BR 125 .E35 Copy 1 Glimpses ot the Real J A- DBG£ RTO N Class ^Bd£&. Book. Copyright N°_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. GLIMPSES OF THE REAL BY JAMES ARTHUR EDGERTON Author of "Voices of the Morning/' "Songs of the People" etc. r $ m DENVER THE REED PUBLISHING COMPANY 1903 LIBRARY of CONGRESS Two Copies Received JAN 16 1904 Copyright Entry rld has seen its last great conflict. If not, one or two more must end the chapter. The conscience of the nations will no longer permit any great amount of bloodshed. The vast commercial interests that are now stronger than any one or two governments on the globe, will not allow themselves to be disturbed by any extended struggles. There will still be, of course, a few little wars among the smaller and less advanced nations, petty revolutions and the like, little disturbances on the ragged edges of humanity. These, too, must gradually disappear as civilization and consolidation extend their bounds. So it is not at all the dream of an enthusi- ast to predict that the present century will see the final ending of war upon the planet. So all the industrial injustice, governmental cor- ruption, and moral and social evils that seem to flourish, are rather local in their nature and will be sloughted off in time by the healthy body of the 70 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL whole humanity. These are transitory eruptions, rather than permanent blemishes. The trend of the entire race is onward and the mighty momentum of the mass will sweep out of the way every petty local barrier. The hope no longer lodges in any particular nation, but rather in every nation. Even if the Anglo-Saxon should falter, the Slav, the Teuton, the Latin and the Oriental would move for- ward. The falling apart of the entire British empire would not check the progress for a day. The many smaller streams are now uniting* in one great river, whose force is irresistible. There may be eddies and becalmed spaces, but the current sweeps on. After all, there is little room for the pessimist. The universal movement i3 becoming so plain that he who runs may read. The trend is apparent and its course is upward. True, there are problems to be solved. When were there not ? And when were so many men alert and intelligent in their atti- tude toward the problems? We are not expecting any sudden and miraculous coming of the millenium, but we are expecting, and realizing, a larger good year by year. It matters not which faction tri- umphs for the moment. All the factions are becom- ing animated by the one common desire for better things. Even the forces of greed, though working blindly, yet are bringing about unity and the elimin- ation of waste. Great and beneficent revolutions in the world have been inaugurated and carried on by those who did not see the end from the beginning. It was only after the transformation was complete that men, with a glad surprise, saw good emerge from apparent evil. To the man with the. larger view no age in history THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN 71 ever seemed so hopeful of better things as does this. Never were such vast forces in motion, never was such rapid progress made. Science, invention, com- merce, religious and sociological investigations, all are being pressed more generally and with more result than ever before. The wars for liberty have left with us their blessings. Never did labor pro- duce so abundantly, never were the comforts of life more generally diffused. The press is educating the world. The spirit of truth is abroad. Inspired by the heights that have been won, the vanguards are pushing on to still higher heights. Having tasted political liberty the masses are moving for economic liberty. The picture is not all bright, by any means, but it is growing brighter, and the fact that so many are aware just what produces the dark places is hopeful that the colors may be better blended and the defects removed. , , ' So much for the material phase of the . world movement. What of the spiritual? Here the pro- gress has not been so marked. But the very fact that the material base has been formed is a promise that the spiritual superstructure will arise. This is ever the case. Already the materials for that super- structure are being gathered. Already the thoughts of the best souls of the race are turning to this next unfoldment in the universal evolution. With the rapid advancement of the past century who can tell what ravishing prospects await the race in the century just opening? What new truths in science, what higher forms of government, what triumphs of peace, what wider and more brotherly sentiments, what greater art and beauty in the Occi- dent, what new awakenings in the Orient, where 72 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL is the imagination bold enough to foreshadow these ? The universal note has been struck and its music cannot die out. Rather must it increase until the whole world is enchanted by the harmony. THE SOCIAL TREND The real progress of the race has been away from selfishness. The primitive man was an Ish- maelite, "with his hand against every man and every man's hand against him." He was purely selfish. From this state of isolation he arose first into the family relation, and from that by slow stages into the tribal. In the next epoch came small states; then larger and larger, until the empire had been evolved. At the present stage there is very general talk of a federation of nations. Out of this must grow a universal brotherhood. In the matter of the form of government, the pro- gress has been in the same direction. In the begin- ning the rule was purely individualistic and despotic, the strongest being chief. As the state grew larger, the chief became a king, still with absolute power. Later the monarch was shorn of some of this power, which passed to the nobles. Then national as- semblies were recognized. From this evolved the republic, where government is supposed to be com- mon, belonging to all the people. There has been a similar evolution in every de- partment of human activity. The tendency is toward a diffusion of life's blessings to all ; a move- ment away from exclusiveness into democracy; a gradual development out of the individual into the social idea. All of this is an unfoldment out of the self- conscious condition into the racial consciousness (human brotherhood and solidarity), and from that GLIMPSES OF THE REAL into the cosmical consciousness, or oneness with God. Men are struggling into harmony with each other and through each other into harmony with the Oversoul. In this drawing together Love is the motive power. Love pulled man out of his selfish- ness into family relations, then into patriotic or national relations, then into brotherly or racial rela- tions, and finally into divine or cosmic relations. Religion is the name given to this great movement of the race Godward ; and in this sense religion in- cludes all of human development. Jesus is the first who stated this divine philosophy in full and luminous manner. Confucius had given the world a system of ethics. Krishna and Buddha had stated a beautiful introspective philosophy, as had Socrates and Plato in a much more external way; but it waited for the Nazarene to give the world a practical gospel of love, faith, brother- hood and divine truth that in broad vision, depth and beauty infinitely surpasses all systems the world has ever seen. In fact, so complete a statement did Lie make that now, in the most enlightened age in history, after a study of His word extending over nineteen centuries, we are just beginning to comprehend what it means. There are two sides to the gospel of Jesus. The first, and all-inclusive, is the inner, or spiritual side ; and this the world has struggled after, but never realized. The second is the external, or social side ; and this, in a large measure, the world has for- gotten, has not even struggled after. These two sides are symbolized in His two com- mandments : First, love thy God ; second, love thy THE SOCIAL TREND 75 neighbor. This external gospel He illustrated in many different ways : His denunciation of the rich as having broken the law of brotherhood and love ; His command to sell all outward goods and give to the poor; His admonition to His disciples to be as those who served ; His reiterated exhortation to take no thought of the morrow; His prayer that God's kingdom should come on earth; His ministrations to the common people and denunciation of those in authority — all these things point in one direction, and point so plainly that to any one who enters into their spirit, their direction becomes at once appar- ent. The early church symbolized the ideal in a more or less crude manner, when it made property common. In the real Christianity which is coming, outward conditions must be made to conform to inward teachings ; and this means industrial brother- hood — nothing less. It all grows so plain, so simple, so divinely natural. The thing the world needs is the preach- ing of Christ, the full, rounded gospel of Christ, not the shams and husks, but the sweet, spiritual and helpful word of the Divinest Man whose foot ever touched this earth. Humanity is a whole. It must rise or fall to- gether. When a civilization has gone down it has carried every individual with it. When a new era has come it has elevated all the race. Salvation cannot be selfish. If we are saved we must save others — rather we must help others to save themselves. If we attempt to cross the morass alone we shall be engulfed. We must bridge the swamp and go over together. Love helps our own souls while helping the souls of others. It is a mutual blessing. It cannot be 76 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL narrow. It goes out to more than our own family or our own set. In its highest expression it em- braces all beings. It reaches to country. It is great enough for every class. It is wide enough for all Humanity. Kindliness is the badge of real nobility. It is the outward sign of inward regeneration. It is the em- blem of true kingliness of soul. It is the something of which Paul speaks, which is sometimes translated charity, and sometimes love. It is the hall mark of the inner temple into which the divine has entered. It is the quality that indicates the genuine gentle- man. We have been trying to salve our consciences by little charities. These are very well, if they are given in the right spirit; if they proceed from love rather than from a selfish desire to win applause or to square ourselves. But mere almsgiving alone is only the kindergarten of philanthropy. Some people give as they would throw a bone to a dog. Their contemptuous attitude neutralizes the good of the gift. Others give expecting a return. Others yet, because it is fashionable. A few, because they want to help their fellows; and with these their love is more precious than their money. The sort of giving that makes its object depend- ent is unwise. The bone-to-the-dog variety of char- ity always has this effect. No man can take alms offered in such spirit and retain his self respect. Do you call it helping a fellow-being to give him a meal and kill his manhood; to feed his body and blight his soul? Better show him a spirit of brotherhood, make him feel that you are interested in him, stir his better nature, set him on the high- way and help him to help himself. Better still, do THE SOCIAL TREND TJ your part toward making the conditions of society such that each can work who wants to work and that none who work will need alms. The social and industrial problem- is coming more and more to the front. It will not down. It cannot be evaded. Palliatives will not settle it. Charities will not satisfy it. It has arisen because our laws and our customs are not in harmony with truth. We must meet it. Prejudice and abuse will but aggravate it. Force will make of it a monster that will wreck our institutions. Love, good will and wisdom only will render it harmless. Justice only will remove it. We are out of concord with divine purposes. We must readjust ourselves to the laws of God, which are the laws of our being. We must remove these conditions which have grown out of individual and class selfishness. We must come into harmony w T ith the Christ spirit, and we can only do that by inaugurating a system founded on the brotherhood of man. We have been doctoring effects instead of causes. We must go to the root of matters. We must reach fundamentals. The awakening conscience of the age will not be satisfied with mere patchwork. The structure of the future must be built on the rock of truth, and we must be the builders. The world may be likened to a great ship. There is plenty of room on board for all to ride in com- fort. But a few have taken the cabins and all the desirable quarters. This forces the many to ride as steerage passengers, while the weak and unfortu- nate are crowded off into the waves. We are not doing justice by these to simply throw them crumbs. We must get the selfishness out of our hearts, open up the cabins and give all those on board a chance. 