World Beautiful,\" by Lilian Whiting.--B. O. FLOWER, _in The Coming\n     Age_.\n\n\nThe World Beautiful (First Series)\n\n     16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising: THE WORLD\n     BEAUTIFUL; FRIENDSHIP; OUR SOCIAL SALVATION; LOTUS EATING; THAT\n     WHICH IS TO COME.\n\nThe world beautiful about which she writes is no far-off event to which\nall things move, but the every-day scene around us filled by a spirit\nwhich elevates and transforms it.--PROF. LOUIS J. BLOCK, in _The\nPhilosophical Journal_.\n\nNo one can read it without feeling himself the better and richer and\nhappier for having done so.--_The Independent_.\n\n\nThe World Beautiful (Second Series)\n\n     16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising: THE WORLD\n     BEAUTIFUL; OUR BEST SOCIETY; TO CLASP ETERNAL BEAUTY; VIBRATIONS;\n     THE UNSEEN WORLD.\n\nThe style is at once graceful and lively. Every touch is fresh.--_Zion's\nHerald_.\n\n\nThe World Beautiful (Third Series)\n\n     16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising: THE WORLD\n     BEAUTIFUL; THE ROSE OF DAWN; THE ENCIRCLING SPIRIT-WORLD; THE RING\n     OF AMETHYST; PARADISA GLORIA.\n\nThe thoughtful reader who loves spiritual themes will find these pages\ninspiring.--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nAfter Her Death\n\nThe Story of a Summer\n\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING, author of \"The World Beautiful,\" etc. 16mo.\n     Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25.\n\n     Comprising: WHAT LACKS THE SUMMER? FROM INMOST DREAMLAND; PAST THE\n     MORNING STAR; IN TWO WORLDS; DISTANT GATES OF EDEN; UNTO MY HEART\n     THOU LIVEST SO; ACROSS THE WORLD I SPEAK TO THEE; THE DEEPER\n     MEANING OF THE HOUR.\n\nMy conviction is that every preacher, reformer, religious editor, and\nChristian worker should read the books by Lilian Whiting.--REV. W. H.\nROGERS, in _The Christian Standard_.\n\n\"After Her Death\" has given me the light and help I have so long craved;\nit has given me comfort and strength which _no other_ book has ever\ndone.--CORDELIA L. COMMORE.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nFrom Dreamland Sent\n\nVerses of the Life to Come\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING. New Edition, with additional verses, 16mo.\n     Cloth, extra, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25.\n\nLilian Whiting's verse is like a bit of sunlit landscape on a May\nmorning.--_Boston Herald_.\n\nGraceful, tender, and true, appealing to what is best in the human\nheart.--_The Independent_.\n\nI never saw anything on earth before which looked so much as if just\nbrought from heaven by angel hands as this new edition of \"From\nDreamland Sent.\" In the golden sunshine of an Italian morning I have\nheard the silver trumpets blow. This exquisite book reminds me of\nthem.--SARAH HOLLAND ADAMS.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nKate Field: A Record\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING. Author of \"The World Beautiful,\" \"A Study of\n     Elizabeth Barrett Browning,\" etc. With several portraits of Miss\n     Field, including one by Elihu Vedder. 12mo. Cloth, extra. $2.00.\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\nCHILDHOOD AND CIRCUMSTANCE. An Interesting Heredity; Family Letters; Mr.\nand Mrs. Field's Stage Life; Death of Joseph M. Field; The Mother and\nDaughter.\n\nEARLY YOUTH. Aspirations and Studies; Interest in Art and Literature;\nArdent Devotion to Music.\n\nFLORENTINE DAYS. At Villa Bellosguardi; Enthusiasm for Italy; George\nEliot and the Trollopes; Walter Savage Landor; At Casa Guidi with the\nBrownings.\n\nLECTURING AND WRITING. Intense Energy of Purpose; John Brown's Grave;\nRistori, Fechter, and the Drama; Planchette's Diary; Death of Eliza\nRiddle Field.\n\nEUROPE REVISITED. Among London Celebrities; In Spain with Castelar;\nMusic and Drama; Professor Bell and the Telephone; The Shakespeare\nMemorial.