^\ 
 
 tihvaxy of Che Cheolojicd ^emmarjo 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •d^D" 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of the 
 Rev* John B. V7ie dinger 
 
 BV 4501 .S324 1911 
 Schofield, A. T. 1846-1929. 
 Studies in the highest 
 thought 
 
STUDIES IN THE 
 HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
STUDIES IN ife^T' 2 1948 
 
 HIGHEST THOUclSteiLSgSS^ 
 
 BY 
 
 A. T. "SCHOFIELD, M.D. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the UNCONSCIOUS MIND," "tHE 
 
 KNOWLEDGE OF GOD," " CHRISTIAN SANITY," 
 
 "the fourth DIMENSION," ETC. 
 
 'ALTIORA PETO' 
 
 HODDER & STOUGHTON 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYMGHT, 19 H 
 BY 
 
 Geoeg£ H. DoBAia Coupim 
 
PREFACE 
 
 THESE Studies were given by request at 
 the Alliance Club, London, and are now 
 published in book-form in response to the 
 wishes of many friends. They are of course 
 elementary and introductory, but as they 
 have for their subject the relation of the 
 finite to the Infinite, of man to God, I have 
 ventured to use the superlative in connection 
 with them. 
 
 There is no question that the higher 
 mysteries of the Christian faith transcend 
 both in depth and height all the boasted 
 wisdom of the East, and even in these brief 
 Studies sublime themes are touched upon 
 that awaken our deepest feelings of reverence 
 and of awe. 
 
 There is a great love of the mysterious 
 abroad to-day, and it is hoped that some who 
 may be thus attracted to these Studies may 
 pursue them until they reach the end of all 
 mystery in the Divine. 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 The Studies are here given as delivered, 
 with but few necessary changes; and the 
 reader must pardon the abrupt and some- 
 what dogmatic tone that may characterise 
 the spoken more than it does the written 
 word. 
 
 It is hoped that in spite of all imperfection 
 of style the subject matter may appeal to 
 readers of many shades of thought and 
 belief. 
 
 A. T. SCHOFIELD, M.D. 
 
 19 Harley Street, London, W., 
 Easter, 191 1. 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
INTRODUCTORY 
 
 DEGREES OF THOUGHT 
 
 THOUGHTS and mental activities of all f^^^/;//^«*^j^ 
 sorts are becoming of increasing inter- thought, 
 est every day. For long ages nothing was 
 known about them and they were deemed 
 matters of great obscurity and little inter- 
 est. But now I have before me several 
 books devoted to their consideration and 
 classification. I have also one that regards 
 them as possessing definite extension in space 
 and as having various forms and appear- 
 ances significant of their character. They 
 are also said to possess various colours, mostly 
 of a very vivid and striking character. 
 I have, for instance, the form and colours "^^""f^* 
 
 ' ' extension 
 
 of the thoughts of two people observing a^'^'^ colour, 
 street accident as said to be seen by a "sen- 
 sitive" observer. The one convejdng only 
 vague sympathy is not nearly so bright or 
 definite a thought-form as that from an 
 
xii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 active helper. These and other interesting 
 matters relating to thought are becoming 
 the subject of much attention, and although 
 all such new and startling ideas are rightly 
 received with great caution, it would be rash 
 in the present day to assert there is nothing 
 in them. 
 d?g?e*es of ^^ ^^ ^^^' howcver, with the shapes and 
 thought, colours of thoughts (if indeed they possess 
 any) that we are occupied here. It is rather 
 with the different planes or degrees of 
 thought — of which, as we know, there are 
 three : positive thought, comparative thought, 
 and superlative thought. The positive or 
 The posi- high thinking is generally coupled with plain 
 
 tive-high ^ r .j-ji-^^- 1 
 
 thought, or spare hvmg, and indeed it is commonly 
 recognised that for all effective thinking too 
 much of the material is a distinct hindrance. 
 Thought on this plane would include all 
 relating to ordinary study of an elevating 
 nature, and would be connected with high 
 aims and a noble life. It is supposed to 
 flourish in embryo amongst the more studi- 
 ous of our undergraduates at the Univer- 
 sities, and to be the ordinary stock-in-trade 
 of professors, philosophers, statesmen, poets, 
 and men of letters. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xiii 
 
 The next degree, or "Higher Thought," is^hecoM- 
 
 . ° ' a ^ o 7 parative — 
 
 of a very different order, and is the badge iiigher 
 or title of a distinct school that has lately 
 sprung into existence, being largely recruited, 
 if not indeed originating, from the other side 
 of the Atlantic. It is a distinct variety of 
 the genus known as Christian Science, and is 
 akin in many respects to the New Thought, 
 Theosophy, and similar cults. 
 
 It states in their prospectus that "the 
 Higher Thought recognises the true nature 
 of man and the power of his thought to influ- 
 ence the conditions of man's Hfe." This very 
 modest programme, however, by no means 
 covers the extent of the Higher Thought, 
 which ranges far and wide over the whole 
 field of occult phenomena. 
 
 There can be no doubt whatever of the 
 earnestness and zeal with which this cult 
 is pursued and its followers are inspired. 
 The object, too, is clear: to develop the ^^^ objectai 
 human to the utmost limit of which humanity 
 is capable by raising his powers to the highest 
 state of efficiency. All means are invoked 
 to this end; telepathy," thought transference, 
 psychometry, thought concentration are each 
 of them developments in this direction. 
 
3dv INTRODUCTORY 
 
 T 
 
 Respira- The last, we are told, can be greatly 
 thought strengthened by slow and deep respiration; 
 and if these can be brought down to only 
 two or three in the minute the power of 
 thought gained is very great. Thought im- 
 ages (it is said) can then be built up and 
 the thoughts themselves so concentrated and 
 brought to a focus that they can be pro- 
 jected in any desired direction so as to influ- 
 ence people at a distance. 
 
 All this is most interesting and a certain 
 percentage of it is doubtless true. Never- 
 theless, although the wonders of the "Higher 
 Thought" are far greater than I have indi- 
 cated, even when it reaches its utmost Umit 
 there is still room for one degree higher — 
 the superlative. 
 
 I have therefore, greatly daring, taken this 
 
 The super- superlative as indicating the range of thought 
 
 highest faintly indicated in these few brief Studies. 
 
 The essential difference between the highest 
 
 thought and the higher, which is really the 
 
 justification for the use of the superlative, 
 
 is that whereas the latter has man and his 
 
 will as the objective, the former is primarily 
 
 concerned with God and His will. 
 
 It may doubtless be objected by some that 
 
INTRODUCTORY XV 
 
 another difference of some importance is that 
 the former is within our power to study, as 
 we have all the facts at our disposal, but 
 that regarding the latter we know nothing. 
 
 Of course such an assertion might be 
 equally made of any science whose text-books 
 were set aside, and I have clearly shown 
 elsewhere* that the Bible cannot be regarded The Bible 
 
 *-' a Divine 
 
 ultimately as a human production, but thatreveiatioa 
 it contains a full revelation of the true God 
 and of man's relations to Him. 
 
 The grounds on which this is maintained 
 is the unparalleled circulation and perennial 
 vitality of the Bible, which after 2000 years 
 has no rival whatever in any other book 
 on earth; its proved force in its transform- 
 ing power and character, so that cruel sav-^J'^^^^^ 
 ages become by its influence alone changed 
 into kind and noble men; and the unique 
 characters and thoughts it contains — the 
 conception of Jesus Christ, the real force of 
 ''love, eternity, trinity," etc., being found 
 nowhere else. 
 
 For these and many other reasons we regard 
 the Bible as a real revelation from God to 
 
 *The Mystery of the Book. id. Morgan and Scott, 
 Ltd. 
 
XVI INTRODUCTORY 
 
 man and a complete manual of the "Highest 
 Thought.'' 
 
 It seems, too, that now is the psychological 
 moment for this assertion and for Studies on 
 this special plane. 
 ?thc p'en^ The pendulum has swung well over from 
 duium. the material to the mystic; and unsatisfied 
 hearts, tired of the commonplaces so often 
 offered them in the name of Religion, and 
 disgusted with the cheap types of Christian 
 formalism that everywhere abound, are seek- 
 ing, seeking earnestly and persistently, as 
 they never sought before, for the true God, 
 for the ultimate Good, for the meaning and 
 end of life. The pity is that they turn from 
 the Bible as from some shibboleth they are 
 weary of hearing, simply because they are 
 really ignorant of its Divine directness and 
 simplicity. 
 
 Even the amazing mysteries of the incarna- 
 tion, life, and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 have been so cheapened and popularised as to 
 The degra- lose most of their majesty and saving power. 
 
 dation of ,, , ,- , • , • im 
 
 Christian- My feeungs, as I write this, are very like 
 
 ity. • • • 
 
 what I often experience m my consulting 
 room, where I have to treat a certain class of 
 disease for which a "rest cure" is essential. 
 
INTRODUCTORY xvii 
 
 Years ago one could recommend and carry 
 this out, without doubt or difficulty; but 
 now it is far otherwise. 
 
 It has become such an absolute common- 
 place, so deteriorated in its methods and 
 details, so popularised and vulgarised and Vulgarised 
 carried out so inefficiently and carelessly treatment, 
 that I find now I have often to apologise 
 for mentioning it, and experience great diffi- 
 culty in restoring the shattered faith in its 
 efficacy. Many, indeed, go away uncured 
 because they cannot be persuaded to under- 
 take again what they have already tried 
 ineffectually. 
 
 It is so here in a still greater degree. As I 
 write these lines I am absolutely certain that 
 Christ and Christianity as revealed in the 
 Bible, and not as debased and degraded 
 by our modern tenets and practices, con- 
 stitutes a perfect panacea for the deeper ills ^^^ p^'^^- 
 
 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ cea of true 
 
 of mankind, and would bring light and joy religion. - 
 into thousands of distressed lives. 
 
 There is undoubtedly a craving everywhere 
 for reality and for genuine relief and rest 
 for the burdened soul and conscience; and 
 I can only hope that in the attempt I here 
 make to present the old evangel in a some- 
 
xviii INTRODUCTORY 
 
 what modern dress, and to depict some of 
 the little known glories of the spirit life, that 
 I may be able to present clearly without 
 distortion some glorious truths of the High- 
 est Thought. 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 
 
FIRST STUDY 
 
 THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 
 
 IN entering upon the first of these Studies 
 I may briefly recall the essential difference 
 between the comparative and superlative inj?j^*'^^' 
 thought. The Higher Thought " recognises tween the 
 the true nature of man and the power of his tive and 
 
 . . . . , superla- 
 
 thought to influence the condition oi man s tive. 
 life" — a study that centres round humanity. 
 
 The object of the Highest Thought may 
 be stated in the same words, merely substi- 
 tuting "God for "man." It "recognises the 
 true nature of God and the power of His 
 thought to influence the condition of man's 
 life" — a study that centres round Divinity. 
 
 Turning to our first theme, "The Father of Subjection 
 
 . . ° . to the 
 
 Spirits," I will read the one verse that em- Father of 
 bodies in so many words my subject in this ^^'" ^' 
 Study. It is in Hebrews xii. 9: "PFe had, 
 the fathers of our flesh," it says, "to chasten 
 us, and we gave them reverence." These are 
 our earthly parents. Then follow these 
 
 3 
 
4 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 words: "Shall we not much rather be 
 
 IN SUBJECTION UNTO THE FATHER OF SPIRITS, 
 AND LIVE?" 
 
 The Father of spirits, or, as the margin 
 says quite correctly, ^'The Father of our 
 spirits r^ That is a phrase that is so 
 profound that I feel sure that few have 
 fathomed it. Let me repeat the words. 
 ^'Shall we not" asks the unknown writer 
 of this epistle, I think probably the Apostle 
 Paul, "much rather be in subjection unto the 
 Father of our spirits, and live?" I will 
 venture to say that none, however great 
 Fulness of t^eir attainments, know in its fullest sense 
 
 life the ... 
 
 result. what Hfe means until they know what it is 
 to be in subjection to the Father of their 
 spirits. 
 
 This is a deep saying, and the more we 
 ponder it the better we Uke it and the 
 truer we find it: we feel that it must be so 
 in the nature of things. Of course the Father 
 of spirits has a general and also a special 
 meaning. He is both God and Father. In a 
 general sense "in Him we live and move and 
 have our being." 
 
 Father of jjg jg ^-j^g Father of our spirits: therefore 
 
 spirit, soul, '^ 
 
 and body, -^e livc. Hc is the Father of our souls, ani- 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS $ 
 
 mal life, author of our energies: therefore 
 we move. He is the Father, in a sense, of 
 our bodies: therefore we live and breathe 
 physically, — "God in whose hand" said 
 Daniel, at Belshazzar's feast, "thy breath is, 
 hast thou not glorified." 
 
 Consider the three. The God of our 
 spirits gives Life. The God of our souls gives 
 Movement. The God of our bodies gives 
 Existence — the tripartite nature of man 
 united in the most profound psychological Pjo^°^<* 
 synthesis in one phrase by the apostle in logical . 
 
 X ./ i synthesis. 
 
 that remote age when psychology was hardly 
 dreamed of, in his sermon on Mars Hill. 
 
 Therefore, in a general sense, God is the 
 Father of all men's spirits, but only to those 
 who give Him subjection and learn to live in 
 the highest sense is He the special Father 
 through regeneration by the merits of our 
 Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I take it 
 we get both the special and the general 
 sense in the words: "Shall we not much 
 rather he in subjection to the Father of spirits, 
 and live?" 
 
 The choice is given us, "Shall we not" 
 because we are neither clods nor stones, nor 
 even of the inferior orders of the animal 
 
6 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 Free will is yj-^crdom. Made in the likeness of God we 
 
 asserted '^ 
 
 here. are endowed with free will. Pundits and 
 those who split hairs and words may deny- 
 that we have free will. Each one of us, 
 however, is quite conscious that we are free 
 to read this book or no, and that we can 
 stop when we like. 
 
 Now having this free will, instead of being 
 
 This will in subjection to this Father of spirits, it is 
 
 03-11 DC ^ , _ - 
 
 used for quite Open to us to deny, to ignore, to rebel, 
 to offend against Him; to destroy, to defile, 
 to degrade ourselves. All who do this can 
 never know in its full sense the meaning of 
 the simple word "Life." But this will can 
 be used for our good and for God's glory. 
 Therefore our quest is, how to be so truly in 
 subjection to the Father of spirits that we 
 may have Hfe, and have life more abund- 
 antly. 
 
 Why not We havc at best only a limited number of 
 
 enjoy hie "^ 
 
 more? years yet of life in London, or in the country 
 where we reside. Why should not that life 
 be of the fullest, best, and noblest character? 
 Why should not we enjoy Hfe to an extent 
 we never have yet experienced, and reach 
 an ideal that we have never yet conceived? 
 This may be attained by Studies in the 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 7 
 
 Highest Thought, in that thought which is 
 concerned with the relations of God and 
 Man. 
 
 Now what God requires from us are three ^g^j^.^^ 
 things — justice, mercy, and humihty. I justice, 
 find the whole duty of man crystallised in humility, 
 that wonderful verse in Micah vi. 8: "iJe 
 hath shewed thee, O man, what is good: and 
 what doth the Lord require of thee, hut to do 
 justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly 
 with thy God." The man who does these in 
 the perfection to which the scripture here 
 alludes is a man who pleases God and a man 
 who walks with God. But although that is 
 what God requires of us, what we require in 
 order to be able to perfectly fulfil those three 
 duties is power, and will, and faith. God ^^ require 
 
 ^ ' ' power, 
 
 requires from us ethics and good works; towi.'i, and 
 produce these we require a surrendered will 
 and a quickening faith. 
 
 Once our wills are captured, the citadel of 
 our being is His, and from that moment true 
 happiness begins in our souls. It is the 
 capturing of the will that is the first secret of '^^^^^iii 
 
 '^ ^ must be 
 
 the Highest Thought. ''My son, give me thine captured. 
 heart." 
 
 God does not want the head or the under- 
 
8 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 standing first, but the heart and the will. 
 The question asked is, "Shall we not much 
 rather be in subjection?'^ The one who is in 
 subjection has a captured and surrendered 
 will, and that is where the battle with self is 
 fought. Shall we live to do our own will 
 or God's, or shall we reach that blissful 
 summit when our own will and God's are 
 absolutely indistinguishable; when our wishes 
 are so surrendered that God's will is ours? 
 
 of°pe?fec- ^^^ ^^y ^^y* "These are counsels of 
 tion. such perfection that they are of little use to 
 us poor erring mortals who may study this 
 book; you must think you have a very wise 
 company of readers to talk like this." It is 
 not our wisdom, however, that produces won- 
 derful results, but it is our surrendered will. 
 "My son, give me thine heart'' is the secret 
 entrance to the highest spheres of this life. 
 I have, in this Study, to say a few intro- 
 ductory words about this Father of spirits. 
 How God reveals His will and how He 
 Wa^Yo The S^^^^ US the power to obey it. The "Way 
 Father? to the Father" will be the subject of our 
 Second Study. 
 
 Some may here ask, " Can God reveal the 
 Way?" To say "No" is of course absurd, 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 9 
 
 because it limits the Omnipotent and makes 
 the Infinite finite. There is no reasonable, 
 rational being who can ever say that God 
 cannot do anything He pleases. The next 
 question is, "Has He revealed the Way? " The 
 answer to that is ^'The Book." There is only 
 one ^^The Book"; all the others are books, 
 or a book, but this is The Book. There is The Book, 
 only one work in the world called The 
 Bible, and this single fact is of great im- 
 portance. 
 
 I would greatly like to turn aside here for 
 one moment in order to establish the claim 
 of this little volume to be a revelation of 
 the Highest Thought from God — a true 
 revelation; and the reason I dwell on it for 
 one moment is because the claims of the 
 Bible have been so greatly disputed. In the 
 first place, this book that we all possess 
 has, at the present day, nearly 2000 years 
 after it was written, a single circulation that, its unique 
 
 , circulatioD, 
 
 I beheve, exceeds in extent the united cir- 
 culation of every book of its size in any one 
 year. 
 
 That is to say, if you take all the books 
 published in one year of men's writings of 
 this size, this one old collection of sixty-six 
 
lO STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 writings, most of them belonging to a small 
 obscure nation which is scattered all over 
 the world, the Jews, probably exceeds in 
 number at the present day annually the 
 combined circulation of all other books 
 published in one year of its size. To compare 
 the circulation of this book with any other 
 single book is of course absolutely ridiculous. 
 Compared Yoi instance, I suppose the greatest book 
 Shakes- we have in England is the works of Shake- 
 
 peare or , . , . r 01 i 
 
 Plato. speare, but the circulation of Shakespeare 
 is absolutely as nothing compared with that 
 of the Bible. The greatest of the ancient 
 books, taking a work about the age of the 
 Bible, would be the writings of Plato; but 
 you would require a very powerful microscope 
 to see the number of the works of Plato 
 circulated compared with the Bible. There 
 is nothing on earth to compare with "The 
 Book" in circulation, and this hard, crude 
 fact has to be faced in the first place by those 
 who place it on a level with other books and 
 deny its special inspiration, 
 fcrce^be-^^ There must be something about this book 
 hind the that makes it circulate in such amazing 
 
 Bible? ^ 
 
 quantities in every language and every coun- 
 try over the face of God's earth at the pres- 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS II 
 
 ent day, and the question is, "What is the 
 force that gives it this perennial vitaHty?" 
 
 Then you have here in the Book sixty-six it^s^ perfect 
 booklets bound together, written by inde- 
 pendent writers, most of whom never saw 
 each other, and many of whom never heard 
 of each other, and whose Hves were spread 
 over some two thousand years of time; and 
 yet when these booklets are bound together 
 they produce a complete harmony and fur- 
 nish cross references to each other's ideas that 
 gives you a conception of sixty-six performers 
 in some great oratorio, meeting haphazard ^he^Bible 
 in the orchestra one afternoon, never having oratorio, 
 seen each other, or heard of each other, or 
 seen each other's scores, or knomng the title 
 of the complete piece, but each playing his 
 part for the first time, and yet succeeding 
 in producing perfect music. You will at 
 once say there must have been somewhere 
 a Master Hand, a composer as well as a 
 conductor for this orchestra to produce this 
 wonderful harmony of music from sixty-six 
 independent performers. 
 