78 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL If we do not — well, some day we may find them battering down the doors. For injustice breeds injustice. The slum$ are in our midst. They are festering sores that indicate a disease of the body politic. Salves will not cure them. They are caused by the microbes of greed in the blood of the patient. The social body is sick. Here is a case for Christ heal- ing. The only thing that will cure this malady is an injection of the essence of love. We take a wrong view of wealth. It was never intended for mere selfish aggrandizement. It is the product of the labor of the mass. Those who hold it hold it only in trust for the good of the mass. Any other attitude is false, and this falsehood has produced most of the other falsehoods in our eco- nomic system. The least of these, His brethren and our brethren ! What can we do for them ? This : Take the shackles off their limbs and give them a chance. What more can we do for them ? This : Give them a little love and brotherly kindness. Quit treating them as outcasts. What more can we do for them? This : Minister unto them, go to them in prison, visit them in sickness, scatter sunshine before their feet, quit condemning them and help them to know they are men and women. Wherever a human being is, there is our other self. He cannot be degraded without degrading us. The Christ is the vine and we are the branches. Any injury we inflict on any of these branches is an injury to Him and to us. "As ye do it even unto the least of these ye do it unto Me." Society is an organism and we are all linked to- gether by an invisible chain. THE SOCIAL TREND 79 It is the sense of self that separates us from each other and from God. It is this false selfism that has made all of the horrible conditions in the world to-day. We can only overcome it by love, by rising into the Christ consciousness and by incarnating the Christ spirit in the social body. We are children of one Father. We walk on one planet. We are warmed by one sunlight. We breathe one atmosphere. We are animated by one life. What is good for all is good for each. What injures all injures each. Greater than the personal is the race. More important than the individual is society. Lincoln once said that "God must love the com- mon people, or He would not have made so many of them." Some one else put it that "God is no respecter of persons/' Like the sunlight, He has the same beneficence for all. "He maketh His rain to fall on the just and on the unjust." His love goes out to ievery isoul. He excludes none. He is as impartial as the air. He is over all, sustaining all, in all. If one is apparently exalted, it is that he may be an instrument to do good for the rest. The progress of the world has been toward the recognition of the people, rather than the centering of all in some one man. In other words, the rights of the whole public are rising superior to the privi- leges of any certain portion of the public. As Tennyson phrases it: "And the individual withers and the race is more and more." The world is moving away from monarchy to democracy. The great man is not being debased, but all men are being exalted. We do not love the 80 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL one less, but the all more. We have not ceased from hero worship, but we begin to find the hero in every man. We do not believe less in the divinity of Christ, but more in the divinity of humanity. What we see in a single soul we see, potentially at least, in every soul. Here is the spirit of the modern idea. It is ex- pressed in a thousand ways, but all are from the same impulse. Sometimes it is called unity, some- times equality, sometimes brotherhood, sometimes democracy, sometimes love; but whatever called, it is a phase of the one great world movement. It is expressed in co-operation, in centralization, in larger nations, in a more cosmopolitan and liberal spirit. It is obliterating faction, party, sect and even national lines. It is making the race one family. All this marks the passing out of selfishness. Not in a day or a year, but gradually and surely. The icy shells of division are melting away under the sunshine of love. The sense of separateness and aloofness is disappearing. The feeling of oneness, and comradeship is becoming more and more dom- inant. This is the force that is to transform the world. It is of the essence of Christianity. It is in all the new thought movements, in all the new fraternal movements, in all the new political movements. It is drawing men together in spite of themselves. It is making them better neighbors, better husbands, better fathers. This is the undercurrent of modern thought ; yes, and it is becoming the upper current as well. With every year it gains momentum and volume. Ulti- THE SOCIAL TREND 8 1 mately, all that is not in harmony with it, that would impede it, will be swept away. We are rising more and more to the selfless and impersonal plane — rather from the narrower to the broader conception of the self. We have ceased to see our own good as something in opposition to the good of others and have come to see it as a part of the good of others. We appreciate ourselves more by appreciating others more. It is the univer- sal in us that is finding voice. But that same uni- versal is in the man across the street. A principle is impersonal. It belongs to one as much as another. It belongs to him most who most belongs to it, who is most loyal to it. Good is a principle. It should be loved because it is good. The right thing is the only thing worth while. Wrong is a negation, a subtraction from our attain- ment and happiness. We talk of self-denial, but we deny ourselves of the thing that is not for us in order that we may have more abundantly of the thing that is for us. In the real sense, the only self- denial is in doing evil. That does take away from us actually. But to deny yourself a thing that injures you only adds to you. To injure another is to injure yourself, for action and reaction are equal. So that to refrain from injuring another actually helps yourself. To put aside an evil or unworthy thing is but the removing of an obstacle from out your path, so that you may climb the more readily. This, in a way, is the selfish view of the case. You do right because that furnishes you most happi- ness. But there is an instinct in your soul that tells you to do good without stopping to consider what its effect on you will be; to do good because it is 82 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL good; to do good for the good's sake. And this is the proper motive from which to act. This takes out of it the element of self-seeking, and puts it on the impersonal plane of acting from a principle. In this case we help others because we love them and want to make them happy. We act for the benefit of all, because our hearts go out to all and we would give them a blessing. When we act on this higher plane we are ex- pressing our better natures, our souls. We are coming into harmony with the laws of our own being. We are shifting our point of motive from the brute self to the divine self. We are gaining harmony between the different elements of our own nature. We are making the lion and lamb, as both are expressed within us, lie down together. We are passing from a dual, warring nature into one nature at peace with itself. This is the highest wisdom. This alone is worth while. This is making the intellect to serve the spirit, reason to support faith, the outer a symbol of the inner. The soul is satisfied and the flesh ceases to rebel, for it is better off than before. From discord we pass to concord, which is unity. The knowledge of all these things is innate in each one of us. If we but listen to the still, small voice we realize the truth without being told it by another. All seeming good that is not in con- formity with this real good is a delusion. There is no truth but truth. That truth is in our own souls ; and if we but hearken to its promptings it will show us the way. Good is its own reward. The lesson of living is to learn how to do good for its own sake. This is the voice of the larger self which seeks the well being of all humanity. i THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT The social atmosphere is surcharged with storm. Men feel the sense of an impending something, they know not what. There is a world-wide uneasiness, a restlessness that flows backward and forward like waves upon the human sea. Religiously, sociologically and industrially the world is in a state of chaos. Masses of men have suddenly concluded that old standards are inade- quate, that old customs are outgrown. The wrong is seen, and there is a blind groping for the right. Alleged prophets are crying, "Lo, here," and "Lo, there," but. humanity is still waiting for the voice that it will instinctively feel is that of the true leader. The fountains of the great deep are broken up, On the horizon the clouds are massing and the people look apprehensively at the gathering storm. It may pass off in refreshing rains, leaving the air again clear and pure, or it may be crammed with cyclone, with ruin and destruction in its path. It does not follow that the storm will break at once. In the long range of history ten or twenty years are but as a few hours. Or there may be no storm. These massed-up mental energies may ex- pend themselves in renewed and enlarged activities. But no one can doubt that they are present. Change is everywhere manifest. Nothing seems stable; everything is drifting. In the religious world large groups are doubting, questioning. Numberless new isms are springing into being. 84 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Great masses of the people are without church af- filiation. Creeds are everywhere being discarded. Ministers are breaking away. The pulpit is being liberalized. Beliefs of a quarter or half century ago no longer have any force. Science is under- mining the walls of ancient theology. Scholars are searching into all the religions of the earth. The mental world is suffocating under low-hanging clouds of skepticism and materialism. In the political world the face of the map has suddenly changed. The money influence has be- come predominant, and that within a few years. Wholesale charges of corruption are heard, from the national government down to the municipal. Even the courts, ordinarily held sacred, are not free from the taint. And under it all is heard the growing mutter of socialism. In the industrial sphere the transformation also is apparent. Gigantic combinations of capital, trusts, control avenues of production and distribu- tion. Labor is forming itself into armies that grow larger and more compact with the years. The bil- lionaire has appeared. A few men control most of the industries. A few families own most of the wealth. Class consciousness is being aroused, and that always means danger. In the social realm the transition is seen. Mar- riage ties are more lightly broken than ever before. The intermingling of the sexes is freer. Women are assuming the positions and doing the work of men, and are looking more and more on life through men's eyes. Some social students think the home itself is threatened. However this may be, it is certain that old standards and ideas are being abandoned. THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 85 Quo vadis, domine? Which way? Where is the leader to show us? Where is the goal? What is the end? We are not even in the formative stage. We are in the breaking-up period, in the chaotic interval preceding the new alignments. We have seen the symptoms of the disease, but have only vague ideas of the cause or the cure. Optimism does not consist in shutting your eyes to conditions as they are. It is shown rather in facing the worst, while working and hoping for the best. We have faith that over all the darkness will break the light ; that out of all this unrest will come the truth. There are two great, antagonistic forces at work. Broadly stated, they are represented by the terms altruism and selfishness. Differently phrased, they are brotherhood against greed, liberty against despotism, equal rights against special privilege, democracy against aristocracy, spirituality against materialism, God against mammon. These two powers, in some form or another, under various banners, but always actuated by the same spirit, have battled all through the centuries. The hosts of darkness have often seemed triumphant; yet despite all reverses, the armies of light have gradually won their way. It may have been a Moses leading a race of slaves from bondage; it may have been a handful of Greeks turning back the multitudinous hosts of a Xerxes. It may have been a Demosthenes hurl- ing his defiance at Philip. It may have been a Socrates teaching the truth while looking calmly at death. It may have been a Christ giving his life 86 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL for his ideals of faith and love. It may have been a Galileo holding aloft a new torch of science. It may have been a Mirabeau thundering against a debauched monarchy. It may have been a Wash- ington guiding his ragged soldiers to a new re- public. Or it may have been a Lincoln extending liberty to a humble race. But wherever and when- ever it was, the same better element fought against the baser desires of human nature. Has the struggle ended? Are there no more marches to be made, no more heights to be won? Is this contest which has grown with the increasing intelligence of the race, to cease now in the world's most enlightened age ? Or are the forces gathering strength for one more onslaught, which will dwarf all that has gone before? Can the contest ever cease so long as one injustice is left for overthrow, so long as one evil remains for righting? The currents and undercurrents of the world were never moving so swiftly as to-day. Never was an age so electrified by new thoughts and aspirations. Never did Destiny seem so at work shaping gigan- tic issues. Never was Greed more insolent and never were the people so awake to their own strength. Never did the captain of industry possess more far-reaching power, and never was Labor so united and aggressive. Never were there such activities and never was there such a searching for the truth, such a purpose to find the right way. Do all these things mean nothing? Are all these prodigious movements to attain no goal? Are all the new seeds being sown to bear no fruit ? It will not do to ignore the possibilities before us. Only the blind do that. Self-satisfied complacency THE IRREPRESSIBLE CONFLICT 87 belongs to the brute rather than to the man — the child of the divine and the heir of the ages. With him should be a noble discontent and a reaching after better things. Had these impulses not existed within him, there would have been no Sinai, no Calvary, no Marathon, no Bunker Hill. What are the signs of the times ? Read them, O young man, with the world's greatest century before you. Note the marshaling of the hosts of Greed and the armies of Industry. Behold the world filled with a new thought, a new dream, a new Christ-ideal. See the great Republic rising into a position of leadership while the mon- archies of the old world look on with a growing concern. Observe the foundations of ancient theories and creeds being broken up, while the out- lines of a larger faith and purpose gradually come into view. What does it all portend ? What is the focal point toward which all the new currents are flowing ? In the long day of history, a decade is but an hour. This is the lull before the storm. The great- est conflict the world has ever seen is before us — a conflict between the old forces of light and dark- ness. It