\n\nA SIGNIFICANT DECADE. Return to America; Failures and Renewed Effort;\nThe Mormon Problem; Alaska and the Golden Gate; Fame and Friends.\n\n\"KATE FIELD'S WASHINGTON.\" A Unique Enterprise; Miss Gilder's\nFriendship; Charming Life in the Capitol; The Columbian Exposition;\nFrance decorated Kate Field.\n\nCROSSING THE BAR. A Journey of Destiny; Life and Studies in Hawaii;\nNoble and Generous Work; The Angel of Death.\n\nIN RETROSPECT. Universal Appreciation and Love; The Strange Ordering of\nCircumstance; A Sculptured Cross in Mount Auburn; Death only an Event in\nLife.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe Spiritual Significance\n\nor, Death as an Event in Life\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING. Author of \"The World Beautiful,\" \"Boston Days,\"\n     etc. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, gilt top, $1.25.\n     Comprising: THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE; VISION AND ACHIEVEMENT;\n     BETWEEN THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN; PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION; THE GATES\n     OF NEW LIFE.\n\nIt suggests and hints at the ultimate significance of scientific\ninvestigation with relation to the totality of thought in a very fresh\nand suggestive way.... The spirit of her book, like that of its\npredecessors, is admirable.--_The Outlook_.\n\nA book from her pen means new flashes of insight, a revelation of\nspiritual truth almost Emersonian in kind.--_Chicago Chronicle_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe World Beautiful\n\nin Books\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING. 16mo. Cloth, $1.00 _net_. Decorated cloth, $1.25\n     _net_.\n\nThe careful and repeated reading of \"The World Beautiful in Books\" would\nbe a liberal education.--_Philadelphia Telegraph_.\n\nIt is like a Greek urn filled with priceless relics. Hundreds of brains,\nancient and modern, are daintily picked of their best thoughts, and\nthere is scarcely a page that is not enriched with some rifled treasure.\nIt is, in fact, concentrated food for select minds.--_Chicago Post_.\n\nTo read it is like being taken informally into a great assemblage of\npoets, romancers, and thinkers, while all are at their best, and being\nintroduced to them by a near friend of all.--_The Era_, Philadelphia.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nBoston Days\n\n     The City of Beautiful Ideals, Concord and Its Famous Authors, The\n     Golden Age of Genius, Dawn of the Twentieth Century. By LILIAN\n     WHITING. Author of \"The World Beautiful,\" etc. With portraits and\n     other illustrations. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50 _net_.\n\nAll the famous names associated with Boston pass in review before\nthe reader of this apotheosis of the intellectual life of\nMassachusetts.--_The Boston Herald_.\n\nThe book is full of fascination of the intrinsic sort, by virtue of the\nmaterial of which it is made up, and Miss Whiting has fulfilled her task\nwith special literary grace and discretion.--_Albany Argus_.\n\nA volume to place on the same shelf with the \"Yesterdays With Authors\"\nof the late James T. Fields and the \"Literary Friends and Acquaintances\"\nof William D. Howells.--_Cleveland Plain Dealer_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nThe Life Radiant\n\n     By LILIAN WHITING, 16mo. Cloth, $1.00 _net_. Decorated cloth, $1.25\n     _net_.\n\nIn this book Miss Whiting aims to portray a practical ideal for daily\nliving that shall embody the sweetness and exaltation and faith that\nlend enchantment to life. It is, in a measure, a logical sequence of\n\"The World Beautiful,\" leading into still diviner harmonies.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nLittle, Brown, & Company, Publishers\n\n254 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.","title":"The Life Radiant","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":73274}