 Another amazing thing is this,— that this Jjs^^-^^,^ 
 book has never been added to. No one character, 
 knows what was its origin. It was not cer- 
 
12 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 tainly human; we presume it, therefore, to 
 be Divine. When I say it was not human 
 I mean that the popular idea that an au- 
 thoritative Council of the Jewish nation 
 bound together an Old Testament is erro- 
 neous. There was nothing of the sort. The 
 Jews never had our Old Testament as such. 
 This Old Testament grew together and some 
 time before Our Lord's appearance became 
 a complete whole, but no one knows by 
 whose authority it so became to the exclu- 
 
 The Apoc- sion of the Apocrypha. No one can say 
 why the closing chapters (given in the Apoc- 
 rypha) are excluded from the Book of 
 Esther in the authorized version. There is 
 a hidden reason for it, but I think that no 
 one who compiled it knew that reason. I 
 might just allude to it for one moment, 
 because such little points are so significant. 
 I do not know whether any of my readers 
 are fond of botany or not, or of looking at 
 sea shells or animalculae under a microscope 
 and seeing the infinite perfection in the 
 smallest things made by God; but here is 
 an instance in literature of the same per- 
 fection. 
 
 Esther. In the Book of Esther the word "God" 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 13 
 
 never appears. God refused to have His 
 name in that book because His people had 
 cast Him off, and although the whole story- 
 is a record of how He intervened on their 
 behalf, it is as One behind the scenes whose 
 Name shall not be known. He is incognito; 
 His name is never to be found throughout 
 the narration. This fact is now well known. 
 
 But what about the chapters that are 
 left out? Curiously enough the last chapter J.**^ "^^e 
 of Esther ends in the Bible with three 
 verses; the fourth verse and the remaining 
 chapters are in the Apocrypha; and the 
 fourth verse begins with these words, "And 
 God said." The writer had never noticed 
 that God was never to be found in the book, 
 and all this part that is shut out is full of 
 His name, showing it, from our point of 
 view, to be spurious. But who was clever 
 enough to think of this? This is only one 
 instance out of hundreds of undesigned 
 coincidences. 
 
 But if such be the wonders of the Old Wonders of 
 
 ^ the New 
 
 Testament, the New Testament is still more Testament, 
 miraculous. Most people have pecuhar ideas 
 as to what the New Testament is and where 
 it came from. They think it was a selection 
 
14 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Its forma- 
 tion is 
 Divine. 
 
 Endorsed 
 by the 
 Cliurch. 
 
 made by the great early Fathers of the Church. 
 As a matter of fact the great Fathers of the 
 Church assumed no such authority. 
 
 The canon of the New Testament bears the 
 imprimatur of no man's name, of no Church 
 Council, of no human authority. It came 
 together; it grew Hke a plant. Its exclusions 
 and its inclusions are equally remarkable. 
 No one can tell why the letters of Apollos 
 are not in it and the letters of Paul are; no 
 one can tell why the letters of Polycarp are 
 not in; why some of the beautiful sayings of 
 Saint Chrysostom are not in: but for some 
 inscrutable reason a Divine hand has caused 
 certain books from the earhest ages to be 
 recognised as inspired in a particular and 
 pecuhar sense. 
 
 When these writings, which had become 
 so regarded, were known as the New Tes- 
 tament, a Church Council then endorsed 
 the fact and said, "This is the New Testa- 
 ment," but they did not form it or gather 
 the book together. It was only after the 
 selection had been made by no known human 
 agent that they stamped it as Divine by 
 their authority. 
 
 There is yet another remarkable circum- 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 15 
 
 Stance. It is not only that no one has ever 
 been able to destroy this Bible, either thej^^^'b'e 
 Old or the New Testament, though attempts strucUbie. 
 have been made to do so by the richest and 
 cleverest and most powerful kings and em- 
 perors with the utmost intensity and deter- 
 mination. As we well know, Voltaire fully 
 thought there would not be a Bible to be 
 seen soon after his death, and as we also 
 know — I need not repeat the whole story 
 — the house in which he lived at Geneva is 
 now the Bible House. That is only one inci- 
 dent; the point is this: that since the canon 
 of this New Testament was closed no one 
 has succeeded in adding another line. 
 
 You would have thought that the Early J*^ ^^"j°^* 
 Church would have said, "But there is Saint to. 
 Jerome, there is Saint Athanasius, there is 
 Saint Chrysostom, and the wonderful sayings 
 of Polycarp; we must introduce these and 
 add to the body of the Scriptures." They 
 have never been able to do so; and in all the 
 two thousand years of the Church's history all 
 the saints of holy life that have written mar- 
 vellous works have never had one word of 
 their writings put into this inspired collection 
 of books that we call the Bible, "The Book," 
 
1 6 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Some Divine hand has been behind the 
 
 whole thing, has put these books together, 
 
 forced them to be recognised as the Word of 
 
 The sacred Qq^ and then so closed the canon, so sealed 
 
 canon is ' ' 
 
 closed. the book with seven seals, that no one is 
 able to open it or to add another word to 
 it. And this book is circulated now, as far 
 as we know, as it originally was written, in 
 a greater number than any other book in the 
 world. 
 
 But it is not only indestructible, but it is 
 unique in its ideas, in its words, in its story, 
 in its personality. 
 unique*^'"^ It contains ideas that are not to be found 
 ideas. j^ ^Luy othcr work on earth. It contains 
 the true idea of eternity which you cannot 
 find in any Greek writing or in any classic. 
 It contains the extraordinary conception of 
 the sovereignty of God and the free will of 
 man, — two actual incompatibles which are 
 both asserted and which are both true and 
 are to be found nowhere else. It contains 
 the idea of the Atonement and it contains 
 the extraordinary idea of tri-um'ty without 
 plurality, — three in one. The idea of the 
 Trinity in itself is a true, unique, biblical 
 conception. . . » ' 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 17 
 
 It contains words that have been expressly it .contains 
 coined for this book. The word " love " words. 
 (Agape) was never known until it was written 
 in this book. The word ''Jehovah" is pecu- 
 liar to this book. 
 
 It contains a story that has not its equal ^* contains 
 
 -^ ^ a unique 
 
 in the world. As the Bishop of London said ^t-ory. 
 the other day, "it is the only story in the 
 world worth spending your Hfe in telling." 
 It contains a Personality which, by the it ^^c^cnbes 
 
 ^ "^ a. unique 
 
 confession of friends and enemies ahke, person- 
 Pagans, Jews, Turks, and Infidels, is so 
 unique that all men bow down before that 
 Personality, though all men may not adopt 
 the Christian creed, — the personality of the 
 Man Christ Jesus. 
 
 On these and many other grounds I claim 
 that it is inspired in a peculiar sense and 
 contains a message from the Father of spirits 
 to every thoughtful man and woman which 
 they would do well to heed. It is a hving 
 book; it has given life to thousands. 
 
 This book is immortal; it has the seed of 
 eternal life in it and a power in it to 
 change the hves of the worst of men into 
 God's own likeness; and it is doing so, and 
 has done so, every day for the last two 
 
l8 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 thousand years. The sacred books of the 
 lysa East are not living books. They do not 
 book. change the lives of men; they do not profess 
 to; but this book will penetrate to some 
 South Sea Island and change the whole char- 
 acter of its inhabitants by its unique power. 
 There is one more thing about this book 
 that I must mention. I have been laid up 
 at home for the last three weeks with a little 
 accident, and a friend brought to me a most 
 beautiful stereoscope and pictures. If you 
 look with the eye only at the stereoscopic 
 pictures they appear Uke ordinary photo- 
 graphs; but any one who has seen these pic- 
 tures through a stereoscope will agree with 
 me that a moment occurs, when you are look- 
 We require ing through the stereoscope, when the whole 
 scopic scene leaps into incredible hfe before your 
 eyes. The mountains stand out and the solid 
 figure of a man is seen climbing in the fore- 
 ground. You can see behind him and all 
 round him, and the whole scene changes 
 from a picture to reality. 
 
 When does that moment occur? When 
 you get the stereoscopic vision, when your 
 two eyes, acting together on the two different 
 pictures, unite them in your brain as one, and 
 
 vision. 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 19 
 
 the whole thing becomes as absolute a reality 
 to you as if you were there on the spot. I 
 always consider that stereoscopic vision is 
 one of the greatest marvels that we have, — 
 to be able to see solidity from a flat. 
 In the same way the Word of God becomes it must be 
 
 S66n witli 
 
 as absolutely different the moment you get two eyes, 
 stereoscopic vision of the mind as a stereo- 
 scopic picture does when it is really seen 
 through the instrument. There are two eyes 
 which are requisite to see the Bible with, 
 and the moment we see any part with those 
 two eyes, it is a most extraordinary thing, but 
 the passage becomes solid, Hfelike ; the words 
 leap into their real power and solidity before 
 our eyes; and we see in the book something 
 we have never seen before, though we may 
 have gazed at it in church or elsewhere 
 for forty years. It becomes real fact, solid 
 truth before our eyes the moment we get 
 stereoscopic vision. 
 
 And what are the two eyes that we have 
 to see it with? The eyes of our understanding The eyes of 
 
 the under- 
 
 and the eyes of our heart. We have to see standing 
 it with the head and with the heart. We*° 
 have to understand it with the head; our 
 heart has to feel the thrill and power of it; 
 
20 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 and the moment those two are blended 
 together we get a stereoscopic beauty of the 
 Bible which we have never seen before. 
 
 I therefore maintain, as I now leave the 
 subject of the Scriptures, that the whole phe- 
 nomena of the Bible in its circulation, in its 
 formation, and in its contents are absolutely 
 unaccountable unless we regard it as coming 
 All this from God and containing a revelation of His 
 
 proves its ° 
 
 Divine will. TMs book has now spread over the 
 
 origin. 
 
 world and the revelation it contains is more 
 powerful today than it ever has been be- 
 fore. I say "more powerful." Look what 
 it effects. 
 Some of you may have heard a sort of an 
 burgh'con- ^^^^ in the papers of the Convention at 
 vention. Edinburgh last year. As a matter of fact 
 that Convention is registered in Heaven. 
 There never was such an event before upon 
 this earth since it has been a planet. Men 
 of every division of the Christian faith in 
 united harmony were there assembled in the 
 most earnest conclave to consider how they 
 could best advance the interests of Christ's 
 kingdom and secure that His gospel should 
 reach every creature who had not yet heard 
 it; and all this done on most practical and 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 21 
 
 businesslike lines by men who had travelled 
 half round the world to unite in Edinburgh 
 to consider this subject. Such a thing has 
 never been done before, and such is the power 
 of this book. 
 
 This Bible, as I have already said, reveals 
 a special sonship besides the creative power Spedai; 
 
 , sonsmp. 
 
 in whom we live and move and have our 
 being, — a special relation to this special 
 Father of spirits by ties of blood and birth 
 and privilege; so that we are spoken of in 
 this book as children by birth and by blood 
 ties by being born again; and we are spoken 
 of in this book as sons by adoption, by 
 privilege, as becoming heirs to coming king- 
 doms in a coming eternity. To many the 
 word "eternity" seems still an empty myth, 
 but to thousands of reasonable and rational 
 and thinking beings it has become a greater 
 reaHty than the world in which we live. 
 
 Many of my friends who study the Higher 
 Thought, and all who know the Highest 
 Thought, will agree with me that the things 
 that are unseen, which are eternal, are after 
 all the real things, and that we Hve and move 
 now in a world of shadows. 
 
 We get in this new connection with God 
 
22 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Sonshfp" ^ relationship surpassing that of Adam in 
 with the Eden. There God walked with man in His 
 
 Divine. 
 
 home in Eden; now man dwells with God in 
 His home in Heaven. He dwells with the 
 Father of spirits in his spiritual home now, 
 and the man who in his soul and the affec- 
 tions of his heart does not Hve with the Father 
 of spirits in His heavenly home has Uttle 
 power to represent that Father in this world. 
 This is indeed the cHmax of the Highest 
 ^t\g^^" Thought. No higher thought is possible 
 
 Thought ^^^^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^ °^ ^ woman may be living 
 on this earth and yet be at the same time 
 in Heaven. 
 
 That such an idea is not my own and is 
 not a transcendental vision is shown by the 
 simple fact that every letter St. Paul wrote 
 — and St. Paul was one of the most prac- 
 tical of men — was written to people in two 
 places at once. " To the saints and faithful 
 brethren in Christ which are at Colosse.'* This 
 was a small village down the Lysander Val- 
 ley not far from Ephesus, and if you had 
 gone to Colosse you would have seen men 
 and women walking about the streets, but 
 pkces'at ^^^ would havc obscrved a something about 
 once. them that would have shown you they were 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 23 
 
 somewhere else at the same time. You 
 would have seen they were men who had 
 had a heavenly vision; you would have seen 
 they were men who were wrapt in the 
 Highest Thought; you would have seen they 
 were dwelling in their souls with the Father 
 of spirits, while their feet were walking the 
 streets of Colosse. 
 So it is with the man or the woman who "^^.^ '^Js'*" 
 
 and the 
 
 has grasped with any power the meaning of lower life, 
 my text; "Shall we not much rather he in 
 subjection unto the Father of our spirits, and 
 know life more abundantly,'" by having our 
 souls set free to Hve in the highest regions 
 of thought, of power, of life, of enjoyment so 
 that our outward hfe down here may be a 
 reflection of the joy that our inward spirits 
 live in; so that in a sense no one can touch us 
 without at the same time touching in some 
 measure the Father of spirits. Such is pos- 
 sible, such is probable, such is the absolute 
 sober truth concerning numbers who are in 
 our midst to-day. 
 It was true of Christ. The only Begotten ciinst was 
 
 •' ° always in 
 
 Son would never have declared the Father, two places. 
 His life in Palestine would never have been 
 any marvel if while He was living there He 
 
24 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 was not all the time in Heaven. The One 
 who came down from Heaven was the Son 
 of Man who is in Heaven, and on earth He 
 was a man who dwelt in the bosom of the 
 Father in Heaven all the time. That is what 
 made Him so supremely happy. 
 
 He was called ''The Man of Sorrows" 
 because He Hved in a world of sorrow for 
 which He felt intensely, but He had His 
 moments of happiness; and I sometimes 
 think He used sometimes to hide His happi- 
 ness, though He could not hide His sorrows. 
 He used to retire apart to a mountain to be 
 alone with His Father, and who can tell the 
 ^"^s and ^'^^ ^^^ delight of such moments of spiritual 
 sorrows, communiou? They may be concealed from 
 us, but there is not the slightest doubt that 
 it was in the power of that hidden Hfe that 
 the perfect life of Christ was lived on earth. 
 So with us in our poor measure. This rela- 
 tionship, as I say, is known and enjoyed by 
 thousands. I will just add one word about 
 it and I have done. 
 
 We read a great deal and we are very much 
 interested in the new power which has lately 
 been developed. I am very sorry to see 
 that, in the papers, it is constantly being 
 
THE FATHER OF SPIRITS 2$ 
 
 called now the new arm for warfare. Every 
 new invention seems to be cursed with the 
 necessity of being dragged in as a new means 
 of destroying other people. I refer to aviation. Aviation 
 It is a wonderful thing, it is a new thing, and Bible. 
 it is a thing that interests us all. It is a 
 thing which in its spiritual aspect is very old 
 in the Bible. As you know, it is talked about 
 in the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, to which I 
 will most briefly allude in closing. 
 
 Young men fail; young men faint; people 
 get tired of the journey and the dust and the 
 mud and the weariness of Hfe in going through 
 their seventy years of existence in this world, 
 and they have not strength enough to go 
 through it without weakness and weariness 
 and ennui and so on. But Isaiah says ^Hhey 
 that wait on the Lord shall change their ability" 
 
 Before they waited on the Lord, before they How to fly. 
 knew the Father of spirits, before they soared 
 into the regions of the Highest Thought they 
 could walk and they could run, but there is 
 one thing they could not do, — they could 
 not fly. But ^^ they that wait upon the Lord 
 shall change their ability'^; they shall receive 
 a new power that they never had before — 
 ^Hhey shall mount up with wings as eagles.''^ 
 
26 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Where to? To their Father of spirits in 
 '•^epower jjis heavenly home. The moment they do 
 that what happens? " They shall run and not 
 he weary, they shall walk and not faint''; and 
 as the Apostle says, "for this cause," because 
 we can fly, "we faint not.'' 
 
 The man who has learnt to fly never faints; 
 the man whose spirit lives with the Father of 
 spirits in Heaven is never tired of life how- 
 ever he maybe fatigued, but he has an unfading 
 freshness, a perennial power about him that 
 nothing can weary or tire. A man said once to 
 Joshua, "I am eighty-five years old to-day; I 
 
 Never am as fresh, as strong and as able as I was forty- 
 grow old. 7 O 
 
 five years ago when I started to walk through 
 this howling wilderness." Why? Because he 
 had been living with God in Heaven all the 
 time. There is the secret of perennial life. 
 Having thus shortly opened the subject in 
 this very imperfect way I will say no more 
 here, but I will ask any who are interested 
 in the development of the Highest Thought — 
 and I may say it has extremely interesting 
 developments — to pass on now to our Sec- 
 ond Study on The Way, — the way to that 
 Father of spirits of whom I have briefly 
 spoken in this First Study. 
 
THE WAY 
 
SECOND STUDY 
 
 THE WAY 
 
 THE first problem of the Highest Thought 
 is that which concerns our relation to 
 the Father of spirits. We saw that life in 
 its fullest sense was only found in those and 
 only enjoyed by such as Hved in subjection 
 to this Father of spirits, and that in this sur- 
 render of the will lay the secret of a satisfied J^^^ ^^^^^ 
 and successful life and the entrance to theii^^. 
 highest state of holiness and happiness. But 
 the point that remains for our present con- 
 sideration is how this Father of spirits can 
 be reached by mortal man, and the answer 
 is found in the encouraging and delightful 
 title of our Second Subject — "The Way." 
 
 Take a brief survey of the world as it is Jg'^ft Ts?'^''* 
 at this moment and consider the seething, 
 struggling mass of mankind over the whole 
 world, striving in all directions for divers 
 sorts of objects which in themselves yield no 
 satisfaction when attained. Look across the 
 29 
 
30 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Atlantic at the picture of the great American 
 nation, with its politics and its millionaires, 
 and consider that here we are supposed to 
 see the latest advances and evolution of man- 
 kind in its intelligence and wisdom. What 
 an incredible and amazing picture it presents! 
 Prcpara- Tum to the older countries of Europe and 
 
 tions for . *^ 
 
 war. observe the nations here spending some 500 
 
 millions in preparing for a war not yet de- 
 clared, but which curiously by common con- 
 sent is morbidly declared to be inevitable, 
 and this for no earthly reason that is known. 
 Look upon these perplexing problems of our 
 boastful race as they are to-day and then 
 turn your eyes away from mankind to the 
 Father of spirits, who loves all these strug- 
 gling, striving creatures, and mark that for 
 thousands of years, owing to the Divine spark 
 which is in every man, the deepest aspiration 
 of the human race has been to find a way to 
 God. 
 
 probiSsf You remember how the talented author 
 of "No. 5 John Street," a book of remarkable 
 power, stood on the steps of the Royal 
 Exchange one day, as he might have done 
 this morning at 12 o'clock, and seeing the 
 masses coming to and fro, incessantly hurry- 
 
THE WAY 31 
 
 ing and bustling in front of him at the 
 Mansion House in the City of London, won- 
 dered what it was all about — what they 
 were all aiming at; what was the ultimate 
 good they were seeking; what all this con- 
 fusion, like the crowded movements in a hive 
 of bees, meant, and whither it all tended; 
 but he could find no satisfactory answer. 
 
 We have now before us, however, a won- 
 derful subject to consider, — whether there 
 really is a Way across the impassable morass The im- 
 
 . . passable 
 
 of mens opinions and ideas and all the morass, 
 seething, struggling confusion of this world's 
 aspirations and religions that leads to the 
 Father of spirits. Here and there an atten- 
 tive observer may see a few, silently thread- 
 ing their way through the bog, across the 
 morass, holding some unseen clue which 
 appears to guide their footsteps, so that they 
 fall neither on the right hand nor on the 
 left, but seem to be steadily progressing in 
 Indian file across the wilderness of this world 
 towards a heavenly home. We cannot cross 
 this limitless bog, this pathless forest without 
 finding the Way. 
 