may not be a contest of arms — God grant that it will not — but it will be none the less real because of that. The future conflicts of the world will be rather between the invisible forces of thought than between the palpable forces of material war- fare. One of the ends of this struggle will be to set the wage slave free. There is no good of shutting our eyes to this phase of the question. It is a funda- mental principle. Any man has a right to that which he produces or its exact equivalent. If he is forced 88 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL to give to another a portion of this product, in that far is he a slave. Statistics prove that Labor pro- duces several times the amount it receives in return wages. We need no further proof of this than the fabulous fortunes the exploiters of the people build up. To this extent is Labor enslaved. Did you say this is voluntary? In form, yes. In substance, no. For the man of toil must live. Need and the cries of his little ones force him into the avenues that offer. Why should the forces of uplift, the lovers of humanity, the strivers for better things be divided on any pretense? We may be apart on a thousand little shades of belief. What do they matter? Are we together on the main question of God against mammon? If so, let us join hands. For the time is coming when we may be needed to render real service with the living hosts of light. THE MASTER BUILDER The world is full of correspondences, of symbols on one plane representing things on another plane. In this way very many spiritual truths are expressed by means of symbol, or parable. While it is an historical fact that Jesus of Naza- reth was a carpenter in his early years, the mere historical significance of this fact is entirely over- shadowed by its symbolical interpretation. It must be remembered that nothing happens by accident; and especially is this true of a life so divinely ordered as that of the Galilean. In this light, even the minutest detail is important. It is a part of the plan and corresponds to every other part. The early work of the Master was thus prophetic of his later and greater work. He was the builder in his youth, and he was the Builder in his manhood. From wielding the hatchet and saw he came to be the artificer with tools not made with hands. From helping to erect houses that would stand for a little and then fall, he later erected houses whose founda- tion was the Rock and whose duration was eternal. He thus became the great constructor, the Master Builder. Since that day great cities have crumbled, em- pires have fallen away and the proudest works of man have vanished like a dream; but the structure erected by the Carpenter of Nazareth has remained in strength and beauty. Race after race has come to see it, billions have knelt before its portals and the foremost nations of the earth have been clustered 90 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL round about it. It has been the haven of refuge of the poor, the weary and the broken-hearted. It has been a shelter in time of storm for those who had been beaten about by the winds of circumstance and of human wrong. Above the clamor and tur- moil, above tempest and battle, above earthquake and destruction, it has stood unmoved and im- movable, "Towering o'er the wrecks of Time/' Founded upon the granite of the spirit, with its floor of faith, its pillars of truth, its walls of love and its roof of heaven, it has been the veritable Temple of God in the City of Man. Of the Architect, why sound the praises here ? He does not need them. He is secure from either praise or blame. It is we who need, we who are groping about in the darkness of unconsciousness, we who still imagine we must divide into classes and fight each other, we who make our god of material, who worship the seeming instead of the substance. The Christ potentiality is in all of us, but we have not discovered it, we have not awakened, we do not know. We yet scramble for the gifts of Mammon, for the amount of recompense that shall be given us in return for our self-imposed slavery. It is we who need, not praise, but love; not material pos- sessions, but faith; not man-made knowledge, but truth. The Christ lives now, the Infinite Spirit of God- in-Man. If we could but turn to this reality and cease chasing shadows; if we could but see the eternal verity beyond the illusions ; if we could but realize the freely given wealth of our Father ; if we but had a grain of faith to do His will and trust THE MASTER BUILDER gi Him for the ways and means, the struggle and the conflict, the disappointments and the heartches would be ended for us forever. He taught us many things, this Builder of our Temple. He taught us that the Christ-life may be lived upon earth. He taught us that Paradise is not afar, but that heaven is within us. He taught us that we live in the eternal Now — if we are but con- scious. He taught us that the Father will provide for those who trust on Him. He taught us not to resist each other, but to put away strife; and most of all he taught us that Love is the Way of Life. He lived in the constructive principle. He never denied, he never doubted, he never tore down. He did not indulge in negations. He did not argue, he did not contend, he did not condemn. He was always in the positive attitude. He stated, and the truth in his statement was its own proof. The things of the earth he rated only as the things of the earth, as form and function that come and go. But souls he recognized as the substance of Being; and he was here that he might feed them the bread of life. If we might only realize these truths, instead of merely stating them; if we might be conscious in our souls, instead of merely assenting with our in- tellects, then would we know the substance from shadow and the real riches of character from the apparent riches of circumstance. Then would we cease arraying man against man, faction against faction, and hate against hate. Then would we cease prizing that which turns to dust and ashes and fighting for that which cannot satisfy. We would then know that the only world worth winning is the world within; and that we already have this 92 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL world as soon as we are conscious of our real selves. The Master Builder was a toiler. He knew that the workers on any plane are the only ones who produce on that plane. He knew that service, not the service of compulsion, but the service of love, is divine. He taught that only by works can faith become manifest in life. He yet lives, utterly merged in his Father, utterly one with the Spirit of Truth. His message comes to us now. He yet is building, building the Temple of Love. He is not away from us, he is one with us. We come closest to Him by coming closest to our own souls. He is the apostle of love, the one constructive force. Herein is His glory. Herein is His power over the hearts of men. Other teachers have charmed the world with their philosophy, others have presented the truths of ethics, have laid bare the secrets of the soul; but none other ever incar- nated Love as did the Nazarene. For this reason He has conquered and will continue to conquer the world. Unresisting and uncondemning, He is in very truth the Lamb of God; and before Him the lion of war will finally come in complete surrender. The world has called him impractical, a dreamer. Yet may it not be possible that it was Christ who was truly practical, and that it has been the world that has done the dreaming — and, too, that its dreams have been nightmares of error, of false self- consciousness, of shadows, of passions and preju- dices and of the husks of life instead of the sub- stance? Is it not possible that the world is so in- fatuated with its material delusion that it does not see His spiritual reality ? Is it not possible that the THE MASTER BUILDER 93 world is to find that after all it was mistaken and that He really saw the way — the way that the world itself must take before it reaches any real height. A dreamer, was He ? Mediocrity has called every genius a dreamer. Ignorance has called every philosopher a dreamer. Blindness has called every prophet a dreamer. Sloth has called every reformer a dreamer, or something worse. The Old, standing among its fetich-worship and its relics from the past, has hurled its sneer at the open-eyed New, "You are a dreamer/' A dreamer, was He? And yet His dream has overturned empires and systems. The paganism of Greece, of Rome and of the North fell before it. It spread over all the civilizations of Europe; found a new land and a new home beyond the sea; and is just now winning its way against the older religions of the Orient. A dreamer, was He? Yet against His dream the onslaughts of materialistic philosophy have been made for nineteen hundred years; His disciples have been fed to wild beasts and burned at the stake ; professed followers have misrepresented Him and loaded down His pure, spiritual faith with a mass of formality and rubbish; yet in spite of all the opposition, the obscuration and mystification, He has a firmer hold on the world than ever before. A dreamer, was He? Yet to-day the few minds are just beginning to realize the wonderful mean- ing and scope of that dream; His healing is again being practiced; great forces are springing up to put His social ideas into action; His truth is being revitalized by a spiritual renaissance ; and the world is just now gaining ravishing glimpses of a real Christian era ahead. 94 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL A dreamer, was He? Yet His dream was the sweetest and most beautiful vision that ever ap- peared to the human race; and it is coming true. O Galileean ! Long hast thou been misrepresent- ed both by friend and foe. Despised and almost alone in Judea, Thy faith has grown till its devotees are laboring in all the earth. At last through the long night of persecution and abuse, it has come to the dawn of its triumph. It has survived the attacks of its enemies ; and even more marvelous still, it has survived the barnacles who have fastened themselves upon it for selfish and class ends. It throve despite the war made upon it by the anti-Christ ; it throve even through the far more dangerous embrace of that anti-Christ. And it is carrying forward its gospel of regeneration, of health and of social brotherhood until with them it shall conquer the world. TRUE CHRISTIANITY The dominant need of a soul is that it have ex- pression. The entire universe is one of mani- festation, of expression. The spirit enters a body, lives a life, speaks, writes, does things to ex- press itself. So it is with true Christianity. It must express itself, must be made applicable. The man who truly is regenerated must let the light that is in him shine forth. He cannot live to himself alone. The new birth is of such reality that when a man receives it, there is a wider horizon about him; he looks on a different world; the bitterness goes out of his soul, and love takes its place. He sees that life means infinitely more than he had dreamed. Such a soul cannot selfishly keep the peace, the power and the light that have come to him. He must speak out. He must tell the glad tidings. He must live the message in his life. He must impart to others this joy that is like a fountain of blessing within him. If you have the light, you cannot hide it under the bushel of your own selfishness; for if you do, it will go out. The faith that is a living, real faith will be mani- fested in works. It will be felt as a power for good in the world. It will not be content with merely giving alms, that oft times injure their recipients more than they help. It will throw itself into move- g6 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL ments of uplift. It will help along to the better era that lies ahead. The time has come for applied Christianity. The world has been splitting hairs over theologi- cal dogmas too long. The time has come -when it would get into the spirit and life of the Master. It is ready to leave all the rubbish and non-essentials, in order to grow closer to the simple, genuine gospels that He gave to us. Under present conditions the individual may live the Christian life; but society, which is an entity in itself, cannot. The time has come for an economic and industrial system of such a character that the Christ-ideal can be followed by the social organism. There is no question but that a man may be what he wills to be — provided his will is strong enough. Environment is an outward circumstance. It can- not rule the inward soul. And yet environment is a most potent factor. Put around the average man a thoroughly anti-Christ environment, such as our present system affords, and in four cases out of five he will follow the environment. He may pretend not to do so, but in his heart of hearts he knows that the ruling power of his life is the appeal to his selfishness, made by conditions around him, rather than the dream of the Nazarene, the High Priest of Unselfishness. The true Christianity will manifest itself in the life of the world. It will be expressed in politics, in industrial conditions, and in the social equation. It will strive to make an environment in conformity to itself. It will seek to incarnate the Christ spirit in the body of society. True Christianity is a practical religion. It is a TRUE CHRISTIANITY 97 religion which men can take into their daily lives, into their homes, into their work, into their poli- tics. It is a religion which will make better hus- bands and wives, better fathers and mothers, better sons and daughters, better friends and neighbors, better citizens. It is a religion of kindliness and gentleness, of mercy and forbearance. Yet it is a religion of manliness, of courage in the right, of steadfastness for principle. It is a rational religion. It requires no theologi- cal flummery, no hypocrisy nor cant; but rather inspires a man to speak out the honest thought that is in him. It is a cheerful religion. It requires no pretension nor long-faced solemnity, but about it is an atmos- phere of gladness and joy. In it are laughter and happiness, outward sunshine and inward peace. It is not a religion of superstition, but of en- lightenment. It does not antagonize physical sci- ence, for it does not enter that realm; but it relates rather to the deeper science of the soul and the rela- tion of man to man. It