 Travellers in Africa will tell you that an 
 African path is the most wonderful thing 
 
32 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 there. They will speak of trackless forests 
 hundreds of miles in extent, with a single 
 way not above a foot broad, formed through 
 countless generations by the footsteps of one 
 man after another, along which alone you 
 An African can travel through that pathless forest in 
 
 forest path. , 
 
 safety to reach the other side. So is there a 
 Way, narrow though it be, to the Father of 
 spirits, and there are some of my readers 
 who may have found this Way and some 
 who may not. But these latter who are 
 earnest souls will find it; for they are un- 
 doubtedly seeking it, and they that seek 
 shall find. 
 Is there a Look once again on the picture of life. 
 
 a way '-» ^ 
 
 across? On one side of the pathless forest and the 
 limitless bog is the restless crowd; on the 
 other side the Father of spirits waiting for 
 his children to come to Him. The one 
 question is. Is there a Way between the 
 seeker and the sought from man to God? 
 How are we to find it? This is indeed what 
 all the world, the serious world, is seeking in 
 one way or another to-day. 
 
 Well may we call these Studies in the 
 Highest Thought, for they seek to solve the 
 highest problems and the deepest yearnings 
 
THE WAY 33 
 
 of human life. Never were there so many- 
 altars to unknown Gods as at this moment, a hundred 
 
 altars to 
 
 If St. Paul saw one on Mars Hill we see a unknown 
 hundred in London to-day. I do not look 
 at them all as perversions from the faith — ■ 
 far from it; though undoubtedly to shut the 
 eye against the light is a very different thing 
 from groping in the dark before the light 
 shone; there are determined gropers in the 
 dark who still, seemingly ignorant (perhaps 
 willingly) that the true Light shines, seek for 
 themselves for one reason or another some 
 original path, some way of their own to find 
 this Father of spirits. 
 
 I would not for a moment cast a doubt on Our three 
 
 guides. 
 
 the earnestness or reality of their quest, but 
 I would point out to them that there are 
 for all three guides, and three guides only, 
 that can help us to find the true and right 
 way. We have been given by God reason, 
 emotion, and will. These are the three parts 
 of the human mind or spirit — the reason or 
 intelligence, the emotion or heart, and the 
 will. 
 
 Now consider our question as to the Way 
 in the light of these three guides. First iiioi'^^asonl^* 
 the light of reason or experience. 
 
34 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 If I am in earnest in seeking a way to the 
 Father of spirits that I may live as I have 
 never lived before, let me see if the voice 
 of experience has nothing to say. Are there 
 any who have found this Way? Are they 
 Hving to-day or in past ages? In answer 
 An appeal J jigaj. thousands and tens of thousands of 
 
 to thou- 
 sands, witnesses, who appeal with an irresistible 
 
 voice to my intelligence and reason, saying 
 
 one after another, not only by their voices 
 
 but by their hves, ''We have reached the 
 
 goal. The Divine is our Father. We know 
 
 experimentally what life more abundantly 
 
 means." 
 
 S^pTthe? ^^^ °^® ^^^ ^^^ *^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^y ^y 
 
 rh^t which they found this Father was through 
 Jesus Christ His Son. All language of ex- 
 perience throughout all ages of those who 
 have found the Father of spirits tells us 
 it was by one means, and by one means 
 alone; thus corroborating by experience the 
 words of Holy Writ which says, "No one — 
 crosses this bog, traverses this impenetrable 
 forest — Cometh unto the Father (of spirits) 
 but by Mer 
 
 If we turn from experience, reason, and 
 intelligence to the heart or the instinct, we 
 
THE WAY 35 
 
 find the same finger pointing to the same 
 Way. Look, for instance, at two ignorant 
 men who are seeking the way to the Father 
 of spirits. One morning in despair they 
 take a walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus. T^° ^>s- 
 
 •' aples 
 
 A stranger joins them; they know him not. |?ing to 
 His words speak for themselves, not to their 
 reason, but to their instincts, to their hearts. 
 "Was not our heart burning within us while 
 he spake to us in the way, while he opened to 
 us the Scriptures" that led us to the Hving 
 Way?" 
 
 I appeal to my readers if this burning 
 of the heart has not revealed to some of 
 us the Hving Way; and whether those vital 
 instincts implanted by Almighty God within ^^J^^j 
 us have not by His Spirit responded to thei°stinct. 
 voice without and owned that Jesus Christ 
 is the way to the Father? 
 
 There is yet one other guide, that of the?- The sub. 
 Will as it bows to authority. When the voice 
 of authority speaks it is a question of the 
 submission of the will to it. We turn to the 
 Book and we find these words — "/ am the 
 Way." If the will bows to that, we have 
 found it; if we hesitate we have still the 
 question whether experience does not say 
 
36 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 the same thing, whether the inward voice 
 of the heart does not burn with the same 
 answer; and if these three agree in one 
 surely we can have no doubt whatever that in 
 accepting it as a final repl}'- we are following 
 no cunningly devised fable when we proclaim 
 that the Way, the only intelKgible way, the 
 only practical way, across the morass of this 
 world to the Father of spirits is Jesus Christ, 
 His Son, Our Lord. 
 A threefold A threefold cord is not quickly broken. 
 
 cord. 
 
 The voice of reason affirms the truth by ex- 
 perience; the voice of emotion confirms it 
 through the echoes of our heart; and the 
 voice of authority proclaims it to our will 
 in the words "7 am the Way." 
 
 The Book wherein this is written stands 
 apart from all others, and to it alone, as we 
 have seen, is the definite article ever applied 
 — the Book. There is one Son who stands 
 alone from all the other sons that this Father 
 of spirits has in His vast family; He only 
 Foiir has the definite article — the Son. The others 
 articles, are SOUS, or a son; He is the Son. The Son 
 is proclaimed in the Book as the Way to the 
 Father — all is definite, authoritative, and 
 clear. 
 
THE WAY 37 
 
 Now if you will take the trouble to look for 
 one moment at the close of Matthew xi, you ^o^g^" 
 come to a topic of great interest in connec- ^°^^ the 
 tion with our subject. '' Neither doth any 
 man know the Father save the Son, and he to 
 
 WHOMSOEVER THE SON WILLETH TO REVEAL 
 
 HIM." The only One who knows the Father 
 of spirits is the Son; and the only ones in 
 addition who can possibly know on earth this 
 Father of spirits are those to whom the Son 
 willeth to reveal Him. 
 
 To whom does He will to reveal Him? 
 He continues immediately without a break, 
 '^Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy 
 laden J' Why? "That I may reveal to you Christ 
 the Father, because I am the Way." The reveals the 
 only One who can reveal the Father of spirits ^^t^^'- 
 to our spirits, that we may live, is the Son, 
 and He wills to reveal this Father to all 
 who are weary and heavy laden and who will 
 come to Him. "Come unto me all ye that 
 are weary and heavy laden and I will give 
 you rest." "How do I give you rest? By 
 making known the Father unto you. I am 
 the only One who can do it." 
 
 An amazing metamorphosis takes pl^-ce ^g^^™*f * 
 in the human heart, however restless, how- ^o"^?^"^^- 
 
38 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 ever anxious, however weary, perplexed, 
 dismayed, distressed it may have been, 
 the moment the Father of spirits, revealed 
 to us by the Son, becomes in very deed and 
 truth known to us as our Father, — for 
 all trouble vanishes. For the first time in 
 our lives our souls are at rest. 
 Professor Profcssor William Tames, of Harvard, the 
 
 W. James . . 
 
 on conver- great American psychologist, who has recently 
 passed away, attributed a great part of the 
 joy and delight of what is called conversion 
 to the fact that at that moment the whole 
 being of man became at rest, because for the 
 first time — to use an expressive phrase which 
 has passed into somewhat cant usage — he is 
 
 Spirit, soul, then "In tune with the Infinite." That is 
 
 and body 
 
 at rest. to Say, Spirit, soul, and body are at rest with 
 the Father of spirits through His son Jesus 
 Christ Our Lord. 
 
 The ineffable calm that comes over the 
 spirit when, by means of this Way, it 
 reaches the Father is of such a real, solid, 
 lasting character that I could confidently 
 appeal to the testimony of thousands at this 
 moment who five in Him, and move in Him, 
 and have their being in Him, and find a 
 refuge from the strife of tongues in the secret 
 
THE WAY 39 
 
 presence of the Most High, in the midst of 
 the whole confusion of this world. 
 
 It is for this reason that the Son appeals '^^y^i'], 
 
 ••^^ and God 3. 
 
 to us to come to Him if we are weary and 
 heavy laden. Why? Because he says, "I 
 have got a burden too. You toiling mil- 
 lions are not the only burden-bearers. I 
 have got a burden; I have got a yoke, but 
 "wy yoke is easy and my burden is light" 
 Why? ^'Because my delight is to do the 
 will oj my Father." Who are the toilsome, 
 groaning men of the world? The men who 
 are doing their own wills from morning to 
 night. What makes a man move without 
 effort, with an easy yoke and a light burden? 
 Simply learning to love to do God's will 
 instead of his own. From the moment he 
 does this his hfe, instead of a sigh, has be-A«>ngfor 
 come a song, instead of a toil has become 
 a pleasure, instead of perpetual failure has 
 become an assured victory. And this is 
 what always happens. 
 
 There is no difficulty or mystery about it. 
 The moment I know my Father, so great 
 is He, so full of love, that He captures my 
 heart, and I cannot choose but do His will, 
 because the moment He is made known to 
 
40 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 me by the One who is ^HJie Way, the Truth, 
 and the Life " His will becomes the greatest 
 pleasure of my life. 
 
 Now that is what is set before us in 
 S. Matthew xi, that there is only One who 
 knows the way to the Father, that He is 
 ready and wilUng to show it to all who are 
 heavy laden, that the moment they take it 
 they cease to be weary and heavy laden, 
 that they find perfect rest to their souls; 
 and though they still have the common lot, 
 the daily toil, the constant drudgery, the 
 burden is no longer heavy, and they are no 
 Jas^ ^the ^o^g^^ weary. The yoke is easy and the 
 
 burden burden light from the moment they love to do 
 light. . '^ ^ 
 
 the will of God, because He has now become 
 
 known to them as their Heavenly Father. 
 
 I now turn to another description of "The 
 
 Way" in S. John x, where there is a passage 
 
 which I am sure will delight us. We there 
 
 read, "/ am the Door'''' — that is the Way. 
 
 "/ am the Door; by Me if any man enter in 
 
 he shall he saved, and shall go in and go out, 
 
 and shall find pastured What does the Door 
 
 admit me to? 
 
 The Way In the first place it is the WAY OF 
 
 of Life. "^ 
 
 LIFE; it brings me into Hfe. It brings 
 
THE WAY 41 
 
 me into life because before that Way, that 
 Son, that Christ, that Saviour could be- 
 come the Door for me into the Father's 
 home He had himself to lay down His hfe, 
 and it is only through the Cross that I 
 enter in. 
 
 Oh, that Cross! If we could only see it 
 as it is, with its arms stretched out as it 
 were on a dead world, in life-giving power 
 if they would but accept it, or even lie 
 passive to receive its blessing. As EKsha 
 stretched out his arms and lay on the 
 dead body of the widow's son and brought 
 him back to life, so the Cross of Christ, Tjie power 
 
 'of the 
 
 in its Hving power, the atonement made Cross of 
 by this Son of the Father, will restore all 
 to life who will have it. The colour will 
 come into the cheeks, the chest will begin 
 to heave, the limbs will begin to move, and 
 in the force of a new Hfe that dead spirit 
 shall rise through the quickening power of 
 the Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 who is the Way. There on the Cross the 
 Saviour hung; there He ever is before the 
 eye of faith, stretching out His arms of sal- J^"^! JJ^' 
 vation for all the world, that everyone whotioi^- 
 is weary and heavy laden may find, through 
 
42 STUDIES IN THE fflGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Him, the way to the Father across the path- 
 less forest of this world. 
 
 That is the picture, and it is because of 
 this that He is "the Way of Life." The 
 moment the Cross is accepted in my heart, 
 the moment this Way is revealed to me, I 
 receive a fresh life, and pass in through the 
 door, and enter the Way of Life. Till then 
 I am practically dead, as regards the Father. 
 He is far away beyond the forest, at the 
 other side of the morass; and I cannot know 
 or speak to Him without Christ. 
 The Way Secondly, the Way is the WAY TO THE 
 
 Fathe'r. FATHER. 
 
 The Way Thirdly, the Way is the WAY OF LIB- 
 
 of Liberty. ERTY, bccausc its law is love. I am 
 
 The sto ^•Iways reminded here, in connection with 
 
 of a collie, liberty and love, of a collie dog that I had 
 
 in London for some years, and being of 
 
 great value, was never taken out except on 
 
 a strong steel chain securely fastened to its 
 
 brass collar. 
 
 But on one never to be forgotten day, 
 when that dear dog of mine, who is now 
 buried in the little animals' cemetery at Hyde 
 Park, came up and stood by me to have 
 the chain fastened on his collar (for he knew 
 
THE WAY 43 
 
 he must not go out without it), I said, 
 "No, no chain for you. We have done 
 with chains." I opened the front door and 
 out he bounded, for the first time free; and 
 you would have thought he was going away 
 to the end of the world, and that I would 
 never see him again. 
 
 But he had not gone to the entrance of Jj^^^^ 
 the Terrace before he looked at me, ran 
 back again, and there he was trotting be- 
 hind me. What was the secret? He had 
 learned to know me, and having known me 
 he could not choose but love me with his 
 poor dog's heart — not because I was good, 
 but for the simple fact that I was his 
 master. 
 
 A dog must love his master, and though 
 he may be a worthless drunkard, he will 
 love him just the same. A dog's heart isheartf' 
 the most pathetic thing on earth. Once he 
 gives it he needs no chain. He was now 
 joined to me by a stronger chain than any 
 blacksmith could make, — the golden chain 
 of love. 
 
 It is the same with our poor hearts. We 
 have not got dog's hearts — our hearts are 
 not as faithful as those of a dog. Alas, the 
 
44 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 human heart is not so loyal as even the 
 affection of poor dumb animals, though in 
 intelligence, as the passage below shows, we 
 far exceed them. Nevertheless it remains 
 To know true that once our souls know this Father 
 
 God IS to 
 
 love Him. of spirits as our Father we cannot choose 
 but love Him, and from that moment we 
 understand the meaning of this word: ''Be 
 ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have 
 no understanding; whose trappings must be 
 bit and bridle to hold them in. I will counsel 
 thee with mine eye upon thee." It is enough 
 for God to indicate where He wishes us to go, 
 for us to run, because the whole service, the 
 whole life now is a life of love; and a life 
 
 OF LOVE IS A LIFE OF PERFECT LIBERTY. 
 
 Se^n*^*^" There is no bondage in true Christianity. 
 
 Christian- There is the most terrible bondage in the 
 ity. ... . . 
 
 Christiamsed Judaism which most of us 
 
 substitute for it: ''Thou shalt do this and 
 
 thou shalt not do that, thou shalt go here 
 
 and shalt not go there; thou shalt say this 
 
 and not say that." 
 
 Look at the verse before us. "I am the 
 
 Door. By Me if any man enter in he shall 
 
 be saved." That is, he is brought to God, and 
 
 the moment he is saved and understands this 
 
THE WAY 45 
 
 law of love, from that moment he is a free 
 man. ^'He shall go in and out and find 
 pastured' 
 
 I never understood that. I understood 
 that if I went in I would of course 
 find pasture. I would go into the Church where to 
 and into religious circles and into Chris- ture. 
 tian company, and I should find pasture 
 there because these are "sacred." Yes, but 
 what if I go out into secular scenes, shall I 
 lose all? Must I keep in the fold? No ! The 
 one who goes in and out of the front door is 
 not a servant. The very fact of this going 
 in and out shows that he is a son and belongs 
 to the house. He is the son of his father, 
 and he is free to go in and he is free to come 
 out. 
 
 Yes, it may be so, but then of course if 
 I go out I shaU not get any pasture. Ah! 
 '^ shall go in and out and find pasture'^ in 
 both. The distinction between sacred and ^"^ '^f ^*^ 
 
 or secular. 
 
 secular no longer exists. All belongs to 
 my Father; He gives me all things richly to 
 enjoy. From henceforth I call nothing com- 
 mon or unclean, and I am as near Him in 
 my recreations and pleasures as in my most 
 earnest devotions. It would pain me if it 
 
46 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 were not so, because the cord that binds me 
 
 to him is a cord of love. 
 You remember Brother Lawrence, 'that 
 
 poor servant in the seventeenth century, who 
 
 was a cook in a monks' kitchen in Paris, how 
 ti?e ?/*he ^^ testified to this? He found pasture every- 
 presence of where. He said that it did not matter 
 
 Ood. 
 
 whether he was on a canal boat going to 
 buy wine for the use of the monastery, or 
 whether he was standing before a hot fire 
 cooking the monks' dinner, with people 
 talking all round him and shouting a hun- 
 dred contradictory orders, he was nearer to 
 God in his soul at such moments than when 
 he was kneeling before the altar in the 
 Church. 
 
 I "go in and out and find pasture.^' I am 
 a free man. Free! Why? Because I am 
 brought to God by Him who is the Way, 
 and from henceforth the chain that binds 
 me is the law of love which is indeed the 
 law of liberty. 
 
 Now how am I to start and tread this 
 rece^"fon ^^^^^scd Way? There must be first a wilUng 
 of Christ, reception of Christ. One verse will make 
 that clear, John vi. 21: "Then they were will- 
 ing therefore to receive Him into the boat: and 
 
THE WAY 47 
 
 straightway the boat was at the land whither 
 they were going." This is a wonderful pic- 
 ture. Here is the little boat, or if you 
 like to keep up my simile, the little party 
 of travellers that want to cross this great 
 forest to the Father of spirits. Here is 
 One who offers to show them the way. 
 
 The moment they willingly receive Him ^°^jj^*gjg 
 into their midst and accept Him as the^iiore. 
 Way they are across the forest and in the 
 arms of their Father. No more darkness, 
 no more danger, no more storms, no more 
 doubts. The moment we wilHngly receive 
 Christ into our Uttle ship of Hfe we touch 
 the shore. We have reached it; it takes no 
 time at all. 
 
 Persons may take up this book, for ex-A J^°^® 
 ample, largely ignorant of these truths of moment, 
 the "Highest Thought," and reading that 
 Jesus Christ the Son is the Way to the 
 Father of spirits may lift up their hearts 
 and say, "I willingly receive Thee into my 
 heart. Lord Jesus. I willingly take Thee as 
 my Saviour and my Way to the Father. 
 Show us the Father and it sufficeth us." And 
 the moment they willingly receive Him into 
 the soul they are at the land whither they 
 
48 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 are going. They have reached their Home. 
 So simple, so instantaneous is the change 
 
 The sur- when once the will is surrendered. 
 
 will. Observe here again the force of the ques- 
 
 tion "Shall we not much rather be in sub- 
 jection to the Father of spirits and live?" 
 Shall we not much rather willingly receive 
 Him into our ship and reach the land whither 
 we are going? No more tossing, no more 
 distress! It is wonderful what a change 
 occurs when this soul-surrender is brought 
 about. 
 
 Perhaps I may turn aside for a moment 
 and relate a personal experience that happened 
 to me the other day. One hesitates to say 
 much about it; I have never spoken of it 
 yet, but it just occurs to me that it may be 
 of some interest in this connection. 
 
 Adven- J was yachting on the Zuyder Zee with a 
 
 the Zuyder party of youug f rfeuds, and was at a very 
 distant and lonely part of it, in the island 
 of Urk, and I, with all the party of twelve, 
 had to catch the mail train to London at 
 a certain hour from Enkhuisen, which is a 
 town at the extreme top of the Zuyder Zee. 
 We set sail from Urk as our captain 
 thought with hours to spare, but he very 
 
THE WAY 49 
 
 soon found the wind was contrary and a 
 storm began and the sea rose, and things T^^ ^.^^^^ 
 
 *-* ' ° m a storm. 
 
 got from bad to worse. I was down in 
 one of the cabins, and received messages 
 from the deck from time to time. At last 
 it got near the hour when the train should 
 start — and I then sent word to the captain 
 and said, "When shall we be in?" He 
 replied, "I can't say at all; it may be two 
 hours or it may be seven hours; at any rate 
 there is not the slightest hope of your catch- 
 ing that train." 
 
 I was in despair, when rehef came. Itj^st.'^^^^ 
 was not with me a question exactly of receiv- 
 ing Christ into the ship, but this thought 
 came upon me. I had been reading some 
 books at the time about the power over 
 wind and waves of various occult forces, and 
 I thought, "If these various forces can be 
 exercised in this way, surely Almighty God 
 can at His will and with the greatest ease 
 do as He pleases." Therefore in the cabin, 
 without sajdng a word to any one, I just 
 offered up a short and earnest prayer that if Prayer for 
 
 *■ '^ "^ change of 
 
 It was God's will we should catch the train, wind, 
 then He would be pleased so to alter the 
 wind that we could enter the harbour. 
 
50 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 You know how little faith we have in mate- 
 rial prayers nowadays, and I do not much like 
 speaking of them myself because anybody 
 may say, " The tiling might occur by chance, ' ' 
 which of course is possible. What really 
 happened was this. 
 
 I offered up this prayer, because we were 
 in great distress about the matter, and I 
 had hardly concluded it when my nephew 
 from the deck shouted out, "The captain 
 says we shall be in Enkhuisen in half an 
 hour." I said, "It cannot be. He told me 
 he could not tell when we should be in, that 
 we might be two or seven hours." But my 
 nephew repHed, "He says the wind has 
 veered right round, and is now blowing fair 
 for the harbour." 
 
 It certainly was not five minutes after that 
 
 reased°™ prayer was offered that the wind changed to 
 
 the opposite direction and blew us straight 
 
 Into the harbour and we were in plenty of 
 
 time for our train. This may be taken as 
 
 a striking illustration of the text, for we were 
 
 immediately at the land whither we wished 
 
 to go. 
 
 Aperpiex- jVfy closing word to-day is this. There 
 
 km. may be some perplexed readers who may 
 
THE WAY SI 
 
 say, "I have got Jesus Christ in my ship. 
 I am a Christian; I know something of these 
 Studies in the Highest Thought, though not 
 perhaps exactly in the way you have been 
 putting it to us, but I must say that my 
 voyage is such a rough one that I sometimes 
 wonder if I am in the right way." 
 
 I will in conclusion refer such to one other The true 
 
 solution. 
 
 Scripture, Matthew xiv. 22, which I think will 
 give those of us who are much tried, and 
 who have very troubled and distressed hves, 
 the greatest comfort. ^'Straightway Jesus 
 constrained the disciples to enter into the boat 
 and to go before him unto the other side. 
 . . . But the boat was now in the midst of 
 the sea, distressed by the waves, for the wind 
 was contrary y Here Christ absolutely con- 
 strained the disciples to get into the boat; 
 therefore it must have been by His will that 
 they left the shore. 
 
 But I want to point out to you, from this 
 wonderful passage, that though Christ con- 
 strained them to get into the boat, yet the 
 wind was contrary from the moment they^?^^^^^^ 
 got in it, and the sea was rough. It may rough 
 
 ? , . waves. 
 
 be the same with us. 
 
 We often ask God to show us the way, and 
 
52 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 then when it becomes rough and tossing and 
 difiScult we begin to doubt that it can be 
 His way. But a contrary wind and rough 
 waves are no proof whatever that we are 
 not in God's path and in God's way and 
 going straight to the Heavenly Home. Here 
 is an instance. No one can say that these 
 disciples were not right in going, because 
 Christ sent them; He constrained them. 
 Why? Because the blessings of our Hfe 
 are not blue skies and smooth seas. The 
 blessings of our Hfe He in learning the lessons 
 Our _ in the Highest Thought about our Father's 
 education. wiU and in the psychological education of 
 the spirits and souls of men. 
 
 Christ had a great lesson to teach these 
 disciples — how to find Him in their deepest 
 distress. And it was necessary there should 
 be winds and storms in order that in their 
 midst they could learn their lesson, for they 
 could learn it nowhere else. And I believe 
 there are some lessons that every Christian 
 soul has to be taught that cannot be learnt 
 excepting when the wind is contrary and 
 the seas are high. It is only then that the 
 Christ vision of Christ walking on the water shows 
 
 walking on ^ '^ 
 
 the water. His power is greater than our troubles and 
 
THE WAY 53 
 
 we learn to trust in Christ and in Christ 
 alone. 
 Therefore should any one who is in distress Never 
 
 . . doubt 
 
 of hfe through things having gone wrong God's love, 
 with them, in money, in health, in estate, 
 or in family ties or relations, read this with 
 sore hearts and question with a doubt which 
 is really suggested by the Evil One, "Can 
 the Father of spirits love me as He says and 
 let me be as I am to-day, with my heart 
 sore and cast down; can my Saviour have 
 directed my path when I find it leads through 
 such troubled waters, with such howling con- 
 trary winds?" To such I say, Yes. You 
 get the whole picture in this 14th Matthew. 
 The solution is, You are being educated 
 in God's school. You are being taught to Hard 
 
 lessons 3l^ 
 
 lean hard upon Him, and to trust better in school, 
 the wisdom and the love of your Father in 
 a way you never could learn but for these 
 storms and but for these winds. Take com- 
 fort therefore. You are already in your soul 
 at the land whither you would go. You 
 can rest in your spirit in the Father's Home, 
 and although you may need to be edu- 
 cated by the storms of this hfe you can be at 
 rest in the midst of it all, for those waters on 
 
S4 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 which the Saviour walks shall never drown 
 you. 
 ofuf**^°° Such is the education of the spirit, such is 
 spirit. spiritual psychology. I earnestly commend, 
 therefore, to all my readers, this study in 
 the Highest Thought, this acceptance of the 
 only Way that leads to the Father of Spirits; 
 and would remind you that in the next Study 
 I hope to go one step further into the most 
 mysterious subject that we have before us 
 in these Addresses, and one about which per- 
 haps least is known — The Inner Shrine. 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 
 
THIRD STUDY 
 
 THE INNER SHRINE 
 
 THE subject of the first of these Studies |^^J^^°^ 
 in the Highest Thought was the Father studies. 
 of spirits, and we found that life, in its fullest 
 sense, could not be said to be known or 
 enjoyed until we knew this Divine Father 
 and were in subjection to Him. 
 
 In the Second Study I spoke of the Way by 
 which He was reached. We regarded life as 
 a trackless morass or a pathless forest, and 
 on the other side of it stood the Father of 
 spirits. We saw ourselves walking along a 
 safe but narrow path, that led across the 
 swamp, that led through the forest to the 
 Father's Home. We discovered how to find 
 it; we saw who had first trodden the path 
 alone and who had now become himself the 
 *'Way," and we saw that, once the path was 
 entered, our Hves became lives of fullest hap- 
 piness and perfect safety. 
 
 We have to-day before us a still more study- ^ 
 
 57 
 
S8 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 remarkable subject, as we turn our eyes to 
 a third marvel in the "Highest Thought." 
 We must consider it with great caution and 
 with great care, because the subject is so 
 profound; and as, after all, we are only 
 finite beings with a limited capacity for ap- 
 prehending these problems of the Infinite, 
 it does not do to tax the mind beyond its 
 powers. One of the worst things one can 
 Strcfspec-°^ *^°' inoreover, is to practise the habit of in- 
 tion. trospection. Self-analysis is always fraught 
 with more or less danger. 
 
 To-day, however, we shall be obliged, owing 
 to the exigencies of our subject, to turn our 
 eyes in upon ourselves and to go through, 
 in this Study, some form of close introspec- 
 tion. We will not dwell too much upon 
 them, but we must learn something of the 
 marvels within us. 
 
 Looked at broadly and simply, we who are 
 about to consider this subject are in the 
 divPslon*^^ first placc, as we have already seen, tripartite 
 of man. beings ; according, at any rate, to western ideas. 
 Eastern philosophers no doubt divide with 
 greater minuteness the whole human being 
 into seven parts; but Christianity and all 
 western philosophy are content with three — 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 59 
 
 the well-known body, soul, and spirit; the^^^tenai 
 
 and imrna* 
 
 body being wholly material ; the spirit being teriai. 
 wholly immaterial and without form or 
 extension in space; while the soul partakes 
 somewhat of the other two — being imma- 
 terial so far as it is connected with the spirit, 
 and yet having possibly some slight materi- 
 ality as connected with the body. This, 
 indeed, is the only way in which the well- 
 authenticated and numerous appearances of 
 non-substantial forms or ghosts can possibly 
 be explained. 
 We have also consciousness of body, soul, Triple con- 
 
 . . sciousness. 
 
 and spirit. 
 
 In connection with the body we have 
 sense-consciousness — consciousness given us 
 by touch, sight, hearing, feeling, etc. — by 
 all our senses. Connected with the soul there 
 is self -consciousness , or mental consciousness, 
 the knowledge of ourselves, by which we 
 can conduct some kind of introspection or 
 looking in on our minds. With regard to 
 the spirit, there is God-consciousness, or a 
 capacity of understanding these deep truths 
 of the Highest Thought which God seeks to 
 make known to us. 
 
 Without some such capacity on the part 
 
6o STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 of every human being no revelation of God 
 would be of the slightest use to us. It would 
 be as useless as writing a Bible for animals, 
 or something of that sort. There must be 
 some faculty within that can respond to the 
 voice of God without. Observe, therefore, 
 that connected with the body we get sense- 
 consciousness, with the soul self-conscious- 
 ness, and with the spirit God-consciousness. 
 Again, we find in Holy Writ that before we 
 
 Spi^tually jja,ve the knowledge of the Father of spirits 
 we are described as dead, — dead in sins and 
 so forth. That refers to the deadness of our 
 spirits, because they are not in connection 
 with this Father of spirits, and therefore 
 not alive in the highest sense. When people 
 are described as dead theologically, from a 
 Christian point of view or a scriptural point 
 of view, it never means that their minds 
 are dead; it never means that their bodies are 
 dead. As far as one can analyse it, it means 
 that the spirit is dead, dead towards God; 
 that is to say, there is an absence of response, 
 though there he a capacity for it. 
 
 I am a Lastly, in these definitions we find that the 
 
 "ego," or the "I," or the personality — I, 
 myself — is principally connected with the 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 6i 
 
 spirit. No one would say, "I am a body" 
 or "I am a soul." With regard to those 
 things they would say, "I have got a body." 
 
 But if you have got one, it shows you are 
 not it. You would say also, "I have got a 
 mind or a soul." Well, then, you are not 
 "it." But what we are, as nearly as pos- 
 sible, is spirit. 
 
 The "ego," therefore, naturally associates J^ritull'" 
 itself with the spirit of man. I am a spirit 
 — not a disembodied spirit, but a spirit 
 with mental and physical qualities, — mental 
 because I have got a soul, physical because 
 I have got a body. I am, therefore, a tri- 
 partite being. 
 
 The subject before us for our Study to-day 
 is the "Inner Shrine." How shall I explain The inner 
 what I mean by this expression? Take a 
 crowd of people at some place of worship. 
 You see ordinary men and women in the 
 dress of the day, yet within many of them, 
 I believe, these Inner Shrines, unknown pos- 
 sibly to their possessors, may assuredly be 
 found. Let me give an illustration of the 
 contrast between the humble exterior and 
 the glorious interior of a true Christian man. 
 
62 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 fl^on^the'' ^^^ wa]k along a gravelled walk where 
 path. there are a few dead leaves and a few twigs. 
 You notice particularly a brown twig or leaf 
 lying on the path. And then, a miracle 
 occurs! Behold, with a glorious flash that 
 thrills through you, it changes into a vision 
 of transcendent beauty. On the path sud- 
 denly you see flaming scarlet and purple 
 and yellow, — a gorgeous painting of the 
 most exquisite contrasted colours flashes into 
 your eye from the gravel, and then it is gone 
 again, — and the brown leaf reappears. 
 What is it? 
 
 A butterfly, outwardly painted in the 
 
 humblest colours, the commonest browns, 
 
 apparently with the coarsest brush, so as to 
 
 make it look Hke a leaf but when it opens 
 
 humble ^^^ rcvcals the interior, decorated inside 
 
 exterior -^[i]^ ^he most gorgcous traccry by the hand 
 
 gorgeous of the Creator. 
 
 So with the outward appearance of many 
 a person whom we meet. Inside the great- 
 est splendour, painted by Almighty God; 
 outside an ordinary, quiet exterior. It is 
 only by a flash now and then that the glory 
 of the "Inner Shrine" is revealed. 
 
 Take another illustration, the Tabernacle 
 
 interior. 
 
THE INNER SITRINE 63 
 
 in the wilderness. Could anything be more The Taber- 
 ugly than that hump of rough brown goats' 
 hair? All that any one saw in the desert of 
 the glory of God's house or tabernacle was 
 a sort of brown mound rising in the midst 
 of a vast camp. If, however, one were pri\'i- 
 leged to go in to the camp and enter through 
 the veil, between the pillars into the interior 
 of the Tabernacle, one would have seen 
 visions passing all one's imagination. One 
 would have progressed step by step until 
 one reached the inner shrine, the Holy of 
 Holies, where were concentrated every glory 
 of radiance and colour. 
 Above purple and blue and scarlet and ^Y'thm and 
 
 ^ ^ without. 
 
 fine-twined linen and golden Cherubim; all 
 around walls of gold; in front the Ark of 
 the Covenant, with the golden Cherubim 
 overshadowing the Mercy Seat, and between 
 them the dazzling blazing radiance of Al- 
 mighty God himself, — all this was hidden 
 under the outer covering of brown goats' 
 hair, reminding us of the contrast between 
 the outside of the butterfly and its glorious 
 inner wings as they flash on our sight. 
 
 It was thus also with Christ. You saw Christ on 
 a humble man walking about the streets of 
 
64 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Jerusalem and Capernaum, '^ His visage was 
 so marred more than any tnan's, and there 
 was no beauty that we should desire Him,'' 
 followed by a string of poor Galilean peas- 
 ants, who could not even speak the ordi- 
 nary language of Judea, — rough, uncultured 
 country folk. But let the wings flash and 
 reveal the hidden glories of the Man Christ 
 Jesus, and then you would know what the 
 "Inner Shrine" really meant. 
 Or, go to that little flat-roofed, one-storied 
 At dwelling in a village called Emmaus, with 
 
 Emmaus. t • 
 
 nothing to distmguish it from other houses, 
 — a commonplace exterior. Take off the 
 roof and look inside, and there you see the 
 hidden glory of the Lord of Life, at home in 
 the house of two of His friends. 
 
 So it is with us. We have within us in 
 the recesses of our spirit a shrine or an abode 
 where God may dwell. But so far from it 
 being always a shrine of glory, it may become 
 perfectly hideous with darkness and defile- 
 ment. If you want to know to what depths 
 The degra- this holy Shrine is capable of being degraded 
 the Shrine, you have Only to look at Matthew xv. i8: 
 "But the things which proceed out of the mouth; 
 and they come forth out of the heart, they defile 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 65 
 
 the man. For out of the hearV^ — that is, out 
 of this place wliich ought to be the most 
 glorious centre of one's being, so defiled, so 
 lowered, so degraded it may become that — 
 "Ow/ of the heart come forth evil thoughts, 
 murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false 
 witness, railings: these are the things which 
 defile the man; hut to eat with unwashen 
 hands defileth not the man.'' 
 
 How, then, speak of glory in connection 
 with such an abode of shame as our inner 
 being may become? Because it may also be 
 a wonderful shrine though, I have pointed 
 out, still connected with a lowly exterior; in 
 fact the exterior is never a guide as to what 
 is within. Look at Saul and look at David! ^fui and 
 
 David. 
 
 The first a man head and shoulders taller 
 and finer than any man in Israel, a man we 
 would all have loved to see. What about 
 the inner shrine? Full of evil thoughts which 
 caused him to lose his kingly throne. Look 
 in contrast at Httle Da\'id, one with no 
 kingly bearing, but with a heart of gold, 
 who could take his harp and from the Inner 
 Shrine produce his wondrous psalms. 
 
 How, then, does this inner part of us be- 
 come a shrine, and what right have we to say 
 
66 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 that such is ever the case? In i Corinthians, 
 vi. 19, is a verse on this subject that I must 
 read. You can refer to many other scriptures 
 at your leisure, but this one I will quote: 
 "Know ye not that your body" — let us take 
 it to ourselves now and turn the eye of 
 introspection inwards — "Know ye not that 
 Our bodies youT hody is a temple of the Holy Ghost which 
 ^™ ^ is in you" — that is, the Holy Spirit of God 
 — "which ye have from God? And ye are 
 not your own; for ye were bought with a price; 
 glorify God, therefore, in your body." 
 
 The bodies of these Corinthian Christians 
 are here described as being temples. That 
 word "temple" is not the common word; 
 it is Naos, the Shrine, the Sanctuary of God, 
 the Inner Shrine. How can anybody become 
 such after the description given in Matthew 
 of the depth to which it may degrade? 
 Well, this is the way. 
 
 One day at the door of that Shrine the 
 Saviour stands knocking, as you may have 
 seen in Holman Hunt's inimitable painting 
 Christ at now in St. Paul's Cathedral, "Behold I stand 
 the heart°^«^ l^c door and knock." Why does He knock? 
 Why not come in without knocking? Be- 
 cause the door of that shrine has only got a 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 67 
 
 handle on its inner side, for no one can enter 
 my spirit but by my own will. You may 
 admit devils there, or you may admit the 
 Christ of God. You may be possessed by 
 the one or the Other. 
 
 So there stands the One who is the Way to 
 the Father of spirits at the door: ^^ Behold 
 I stand at the door and knock." As I pointed 
 out in the last Study, when we stand at His 
 door there is no knocking. His door is Christ's 
 always open; but the door of our heart is always 
 not. "I am the door " — there is no need of a ^^^^' 
 handle there, for the door stands open wide; 
 ''by me, if any man enter in" — there is no 
 knocking there. We never have to knock, 
 but Christ always has, and the difference is 
 because we control the door of our own 
 spirits by our will, whereas the door of the 
 way of hfe admits all. That door is ever 
 open, ours is ever shut. 
 
 When we Hke to turn the handle of the 
 door, when we willingly receive Him, and 
 when we say, "Enter into my heart and make 
 it a Hving sanctuary of God," the thing is 
 done. But it must be by our own will that 
 the door of our heart is opened. 
 
 Let me just repeat that once again. 
 
68 STUDIES IN THE fflGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Christ's door is never shut; we never have 
 to knock, but He always has; because the 
 door of our heart is shut, and it can only 
 be opened by our own will. 
 
 There is only one thing that can come into 
 
 us without our will, and that is something we 
 
 would never willingly admit. You will find 
 
 Death Jt SDoken of in Jeremiah, ix. 21, ^^For death 
 
 comes , . 
 
 without is come up into our windows.^' That is the 
 
 knocking. . . 
 
 way death comes m. it cannot come in by 
 the door because we would never admit it, 
 so it comes in by the window when we are 
 not looking. It carries us off without our 
 will. Death comes in without leave, but 
 life can only come in by our leave. We can 
 keep Hfe out, but we cannot exclude death. 
 
 As I have already shown, we may open this 
 shrine to evil spirits or to Christ, but it is 
 our will that must open to either. 
 
 Now supposing that we hear One knocking 
 at the door of this shrine, and our will opens 
 the door, what happens? We are described 
 in the scripture as then being "Born again 
 by the Holy Spirit." That is to say, Christ 
 Christ enters, and by His Spirit He takes possession 
 takes pos- q£ ^]^g^^ inner shrine, and proceeds to make it 
 
 session. ' ^ 
 
 his sanctuary and temple of glory. We are 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 69 
 
 then described as having a new nature, a 
 new heart, and a new man. 
 
 As a reality that word "new" means that 
 nature, heart, and man are so entirely taken There is a 
 possession of by a fresh Power and conse- '^^'^ ^**^* 
 crated to a new use, as to make them prac- 
 tically new organs and beings. That is what 
 it comes to. It is not really that any new 
 parts or organs are added to us, but there 
 is a new power within: and we open our 
 hearts under the influence of the Highest 
 Thought to the Spirit of our Father, the 
 Holy Spirit: He takes possession of our heart, 
 and we become the sanctuary, or shrine, or 
 temple of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 What do we find in this Shrine? What 
 was in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle? 
 What do we see there? We see an Ark and 
 inside that Ark there are three things. We 
 see the Tables of the Law, a little pot of 
 manna, — the bread that came down from 
 Heaven, and Aaron's rod that budded, — the 
 type of the eternal priesthood. 
 