is not a religion of creeds and sects, but is uni- versal. It is as broad as the world and as liberal as the light. There is room in it for the good of all systems of thought, and contained in it is the spirit of all reform. It is not a religion of division and bickering, but of faith and unity ; not of fault-finding, but of toler- ance; not of dogmas, but of love. True Christianity! The world is only coming to it. While we are sending missionaries to all lands and races, we are just beginning to be con- verted ourselves. We only see the first radiance of the new dawn that is to flood the world with 98 glimpses of the real light. When the day has fully come the Christ shall be seen for what He is — the regenerator and re- deemer of the world, here and now, the glorious rep- resentative of the divinity in man. In that day all peoples shall bow at His shrine — Buddhist and Tao- ist, Brahman and Confucian, Mohammedan and heathen, Christian and infidel, old thought and new thought. All will be united in His name, in the new religion of humanity, in the church universal, in the brotherhood of man. True Christianity ! It is typed in the regenerated soul, the soul that has awakened to the conscious- ness of its immortality and of its sonship. This is the heritage of which the Master came to tell us. He was the perfect and measureless expression of that immortality and that sonship. The new reali- zation that is coming into the world does not make Him less divine, but makes Man more divine. He called Himself the Son of Man and also the Son of God. But He also said that He was the vine of which we are the branches. The branch is* a part of the vine and is one with it. Therefore we, the sons of Man, may become the sons of God when we awaken in the Christ consciousness which is the new birth. This is regeneration, that fills us with a new spirit, that makes us see a new earth without and a new heaven within us. True Christianity! It must be applied to the outward life of the world. The highest expression of the awakened soul is in works. Without this ex- pression there is nothing. Love is the law, helpful love. There can be no such thing as selfish salva- tion. We must be saved together, so that each will have his salvation in the salvation of his brother. We must make the outward manifestation conform TRUE CHRISTIANITY 99 to the inward dream. Our work will never be done until we have a civilization that is the perfect ex- pression of God's kingdom on earth, until the Golden Rule becomes the recognized law, until Caste and War and Greed, with their mother, Sel- fishness, have ceased to* be the real rulers of men. The Christ- faith must be applied to every depart- ment and avenue of life, the Christ-soul must be in- carnate in the body of society, the Christ-dream must come true in the co-operative commonwealth, before the. era of genuine Christianity can come into the world. We must heal the individual and social body ; and healing means simply bringing into conformity with the divine. We must once again supply the chords that have been left out of the Christian harmony. We cannot play the Master's symphony on an in- strument in which some of the notes have been de- stroyed. We need the full scale, from the deepest note of spirituality to the highest one of loving service. The need of the age is Christ's entire mes- sage, a thing that has never been given to the world. Not in the letter, but in the spirit; not simply as a beautiful theory, but as a truth to be applied in its fulness to everyday life. That is the keynote of the new message. It will be repeated until it is heard and heeded. No neglect or misrepresentation can keep it back. No pro- fessedly Christian institution can ignore it. No opposition can kill it. It has sounded and its tones will never die out. For it is of God. The writer has no quarrel with orthodoxy. He believes the great masses in all the churches are struggling onward to Christ's kingdom on earth. He only quarrels with the sectarian strife, with the Lore. 100 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL spirit of mammonism that has crept in, with the magnifying of man-made creeds, with the failure to preach the truths Christ preached. He quarrels with the formality, with the intolerance, with the insincerity, that are too often apparent. But with the church, no. He would have it grow greater, broader, better. He would have it become a united body, with 'Christ and humanity as its only creed. He would have it with less show and luxury and more spirituality; with less of mammonism and more of God. He has no quarrel with the many schools of new thought. He is not a Christian Scientist, nor a Spiritualist, nor a Theosophist, nor any other ist. Yet he sees good in all of them, and is willing to overlook what seems to him to be bad. He only condemns the fakery, the charlatanism, the fine-spun and non-essential theories, the extremism, that are in them. He believes that the masses in these new sects are sincerely struggling after truth, and that sooner or later they will find it. He believes the new came because the old was not giving the full message; that each is necessary to the other, and that the true in both will harmonize in the perfect Christianity that is coming. He has no quarrel with any religion, so long as it is trying to make the world better — so long as it is trying to bring God's kingdom on earth. He only wishes that all sects may cease fighting each other and may join together in the work of uplifting mankind. It is the letter that kills but the spirit that giveth life. Read the gospels of Christ. Study them over and over again. Discern them spiritually, and finally you will see that they are the symbol of a TRUE CHRISTIANITY 101 great and underlying truth. You will discover in them the hidden, secret fountain of love and life and joy. Let their lesson sink into your heart and be- come a part of your life. Delve into them yet more deeply, for they will take a lifetime's study. And finally, through them, you will begin to discern a vast, new • country, . the beauty of which you had never before dreamed, that stretches away and away, beyond your farthest imagination, and that contains mines of truth which surpass your understanding. You will begin to realize that our world is but form and symbol of the spiritual world that is behind it. You will begin to understand the meaning of love and unity and faith, for they are one. You will begin to apprehend what Christ meant wh^n He said that faith can do all things. . You will begin to see God's kingdom, whose representative Jesus was, and you will discover with joy that it is not afar off, but that it is all around us and in us ; that it is a part of us and we of it ; that all the universe is one, ruled by love and law, and that we, even. we, are the children of God. Never in the world has there been such an awaken- ing to Christ's real gospel as now. Don't you feel it? If not, you are out of touch with the spirit of the age. All the nations are becoming electrified by it. The world's literature, its sociology, its thought, all are full of it. THE GOSPEL OF JOY Most people desire to be practical. They pre- fer concrete deeds to abstract theories. They believe in a faith that does things. They would rather see a man taken out of the gutter and set upon the way of life than to hear a sermon. The religion that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked, lifts up the fallen, spreads sunshine in the hearts of men and makes the world more gentle and loving is the religion that appeals to the average man. All this is as it should be. The gospel of deeds is the gospel we need. But this is only half the truth. We must have the inward ideal before we have the outward manifestation. The house before it takes form in brick and mortar first exists in the architect's brain. The steam engine came into being in the mind of James Watt. The various improve- ments on it have had their birth in the thoughts of other inventors. The locomotive began its career in the ideal of George Stephenson. The steamboat, the telegraph, all else in human achievement is first born in thought. Before we can have works we must have faith. Before we can bless our fellow man we must be filled with blessing. The crowning glory of this civilization is that it performs. It expresses itself in tangible results. It is executive rather than meditative. It is strenuous rather than introspective. But extremes are always false. We may insist so much on the outer that we come to ignore the inner. This is one-sided. Both should be cultivated. We should both dream THE GOSPEL OF JOY 103 and do. He who sees how to make inventions and never, makes them is of as little use as he who does things in the hardest ways with no thought as to the improvement of methods. The materialist is only half a man. He leaves out one whole side of his being. But the monk who shuts himself in a cell to see visions and never gives the world the benefit of anything he sees is little better. We need the balance between the two. We want the faith and we demand the works. In our Western civilization we are given too much to the objective. In the Oriental civilization they are given too much to the subjective. What we need is a combination of the two. This will give to the West more of the introspective, meditative, religious element and to the East more of the active, progressive, practical element. Out of the union will come the greatest civilization the world has known. We have our share of the materialistic attitude. To be well balanced we must have the spiritual. We need the transcendentalist. We need those who will awaken the sleeping soul. We may pooh-pooh them, but we will return to them, for our inner natures are hungry for what they have to give. There were plenty of people in Greece who did things, but Socrates and Plato, who merely taught ideals, shine out above them all. India was full of those who wrought, but Gautama, with his trans- cendent dreams, is the only one whose light reaches us. Judea never lacked those who fought and who delved, but the truths taught by the Nazarene are so glorious we scarcely see the others. England has had mighty men, but Shakespeare, with the world in his brain, o'ertops them all. The time will 104 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL come in our history when many we call our great will sink into pigmies beside the thinkers, Whitman and Emerson. Whatever is in the inner will be bodied forth in the outer, so that he is the greatest benefactor who does most to uplift our ideals and awaken our better natures. A friend has asked how to come into the proper state to appreciate the higher things of life. Why, bless you, give your soul a chance. Get awake in- side. Realize that living means something more than bread and butter and dollars. The pig exists for these things, but a man does not need to keep himself in the consciousness of the pig. Realize that you are an immortal, not a mere animal. Think from the soul, instead of from the back of your head. Realize that you are the master of environ- ments, not they the master of you. Come into the full consciousness once that you are a spirit possess- ing a body, a son of God with a glorious heritage. You have but to remember and quit feeding on husks with the swine. Remember ! Remember who you are and from whence you come. You are not a worm of the dust, but a child of the king. Think not too meanly of yourself. Remember the Christ bore the same form you bear. Remember the breath of God is in your nostrils, the spirit of God is in your soul. Awaken! Awaken! Quit regretting what is over and worrying about what is to come. Find life in the to-day. Universal faith and love and truth are for you if you will but claim them. Stop being buffeted and made unhappy by mere circumstances. You are not a slave or a puppet. You are master of your own world. Jov is yours. THE GOSPEL OF JOY 105 You are consciously immortal. In your soul is a bubbling spring of the waters of life. There is sunshine in tlie world. In spite of all that is said by the pessimists, dyspeptics and weak- lings, it is good to be here. In the golden mean, in the legitimate use of all things, there is a tem- pered joy that is worth while. None is so happy as he that is in the path of right and truth. The awakened soul, with face turned ever to the light of God, is full of thanksgiving and rejoicing. He comes to see the beauty and gladness of the world. He finds duty a pleasure; heaven a present state of consciousness; work a recreation; life a song. Evil has lost its power upon him, for the desire of it is gone; fear has faded like a shadow that has no place in the full spiritual sunlight; death is seen to be but another phase of life; God is felt as the all in all, everywhere present, everywhere active, every- where beneficent. The true religious life is the gladdest life in the world. It finds the real pleasures that never pall. It is manful, wholesome, companionable. It does not separate itself from mankind, has no holier- than-thou, sour-visaged, condemnatory attitude. It knows that it is better to love than to preach ; better to lead people into the true way than to drive them ; better to sympathize than to find fault. Religion is not a theory ; not a form ; not a build- ing ; not a certain day of the week ; not a creed ; not a book; not a cloth; not a sect separate from other sects. All these are but vehicles or accompani- ments. They are the paraphernalia. They are not absolutely essential, though like a stage setting they may help to bring out the play. But they are not religion. Religion, as some one has said, is 106 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL the life of God in the soul of man. No better defi- nition of any word was ever written. Awaken to that life which is in you. Let it be- come a bubbling spring of joy in your heart. It will fill your eyes with light, your face with kind- ness and your lips with laughter. It will make of you an optimist, because you will know, absolutely know, that the world is growing better. You will recognize God's hand in all history and you will be ready to shout aloud for joy because of the {re- alization. What has been thought of as sadness in the poet, in the devotee, in the lover of beauty, is but a full- ness of joy that stills and humbles. When you are pensive through hearing sweet music, or gazing on a sunset, or