 What do we find in our inner shrine? 
 Three things. The law, as in the Ark of the The law, 
 Covenant, — " Thy law is within my heart." ^^^Y^^^"^ 
 That is the first. The manna, the bread J'^^^^'^^e 
 
70 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 that came down from Heaven; the humble 
 Christ, lowly in heart, come down from 
 Heaven into my soul. The rod that budded 
 — the eternal priesthood of Christ for me. 
 The law of God the Father; the humility of 
 Christ, the Son; the priesthood appointed, 
 realised, and enjoyed by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 Anything more in my shrine? Yes, — 
 everything, as in the Holy of Holies, is 
 Crinkled Sprinkled with blood. We may reach the 
 with blood, iiiglier thought, or other stages of thought, 
 but we cannot attain to the Highest Thought 
 without this element. I know it is naturally 
 repugnant to our feelings. I grant it leaves 
 no room for pride; but nevertheless it is 
 essential, if my heart is to be a sanctuary, a 
 holy shrine, an inner shrine, that everything 
 should be sprinkled and purified with the 
 blood of the Lamb. We cannot enter the 
 Divine Way but by redemption or atone- 
 ment, innumerable as the efforts have been 
 in these later days to do so. The moment 
 we try to do so, we leave the region of the 
 Highest Thought; we step off the Way, and 
 are plunged into a morass of human 
 opinions, 
 dea^ti^"*^ ^ So that, although there is glory in this golden 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 71 
 
 shrine consecrated to God, the blood gives a 
 solemn element to it, because it speaks of 
 death as the source of hfe. We may sing, 
 and tune our harps with a glad song to our 
 Heavenly Father of spirits, but it will always 
 be ^'with a solemn sound''' (Psalm xcii. 3),Onthe 
 because our joy has been purchased, as we re- a solemn 
 member, by blood at infinite cost to Another. 
 
 Is there anything else inside this shrine? 
 Yes. The gold of that Ark and the gorgeous 
 colours in the Holy of HoHes would look very 
 dull indeed were it not for a Ught beyond 
 the brightness of the Sun which illumines 
 this shrine. 
 
 What we need to realise is that this 
 shrine is in us at the present moment if we 
 have opened our hearts to that knocking, 
 and that within us shines a glory beyond the 
 brightest earthly Hght, just as between the 
 Cherubim there was the Shekinah of Glory, ence oP^ 
 the evidence of the presence of Almighty ^^^ ^^^^'° 
 God. 
 
 "But," you may say, "you are not 
 going to tell me that there is anything in 
 the Bible that warrants the thought that 
 there can possibly be the presence of the 
 Godhead in me as I read this? Indeed the 
 
72 STUDIES IN THE fflGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 thought seems to me to be bordering on 
 blasphemy." 
 
 In spite of this, I must answer *'Yes," 
 
 The and if you deny it you must consider the 
 
 may'dwell Bible, which afiGirms this, to be unworthy 
 
 within. ^£ (,j.g(ji^_ "Your body is a temple of the 
 
 Holy Ghost which is in you." Is not that 
 
 God? "Yes," you say, "that is God the 
 
 Spirit, but what about the Father and the 
 
 Son?" Well, let me just read about them. 
 
 There are only two places in the Bible where 
 
 the Father is said to dwell. One is in the high 
 
 and holy Heaven, which He inhabits eternally, 
 
 and the other is in the human heart. Look 
 
 at John xiv. 23, where it says: "If a man love 
 
 me he will keep my words. My father will love 
 
 him and we" — Father and Son — "will come 
 
 unto him and make our abode with him." 
 
 My words as to this Di\dne mystery must 
 
 The light be few. The sense of awe is profound as we 
 
 withfil"'^^ hear such words and try to realise for one 
 
 moment that God the Father, God the Son, 
 
 and God the Holy Ghost absolutely may 
 
 make Their abode in the inner shrine of the 
 
 spirit of poor human beings like ourselves, 
 
 and produce there a light and a glory above 
 
 the brightness of the sun. 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 73 
 
 Well may I say this is a mystical subject. A deep 
 Well may I say it is the deepest of all sub- ^^^ ^^' 
 jects, — to consider God as not afar off, to 
 consider God as, not merely in Heaven, but 
 as being within. Our hearts are indeed the 
 only places on earth where God the Father 
 is said to dwell. 
 
 Just think of this amazing fact that God 
 dwells in the heart of the one who is obedient 
 to His word. *' Shall we not much rather be 
 in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?" 
 What happens? If we do, our hearts are 
 irradiated by His Presence; and truly we may 
 then be said to begin to Hve. Listen to the inward 
 these marvellous lines of Faber on the subject: ''"^°'^^- 
 
 " But God is never so far off, 
 As even to be near, 
 He is within, Our spirit is, 
 The home He holds most dear; 
 
 To think of Him as by our side, 
 
 Is ahnost as untrue 
 As to remove His Throne beyond, 
 
 Those skies of starry blue. 
 
 So all the while I thought myself 
 
 Homeless, forlorn, and weary. 
 Missing my joy, I walked the earth, 
 
 Myself God's Sanctuary." 
 
74 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Who will ever be weary and lonely again 
 
 once they know the glory of the Inner Shrine? 
 
 It is out- Qng word here, however, of great impor- 
 
 side con- ' . . 
 
 sciousness. tancc. We are never conscious of this Inner 
 Shrine. You may consider long and may 
 say "where is this shrine, where can I locate 
 it? Whereabouts can I place it within me? 
 You tell me of these glories; the Bible assures 
 me of them; they are doubtless true, but 
 no ray of consciousness seems able to reach 
 that secret place where God dwells. I am 
 wholly unconscious of it. 
 
 "I concentrate my thoughts, and try to 
 realise that I carry witliin me the glorious 
 shrine. But it is quite unknown to my 
 consciousness." 
 
 And is in "No, it is in the region of the uncon- 
 
 the uncon- ' ° 
 
 scious scious mind." Deep in the recesses of un- 
 consciousness Hes hidden this Holy of Hohes. 
 Just as in the Holy of Holies of old no 
 man's foot was ever allowed to enter, no eye 
 was ever allowed to gaze on those hidden 
 glories, so into this Inner Shrine no ray of 
 consciousness may ever penetrate. 
 
 God could have placed it in conscious- 
 ness if He had wished, so that we could 
 have studied it. Why has not He done so? 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 75 
 
 Because He does not wish this Divine 
 Presence wdthin to be an object of adoration no adora- 
 or of study, but a source and centre of power, sdves^"""^' 
 He wants to turn our thoughts objectively 
 to Himself in Heaven. 
 
 When we pray to God we do not pray to 
 God \vithin, although He may be dwelKng 
 there. We pray to our Father which is in we pray to 
 Heaven. He wants us always to direct our heaven, 
 thoughts outwardly by the power that directs 
 them from within. The blessing of our 
 lives, the spring of our joy, the source of all 
 good deeds, thoughts, aspirations, lie in 
 this glorious Shrine within, but never is it to 
 be an object or a centre of self-consciousness. 
 
 God has, therefore, in His infinite wis- 
 dom placed it beyond the gaze of introspec- 
 tion. We never can reach God by thinking 
 of ourselves. What we have to do is to rec- 
 ognise the fact of His indwelling, and then 
 from it we get Almighty Strength : and some- 
 times a voice speaks to us from thence. 
 
 We say at times "A thought struck me"; 
 or, "Do you know I felt impelled to go 
 there;" or "I felt obliged to speak to that 
 man." Many of us know something of this The inner 
 inner guidance. This shrine that is within is 
 
76 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 indeed the source of inspiration, the centre 
 of all blessing in our lives. 
 
 In connection with this there is a word in 
 Matthew, vi. 6, which is capable of two 
 interpretations: "J5w/ thou, when thou pray est, 
 enter into thine inner chamber J ^ The word is 
 The closet, not "closet"; it means also "treasure house," 
 house. *' store-house," or "barn"; and many think 
 it is retiring into our inner consciousness and 
 praying from there "/o thy Father which is 
 in secret, and thy Father which seeth in secret 
 shall recompense thee.'" I am not sure that 
 this is the force of the passage, but it is an 
 alternative meaning which is of great interest. 
 Mr. F. W. H. Myers, in his wonderful poem 
 on St. Paul, refers to it on page 44. If any 
 of you have that book, it will be an inspira- 
 tion for you to read the lines, which are too 
 long to quote here. This Presence within 
 is, therefore, a source of power and joy, and 
 not an object of adoration or prayer. 
 
 We must learn to distinguish between the 
 
 different voices that speak to us from within. 
 
 IndoS"*' "^^'^ Spirit (with a capital "S") beareth wit- 
 
 spirit. ^^^^ ^ijj^ Q^y spirit (with a small "s") that 
 
 we are children of God.'' Our spirit, with 
 
 the little "s," is one voice. Then there is a 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 77 
 
 God's Spirit (with the capital "S"), living 
 in the Inner Shrine, that speaks too; that is 
 another voice. Can we distinguish between 
 these two voices? The two 
 
 voices. 
 
 Constant introspection is not good, but it 
 comes within the consideration of the High- 
 est Thought as to whether I ought not, 
 more clearly than I do, to recognise the Voice 
 of God when it does speak to me, and to 
 be able to distinguish between His voice 
 and my own impulses and wishes. And 
 yet, for want of practice, we often mistake 
 the one for the other, and often do our own 
 will when we think we are following God's. 
 All this is a matter of spiritual growth. 
 
 In our mystic vocabulary we speak of a 
 man who has just opened the door of his 
 Inner Shrine to the knocking outside as "a 
 little baby "; then we talk of the one who has 
 had the Shrine in his heart for some time as 
 "a young child"; then we become "yo^iig 
 men"; and at last we reach the " full grown Growth in 
 man," the spiritual man, one who has all his' 
 senses exercised, not only to discern both 
 good and evil, but to distinguish the charac- 
 ter of the inward voices that speak to him 
 from the recesses of his unconscious mind. 
 
 grace. 
 
78 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 It is all a matter of practice; it is all a 
 question of spiritual education. 
 
 I would suggest to those Christians who 
 are interested in the invisible world and in 
 spirit investigation, whether to be able to dis- 
 tinguish between the voices that speak to 
 us from within is not a very worthy subject 
 for study. 
 
 There is no doubt that the one who thus 
 knows and understands these wonderful 
 mysteries of which I have spoken so imper- 
 fectly in this book, carries a stamp, even on 
 the poor outward body, that to those who 
 have eyes to see is unmistakable. There 
 is a quietness, there is a dignity, there is a 
 self-possession, there is a steadiness, a fixed 
 purpose in his life and actions that speak 
 of a strong Hand at the helm, a Divine 
 Captain of life's ship, — the Presence of 
 Almighty God in that Inner Shrine. 
 
 But we require the eye of faith to see 
 these glories! These lovely and pathetic 
 verses of Francis Thompson's, written, I 
 doubt not, when he used to hold the 
 cabmen's horses at Charing Cross, express 
 what we miss for want of this spiritual 
 vision : 
 
THE INNER SHRINE 79 
 
 "The angels keep their ancient places: — 
 Touch but a stone, you start a wing! 
 'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces 
 That miss the many-splendoured thing. 
 
 But (when so sad thou canst no sadder) 
 
 Cry: — and upon thy so sore loss 
 Shall shine the traflSc upon Jacob's ladder 
 
 Pitched between Heaven and Charing Cross. 
 
 Yea, in the night, my soul, my daughter, 
 Cry, — clutching Heaven by the hems; 
 
 Lo! Christ is walking on the water, 
 Not of Gennesareth — but Thames!" 
 
 As the spirit life that flows from the 
 Presence is a subject of such deep interest and 
 raises so many questions, I will defer its con- 
 sideration until our next Study in the Highest 
 Thought. 
 
"THE SPIRIT LIFE" 
 
FOURTH. STUDY 
 
 THE SPIRIT LIFE 
 
 WE have now arrived at the fourth 
 of a very closely connected series of J^ai result, 
 studies in the Highest Thought. We have 
 now to consider what is the result in prac- 
 tical Hfe of our past studies, and I hope in 
 the closing study to consider the future out- 
 look, which depends also upon the position 
 reached in the first three lectures. We have 
 seen to what a height the Highest Thought 
 soars; and I would beg of you carefully to 
 compare it with the goal at which any other 
 degree of thought aims, and to ask yourselves 
 whether I am not right in using the superla- 
 tive in these studies. 
 
 Does not our subject lead us higher, deeper, ^^'^^L°^ 
 to more marvellous thought regions, to further 
 spiritual insight than any other class of 
 thought known to us? Some may object 
 that it is all but a speculation, or a phantasy, 
 or an unproved theory. To such, of course, 
 83 
 
84 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 the obvious reply is that those to whom this 
 class of thought is the power and energy of 
 their Hves are numbered by thousands. Let 
 us briefly recall what we have discussed so 
 far. 
 
 uiaS" W^ ^^"^^ before us as a fact that one of 
 us may be sitting and reading this book who 
 is in touch and close relationship with the 
 Father of spirits. 
 
 We saw next that to gain this position he 
 reached God, by means of the Way, across 
 the trackless morass and the impenetrable 
 forests that stretch between the human and 
 the Divine. Christ, who is called the Way, 
 has opened up a path which all who will may 
 tread; and all those who know the Father 
 of spirits with this wonderful first-hand 
 knowledge have trodden this Way. 
 
 The third point was that the central being 
 of this one of whom I speak has thus become 
 a Shrine, — a Shrine of such inconceivable 
 splendour and glory; a Shrine of such infi- 
 nite holiness that, were it not placed beyond 
 the limits of our own consciousness, the sight, 
 like that of the bush that burnt and was not 
 consumed, would be too great for us to bear. 
 
 faith alone. All this is invisible and grasped by faith 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 8$ 
 
 alone. Our bodily eyes have never seen the 
 Father of spirits; but He is revealed to the 
 eye of faith. Our bodily eyes have never 
 seen the Way, but our spiritual eyes see 
 Him now. The Inner Shrine has never been 
 seen by mortal vision, but it is apprehended 
 by faith at this moment. There can be no 
 doubt, therefore, that Christians are true 
 mystics, since all the realities of which I 
 speak, connected with the highest thought, 
 are necessarily invisible to our conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 No word has been more dragged through 
 the mud and more absolutely abused than the 
 word "mysticism"; but rightly used the true Mysticism. 
 Christian is a true mystic. He walks and 
 hves and moves in an invisible world. And 
 what is so remarkable is that the outside of 
 these people, Hke that of the butterfly, is 
 humble and prosaic enough. 
 
 These mystics are seen in every rank and Mystics 
 
 •^ ^ "^ are in 
 
 walk of life. You will find them amongst day every rank. 
 
 labourers and the lowest classes in the slums : 
 
 you will find them in every rank and grade 
 
 in our army and navy; you will find them 
 
 in every position in society in the west end 
 
 of London; you will find them sitting at 
 
86 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 their cottage doors in the country, or work- 
 ing in the fields; behind the counter, and in 
 the kitchen. 
 
 There is no grade, no position, no class 
 True amongst men where these true mystics are 
 
 mystics are r i • • i • i i • i 
 
 ciairvoy- not louud, Carrying withm them this sacred 
 Shrine, and in daily touch with the Father 
 of spirits by means of the one true and only 
 Way. They are indeed the true clairvoyants, 
 for they see Jesus; the real clairaudients, for 
 they hear the voice of God. 
 
 Let us, then, bear this fact in mind, that 
 those who have grasped the Highest Thought 
 are the true mystics. All their deepest real- 
 ities Ue in a world that cannot be seen. Not 
 only so, but another thing characterises them 
 which they had never realised before, and 
 that is, they are always finding themselves in 
 
 The two- two places at once. I mention that again, 
 
 fold posi- ... 1 
 
 tion. because it is of such supreme importance. 
 
 No one can enjoy the Highest Thought or 
 true Christianity who has not really learned 
 the practical, simple secret of being spiritually 
 in two places at once. I appeal again to 
 those prosaic, small townsmen of Colosse (I 
 might of course appeal to many others) who, 
 walking about the streets of that small Asi- 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 87 
 
 atic town, were all the time, as regards their 
 hidden Ufe, their mystic hfe, in Heavenly 
 Places in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Their spirits were at Home in a scene of 
 unspeakable glory; one with the Maker of 
 the universe, one with the great Father of 
 spirits, Who had become in very deed and 
 truth their own Father; and they walked 
 up and down the streets and lanes of 
 Colosse, Hving at peace with God in their Heaven 
 spirits, while in their earthly Uves, as Icoiosse. 
 said, they passed through all the trials and 
 persecutions of the early Christians. 
 
 When one's inner life thus becomes mystic 
 and Divine, many will bear me witness that we 
 make great discoveries; we begin to under- 
 stand many things that were obscure ; because 
 Hving on such a lofty plane, we can naturally 
 see more from the heights than we can from the 
 bottom of the valley where we formerly lived. 
 
 From this lofty position, then, knowing and 
 living in this Divine atmosphere which I have 
 described, we begin to find that the Unseen 
 world is the cause of everything; that the Cause and 
 
 effect. 
 
 Seen world is the efect, — that all things that 
 are seen and temporal are merely the result 
 of what is unseen and eternal. 
 
88 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 We begin to be impressed with the increas- 
 ing unreality of all things visible; it is not 
 only that they are temporal, but that they 
 are unreal; and we begin to Hve more and 
 more in realities and in eternity. 
 
 Many schools of thought, both in the 
 
 eastern mysticism and amongst western 
 
 sages, and in our own church, have insisted, 
 
 Theun- jn theory, that things that are seen are un- 
 reality of •" ° „,..,. 
 
 the real and illusory; but when a Christian uves 
 
 in the eternal world he begins to treat them 
 as such more and more, and to turn to prac- 
 tical account what has hitherto only been a 
 theory. Take a simple illustration. 
 
 At the Holy Sacrament we see the bread 
 and wine. Every time we communicate the 
 material becomes less to us, and the soul in- 
 creasingly grasps at the Reality that lies 
 behind the sacred elements, which becomes 
 everything to us. The actual bread, how- 
 ever substantial, is thus a vision, a figure; the 
 literal wine, however real its presence may 
 be in the cup, is after all the unreal thing. 
 The real substance, the Divine, is what lies 
 
 „, ^ behind. 
 
 The Quest , , , „ , i- i 
 
 of the You remember the beautiful mediaeval 
 
 GraTl. story of King Arthur and the quest of the 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 89 
 
 Holy Grail. I am told by those who have 
 studied the subject that the quest of the Holy 
 Grail is just that mystery which every Chris- 
 tian seeks at the Holy Communion, and that 
 is the endeavour to grasp the substance 
 behind the figure. The man who sees only 
 the bread and wine sees nothing. 
 
 We have to see the Invisible to see the J^^. '"J''^'- 
 
 ble IS the 
 
 Real, these elements being but figures of the real. 
 True; and we come at last to find that 
 shadows, figures, and images are natural 
 and visible and material; whereas substances, 
 reahties, originals are spiritual and invisible 
 and immaterial. 
 
 I propose now in this study that we 
 should consider together some points in the 
 spirit Uf e as thus lived — the mystic Hfe ; Seven 
 and I shall speak very briefly upon seven istics of 
 characteristics that mark it out distinctly: mystics, 
 so that if you observe a person with these 
 characteristics you may be pretty sure and 
 certain you have got hold of a true mystic; 
 in other words, a true Christian. 
 
 The first characteristic that I will speak of 
 with extreme brevity is that these mystics are i- They are 
 SATISFIED people. You must not think this 
 is such a common thing; that there is nothing 
 
90 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 remarkable about it. As a matter of fact, 
 one of the most uncommon things to find in 
 this world is a satisfied man or woman. 
 
 Some time ago I placed a trained nurse 
 with a patient. The patient was a young 
 girl who had met with a most deplorable 
 accident, which would probably render it 
 necessary for her never more to mix in the 
 world, but to spend the rest of her days in 
 suffering. 
 
 The nurse came to me after two weeks and 
 said, "I thought I would like to speak to you." 
 
 I said, "What is it?" 
 
 "Well," she said, "a fortnight ago I was 
 An agnos- an agnostic, but I am not one now. When 
 
 tic nurse. " 
 
 I was a Httle child I used to beHeve, but 
 then I became sceptical, and for a long time 
 I have not thought much about religious 
 matters, but I can say now that I have 
 become a true believer." 
 
 I said, "That is good news; how did it 
 come about?" 
 
 She replied, "It is your patient." 
 I said, "What has my patient done?" 
 She answered, "She has done nothing." 
 "Has she spoken to you?" I asked. 
 "Not a word." 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 91 
 
 "Then what has made the change?" 
 
 She said, "It is the first time in my life I^fgggj 
 have seen a really satisfied girl, and I could patient. 
 not stand it. I thought, if Christ can satisfy 
 her He will satisfy me." 
 
 In Psalm xc. 14 you read these words 
 written by a mystic — it was not David, — 
 a man who had such communion with the 
 Invisible that when he came amongst men he 
 had to put a veil over his face ; for the bright- 
 ness of even the reflection of the Almighty was 
 too much for the eyes of common men. 
 
 Moses, the man of God, prayed this ?r^y" °^ 
 
 ' ^ •' Moses 
 
 prayer: "Oh! satisfy us early (or in the 
 morning of our life) with Thy mercy, that 
 we may rejoice and he glad all our days" 
 Satisfy us, saturate us, fill us that we can 
 hold no more! 
 
 The man who occupies the position de- 
 scribed in the last three Studies is satisfied, 
 but how few Christian people are! One of 
 the greatest things that warns people off from 
 Christianity is the fact that the Christians P'fatis- 
 
 -^ , ned Chns- 
 
 they meet are not satisfied men and women, tians. 
 They are like poor Jacob. 
 
 No man ever had such a chance as he 
 had when he was called up to the court of 
 
92 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Pharaoh, the monarch of the then world, to 
 talk about his God, But all he could do 
 was to whine and grumble; because he was 
 
 Jacob's not satisfied: — ^^Few and evil have been the 
 ' days of the years of my life, they have not 
 attained unto the days of the years of the life 
 of my fathers.''^ "If that is all your God can 
 do for you," I can hear Pharoah saying, "I 
 will stick to my idols; they can do just as 
 much as that." 
 
 An unsatisfied believer is the greatest 
 advertisement against Christianity. If we 
 enjoy what we have got, and show it, we 
 are witnessing for God, and one satisfied 
 Christian does more for Christianity than 
 fifty sermons. There can be no doubt at 
 all about the rarity of a man who wants 
 nothing for himself! 
 
 When I was a boy, I remember that my 
 
 the lak^e °° brother and I used to skate a good deal on a 
 small lake near where we lived. We, of 
 course, knew exactly when the ice would bear. 
 Sometimes when we put our skates on there 
 would be two or three hundred people stand- 
 ing round the side of the lake, not daring to 
 go on, thinking it would let them through. 
 But we had no fear, and skated all over it. 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 93 
 
 Then, when they saw us enjoying ourselves, 
 cutting figures on the ice and having a very 
 good time, — that made them resolve to enjoy 
 themselves too ! We had no need to go to the 
 bank and speak to them; we had no need to 
 write a book like this for them on the 
 delights of skating; exhortation was not 
 necessary. All we had to do was to enjoy Satisfac- 
 ourselves, and once they saw us happy they enjoyment, 
 could not stand it. Down they stooped and 
 buckled on their skates, and the lake was soon 
 covered with them. 
 
 What made the change? Satisfied people. 
 My brother and I were satisfied, and we 
 showed it, and that made them want to 
 come on the ice too. And what wins 
 doubters now is a satisfied Christian, if only 
 they can find one. The first trait, or stamp, 
 of the true mystic, therefore, is a satisfied 
 heart. 
 
 Just look for a moment how it works out 
 through the day, as described in the beginning 
 of Psalm xcii. "It is a good thing to gzT^e it is a good 
 thanks unto the Lord, " — this means a good give^ 
 thing for us, not for God. It does us good to ^ ^" ^' 
 give thanks, and it does us harm to grumble. 
 *'It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, 
 
94 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 and to sing praises unto Thy name, most 
 Eigh^'; and then follow these words, ''to show 
 forth thy loving kindness in the morning, and 
 Ihy faithfulness every night. ^^ Note the words 
 "to showy Here we come upon something 
 practical. 
 
 It is no use vapouring on in high-flown 
 language, describing the blessings of a Chris- 
 Showing istian. Men are tired of words, but they are 
 talking, not tired of looking at people. Look at the 
 nimiber of illustrated papers there are nowa- 
 days. People want more pictures, and they 
 want more pictures of Christianity. They 
 are tired of reading about it; they are tired 
 of hearing it talked about. It is little use 
 going to a man and talking to him about 
 the loving kindness of God. What we have 
 to do is to show it every morning. 
 
 "But," you say, "what is the difference 
 between talking and showing?" 
 
 It lies in this: we can talk about things 
 that we have not got, but we cannot show 
 anything we don't possess. If I asked some 
 ladies to show me their diamond rings, only 
 those who possessed them could show the 
 rings, but all could describe them. 
 
 Talking is easy; but showing requires 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 95 
 
 possession. If I am to show the loving show 
 kindness of God every morning when I come {^°fng 
 downstairs to breakfast and all through the '^'°^'^^"- 
 day, I must possess it. 
 
 Therefore, what I say is this, — "Never 
 turn the handle of your bedroom door and 
 face the world day by day until your heart 
 is saturated, satisfied with the loving kind- 
 ness of God. Then you will go out and be Ail through 
 
 the day. 
 
 a credit to your Father all the day, other- 
 wise you will probably be a disgrace. You 
 may be cross at breakfast, and you may fail 
 to show that you are a Christian and a son 
 or daughter of the Lord God Almighty 
 through the whole day. 
 
 With regard to nerve patients, I find that 
 one of the finest things for them is to have 
 their breakfast in bed, and the reason of this b bed. 
 is because it means a satisfied physique before 
 facing a cold world. In the same way we 
 need a satisfied spirit before facing the day's 
 work, a heart full of the loving kindness of 
 the Lord. Then we shall be a credit instead 
 of a disgrace to our Heavenly Father. 
 
 Then, when we go to bed at the end of 
 the day — ^'Thy faithfulness every night. ''^ 
 WTiat a delightful thing! What a lovely 
 
96 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 sleeping draught! What a pleasure to lay 
 one's head upon one's pillow and be able to 
 recall God's faithfulness all through the day, 
 — thus showing forth His loving kindness 
 in the morning, and His faithfulness every 
 night. Satisfaction with his new Home and 
 life is therefore the first mark of the mystic. 
 The second characteristic is that we are 
 2. They FREEMEN. That is another point that very 
 
 are free- ^ , , ^ '' 
 
 men. many of us miss. I will just refer you to 
 the text: "^o speak ye and so do as men that 
 are to he judged by a law oj liberty.^'' We are 
 free men and free women once we have got 
 hold of this Highest Thought in our souls, 
 for this reason — the control of our Uves is 
 now from within, and not from without. 
 In ordinary society men and women are 
 controlled from within by their own wills. 
 People who have to be controlled from 
 without, by force, are convicts and evil 
 characters, and have to be shut up within 
 four walls with spikes at the top. In there 
 alone they are safe, because they have no 
 inner principle to guide them aright. Herein 
 is all the difference, — a good man requires no 
 outward control; but a convict does. The 
 former is always free; the latter never. 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 97 
 
 I illustrated this point in our second 
 Study by the story of my dog with a chain 
 round its neck. That is outward control; 
 he cannot run about, he can do nothing. 
 But the moment he has learned to love his The hw of 
 master, the moment he has learned his rela- uberty. 
 tionship to him, there is a spiritual link 
 formed between that poor dog's heart and 
 his master's, and outward restraints are no 
 longer needed; he is controlled from within. 
 The steel chain is gone, but the dog follows 
 at his master's heels with unswerving obedi- 
 ence, because he is now chained by the law 
 of love; a slave and yet free. 
 
 The reason the Christian is free is because 
 God has got his heart, and if God has not 
 got his heart, he had far better stop between 
 four walls and be shut up there to be kept 
 safe. But once he has been brought to this 
 Father of spirits, once the Divine influence 
 has come into his heart so that God's Will is God's win 
 done on earth by that man as it is done in 
 Heaven, i.e. as a delight and a pleasure, — 
 that man is a free man. 
 
 ''Where the Spirit of the Lord is there 
 is liberty." "Stand fast, therefore," in this 
 liberty, we are told. "So speak ye and so 
 
98 STUDIKS IN Tin; MKillKST THOUGHT 
 
 do, (IS men thai arc to he judged by a law 
 of liberly;'' jumI this l.iw of liluTly is llic l.iw 
 of love. The second point, Ihen, is tluit 
 IheHc mystics arc not only Hatisficd, but 
 free. 
 ciirlijiiiiiif* I ] j.„ j^jj- y^,j, j^j^ Cliristi.'ins lo rcnicmbcr tliis, 
 
 und JcwH. '^ J 
 
 The Jews were not free. Tlicy wnr licdjM-d 
 
 in with •'). w.'dl tonnd lliciii, .iiid sliiil in llicrc 
 
 with laws to keep Ihcin in on the rif^iit h;ind 
 
 and on the left. '\\\v Christian is in a <lif- 
 
 fcrcnt position; he is a free man. He is not 
 
 1<» I)c WVv ;i horse with .1. hit, or ;i. nnilc wilh a 
 
 bridle; he is lo be ;^nide<| by (iod's eye. 
 
 Love is to be the ruling p.ission of his life, and 
 
 the only fetter that he knows. 
 
 The lliird i)oint Ih.'it marks the mystic is 
 
 .1 Thry fliat he is siNCKKK and real; there is no sham. 
 
 niiKcrp. We re;i(l in Romans xii. 2: ^^ liv. not Jiishioncd 
 arcordiny. In litis -irorld, hut he ye transformed 
 by the rntnvinn of your luiudy That word, 
 "fashioned," means "cut out from a pattern" 
 jis a dress is rut out. Do not be cut out from 
 the old p.illern, I'.ul instead of r<;a,din^ "be 
 ye transformed," wlii( h is a (Iirf<Tent thonjdit 
 alto^^ether, we often rendcT it "be con- 
 [orincd, or < Ml out on a new pallern." 
 This is a real denial of Christianity, and yet 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 99 
 
 it represents perhaps the most common and 
 popular idea of what it is. 
 
 We think when we are Christians we must 
 have a different type of face, a different style 
 of dress, a different set of habits, a different 
 circle of friends. That may sometimes be 
 the result of the inward change; but if these The change 
 are used to advertise our Christianity , they are inward, 
 the denial of Romans xii. 2. For the apostle 
 there points out, that whereas with regard 
 to the world there was this outward con- 
 formity, in Christianity it is not to be re- 
 placed by an outward conformity to religion, 
 but that the change is now to be on a new 
 principle, an inward transformation from the 
 centre of our being. 
 
 All that is of value in God's sight, in any 
 change that takes place, must be the result of 
 this power, flowing from the Inner Shrine 
 which He has set up in the heart. The trans- Trans- 
 formation should come from there; but some- is not 
 times it does not. People lay down laws as to 
 certain things Christians must do and certain 
 things they must not do; so that believers 
 are often as alike as a row of peas, or a street 
 of suburban villas; whereas if "we are trans- 
 formed by tlie reneviing oj our minds, '^ it is 
 
lOO STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Christians 
 not all 
 alike. 
 
 Fictitious 
 
 graces 
 
 easy. 
 
 Unreality 
 despised. 
 
 a real thing; no two of us attain to exactly 
 the same level or are precisely the same. 
 
 Each one of us walks before God, and 
 there is no settled rule that can apply to 
 all, because our Ufe is the result of living 
 growth. Some have shot up an inch, some 
 two inches, some are a foot high, according 
 to the measure to which each of us has 
 attained from the inward transformation of 
 the soul. 
 
 The other method, however, is very spe- 
 cious. It is so easy to put on fictitious 
 graces ; it is so easy to compound for a proud 
 heart by putting on a humble face. It is so 
 easy to shield a turbulent spirit under a quiet 
 dress. This is not Christianity. Christianity, 
 to be of the slightest value to God, or I will 
 add to man, must spring from the centre 
 of the being, from where God Himself Hves 
 in that human being; and because it is so 
 often otherwise, great reproach has fallen 
 upon Christians. 
 
 I do believe that half the contempt that is 
 showered by men of the world upon so many 
 of us is because they have a feeling that all 
 is not genuine. They see in the actions of 
 Christians a want of reality somewhere; 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE lOI 
 
 whereas the basis, the essence of a Christian 
 is that he should be sincere, that he should 
 pretend to no virtue that he has not got, 
 that nothing about him should be put on 
 from without, but should be the residt of a 
 transformation from within. 
 
 I have in mind an illustration of this that 
 is connected with flowers. A gardener pre- 
 paring chrysanthemums for a Flower Show story of the 
 
 111 chrysan- 
 
 has his greenhouse full, and each plant appar- themum 
 ently bears three perfect blooms on one stalk. 
 The master goes round the greenhouse the 
 day before the Show, and sees a fine display, 
 and congratulates his gardener. The man 
 replies, "Yes, but I have had a good deal of 
 trouble with them. " 
 
 Then when the master begins to look closely 
 at some of the plants and happens to touch 
 a bloom, he has a great surprise. Lo and be- 
 hold, on examination he finds a paper flower, Paper 
 a paper chrysanthemum, fastened on to the °^^"* 
 stalk. He says, "What on earth is this?" 
 
 The gardener says, "I have been obliged to 
 make flowers for some of them. Each stalk is 
 supposed to have three blooms on it. Some 
 only had one, and others two, so that I was 
 obliged to make the number up with paper." 
 
102 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Imitation jt is the samc with us. We imagine we 
 
 virtues. ° 
 
 are obliged to display a certain number of 
 virtues as Christians, and if we do not pos- 
 sess them, then they have to be assumed. 
 There can be no doubt that this is, not only 
 a short-sighted policy, but it has nothing to 
 do with the Highest Thought, it has nothing 
 to do with God. It is wrong merely to 
 assume a good outward appearance before 
 men. Let us be real at all costs, natural 
 or rather spiritual, and never artificial; and 
 if we have not progressed so far as other 
 Christians, if we do not see eye to eye with 
 our friends, let us at least be genuine in 
 what we do, and let us not pretend to be 
 virtuous beyond the measure to which we 
 have attained. The three points we have 
 emphasised so far then are that the true 
 Christian is satisfied, free, and sincere. 
 The next point is that this man is deeply 
 4. They SYMPATHETIC. You might very well get the 
 pathetic, idea from looking at one side of the picture 
 that you had to do with a selfish character, 
 but so far from that being true, there is no 
 man who should be so sympathetic, and 
 thoughtful for others, as the true Christian. 
 He has every need, every desire, as I have 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 103 
 
 already said, so satisfied, so saturated, that 
 he has nothing to think of, or ask for, or 
 care about with regard to himself. His 
 whole heart and energies are not only thus 
 set free for others, but the love wherewith t^^. . 
 
 1 • 1 in* 11- Christian 
 
 he is loved, flowing through his heart, causes loves all. 
 a warm spring of Divine sympathy and love 
 to issue forth to every human creature. He 
 thus gives out what God has given him; and 
 so he becomes a source of blessing to others. 
 
 The next point is that the Christian is 
 described in Scripture as salt, that is to say, 
 he is a strong antiseptic. Wherever he goes s- They 
 he kills germs; wherever he goes he stops the septic, 
 plague. I do not think that as we sit here 
 we have the slightest idea of how the whole 
 mass of London and other great cities would 
 go to corruption if it were not for the salt 
 of Christianity that is scattered everywhere 
 amongst the poor and criminal classes. 
 
 We must not imagine that the hordes of 
 the East End of London, and the Socialists SodaUsts 
 and anarchists around Leicester Square and ^" ^ '''^ 
 elsewhere are kept quiet and in order by 
 the constable alone. The police themselves 
 would be the first to testify that they would 
 be powerless in numbers and in every other 
 
I04 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 way, were it not that the whole of the lowest 
 
 parts of London is honeycombed, saturated, 
 
 with Christian work, which so softens and 
 
 humanises the spirit that the germs of evil 
 
 are killed, and vast numbers of this lowest 
 
 section of the population are sweetened ; and 
 
 become aseptic, and purified, even if they do 
 
 not become actual Christians themselves. 
 
 The work of all these agencies (I need 
 
 chds-°^ not name them, though I am immensely 
 
 tianity. struck with the work that the Salvation Army 
 
 is doing in the very lowest quarters*) is of 
 
 such an antiseptic nature that no word so well 
 
 describes a truly working Christian as salt. 
 
 There is another beautiful characteristic 
 about salt which we are all acquainted with, 
 and that is it makes us thirsty. If a person 
 takes enough salt, nothing will satisfy him 
 but a long draught of water. If you want 
 people to take water, give them plenty of 
 salt. They will crave for it. Salt makes 
 water a necessity. 
 
 That is another reason why these mystical 
 
 people are compared to salt, because they 
 
 Salt gives make others take a draught of the Water 
 
 *See especially "Broken Earthenware," by H. Begbie, 
 as to this. 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 105 
 
 of Life, and this Water of Life is none else 
 than the One Whom I have brought before 
 you as the Way, leading straight to the 
 Father of spirits. 
 
 Now the sixth point is that Christians are 
 LUMINOUS. You must not imagine that this 6. They 
 Inner Shrine can exist in the recesses of our luminous, 
 spirits without shining through our mortal 
 bodies. The God who dwells within is ^Uhe 
 health of my countenance.^^ So even the face, 
 the poor marred face, often scarred with in- 
 delible lines of sin, is transfigured. 
 
 I shall never forget looking at the battered 
 face of an old prize-fighter in whom this 
 Inner Shrine had been illumined. Although 
 the marks of sin and the scars of the fight 
 were absolutely indelible, his face was trans- 
 figured from within by this Divine light shin- 
 ing through. 
 
 Christian men and women should be lu-Light- 
 minous; they are lights in the world, holding 
 forth the Word of Light, the Great Light, 
 the Centre of Light, of which they are the 
 light-bearers. Through and through them 
 shines the light to this dark world. When 
 I come to speak on this and on things be- 
 yond the Veil, in our last Study, we shall 
 
lo6 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 see then what an extraordinary position 
 Christians occupy in Heaven with regard to 
 this question of light; but even now they 
 are Divinely luminous. 
 oMund"^^^ Luminosity may depend upon two factors: 
 nosity. ^Yie intensity of the light, or the transparency 
 of the walls. Men in health and strength go- 
 ing about this world earnestly doing the great 
 Master's work with heart and soul are on fire 
 with zeal; they are luminous on account of the 
 intensity of the flame that burns within them. 
 Value of ;gu^ there are others, sufferers laid aside 
 
 sickness. ' 
 
 known to us all, who are luminous on 
 account of the transparency of the walls 
 of their earthly tabernacle. The body is 
 frail; the tent is about to be taken down; 
 but the nearer it comes to that point, the 
 more liuninous and powerful and bright does 
 the light shine through the thin walls, until 
 in the sick-room we seem sometimes to be in 
 the very presence of the Invisible itself. 
 I am one who, in these days of great dispute, 
 Lessons in am perfectly clear that suffering and sickness 
 are amongst the most valuable teachers in 
 the School of God. I have no hesitation 
 whatever in saying it, and I beHeve I can 
 amply prove it from the Word of God. At 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 107 
 
 any rate, to prove it one has not got to go far, 
 because one finds it demonstrated everywhere. 
 
 Not only are lessons taught by suffering cannot be 
 and sickness that are never learned in health, elsewhere. 
 but the expression that is used in Romans v 
 is used nowhere else — for it is in suffering 
 and crushing down that the love of God is 
 not only possessed as it is by all of us in 
 health, but is said to be ^^ shed abroad in our 
 hearts hy the Holy Spirit" What does "shed 
 abroad" mean? Spread out Hke a fan, as in 
 the rainbow. 
 
 Light is white, but when it is shed abroad 
 and split up it becomes seven colours, and 
 you get every shade. So I believe it is in A rainbow 
 the heart of the sufferer under the hand of heart. 
 God — there His love is seen in such variety 
 and in such beauty as nowhere else. 
 
 It is a very remarkable thing that at the 
 head of many of the greatest Christian works 
 in this coimtry there has been a weak and 
 suffering woman, a person apparently too 
 frail to undertake such a task, and yet so 
 energised by the Divine Spirit that she has 
 accomplished it. All this I just say in passing, 
 to prove that I believe in the great place that 
 suffering has in the School of God. 
 
io8 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 7. They Last of all, these people are loving. Lest 
 
 are loving. '^ ^ '^ 
 
 you forget the seven points let me repeat them 
 again: they are satisfied, they are free, they 
 are sincere, they are sympathetic, they are 
 ANTISEPTIC like salt, they are luminous, and, 
 last of all, they are loving. 
 
 In connection with this allow me to refer 
 just for one moment to St. John xiii, where 
 we get the most beautiful description about 
 Washing the washing of the disciples' feet, familiar to 
 you all. What may not be familiar is the 
 deeper meaning of the introduction given in 
 the 3d verse. ''Jesus knowing that . . . 
 He came forth from God and goeth unto God 
 riseth from supper and layeth aside His gar- 
 ment.' ' This is taken to mean, knowing how 
 august He was, what a great Person He 
 was, that He had come from God and was 
 soon going back to God, and that, in spite 
 of this grandeur of His position. He was 
 humble enough to take a towel and gird 
 Himself. I submit that, though that is the 
 only meaning we generally attach to it, 
 there may be a deeper thought in the verse. 
 The further point I think is that God is 
 love. I would put it then in this way: 
 *' Jesus knowing that He came from love, 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE 109 
 
 love ineffable, love Divine, and was going 
 back to love, love ineffable, love Divine — 
 what could He do but take a towel and 
 gird Himself and wash their feet?" It is 
 the impulse of love, knowing that love was The 
 His source, love was His goal. Therefore i^v^"^ ^^ 
 He loved His disciples unto death, and loved 
 them enough to wash their feet. 
 