in the presence of a great love, it is be- cause of a gladness unspeakable. The soul that becomes conscious is joyous be- cause it is free. There is no bondage like delusion, no chains like ignorance. There is no slave like the man that is his own taskmaster. No one else can truly enslave you. You forge your own shackles and break them, when they are broken. You yourself go down into Egypt and in turn be- come your own Moses. You constantly weave some rope to tether your limbs. You put barriers in your own way, and then accuse Fate. You make your- self subject to accidents and environments. You create for yourself things that you call duties and then fancy that these duties are hateful and irksome. So you become a martyr to your own false concep- tions. You say you are ruled by stars and signs, by your body or your heredity. Thus you forever build your own prison. But when your soul awakens you suddenly discover that you are master THE GOSPEL OF JOY 107 of your life. Environment, stars, heredity, body, all lose their power upon you. These things are your servants, not your rulers. How can a thing that passes away have dominion over a soul that is immortal ? When you come to your own and know yourself you are emancipated. What gives such joy as freedom? When you know that you are in liberty, that bondage is no more for you, that death and seeming can affright you never again, should you not be glad ? Are you not like David in that all the hills and trees join you in singing praises to the God of the things that are? The soul that is awake has perfect faith. Doubt has fled far from him. He knows that all that is is good. He trusts as a little child. He lays down his life with absolute confidence that he shall take it up again. He gives all without reserve, knowing that he shall receive all in return. Without a reser- vation he throws himself upon the universal. He does the Father's work and knows that the Father will provide for His own. He borrows no trouble for the morrow, for he knows that the morrow will be sufficient unto itself. His hope is unfaltering, because hope is the child of faith. He gives himself to the universal and depends on the universal for guidance and sustenance. Where is there more joy than in unutterable faith ? When you can feel that your prayer is never in vain, that your Father is mindful of you, that when you knock it will be opened unto you, when you are conscious of these things as absolute verities in your own life, should they not make you glad? In what way could any more joyous thing come to you? The soul that is awake is in love. It is in love 108 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL with the Father and all His creations. It is in love with the dawn and the sunshine, with the star and the dewdrop; it is in love with the grassblade and the tree, with the brook and the ocean. It is in love with the meadow and the mountain, the blos- som and the rain by which it is washed. The soul that is awake is in love with all forms of life, from the protoplasm to the poet. All men are included in its kindly thought, all children share its joy, all women receive its homage. Hatred is banished for- ever from its presence. Enemies it has none, for envy and malice die in its good fellowship. Force it never uses, for it knows that love is the conqueror of force. It has found the way of life, for the way of life is love. Why should not such a soul be glad? Where is there place for sourness, or bitterness, accusation or exclusion in a spirit that knows these things? Joy? joy everlasting, unspeakable, joy exultant, tri- umphant, joy bubbling and overflowing, this is the portion of the soul that is awake in God. UNIVERSAL LOVE Sometimes we call it good will, sometimes kind- liness, sometimes philanthropy, sometimes at- traction, and sometimes love. Whatever our name it is the one constructive force of the uni- verse. It holds atom to atom, cell to cell, heart to heart and world to sun. It is everywhere manifest, everywhere operative. It is shown in the sunshine .that warms into life the myriad forms of each planet. It is shown by the rain that falls upon the thirsty lips of the leaves. It is shown by the cosmic force that holds the clustered stars in space and im- pels them forward in perfect harmony and order. It is shown by the mother that lends her substance to the little one and thus furnishes a gateway for a soul to enter into life. It is shown by the martyr who is willing to perish, that the race may be quick- ened and the truth made plain. We are coming more and more to see that the way of love is the way of life, and that he who de- nies good will to any being in that far limits his own happiness. It is our privilege to give out kind- liness as the sun gives out light. It is our privilege to carry with us an atmosphere of blessing and health. It is our privilege to make life a song, to radiate good cheer. As these things flow out from us so will they flow back to us. As we give, we shall receive. All through the ages men have had but a partial conception of life. They have looked at a segment of the circle, not the full rounded orb. They have 110 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL limited themselves by their own attitudes. They have cut off their power of coming to the universal — God — by hating and excluding a part of that universal. They have failed to see that they could not arrive at the fullness of life until they were reconciled to every being who shared that life. They tried to be at peace with God while at war with their neighbors. They forgot first to be reconciled to their brothers before bringing their gifts to the altar. The light grows. Our conceptions broaden. A larger segment of the circle appears. We begin to see that to hate is simply to limit ourselves. God- does not exclude us, but we exclude God when we exclude His creatures. He is love, universal love, and we can only come to Him by entering into the spirit of the universal love which He is. To shut our hearts against any is to shut our hearts against Him. "As ye have done it even unto the least of these my brethren ye have done it unto me." Those who sin are as children. In any real sense the sin hurts only themselves, but they do not see, they do not understand. If we hate them for it we do them no good and hurt ourselves. It is not ours to censure and exclude, but rather to help them un- fold and grow into something better. A flower will not blossom in the darkness, but in the sunlight. So a soul will not open unto hatred, but rather unto love. When our child commits' a fault we love it into doing better. So we should make our attitude to the little, growing souls that stumble and fall along the way of life. This is the heart of the gospel taught by Jesus. Underneath every sentence of it is the spirit of love. The religion of the Jews had been one of strife and UNIVERSAL LOVE III struggle, of stern justice, of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That religion stoned the male- factor and went forth with the sword to slay those whom it considered the enemies of the true God. It regarded the children of Israel as the chosen people and excluded all others. It was a fierce, a warlike faith, that sought to limit the Father to a faction. The Nazarene brought an utterly new gospel. It judged not. It resisted not. It excluded not. Like the sunshine, it flowed out alike to all, Gentile as well as Jew, sinner as well as saint. It laid aside the battle flag and raised instead the banner of peace. It was no longer the avenging angel, white and stern and terrible; but it was the angel with the shining eyes and the smiling face, that came not to condemn but to lift up. From that day a new word was on the lips and in the hearts of men. That word was love. Long it had struggled for expression, but the utterance was faint and broken. Now had come a. full and ade- quate voice that sang forth the song with sweetness and glory and power, and the music that fell from those divine lips has charmed the world into some semblance of harmony and good will. We are just coming to understand the spirit be- hind that song; we are beginning to see the wisdom of that doctrine of non-resistance; we are learning that the universal love which he incarnated is the way, the truth and the life. We catch a glimmer of a wisdom that is higher than our wisdom, a simple faith that goes deeper into the mysteries of things than the plummet of all the boasted knowl- edge of man, and a fountain within the soul whose 112 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL shining and singing waters bubble forth with a joy- that is always sweet and new. In the storm of life, with its clouds of doubt and its rain of tears, the spiritual sunlight breaks through and forms a perfect rainbow, with one foot in the world we call the living and one foot in the world we term the dead. It is the rainbow of Love, and its promise is that at last there will be no more storm. At the gulf of death all things else falter and fail. Words do not reach across, and the language we would fain fancy is from the other side falls into a meaningless jargon that is a mockery. Hope, bright-eyed and joyous, pauses upon that brink, and, as she looks at the blackness beyond, her smile dies and the light goes out of her eyes. Even Faith, usually so confident and fearless, falters in crossing that abysm. But Love, at the touch of the dread angel, only grows the stronger and binds us to the one who has gone before with a firmer bond. Hope may be palsied by fear and Faith may fall in doubt, but Love loves on. Unquestioning and unafraid, it pierces through all seeming and goes direct to its object. It triumphs over death here and hereafter. It takes hold of God and lifts the soul unto Him. If a man were required to write of religion every day of his life he could write on it each time as some different phase of love. In this infinite subject he would discover that every new point of view would reveal a new beauty, until at last when life were done he would find that he had only touched upon the edges of his theme, and as his eyes closed to the old life and opened on the new he would see the all in all of that new life to be the same thing he UNIVERSAL LOVE 113 had been imperfectly expressing in the old, now for the first time realized in its fullness and glory and power — God's boundless and endless expression — Love. 'The night has a thousand eyes, The day but one; Yet the light of a whole world dies At set of sun. "The mind has a thousand eyes, The heart but one ; Yet the life of a whole life dies When Love is done." Love, which should be the supreme law of this life, really is the supreme law of Heaven. That is the reason it is Heaven. He who has most of Love is greatest, for he is ex- pressing most of God. Love is proof positive of immortality, for he who loves purely and truly sometime, somewhere, must gain the thing he loves. This is the. law. We love only our own, and our own shall come to us. He who has love for all creatures has known God, for God is Love. He whose inward life is a bubbling fountain of love and good will has the kingdom of Heaven within him. All through the ages the alchemists hunted for some magic substance that would transmute the baser metals into gold ; but they did not realize that it was a spiritual, not a physical, thing for which they sought. Love transmutes all things into gold. He who has love in his life sees the beautiful and good everywhere. For him the universe is trans- 114 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL formed and there is nothing mean or ignoble in it. Love is proverbially blind — to the bad. It has the discernment to see but the best in all creatures. Love is the exact opposite of selfishness. The rising into the universal consciousness — which is the Christ consciousness — is but the rising into Love. As we reach out more and more to others, the self, with its sense of separateness, dies in us. We begin to see that we are one with all beings. We come to look on the neighbor as our other self. We grow into awareness of the all-consciousness that is expressed in each of the children of the Father. We are but a part of it. We are only modes, as it were, of its infinite variety of manifesta- tion. Thus we see not only our relation to our brothers, but our identity with them. All this is the coming into the kingdom of Love. All this is the coming into touch with the Universal, which makes us immortal in its immortality. All this is the losing of self and the gaining of God. "Love took up the harp of life and smote on all the chords with might, Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, passed in music out of sight." Love harmonizes all seeming differences. It makes us charitable one with another. It causes us to cease to judge our fellows. It takes the Pharisa- ism, the holier-than-thou, out of us. It makes us kindly to all God's creatures. It makes us gentle in our homes and courteous to the world. It makes our lives radiate sunshine. Love transfigures us, morally, mentally and physically. Morally, it takes from us the desire to UNIVERSAL LOVE 1 15 overreach and injure others. Mentally, it turns all of our gifts into helpful and useful channels. Physi- cally, it softens and beautifies our faces, lends a light to the eyes and a smile to the lips. It gives us a magnetism that draws all unto us. And as like attracts like, it brings a perfect rain of love back to us. The mere intellectual apprehension of things is not enough. It is the living them that counts. Love takes the bitterness from disappointment and the sting from sorrow. It plants outward flowers on the graves of its dead and imvard flowers to shed fragrance over their memories. It admits no separation, but holds its objects closer because they seem to be away. Love ever expresses itself in deed. It finds the man in the gutter and sets him on the highway. It appeals to the womanhood in her who has gone astray and leads her back to purity. It sees the hard conditions of those who toil and helps to wrest the scepter from the hands of Greed. It has many manifestations. In one case it expresses itself as kindliness, in another as charity, in another as pity, in another as mercy ; but always and evervwhere it is Love. It blesses us all through the journey of life, closes down our eyelids when we fall asleep and accom- panies us in our journey to the realm beyond the shadow. Love binds the souls of those on both sides of the grave. It is the rainbow whose shining arch spans two worlds. THE NEED OF THE AGE This is a comfortable age. The good things of life never were so generally diffused. This world-knowledge never was so far advanced. Future prospects never were so enchanting. There is little wonder that we become so enamored of these things that we lose sight of the fact that they are evanescent and that the eternals lies in a different realm. It is easy to turn to God in periods of trouble, but the real test comes in times of prosperity. The danger of present material development is that it will give us an exaggerated view of the im- portance of things that pass away, and that it will shut out the real and spiritual world which is per- manent. The need of the age is to keep things in their right relations, and while continuing development in the world of matter, yet not losing hold of the greater world which lies behind and beyond matter. In a word, the need of the age is Christianity as Christ taught it. Not the half-lights and glimpses of it in the creeds and human interpretations, but the full view as revealed through the four gospels them- selves. There is no study that more broadens, enriches and sweetens a man's character than that of Christ's own utterances. If you doubt the statement, at least give it a trial. It will not take you long. There are only four books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. You can read them in the time given an THE NEED OF THE AGE WJ ordinary novel. Try it. Perhaps when you have read them once you may want to read them again. There is a quality in them that grows on you. You may find some things that you will pro- nounce impracticable. Yet do not be too dogmatic. You may be mistaken. This is a big universe, and there are many things in it we do not know. Be- sides, there is a great truth dawning on the world to-day. It is that all Christ's teachings are practi- cal — only that men have not reached His standard as yet. The need of the age is a spiritual awakening. Progress ? Yes, there is progress, but we have only been in the basement of it. We have been watching the lights play on the features of a mask without perceiving the beautiful and living soul behind. We have been gazing at the reflection of the sun in a mud puddle instead of casting our eyes upward at the glory of the heavens. The need of the age is the spirit that makes alive instead of the letter that kills. We have had enough of formalism, cant and hypocrisy. We need to throw aside the barriers and rubbish and go to the real Christ. We need some of the sweet, humani- tarian religion of the Carpenter who came to "preach the gospel to the poor." We have been making Him shadowy and afar off. We want hold of His hands, to look into His eyes, to feel His love for us and to drink in the glory of His promise. We need Him in our lives ; not on Sunday, but every day of the week. If we cannot take Him into our business, then there is something wrong with our business. If we cannot take Him into our pleasures, then our pleasures are not real joys, but are of the sort that turn to ashes. Il8 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL To-day is a part of Eternity. We do not have to die to gain heaven — or hell. Death is not such a transformation. It only strips from us our ma- terialism. It only shows us a little more plainly the hideousness of our own sins. But we are living in the Now. This hour is the time for our souls to awaken. Here is where we need to take hold of the verities. To-day is the time for us to get into the kingdom — for the everlasting is but one eternal To-day. Most of the suffering in the world comes from the fact that we have not reached the Christ-ideal. Men have been searching all through the world for some theory of life, for some social panacea. They did not seem to realize that both were just before them in easy reach. The new-old truths taught by the Nazarene are applicable now. Inter- preted in the language and larger views of these later years, they fit the needs of this age. The shibboleth of the Future is to be genuine Christi- anity. Not a part of it, but the full message. Not the dogmas of the feudal ages concerning it, but the very words of Christ. Not even Paul and the Apostles, but the Master. He preached the religion of Humanity. He proclaimed all that is true in the New Thought, most of which is very old. He fore- shadowed a plan of perfect social justice — a king- dom of Brotherhood. He taught healing — not only for the individual body, but for 'the body politic. Go to Him — not to His professed representatives, but to Him. Learn of Him, through His utterances and through your own soul. Drink in His spirit. It will not only make you free ; but it is destined to free all mankind. Here in this wonderful new time let us turn our THE NEED OF THE AGE ll9 eyes to the rising sun of a higher spirituality than the race has ever before known. The world is tired of .the worship of man-made creeds and interpretations, of material symbols, of shadows and forms. It yearns for the living water from the eternal springs of Life. It yearns for the bread that is substance and that will satisfy. The souls of men are hungry. They may not admit it outwardly, even to themselves, but the hunger that is in them drives them this way and that and never lets them rest. They are famishing for immortal tidings. They do not seek formalism or profes- sional cant, but they want words filled with the spirit of truth and telling them of their eternal heritage. We have had too much culture of the outward that shut the door on that which is within". We have fallen into the old, old error of thinking that the flesh and the physical mind constitute the man, when they are only servants of the man and should be trained as such. * The lord of the household is within. Would you crowd him out of his heritage? Each man is dual — a god that is immortal and a beast that dies. Would you deny the god that the beast might rule? Would you starve, neglect, ig- nore and mistreat the prince with the divine right that you might build up, fatten and cultivate the animal that is only meant to obey ? Let your body rule you and it will carry you into all manner of excesses, hatreds, selfish sins, errors and finally disease and death. Let the spirit rule you and it will fill your life with harmony, with love, with noble resolves, with supernal happiness and with eternal progress and life. When you elevate a slave into a master he is the 120 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL hardest and most cruel driver on earth. So it is with the physical self. Give it absolute control and it is a devil. Make it know that it must obey and it becomes an ideal servant. Discord, fear, error, envy, hatred, selfishness, greed, materialism, disease and the dread of physical death are all of your own creation. They need not be. They are not normal. Bring yourself into one- ness with the Oversoul and as you rise more and more perfectly into its realm you will come into harmony, serenity, truth and love, while all the evils which are but forms of error will lose their potency and will finally vanish from you. Know that you have nothing to fear in all the universe — except yourself. Know that God is all- in-all and that He is good. If you bring yourself into harmony with Him naught without can harm you. Though men should lie about you, should take away your property, should even kill your physical body, all this is external and does not af- fect you. You still have hold of God and all the universe is yours. You have all the reality, you have only lost the evanescent and the seeming. No one can take anything from you in truth. No one can harm you. You can harm yourself by hating others for what they do; but it is your act, not theirs, that affects you. All the sweetness, the love, the glory, the heaven of being are yours, if you will but take them. No one else can prevent you. Where is the room for fear? What are you afraid of? The universal love is around you. Open your life to that, live in concord with it, and you are secure through all eternity. And there is nothing else in the universe worth while. All besides is but the chasing of phantoms THE NEED OF THE AGE 121 that finally disappear. You can attain that heaven now. It is a state of your soul. You do not have to wait for some far-off hereafter. This is Eternity — this ever-continuing Now. You can live with one perpetual consciousness of God in you; and this is Paradise. Free your mind from the thought that you needs must await some future time or go to some distant place to find immortality. To the spiritual percep- tion distance — either in time or space — is not. It is all a matter of state, your plane of consciousness, your degree of attainment. Realize that the place where you are is a part of Infinity, related to every other place. Realize that this moment of time is a part of the eternal, related to all that was or is or is to be. Realize that your soul is a part of God, re- lated to every other soul in the universe. Realize that the physical is but a manifestation — while you are consciousness. Realize, in a word, that you can rise into the Universal, and that the universal light and love and gladness will flow through you with ijiore and more abundance, as you open yourself unto it. This is the truth that was taught by the Christ, the Divine Teacher. It shines under His every utterance in the gospel of John. This is the truth that has been taught in some form by all the lesser lights through the ages — by Buddha, by Plato, by S wedenborg, and, in a different way, by our own Emerson. This is the truth that, when we come into it, will make us free. The eternal Spirit is all that is worthy of worship. When we realize this, how plain and simple it all becomes ! The isms vanish like mist. The worship of forms, of rituals, of creeds, of institutions, of GLIMPSES OF THE REAL symbols, of men, of days, of anything except the Oversoul that is all-in-all, seems but so much fetich- worship and takes its place beside the old pagan idolatry of material symbols. We lift our eyes, not to the dead, but to the Living Christ, who is one with the Father and w r ho is with us always, even unto the end of the world. For God is a Spirit, and we must worship Him in spirit and in truth. RELIGION IN CHARACTER It has become a fad with certain cults of the day to minimize the effects of evil. It is very popu- lar with them to roll as a sweet morsel under their tongues the assertion that evil is only relative anyway; forgetting that all things human are but relative and that evil is as ultimate in its nature as any other human concept. It is only a step with some of these theorists from the idealistic state- ment that evil has no real existence to the compla- cent belief that some particular evil is not a reality, and that, therefore, its perpetration does not much matter. In fact, the human mind is prone to warp some sublimated speculation into a shield for vice. In this way what would otherwise be a harmless theory becomes demoralizing. The fact of the matter is that man's freedom per- mits him to act in accordance with law or to the contrary; and, if the latter, no amount of philoso- phizing will save him from the consequences of error. The reflection that heat is only rapid vibra- tion will do a man little good if he sticks his hand into the fire. Neither will the oft-asserted opinion that matter is not a reality avert the consequences if he sends a ball of that matter crashing through his brain. The trouble with many people is that they catch a glimpse of truth and project it to absurd and il- logical lengths, failing to take into account its relations to other truths and their own limitations. They find a flaw in some old idea of things and im- 124 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL mediately jump to the conclusion that all old ideas are therefore wrong. In other words, they lack balance and perspective. They cannot see a little light and keep their heads. God gave man the gift of common sense, a sort of universal intuition of truth, to save him from going daft with his own theorizing and speculation. And whenever he gets off on some tangent where his outward mind has let him wander, this intuitive common sense hauls him up short and sets him right. Related to this natural perception of things is another God-given monitor known as conscience. If there is anything that these two faculties teach, it is that evil, as it relates to man, is a reality, and a terrible reality at that; and, if persistently followed, it brings misery, demoralization, degeneracy and even destruction itself. It is somewhat a matter of harmony. Evil is dis- cord. It is also a matter of truth. Evil is error. It is also a matter of naturalness. Evil is abnormal. It is also a matter of health. Evil is disease. It is also a matter of the right relations of things. Evil is chaotic. It is also a matter of duty to yourself and others. Evil is immoral. In a real sense, evil grows out of the wrong con- cept of self — the thought that the individual is a thing apart from other individuals and from the universal. This causes us to assert self at the ex- pense of others. It is only by rising out of this material and external concept of the ego and by perceiving that we are at one with all that we come into the harmony of truth and good. The law of love arises from our oneness with all other entities in the universal; and all forms of hate and selfishness proceed from a false conception RELIGION IN CHARACTER 125 of individuality. We first arise from our false sense of isolation into the thought of brotherhood, and from that into the cosmical consciousness, where we attain to harmony with all law and hence are saved from evil. But this is a long process and can only be perfected by taking hold of the Christ- life — only by coming into the love of good, the har- mony with the Universal, the Father. The only progress we make is by triumphing over evil. The physical self will always lead us into temptation unless corrected by the soul. This is for the reason that the physical self is seemingly sepa- rate and alone, looking only for its own gratification and aggrandizement, while the soul is in touch with the universal and seeks its own good in the good of all. "To him that overcometh" is promised all things. He must conquer himself. He must triumph over the error and evil in his own external nature; and if he triumphs over these he will then be ready to triumph over evil and error in society. The first baptism of water is symbolical of cleans- ing your life. The form is nothing in itself. The thing it stands for is everything. Repent. Get rid of your sin. Make your life pure and wholesome. This is necessary before the baptism of the spirit can come. This is but another statement of the proverb that "Cleanliness is next to Godliness." By this is not meant alone physical cleanliness, but, in a far higher degree, moral cleanliness. This is the necessary step before Godliness can be reached. Wash out your life. Become clean, not only in your acts and words, but in your thoughts. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." This is simply another statement of the same truth. Flush 126 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL out your moral impurities. The city is most health- ful that has the best sewerage. The same is true of a life. Wash out your iniquities and errors by the waters of truth. You can reach no real height of spiritual attainment until you do this. Every great religion has stated this fundamental truth. No modern sophistry will overthrow it. Free and easy morals do not belong in this realm. They never did and never will. Words are cheap. Acts are more to the point, but even they may be only for appearance and so be hypocritical. But Character is genuine. Higher than what you say or what you do is what you are. "An evil tree will not bring forth good fruit.' ' A man who is good in himself will speak good words and do good deeds. He cannot help it. They bubble out of him as spontaneously as a clear spring from the mountain side. The final statement of religion, then, is in Char- acter. It is for that we build ; and we cannot build it in the sands of immorality, but on the rock of virtue and truth. This is a universe of law. On the physical plane is law. He who transgresses that law destroys his own body. On the civic or social plane is law. He who transgresses that law destroys his harmonious relations with his fellows, his liberty. On the moral and spiritual plane is law. He who transgresses that law destroys his own soul. The great lesson we have to learn is that of obedi- ence; not obedience to somebody outside ourselves, especially if his command goes counter to our own views of right, but rather obedience to the voice within us ; obedience to the laws of our own being. RELIGION IN CHARACTER 127 The physical self must obey the spirit. The lower must be submissive to the higher. The soul can only grow by being in harmony with the laws of its unfoldment. That is the reason every religion has been based upon morality. Before we can harmoniously develop we must have right relations to all things, right relations to our physi- cal environment, right relations to our fellowmen, right relations to life, right relations to God. When we injure our own bodies, by overindul- gence in any direction, we are in wrong relations to our bodies. When we injure our fellowman, by unduly restraining him, by keeping from him what is rightfully his, by failing to give him our love and help, we are in wrong relations to our fellow- man. When we fail to recognize the spirit, by obeying its mandates within us, we are in wrong relations to the spirit. All these things retard our growth. They keep us out of our kingdom. They prevent us from realizing our own inner divinity. They hold us back from coming into that which is for us. The law of our being is that we must hold right relations to all things. Whenever we transgress that law we make our own way hard. We, our- selves, are our only real enemies. We, ourselves, are the only ones that can finally inflict injury upon ourselves. We make our own fate. We build our own heaven or our own hell. We decide whether we shall go upward to the light or downward to the darkness. We choose our own success or failure. All things within itself are possible to the awakened soul. It can rise to the heights of the divine or descend to the depths of the demon. It knows the law, intuitively, unerringly knows the law, and it 128 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL can live in conformity to that law, or the reverse. Over itself it is supreme. It can turn toward dark- ness and discord or it can lift up its face to God and forever grow fuller of His light and harmony. The law may be broken through ignorance. But no man need be under the ban of ignorance. He has within himself a true monitor, if he only heeds it. When he lies, or steals, or cheats, or kills, he knows that he is transgressing. True, if he denies the voice, he grows blunted and dead to it. But, if he heeds it, his hearing becomes more and more acute, until his life is absolutely guided by the divinity within him. It is not worth while to split hairs over the origin of conscience, or the possibility of modifying it by education. Neither is it worth while to speculate intellectually upon the freedom of the will. Say what we may, everyone intuitively knows within himself the truth of these matters. There is some- thing higher than the mere sense concept, something more unerring even than reason that tells him, if he only listens to it. The only way to come into the fuller knowledge of this intuitive something, of this other self, is to follow its leadings. The only way to know the truth is to live the life of truth. The good, not the goody-good, but the really good, are the only ones whose souls can develop. They are the ones who live in accordance with the laws of their own being. They are in right rela- tions to all things. They live in harmony with the real, the eternal. They have inward peace, because their souls are satisfied. They are following the way of life. But those who are out of harmony are in hell already. They have eternal war within themselves, RELIGION IN CHARACTER 1 29 because the inner something, the intuition, the soul, knows that it is being retarded from coming into its heritage. True, they may gain a false peace at last by drowning this voice. But, in doing so, they are murdering the only real self within them. The body cannot help them, for that dies. It is only a means given to help in soul development. If it fails in that, the object of living is missed. It is idle to dodge these things. We all know the truth of them. Deny as we may, there is an innate knowledge within us stronger than our denials. Speculate as we will, there is a prompting in us that will not be speculated away. After the noise and clamor are done, it makes itself felt. In the quiet hour it stirs within us. Some time, some place, it brings us face to face with our true self. In some intense hour of self-revelation it shows us what a muss we have made of it all. We cannot escape it. For to escape it would be to escape the im- mortal part of us, and that would be annihilation. Call this inner something what you will, the truth remains. Try to compass it with the sense concept. That does not help you. The prompting is still there for you to follow. The only thing is to be obedient. Heed the voice. Live the life. Then all your faculties will develop harmoniously. Then faith and reason will go hand in hand and lead you to higher heights than you had ever dreamed. Then you will gain the larger vision. Then you will know the truth, in and of itself. The intellectual and the intuitional will evolve in harmony. Your bodily life will be interfused with your spiritual life. You will come into a sense of atonement with your own soul and with God. You will know im- mortality, will be conscious of it in every blessed 130 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL moment. Your life will become a life of love to all beings. You will enjoy every phase of it more fully, because you will see its relations with every other phase of life. You will cease more and more to transgress the law, because you will know that it is not worth while. You will see higher things so much more to be desired that the lower desires will drop away. This is not ^n idle dream. It is the only reality. It has come into the life of the great and good in every age. They have testified to its truth. Surely their word is entitled to some, weight. Surely, also, the voice in your own being is entitled to some weight. If you will listen, it will bear witness and you will know that witness is true. Others cannot bring you immortal tidings, but they can awaken you so that you may hear the immortal tidings in your own spirit. The object of life is soul culture. If you miss that you miss all. The only way to gain true soul culture is to live in harmony with the soul of life. You must be obedient to the law, the physical law, the civic law, the moral law, the spiritual law. If you transgress you yourself suffer the penalty. But when you live in accordance with all these laws of your being you attain liberty. The way is easy and the end glorious. SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY The dream of eternal life is older than history; it is wider than creeds or religions ; it is as old and as wide as humanity itself. The proofs of immortality are threefold : First, revelation in the forms of gospels; second, interior intimations; third, external evidences in nature. To the man who accepts the Bible, or the Koran, or the Talmud, or any other of the scriptures of the world, no further proof is necessary. The word is to him inspired; the page is illuminated by the promise of God Himself. That is enough. To the soul that looks deeply into the nature of life the very fact that such a being as Christ lived and taught the things He taught is not only an overwhelming evidence of divinity, but also of that divinity being planted in the human race. There are those, however, who do not accept reve- lation. To them some further proof is necessary. There are souls here on this earth to-day so filled with spirituality, with a divine prescience, with glimpses of heaven, that they have no more doubt of the future life than of the present. Were there not a gospel on earth these souls could yet look up and have faith, for "God's glory would smite them on the face." Yet evidence of the interior sort, though abso- lutely conclusive to him that feels it, means nothing to another. We must look for something tangible to satisfy all minds. The fact that men in every age have believed in 132 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL some sort of existence after death is a circumstan- tial proof that should carry much weight. It is hardly thinkable that in a universe of truth there would be implanted in the minds of nearly all men a lie. But, the objectors say, this may proceed from man's desire for life. Even granting that it has no deeper foundation, is it probable that a race of beings would be filled by a desire that by no pos- sibility could be gratified? How unspeakably cruel that would be ! Waive all this, however. Here are yet another set of circumstances. Great bodies of men in the world believe in spirit return and communication. Through all the ages have been tales of ghosts and angels, of messages from the other side. Recently leading members of a very respectable body of sci- entific men, the Society for Psychical Research, a world-wide organization, have expressed themselves as satisfied that they have received communications from the so-called dead. This whole subject of spiritism is so tinctured with fraud, however, that we will waive it also. The skeptical mind demands absolute proof. Very well. Can we not find it? Science teaches the conservation of energy, the conservation of matter, the conservation of all. There is no loss, there can be no loss, in the universe. Experience is a thing, a very . valuable thing ; there is nothing more valuable. Human life is but a gaining of experience. Is this experience lost at the change we call death? It is unthinkable. Then what becomes of it ? If you say that it is transmitted by heredity or by history, you forget science teaches that the world dies at last, and the human race with it. Then is SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY 1 33 all the experience gained by all the lives on earth to be lost? If the creed of the atheist be true, yes. What an illogical proposition! If all the gospels were blotted out, if there were no intimations of eternal life in the soul, the fact that there is no loss in nature would settle the ques- tion of individual immortality. Life is a force — the highest force so far as we know. If death ends all, what becomes of this force? If you say it passes to other entities, then what becomes of the personality, the thing that knows that I am I? That is a thing also. Can that be lost? But there is no loss, says science. There may be change, but there can be no such thing as annihilation in nature, any more than there can be a vacuum. There is no loss of life ; there is no loss of experi- ence; but to preserve life and experience each indi- vidual entity must continue after death. There is no other way. Thoughts are things. They are the only things, in fact, that the human mind knows. In no way does it touch the material universe. It only comes in contact with its concepts. Suppose there were a being with an entirely dif- ferent set of senses from our own. Suppose the vast range of vibrations between sound and light, which have no effect upon us, affected its organs, while the sound waves and light waves did not. Then suppose again it had a sense acted upon by the vibrations still higher than light, which are now supposed to be connected with the X-ray. Would the being with such senses not see an entirely dif- ferent world from the world we see? It would have knowledge of its concepts only, as we have. 134 • GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Beyond them it would have no point of contact with matter. The mind, for example, does not know a piece of iron. It only knows its concept of that piece of iron. The iron itself, in the ultimate sense, or to a being with a different set of senses, might be an entirely different thing. The only thing the thinker cognizes is the thought. What is the object of experience, if it is all to be lost at the end of the world? What is the use of progress and development if they are finally annihilated? Our senses do not show us things