 And if we know we have come from God 
 and are going to God, we will take a towel too, 
 and wash the feet of the poorest of London. 
 We can do nothing else, because we have come 
 from love. We are loved wdth an everlasting 
 love and nothing shall ever separate us from 
 it: WhsLt then can we do but love? We are 
 bound to love, if that is our source, our being, 
 our power, our end. 
 
 It is beautiful to read this chapter in that 
 light. Knowing He was come from a God 
 of love and that He went to a God of love, 
 Christ took a towel and girded Himself. 
 When we realise how much we are loved, 
 what can we do but love everybody else? I 
 am reminded of a Christian girl who wrote Letter on 
 a letter to me once about a poor woman °^^' 
 who had a drunken husband. She writes, 
 in her homely way, "All I can say to her 
 
no STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 is, 'Cheer up, missus, keep on loving him, 
 and if you love him long enough perhaps 
 it will be all right,' as God loves us till we get 
 like Him at last." Love never wearies. It 
 forgives seventy times seven. It is never 
 vexed, never tired, is not puffed up; you can 
 read all about it in the i Cor. xiii. Love 
 is also kind. This seems a poor small thing 
 to say about a Divine attribute, about a 
 power which led God to give His Son for 
 us, which led Christ to die for us! But love 
 which begins with the Cross can end in 
 common kindness. 
 
 On the shore the other day after a storm 
 I saw little ripples dying at my feet on 
 the sand, the last expression of a mighty 
 upheaval out at sea. So — "love is kind." 
 The Christian, then, who has been himself 
 so loved cannot help showing it if we realise 
 what our Lord realised at the supper, that we 
 come from God and are going back to God. 
 
 May I, before I close this study, be allowed 
 to quote a poem by Gerhardt Terstegen of 
 the sixteenth century, which may be new to 
 some, and which greatly bears upon our 
 mystic Study. It is called "The Secret of 
 His Pavilion." 
 
THE SPIRIT LIFE III 
 
 THE SECRET OF HIS PAVILION 
 Hos. xi. 14 
 
 Allured into the Desert, with God alone apart, 
 There Spirit meeteth spirit, there speaketh heart to 
 
 heart. 
 Far far on that untrodden shore, God's secret place I 
 
 find, 
 Alone I pass the golden door, the dearest left 
 
 behind. 
 
 There God and I — none other; oh, far from 
 
 men to be! 
 Nay, midst the crowd and tumult, still. 
 
 Lord, alone with Thee. 
 Still folded close upon Thy breast, in field and 
 
 mart and street. 
 Untroubled in that perfect rest, that isolation sweet. 
 
 O God! Thou art far other than men have dreamed 
 
 and taught, 
 Unspoken in all language, unpictured in all thought. 
 Thou God art God — he only learns what that great 
 
 Name must be. 
 Whose raptured heart within him glows because he walks 
 
 with Thee, 
 
 Stilled by that wondrous Presence, that tenderest 
 
 embrace. 
 The years of longing over, do we behold Thy Face; 
 We seek no more than Thou hast given, we ask no 
 
 vision fair; 
 Thy precious Blood has opened Heaven, and we have 
 
 found Thee there. 
 
112 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 O weary souls, draw near to Him; to you I can but 
 
 bring 
 One drop of that great ocean, one blossom of that 
 
 spring; 
 Sealed with His kiss, my lips are dumb, my soul with 
 
 awe is still; 
 Let him that is athirst but come and freely drink his fill. 
 
 G. T, S. 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 
 
FIFTH STUDY 
 
 BEYOND THE VEIL 
 
 BEFORE entering, to-day, upon our sub- 
 ject, "Beyond the Veil," I should like 
 to make one remark on what I said in our 
 Third Study. You remember that I dwelt 
 very strongly on the fact that, however 
 glorious the shrine was within these temples The inner 
 of our bodies, nevertheless we could not by beyond^ 
 any consciousness or introspection be cogni- ^£33"°"^" 
 sant of the dwelUng of God within ourselves. 
 In our last Study, however, I alluded to 
 the fact that especially in afiliction the Love 
 of God was "shed abroad" or "spread out" 
 in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. 
 
 My attention has since been called to the 
 fact that by putting the two together you really 
 see God within. The idea to me is very beau- 
 tiful, and I thankfully pass it on to you. It is We know 
 this, that although by no effort of looking in- His 
 side ourselves can we see God, we nevertheless ^ " " *■ 
 can see the Divine attributes or quaUties. 
 "5 
 
Il6 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 In the same way, when we look at the 
 sun we never can see it, but if we get its 
 rays broken up by a prism we can discern 
 all its several glories. So we expect to find 
 in our hearts, from the inspiration of God 
 within us, power, faith, patience, love, kind- 
 ness, gentleness, meekness, in a measure that 
 surprises ourselves, and all of which we 
 have the power to reproduce in our lives, 
 because the Source of them all dwells within. 
 Divine This, to my mind, is a most inspiring and 
 
 wthin us. invigorating thought. It gives power to the 
 weak, and it supplies us with whichever of 
 these virtues we feel we lack. We simply 
 call upon the power within us to give us 
 the patience we need at the time, to give us 
 the gentleness, to give us the faith, to 
 give us the courage; and so although we do 
 not see God within us we can be cognisant 
 of the graces He gives; and in this way, as 
 it were, through a prism, we discern His 
 glories and His powers. 
 Which we I trust this is fully understood, because 
 
 can count •' 
 
 upon. the thought is not only beautiful but of 
 such infim'te practical value in each of our 
 lives every day that we live. We can 
 count upon these virtues; for having God 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 1 17 
 
 within us, we have all that He is and can 
 give. Therefore we confidently expect that 
 we shall have patience for every event, that 
 we shall have power for every undertaking, 
 and we look to God in this way to supply 
 all our needs according to His riches in 
 Christ. 
 
 Now, coming to our present subject to-day, 
 "Beyond the Veil," we ask, first of all, is is there a 
 there a "Beyond," or does all Hfe end at ^^^^ 
 death? Is man immortal or not? The three 
 authorities that I invoke in reply, as I did 
 in regard to the question of whether there was 
 a way to the Father of spirits, are the three 
 voices of our instinct, of our experience, and 
 of authority. 
 
 Is there or is there not anything "Beyond 
 the Veil?" Instinct replies, Yes. The whole instinct 
 of the instincts of the human race, civilised "Yes." 
 and savage, have always considered that life 
 does not end at death, but somehow or some- 
 where it is carried on Beyond the Veil. The 
 reply of instinct therefore is in the affirmative. 
 
 The nature of experience is the same. Not Experf- 
 only m those who have, after having died, replies 
 
 ** Yes." 
 
 returned from the dead, of whom Jesus Christ 
 is the great Example; but in the domain 
 
Ii8 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 of science experiments without end have 
 been conducted showing undoubtedly that 
 manifestations have been seen, not in one 
 but in thousands of authenticated cases, of 
 those whose bodies are in the churchyard. 
 There is, therefore, quite apart from Holy 
 Writ, a scientific experience that there is a 
 life or an existence beyond the grave. 
 I invoke last of all the Bible as the voice 
 Authority of authority. The inspired voice of the 
 
 replies 
 
 "Yes." word of God speaks unhesitatingly, not only 
 to the fact of there being a Beyond, but of 
 what happens to us when we have "crossed 
 the bar." That is my subject in this 
 study. We therefore need have no hesita- 
 tion whatever — of course I need hardly 
 say that no one of my readers probably has 
 — in believing that there is a "Beyond the 
 Veil." 
 
 But when we come to speak of resurrection 
 we must understand that the resurrection of 
 man is not proved by scientific investigation; 
 it is a matter of pure faith. There is nothing 
 
 No scien- j^ the Scientific world to estabfish it. There is 
 
 tific proof , . • r 
 
 ofresur- evidence for the existence of a spirit after 
 
 rection. . . .~ 
 
 death; but there is no scientific testimony 
 to say that the body shall again clothe the 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL II9 
 
 immortal spirit. Nevertheless, this is the 
 sure word of testimony of the Living God; 
 and it is so sure that the bodies of all who 
 beHeve this Word are sown in hope of a 
 glorious resurrection. 
 
 It so happens that nearly every week I 
 have to travel down to Brookwood where 
 there is a very great cemetery. I see there 
 the earth covered with tombstones, labelled 
 with the names of the deceased. Before I 
 come to Brookwood I pass a series of nursery ceme- 
 gardens. There I see the earth covered with nursery" 
 pieces of wood in rows, labelled with the^"^^"^- 
 names of the seeds that are sown beneath. 
 Both the bodies and the seeds are sown in 
 hope of a glorious resurrection. 
 
 The little seed is put into the ground in 
 confident expectation. The man who sows 
 it never wants to see that seed again, and 
 nothing would upset him more than if that 
 seed came up again in a resurrection. "That 
 which thou sowest is not that body that shall 
 he, hut a hare grain, perchance oj wheat 
 or some other grain." 
 
 Is it not the same at Brookwood? The 
 bodies that are sown there may be, and very 
 frequently are, aged and withered and bereft 
 
120 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 of all natural beauty; they may be crippled 
 and diseased, but, whatever they are, they 
 are but the seed. They are not that body 
 that shall be, and if any man think other- 
 wise, St. Paul says, ''Thou fool '^ 
 Seed is 1 So that, comparing the nursery gardens 
 
 sown in . , , x ♦j ^ .^ 
 
 hope. With that great cemetery, we see, in each, 
 labels placed above the seed with the name 
 of the seed on them, the idea in both cases 
 being the same; that there is going to be a 
 glorious resurrection. How glorious it is you 
 have only to go down that hne of rail in 
 May or June to see. The bare earth is gone. 
 The labels are all vanished; and there, cov- 
 ering the earth with many-coloured starry 
 splendour, are the flowers, the glorified bodies 
 of those poor Httle seeds. 
 
 Let us take in one hand a few seeds, in 
 
 Flowers xhQ Other a glorious bunch of flowers that 
 
 and seeds. ° 
 
 have sprung from those seeds; and then, 
 
 perhaps, for the first time we shall be able to 
 * fully apprehend the difference between the 
 I body that is planted and that glorious house 
 \ from Heaven with which God will clothe the 
 
 immortal spirit on the Resurrection morning. 
 This difference is very important — and 
 
 the certainty of it is proved. 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL I2I 
 
 I do not know any more glorious words 
 in Scripture than the opening words in the 
 beginning of 2 Corinthians v. ^^For we^g^onom 
 KNOW." ''We know that if the earthly'"''''^''''' 
 house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have 
 a building of God, a house not made with 
 hands, eternal, in the heavens." Surely men 
 and women with such certain knowledge as 
 this should walk the earth in a different 
 fashion from those who know it not. They 
 may well Hft up their heads, for their redemp- 
 tion draweth nigh. " We KNOW" —a mat- " We 
 ter of assured, solid, quiet conviction and °^* 
 certainty, founded on the Divine word. 
 Such is what the Highest Thought leads 
 us to, and we feel that there is no room 
 for speculation here, it being to all who 
 believe the Divine revelation an absolute 
 fact, as certain as any law of nature. ''We 
 know." 
 
 Now between the sowing of the seed andTheinter- 
 
 ^ _ mediate 
 
 this glorious Resurrection morning we have state, 
 something to which the nursery garden can 
 offer no analogy, and that is the disembodied 
 state. Books without end have been written 
 about this mysterious condition; some, of 
 which no doubt you have studied, are of 
 
122 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 f 
 
 singular merit and interest; but respecting 
 them all we must first consider this fact. 
 
 We know everything that can be known 
 about the condition of a body without a 
 spirit i 1 it. Bodies which the spirit has left 
 have, for medical reasons, been closely 
 examined and every part of them analysed. 
 Everything is known about what a body is 
 like without a spirit in it. On the other 
 hand, absolutely nothing is known of what 
 
 Ignorance a spirit is like when the body ceases to clothe 
 
 unclothed' it — nothing at all. We cannot say any- 
 
 *^'" ' thing about it. 
 
 We have no knowledge of an unclothed 
 spirit, beyond what the Word of Revelation 
 may have brought to us; but scientifically 
 we know nothing of such a condition. It is 
 very curious — the perfection of our knowl- 
 edge on the one side as regards the body; 
 the absolute thick darkness on the other as 
 regards the disembodied spirit. We have no 
 real knowledge of what it consists, what its 
 quaHties are, what it can do, and what it 
 cannot do. 
 
 Can a When there are no longer eyes to see, ears 
 
 spirit see, . i i 
 
 hear, to hear, a tongue to speak, bram cells by 
 
 think, or r i i . 
 
 act? which to conduct the processes of thought, 
 
BEYOND THE \TIL 123 
 
 we have nothing to guide us as to whether 
 a spirit in such a state can see, hear, think, 
 or act. We know nothing about it, I repeat, No guide 
 beyond the revelation in the Word of God. Bible. 
 I consider the extent of our knowledge with 
 regard to the body, and the utter absence of 
 knowledge as regards the spirit, a very strik- 
 ing fact. We are, therefore, here absolutely 
 thrown back upon what the Bible has told 
 us of this disembodied state, and it is singu- 
 larly little. 
 
 Of course we understand, as already pointed 
 out, especially in the West, in Christian 
 countries, that man is divided into three 
 parts: spirit, which has no extension in space; 
 body, which is absolutely material; and 
 between the two the soul, which partakes 
 of the attributes of spirit and of the body. 
 
 Great discussions have arisen upon the 
 question as to whether the spirit is asleep Does the 
 or awake in this disembodied state. It iSsfJep? 
 well to remember here that the words " asleep " 
 and "awake" are words that apply to a U 
 bodily condition. There is no evidence that 
 when we are asleep at night in bed our spirit 
 is then asleep. We may not be conscious, 
 but this is no proof the spirit sleeps; in 
 
124 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 fact we have many evidences that the spirit, 
 in some sections of its being, is very much 
 awake while we are asleep. 
 Sleep is a Therefore the words " asleep ' ' and ' ' awake ' ' 
 
 physical i r • • i 
 
 condition, do not properly refer to spirit, and to press 
 
 • them Uterally is as foolish as to press the 
 
 word "person" literally with regard to the 
 
 Deity. We know what we m.ean, and it is 
 
 the nearest human word to convey our idea, 
 
 but we carmot express Divine reahties in 
 
 human words. All we know from Scripture 
 
 . is that we "depart and are with Christ which 
 
 [is far better." We are therefore in bliss; we 
 
 are happy; we are at rest. 
 
 It does not appear, if we are to take the 
 
 parable of Dives and Lazarus of our Lord's 
 
 own telKng about this disembodied state 
 
 as representing what occurs in Hades, 
 
 that there is any use or warrant for us to 
 
 Prayers pray for departed spirits, as is customary in 
 
 depart^ed. a sister Church and to some sUght extent 
 
 has obtained in our own. There appears to 
 
 be no possible sanction for it in Holy Writ. 
 
 But, on the other hand, a very remarkable 
 
 fact comes to Hght, that there is some basis 
 
 i for believing that departed spirits may pray 
 
 for us. That is a very different thing; and 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 125 
 
 surely it is we that need prayer rather than 
 they. The rich man prayed for five brethren 
 that he had left behind him on earth; and 
 I should be very sorry to say that it was a 
 wrong or fooHsh thought to believe that, even 
 in this disembodied state, those who have The 
 gone before may not be able to care for those pray^o^r us. 
 who are left behind. 
 
 So that we see the idea of the sister 
 Church is absolutely reversed, so far as their 
 prayers for the dead are concerned, the liv- 
 ing praying for the dead; for it appears to 
 be the dead who should pray for the liv- 
 ing. For this statement, of course, my basis 
 is this parable of our Lord's, as far as we 
 may take it hterally. 
 
 Now passing on to Resurrection, as I have 
 said, it is a matter of pure faith in God's 
 Word. It cannot be proved at present 
 scientifically. Those who shall rise in the We shall 
 
 rise in 
 
 glorious Resurrection are defined as all who Christ's 
 are "in Christ." ^^The dead in Christ shall 
 rise fir St. ''^ All in Christ rise. Those who 
 are Christ's at His coming; that is to say, 
 however humble their condition, whatever 
 station or nation they may belong to, all to 
 whom He is the Way, and by Whose loving 
 
126 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Hand have been led to the Father of spirits, 
 not only rise, but rise in His Likeness. 
 
 The process appears to be this, that Christ 
 is not only beautiful, but He beautifies; He 
 is not only glorious, but He glorifies; He is 
 : not only living, but He infuses new life into 
 every one that sees Him. So much so that, 
 according to the last two verses of 2 Corin- 
 His trans- thians iii., we are even now changed spirit- 
 
 lorming ' ° ^ 
 
 power. ually into His Likeness in proportion to the 
 extent that our spirits behold Him. As 
 we see Him with the spiritual eye, so He 
 changes us into His own likeness from glory 
 to glory. 
 
 It will be the same exactly when the mate- 
 rial eye sees Him. We shall be like Him then, 
 
 We shall be physically, for we shall see Him as He is. 
 
 in body. Amongst those who will be like Him will be 
 thousands who have suffered martyrdom for 
 His Name, but there will be this wonderful 
 distinction, as far as we know, between the 
 martyrs and the Christ; that while He will 
 bear in His glorified Body the marks of His 
 Cross and Passion, those who suffered for 
 Him will be without stain or mark of any 
 sort on the glorified body. 
 We shall then see Him for the first time 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 127 
 
 Who has for so long dwelt within us here. We shall 
 That is a wonderful thought. As we read for^the first 
 this book, that Inner Shrine is tenanted by 
 One whom we shall then see, Whom, as I 
 pointed out in the opening of this address, 
 we only know now by the power He gives 
 us and the attributes He shows. 
 
 Then will be the apotheosis of humanity — 
 Christus Consummator — that glorious phrase christus 
 of which Bishop Westcott was so fond— mator. 
 Christ the Consummation of all, will then 
 raise us to the summit of humanity; for He 
 is not only the effulgence of the Divine 
 Glory and the express Image of God's Person, 
 but He is the Head of every creature, of all 
 creation. We, therefore, who rise in His 
 likeness shall then reach the utmost limit of 
 glory to which the human race will ever be 
 
 raised. 
 
 When God introduced the first speck of 
 Ufe into this globe He had before Him 
 the raising of that life and the never ceasing 
 to raise it until it became the Likeness of 
 His Son in Heaven. Long before the founda- 
 tion of the world we were chosen in Christ 
 Jesus. Of course such thoughts as these 
 far transcend our capacities for understand- 
 
128 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 ing them; we can only accept them as they 
 stand. 
 
 Suffice it to say we have been placed by 
 
 the power of God at our present level as 
 
 human beings. We are the head of the 
 
 Head of animal creation, and yet separated from all 
 
 the animal •it • 11 irii* 
 
 creation, animals by an mipassable gulf, by having 
 had breathed into our nostrils the Breath of 
 Life, so as to have that spark of the Divine 
 which, though it does not make us gods as 
 some have asserted, makes us human, which 
 makes us rational, which makes us beings 
 like God in having a will, a free will, subject 
 to no known law. 
 
 Once this will is captured by God, once 
 we are obedient to the Father of spirits, 
 we then, as I have said in the first lecture, 
 begin to live in the fullest sense of the word. 
 We do not get less human; but we become 
 truly partakers then of the Divine Nature. 
 
 Still we wait for something more. There 
 
 is yet a more glorified state to which the 
 
 human race has got to be raised in Christ. 
 
 One cannot but wonder, when one sees so 
 
 The many scientific men around us, and human- 
 
 of human- itarians and philanthropists, all engaged in 
 
 ''^* bettering the race, that there should not be 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 129 
 
 on the part of many of them a more earnest 
 enquiry as to whether there may not be yet 
 a further Hfting up of the race to another 
 height, to another level, as spoken of in the 
 Bible, and as consummated in Christ. 
 
 When we are like the Second Man and 
 have lost the image of the first, then indeed 
 shall we have reached the highest hmit, as 
 far as we know, to which humanity in Christ Christ the 
 
 1 1 Ui r 1'c r V • 1 Head over 
 
 will ever be raised, the last of hfe for which all. 
 the first was made " — Christus Consummator 
 — all things summed up in Christ. 
 
 It appears probable that in the glory we 
 shall know each other, but that the value of 
 that knowledge must entirely depend upon 
 the spiritual Hnks formed with one another 
 while we are down here. Those who have 
 passed through any spiritual experiences to- 
 gether will have links in eternity which they Spiritual 
 could not have without those experiences, et^ernd.* 
 
 Personally I may tell you — you may think 
 it rather strange — my endeavour is to know 
 as many Christian people as I possibly can 
 during this present life, so that I may have 
 more spiritual friends in the other world. 
 
 Not only so, but our lives down here will 
 undoubtedly determine our position in the 
 
I30 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 coming Divine Kingdom. I firmly believe 
 
 that the true Heaven is as different from 
 
 our conventional ideas as one thing can well 
 
 be from another. I doubt whether anything 
 
 The could be more absolutely vapid and insipid 
 
 conven- ^^^ Unreal than the conventional Heaven 
 
 Heaven presented to our thoughts in many of our 
 
 hymns; in fact I may go so far as this, 
 
 and say that were it not for the Presence 
 
 of Christ, none of us would care to go to 
 
 such a Heaven. Having our Lord there, 
 
 and being in His presence, everything else 
 
 seems small. 
 
 With regard to Heaven, or shall I say 
 the future state, scripture speaks very much 
 less about it than we do. It hardly ever 
 speaks of our going to Heaven; it ^speaks 
 . about our going to be with Christ. But 
 what is before the minds of the inspired 
 writers is much more of a personal inter- 
 Happiness est and a sharing in Christ's glory than a 
 Heaven, question of our own joy and happiness. And 
 it is well that it is so, because there is no 
 doubt that no one ever gets happiness by 
 seeking for it. 
 
 It appears that when we reach the glorious 
 morning of the Resurrection, not very long 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 131 
 
 will elapse before Christ takes unto Him 
 His great power and reigns over this whole 
 world, and those who are accounted worthy 
 will doubtless share that reign with Him sharing 
 in proportion to the way in which they have 3gn.^]^ 
 shown themselves fitted to be entrusted with 
 power; so that our Hves, the faithfulness of 
 our Hves, the devotedness of our lives, and 
 the consistency of our lives are all being 
 quietly taken into account day by day. 
 
 They are all noted down in the Divine 
 records, and when we all appear before the 
 Judgment Seat of Christ, we shall receive the The 
 things (as Christians in Heaven) done in our seff^f °' 
 bodies, whether they are good or whether they ^'^"^*^- 
 are bad. If they are good we shall have an 
 abundant entry into the joy of our Lord, 
 and we shall be appointed to certain dignities 
 as rulers consistent with our position. If 
 they are bad we shall suffer loss. 
 
 Perhaps our twenty or thirty years of 
 Christian life down here will be found so 
 barren, so empty that there is no opportu- 
 nity for praise and reward connected with it. 
 We ourselves shall be saved, thank God, for 
 our entrance into Heaven depends upon no 
 works that we have done, but upon the 
 
1^2 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Position 
 hereafter 
 depends 
 on life now, 
 
 School 
 time and 
 lessons 
 
 All is prep- 
 aration 
 for the 
 future 
 eternity. 
 
 grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ. But our 
 position in Heaven, the place that He vvill 
 exalt us to, entirely depends upon our life 
 down here. Such in general is the teaching 
 of scripture to which I have not time to refer 
 in detail. 
 
 But I must pass on. We must picture 
 all Christians as now in Heaven. We must 
 imagine this wonderful thousand years' reign 
 of Christ about to begin over the redeemed 
 world. We must understand that we have 
 been at school on earth, but are now at home. 
 I consider our Hfe here is a school life: and 
 by and by we are going home for the holi- 
 days. Now we are being educated, for though 
 this world makes a very bad home, it makes 
 an uncommonly good school. We are pro- 
 mooted from class to class here in this school, 
 as we learn our lessons. 
 
 Then in the millennial reign of Christ, 
 as I have pointed out, we enter on more 
 exalted service; we shall have further prac- 
 tice in serving Him in order to prepare us 
 by this course of discipline, of the life 
 before death and the Hfe after death and 
 this thousand years of reigning with Christ, 
 for the wonderful future that will then open 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 133 
 
 before us. But you say, "I thought that 
 was the future. The utmost bounds of 
 my thoughts have never stretched beyond 
 sharing the glory of the millennial reign of 
 Christ." But the truth is we have not so 
 far really begun the future eternity. We 
 only even then stand at the threshold of the 
 marvels that are opened to us in the Bible. 
 
 I may pause, however, here for one moment The mil- 
 to consider this millennial time. All Chris- 
 tians are described as forming then a sort of a 
 luminous cube. Picture a soHd, Uke a cube 
 of glass, limiinous and transparent in every 
 direction, the centre of it a blaze of light, 
 that hght being the Godhead. God Himself 
 shall dwell in the midst; there shall be no 
 sun; there shall be no Hght there because the 
 Light of God in the centre illuminates this 
 cube. 
 
 Now what is the idea before the Apostle 
 when he gives such a marvellous figure? It 
 is this. No ray of God's Hght, no Divine 
 quaHty, can ever reach the redeemed earth 
 but through this transparent cube, the Hght The trans- 
 being in the centre. And what is the trans- cube, 
 parent cube? Ourselves. 
 
 That is to say, it is the pleasure of 
 
134 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Almighty God not to reveal Himself to the 
 earth save through us, for we are to be 
 the sole medium for the transmission of the 
 glories of God to the humanity that will 
 dwell on this earth during this wonderful 
 reign of Christ. 
 
 But I must pass on now, to take a glimpse 
 at what lies beyond. I say, when these 
 thousand years of Christ's reign which we 
 share in our glorified bodies has reached its 
 close, we then bid farewell to this old planet, 
 with this heaven, the envelope surrounding 
 it, and this earth and sky then passes away. 
 A new heaven and a new earth appears, and 
 our vista is then immensely widened. 
 
 The furthest glimpse of what lies "Beyond 
 The Epistle the Veil" is given us in the Epistle to the 
 Ephesians. Ephesians where I shall refer to three pas- 
 sages. In this epistle human language is 
 taxed and human thought is strained to its 
 very last limits. Adam Clark, the old com- 
 mentator, says of Ephesians, "St. Paul's 
 nervous language seems here to bend and 
 break under the weight of the divine ideas 
 which he endeavours to express." 
 
 The fact is the vistas are so endless, so 
 tremendous, the outlook is so transcendent 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 135 
 
 that it seems impossible to convey it, or even 
 
 an idea of it, in words. Astronomers will tell pcmen- 
 
 ' ^ _ dous star 
 
 you that at times they turn their telescopes depths. 
 to black patches in the heavens where there 
 are no stars, and they look into these black 
 patches, and they see the universe stretching 
 on to infinity. 
 
 There is apparently nothing there, and yet, 
 with a more powerful glass directed to one 
 of these dark pits in the most empty part 
 of the heavens, where there seems nothing 
 but blackness, some distinct twinkhng will 
 be discerned from stars at such inconceivable 
 distances that all the planets that we see U 
 with unassisted sight might be m the next 
 street compared with the distance of these 
 mighty orbs. 
 
 Such are the vistas that stretch their The 
 illimitable expanse before us in Ephesians. eternity. 
 This millennial reign is, as it were, not in 
 the next street, but it might be happening 
 to-morrow compared with the expanses of 
 time that we must just look at for one 
 moment before we close. 
 
 As I said, there are three verses I want to 
 read. The first is Ephesians i. 3: "Blessed 
 be the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus 
 
136 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Christ who hath blessed us with every spiritual 
 blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: 
 even as He chose us in Him before the founda- 
 tion of the world" We are able to discuss this 
 matter together in these pages, my friends, 
 
 ««nuty** because before this world ever consolidated 
 from the nebulous mist which we suppose 
 was its origin — back, back, back, when there 
 was no time, when God was All, when 
 there was no Creation, He then chose that 
 we who believe His Word should be His 
 children in Christ Jesus. It is an amazing 
 thought, an impossible thought for our 
 minds really to conceive. It is a past infin- 
 ity of time, so that our history stretches 
 ] right back, back, back to the ages of a 
 by-gone eternity. 
 
 Then again, as regards what I may call 
 
 The near the nearer future, look at Ephesians ii. 7 : 
 
 etermty. ^j .... 
 
 He hath made us to sit with Him in the 
 heavenly places in Christ Jesus: that in the 
 ages to come He might show the exceeding 
 riches of His grace in kindness toward us in 
 Christ Jesus.^^ The riches of God's grace 
 will be manifested to all creation by our 
 presence in Heaven. If we can be brought 
 there, it shows what His grace can do, for 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 137 
 
 all of us who are living here are conscious 
 that in ourselves we are less than nothing. 
 That is the near future. 
 
 Now we pass on, last of all, to Ephesians The far 
 iii. 20 : '^Now unto Him that is able to do exceed- 
 ing abundantly above all that we ask or think 
 according to the power that worketh in us" — 
 that is the Divine will in us, the Divine in 
 man, — "the power that worketh in us, unto 
 Him be the glory in the Church" — that is, in 
 all Christian men and women — "and in 
 Christ Jesus unto all generations for ever and 
 ever" or, as the margin reads, "unto all the 
 generations of the age of the ages." the^ag^e's^ 
 
 What does this mean? That throughout 
 this period, that is, throughout all eternity, 
 the glory of God will be seen through Christ 
 Jesus, through Christians and the Church. 
 For ever shall we be associated with Him, 
 who is the Way. He who first brought us 
 to the Father of spirits will be associated 
 with us for ever and for ever. We know 
 not what inhabitants there may be in other 
 worlds than ours, but we know that to all 
 intelligences we shall display the glory of 
 God. This is the prospect in the far future, 
 in the Umitless eternity. 
 
138 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 Philosophers sometimes think they will be 
 Communi- able to communicate with Mars, but it seems 
 with Mars, difficult to Understand how thoughts can 
 be interchanged where there is no common 
 basis. But in this glorious far future all 
 created intelligences throughout the uni- 
 verse, not on this little planet only — and 
 there is no reason to doubt that God has 
 intelligences far beyond we have any con- 
 ception of now — will know that to us is 
 given the wonderful place of being associ- 
 ated with Christ in displaying His glory 
 for ever and for ever. At such a distance 
 of time the thousand years of His reign will 
 seem but a past though never-to-be-forgotten 
 moment. 
 
 And here we live to-day, considering no 
 cunning fable devised by men, but spending 
 a little time in reverent search as to what is 
 our destiny Beyond the Veil. I ask you to 
 sift and test what I have laid before you by 
 the hght of Holy Writ, and as you re-read 
 Ephesians iii. 21, to ask yourselves whether 
 j^"Jj^^^P human language has ever been stretched to 
 here inade- guch lengths before. 
 
 quate. ^ ° 
 
 I think Adam Clark's description of St. 
 Paul's language is wonderful; it seems "to 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 139 
 
 bend and break under the weight of the 
 Divine ideas which are there." At any rate 
 the result is this, — never to all eternity 
 will any one who has found the Way be 
 separated "from the love of God which is in 
 Christ Jesus Our Lord J' 
 
 I close with this beautiful description of 
 the upHfting of the Veil that still hides the 
 future from our vision. 
 
 This world I deem 
 
 But a beautiful dream 
 
 Of things that are not what they seem, 
 
 Where shadows arise, 
 
 Giving dim surmise 
 
 Of the glories that shall meet our waking eyes. 
 
 Arm of the Lord! 
 
 Creating Word 
 
 Whose glories the silent skies record, 
 
 Where stands Thy name 
 
 In scrolls of flame, 
 
 On the firmament's high o'er-shadowing frame. 
 
 I gaze o'erhead 
 
 Where Thy hand hath spread 
 
 For the waters of heaven, their crystal bed; 
 
 And stored the dew 
 
 In its depths of blue, 
 
 Which the fires of the sun come tempered through. 
 
 Soft they shine 
 
 Through that pure shrine, 
 
I40 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 As beneath the veil of Thy flesh divine 
 
 Streamed forth the light, 
 
 That were else too bright 
 
 For the feebleness of a sinner's sight. 
 
 And such I deem 
 
 This world will seem 
 
 When we waken from life's uncertain dream, 
 
 And break the shell 
 
 Where our spirit's dwell 
 
 In this wondrous anti-natal cell. 
 
 I gaze aloof 
 
 At the tissued roof 
 
 Where time and space are the warp and woof; 
 
 Which the King of Kings 
 
 As a curtain flings 
 
 O'er the mystery of eternal things. 
 
 As a tapestried tent, 
 
 To shade us meant, 
 
 From the bare everlasting firmament; 
 
 Where the blaze of the skies 
 
 Comes soft to our eyes 
 
 Through a veil of mystical imageries. 
 
 But could I see 
 
 As in truth they be. 
 
 The glories of Heaven that encompass me, 
 
 I should lightly hold 
 
 The tissued fold 
 
 Of this marvellous curtain of blue and gold. 
 
 And soon the whole, 
 Like a parched scroll, 
 
BEYOND THE VEIL 141 
 
 Shall to ray amazed sight uproll; 
 
 And wnthout a screen 
 
 At one burst be seen, 
 
 The Presence in which I have ever been. 
 
 Oh! who shall bear 
 
 The blinding glare 
 
 Of the Majesty that shall meet us there? 
 
 What eye can gaze 
 
 On the unveiled blaze 
 
 Of the light-girdled throne of the Ancient of days? 
 
 Yet there I shall see 
 
 From sin set free 
 
 The face of the One who died for me; 
 
 In robes of white, 
 
 I shall bear the sight 
 
 Of the Glory of God in Heaven's light. 
 
 Anon. 
 
VALEDICTORY 
 
VALEDICTORY 
 
 THE PRACTICAL OUTCOME 
 
 It is remarkable that no letter of St. Paul's Remark- 
 closes when it reaches its supreme height ; It. Pa^uFs ° 
 that is, with the climax of the Highest ^p'"^^^'- 
 Thought it contains; but that, on the con- 
 trary, this cHmax is generally reached about 
 the middle of the epistle. In Ephesians it 
 is at the close of the third chapter out of six; 
 in Romans at the close of the eighth out of 
 sixteen; in Colossians in the first few verses 
 of the third chapter out of four. 
 
 Such method is not without meaning, and 
 it may be of profit to us, if, instead of closing 
 this book with the overwhelming visions of 
 Ephesians, considered very briefly in our last 
 Study, we add here a few words of practical 
 import. 
 
 It will be found that in each of St. Paul's Exhorta- 
 letters that I have named he continues with on°^ ^^^^ 
 exhortations prefixed with the one word p"^'^^^^- 
 ''Therefore:' 
 
 145 
 
146 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 In Ephe- jn Ephesians we read these touching words, 
 Romans, "/^ therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beseech 
 
 and 
 
 Coiossians. ^/ow to Walk Worthily of the calling wherewith 
 ye were called, with all lowliness and meekness, 
 with long suffering, forbearing one another in 
 love; giving diligence to keep the unity of the 
 Spirit in the uniting bond of peace. ''^ 
 
 In Romans, after a parenthesis of three 
 chapters descriptive of God's dealings with 
 Israel, the apostle writes (xii. i): "7 beseech 
 you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, 
 to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, 
 acceptable to God, which is your reasonable 
 service, and be not fashioned according to this 
 world; but be ye transformed by the renewing 
 of your mind, that ye may prove what is the 
 good and acceptable and perfect will of GodJ^ 
 In Colossians the Apostle writes (iii. 5): 
 "Mortify therefore your members which are 
 upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, 
 passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is 
 idolatry. . . . Put on therefore as God's elect, 
 holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kind- 
 ness, humility, meekness, long-suffering; for- 
 bearing one another, and forgiving one another.^' 
 aiiTiovf ^^^ these breathe an unmistakable spirit 
 unfeigned, of deep humility and unfeigned love; and I 
 
VALEDICTORY 147 
 
 may say, if these be not the outcome of our 
 brief Studies, they are of Httle worth. 
 
 We read in St. Luke ix. 37: ^'When they 
 were come down from the mountain, a great 
 muUittide met him;" and then, on Christ heal- 
 ing the sick boy, " They were all astonished at 
 the majesty of God." 
 
 '^Then came the disciples" (who had not Position » 
 
 power. 
 
 come down from the mountain) "to Jesus 
 apart, and said. Why could not we cast it out? 
 And he saith unto them, Because of your little 
 faith." We have been vvitnesses of heavenly 
 glories with Christ in these Studies, and when 
 we come down, a great multitude full of sick- 
 ness and need is seen to meet us, and our 
 power Hes in our position as having been on To descend 
 the mount. We may be true disciples, but if gr^st""^*^ 
 we have not been up there with Christ, we^^""'^' 
 cannot be healers of men, nor are we clothed 
 with Divine power. 
 
 The practical outcome of all such Studies 
 should therefore be a character clean cut, 
 of a sweet odour and all pervading force, in 
 harmony and constant touch with the Divine. 
 It will be, as described by Emerson, that The 
 "When a man Hves with God his voice shall be charact^. 
 as sweet as the murmur of the brook, and the 
 
148 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 rustle of the corn. He will weave no longer 
 a spotted life of shreds and patches, but he 
 will live with a Divine unity. He will cease 
 from what is base and frivolous in his Hfe, 
 and be content with all places and any service 
 he can render. He will calmly face the 
 morrow in the negligency of that trust which 
 carries God with it and so has the whole 
 future in the bottom of his heart." 
 
 What I would here maintain is that no 
 other studies can produce hves and charac- 
 ters as lofty as those that are formed by the 
 Highest Thought. 
 Highest High Thought gives culture and knowledge, 
 gives the both widc and deep, and is of great value, 
 products. The ranges of the investigation of the Higher 
 Thought are wider and deeper still, and com- 
 prehend all that throws light on humanity, 
 and seeks to lead it to its noblest end. 
 
 But I contend that the Highest Thought 
 
 supplies the missing power by bringing, 
 
 Human through faith and trust, the human at last in 
 
 Divine contact with the Divine. So that redeemed 
 
 brought , 1 o • • J- /~< J 
 
 into con- humamty possessed by the Spirit of God 
 finds a new joy in doing the Divine will, and 
 from contact with a God of love does good 
 hoping for nothing again, and "coming down 
 
VALEDICTORY 149 
 
 from the mountain" is equipped with the 
 power as well as the will to bless others, to 
 bring the sunshine into dark lives, the good 
 Physician to the mentally diseased, the open- 
 ing of eyes to the blind, the loosening of chains 
 to the prisoners, freedom to the slave, and Doing 
 
 , „ good to all. 
 
 good to all. 
 
 I know the aim is high, but our reach must 
 be higher than our grasp, or what is Heaven 
 for? As Mr. Haldane, our minister of war, Haldane 
 has so nobly said in this connection: "Let christian] 
 me admit without qualification that the^'^^^*' 
 Christian ideal is not Uved up to anywhere 
 in the world; let me admit that the facts of 
 Christians everywhere fall below the con- 
 ception of life presented by the life and lead- 
 ings of the Man of Galilee, and still I will 
 contend that he who follows Christ ever afar 
 off, with faltering step and many a fall, may 
 live a nobler life than the perfect disciple of 
 Confucius. No ideal is high that is fully 
 realised. The man who claims for himself ^04^3 
 that, instead of being above him, it is per-J^^^l'^ 
 fectly embodied in his life confesses that he^'^eady 
 
 , .... attained. 
 
 has no aspirations for improvements. It is 
 the glory of the Christian ideal that, while 
 it is within the reach of the weakest and the 
 
T50 STUDIES IN THE HIGHEST THOUGHT 
 
 lowliest, it is high enough to keep the best 
 and the purest with their faces ever upward." 
 
 Lofty * ' That low man seeks a little thing to do, 
 
 failure g^gg j^. ^^^^ ^^^^ j^. 
 
 surpasses 
 
 low sue- This high man, with a great thing to pursue, 
 
 ^^^^- Dies ere he knows it. 
 
 That low man goes on adding one to one, 
 
 His hundred's soon hit; 
 This high man, aiming at a million 
 
 Misses one unit. 
 That has the world here — should he need the next, 
 
 Let the world mind him ! 
 This throws himself on God, and unperplexed 
 
 Seeking shall find Him," 
 
nifoloqil.il Semin,,.y-Spe( 
 
 1 1012 01002 4380