ultimately, but only relatively to ourselves. To this extent we cre- ate our own worlds. We see the seeming. To us the sun seems to move, when in reality it is we that move. The stars seem to be stuck in a blue vault only a little way off, all equi-distant, when in re- ality they are millions of miles away, at varying distances. All things are dual. The universe is a duality. Matter is only one side of the shield. In other words, it is the symbol. The thing symbolized is in the thought-world. It is a necessity of thought to return to an over- ruling intelligence — to the Unknown God. We may disagree about creeds. But we cannot disagree as to life. That is a fact. And we cannot disagree as to the Unknown. That is a fact. Into that Unknown the hand of man reaches. It is dark and terrible and he grows sick at heart. But sud- denly he feels a grasp upon his own. His heart 'grows strong and a joy thrills to the very roots of his life. Henceforth there can be no doubt for that man. The mystery is not solved, but he learns that SCIENCE PROVES IMMORTALITY 1 35 in that mystery is a merciful intelligence which shapes all things for the best. Search your own heart and if you find no God there, these words mean nothing to you. But if he is there, then belief is as natural as singing to a bird. THE MODERN PALESTINE With variations and in ever larger spirals, his- tory is re-enacted. Thus humanity climbs the stairway of Progress. Each step is like the steps that have gone before, only higher. Neither the spiral nor the stair is a perfect analogy, yet both in some wise symbolize the meaning. The race repeats its former experiences, only in a larger way and in a higher plane of consciousness. So we ever ascend Godward. The Chosen People! Who has not thrilled at their story ? From Abraham to Jesus it is the most sublime drama ever played upon the stage of his- tory. What giant actors ! What superb victories ! What fearful chastenings ! What a wealth of poetry, of philosophy, of spirituality, in their litera- ture! How T thin sometimes the veil over the Soul of Things ! Their glory has departed. The land of the prophet and the warrior is desolate. The remnants of the Tribes are scattered. The plains where once the shepherd fed his flocks are arid. A stranger rules the Holy City. The storms yet gather over Horeb and the wind yet sighs mysteriously like the voice of the Spirit through the cedars of Lebanon, but all between is deserted both by the soul and the body of Israel. The hills and valleys where David fought and sang and where the Messiah healed and taught are now in the domain of the Moslem. Only the Faith — the Spirit of the land — yet lives and it - has gone forth to conquer the earth. THE MODERN PALESTINE 137 Yet far to the westward of Carmel and of Jerusa- lem has been found another Palestine. In a land divinely shielded from the gaze of men, until the hour had come, another chosen people are working out the problem of how to bring God's kingdom on earth. Here in our own dear country is the later and greater Israel. Discovered in the wonderful period of the Renaissance and the Reformation, at the very time when the revival of Christianity was coming through all Europe, from that hour till now the finger of God has been apparent in all our affairs. The very spirit that actuated the Israelites to seek a land where they could worship God in their own way, that spirit stirred in the Puritans who braved the wilderness of New England. Washington was a veritable Abraham and Lincoln a veritable Moses. Garrison was a David who slew his giant and Grant a Joshua who fought the battles of God's people. Who can doubt that there are to be other glories commensurate with this divine mission, that we are to witness the coming of the Son of Man in the souls of humanity, and that this is to be the heart and capital of the Universal Republic in the Golden Age of Peace? One great sentence is written across the centuries. It is spelled in the death of unrighteous civiliza- tions. The sands over Babylon form one letter; the ruins of Rome another. The Reformation, the founding of democracy, the end of slavery, all these spell out the words. The presence of the galaxy of men that formed this republic bears witness to the truth of the statement. Great souls like Socra- tes, Buddha and Shakespeare confirm it; while the presence of the Nazarene and those that surrounded 138 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Him clinch it forever. Every awakened soul knows it within itself; while every man that can read the signs of the ages sees it in letters of gold across the whole face of history : There is a God. Now and then some man seems to forget this great central truth. He acts as though he believed force and gold could do all things. He flies in the face of conscience, he trusts in his own strength, he places his selfish ends above all else. Sometimes he may seem to thrive; but in the end he meets a force that he does not understand; he stands face to face with a something he cannot buy, or bully, or cajole. He becomes a victim of the imponderable and invisible spirit of righteousness that he has de- nied ; truth is avenged upon him ; and his name be- comes a term of reproach among men. No life is made glorious except by the good it contains, the work for others, the truth it manifests, the greatness of soul it reveals. We love Lincoln because he loved mankind. We love Washington because he was not self-seeking, because he was too true to his country to be its king, because in the darkest hours he sought God's way in prayer. We love all those through the ages who were conscious instruments in the hands of the Divine and sought to better their race. It is the man who seeks to rise above others, not that he may help them, but that he may gratify his own vanity, whom the world comes to execrate. The man who would trample on his fellows to attain power, who would debauch a state to gain position, who would follow his own selfish desire in the face of God and man, he is the one who at last meets THE MODERN PALESTINE 139 the divinity in human nature and goes down before it. He does not come as a shepherd to the sheep, but as a wolf to prey upon them. He seeks not to uplift the people, but only to exalt himself. He is of the rule and ruin order, but at the last he is the only one ruined. In the long run, we reap as we sow. Some time, somewhere, the deed we do comes back to us. If we fall, it is because we have digged the pit beneath our own feet. Our plotting against others reacts upon our own heads. There is no shrewdness, no scheming,, no power of gold, that will save us from our own misdeeds. The law is ever operative. It is as inevitable as death. It is as exact as the move- ment of the planets. Sneer at honor, if you will ; belittle virtue ; libel your race by saying that money rules the world; doubt everybody; be cynical and selfish and hard; deny all that is good and pure and innocent; shut out God; boast of your own superiority; be proud in your fancied strength; repudiate all disinterested sentiments; do all this, and you will find that you have simply shut out from yourself all that is best and sweetest in life. Hell means a place that is walled off, that is separate. You will find simply that you have walled yourself off in a little hell of your own. It is hard to conceive a punishment greater than to have no faith in your kind. People raised in coal mines have been known to deny the existence of the sun. People who have lived in the caves of their own doubt and materialism have been known to deny the spiritual sunlight of God. There is more in the world than the things that appear, more than the senses report, more than the 140 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL objective manifestation that in the long aeons of God passes like the shadow of a cloud. There is more than can be weighed and measured, bought and sold. Honor yet lives, conscience yet is the divine voice, faith, love and truth are yet precious, character is yet a pearl of great price, there are yet living seven thousand and seventy times seven thousand who have not bent the knee to Baal. God is all in all. Justice and judgment shall abide forever. Forms change, but the spirit behind them works on. God's purpose is the same to-day it was in the days of the prophets. Age by age He unfolds His plan. Who that has eyes to see can fail to behold in the marvelous rise of our own land, in our continued victories, in our struggles for liberty, in the prosperity that has blest us and in our domi- nant position in the world, the mercies and loving kindness of the Father? Things do not happen by accident. In the divine economy there is no such thing as chance. We doubt so much, we so deny our own souls, we are so cynical and selfish that we fail to see what a little child should understand. There is no miracle in any age of the past that is more fraught with the divine than the continuous miracle of American his- tory. If we could but awaken in spirit, if we could but look at things as they are beneath the mere ap- pearance, we would be filled with wonder and de- light to see how all things are working together for good in the ushering in of the better era. Why not cease doubting? Negation is hell. We deny ourselves, deny what is for us, erect a barrier that shuts out all the best of life. Why not have THE MODERN PALESTINE I4I faith? Why not admit the sunlight and the happi- ness that is ours for the asking? God is in His world and with His people. We are not cut off, except as we cut ourselves off. Infinite blessing is ours if we but receive it. Open your soul and open your eyes. Then you may perceive that all things are moving toward better. This is true both of individuals and of the nation. Never was there an age so packed with blessing as this. But in our blindness we turn from the Source of it all. We are so taken up with the Tiiere incidents, with the mere appearance of things, that we lose sight altogether of the reality behind the mask. There is nothing the matter with the sects except that they follow man-made opinions and exclude each other. They divide and rend the garment of Christ when they should be united and whole. But the Spirit of Truth is working and all at last must see. The day of faction and of division is passing. We should be a united people for God and for the lib- erty that comes with the consciousness of Him. The voice of the Spirit speaks ever to the souls of men. But most of us are so external we hear it not. Blessed is he who knows the voice and heeds the call. Doubt shall flee far from him and the trivialities that annoy will lose their hold upon him. He will be filled with the spirit of love, and his work will be a joy. He will be serene in soul and seeming misfortunes will not affright or dishearten him. He will have no desire other than what is for the good of all ; and he will be happy to merge himself in the larger being. This is the losing of self in the national, the racial and the divine life. And only in thus sinking our personalities do we come into our real individualities. 142 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL We can only truly gain heaven by taking every- body with us. There is no such thing as selfish salvation. We must broaden out. We shut our- selves up too much in sects and parties. A whole nation is none too big for us, a whole humanity, a whole life in God. Co-operation and unity consti- tute the movement and trend of to-day. Get in touch with the spirit of the age, which makes for the larger consciousness, the wider selfhood. It is in this sense that the national life grows beautiful. This land has a divine mission of lead- ing the world onward to God's kingdom on earth. Here are to be the prophets, the truth-tellers, the leaders, for the New Time. Here is to be over- thrown the Baal-worship of the dollar and to be en- throned that of the true God, the spirit of Universal Love. Here the Son of Man, the God-filled Hu- manity, is to come in all His glory. All the history of the ages trend toward this land. All the heritage of the past is laid in her lap. All the races come to her shores. All the hopes of the world focus here. All the dreams of liberty are here realized, and yet more largely to be realized. The gates of the old Palestine are closed ; but the doors of the Modern Palestine are open, that through them the King of Glory may enter in. THE GREAT SOULS Every crisis has produced a man equal to its need. The prayer of the race for a leader has always been answered. The Aryan migration had its Odin. The Jewish exodus brought forth its Moses. Thermopylae pro- duced its Leonidas. When the cry of Rome was for some one to withstand Hannibal, there came a Scipio. When the Pharisaism of the Jewish church and the materialism of the world called for a re- generation, God gave mankind a Jesus. When, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the corruption and despotism of the Christian church called for reform, there was a Luther. When the profligacy of the English monarchy grew unbearable, there was a Cromwell. When the fortunes of France were at the lowest ebb, there was a Joan of Arc. When an antidote was needed after the debauch of the French Revolution, there was a Napoleon. When the American colonies would throw off their bond- age, there was a Washington. When Italy aspired for union and freedom, there was a Garibaldi. When Germany was ready for amalgamation, there was a Bismarck. When a nation was to be saved and a race emancipated, there was a Lincoln. Scattered all down the ages are the prophets and truth-tellers, who dared combat the lies of power and to turn the thoughts of men to God. When the Grecian deities were crumbling, there were a Socra- tes and a Plato to tell of better and more spiritual things. When paganism was waning, there was a 144 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Paul to carry the glad tidings of a new faith. When the Renaissance came, and with it the demand for a deeper learning, there were a Bruno and Galileo to lay the groundwork of a later science. When it was time for supplanting the old Norse mythology, there was an Olaf to hold aloft the banner of the White Christ. When the world needed a more spiritual interpretation of the gospels, there was a Swedenborg. When the serfs of Russia aspire to a higher freedom, there is a Tolstoi. There is nothing more ennobling than hero wor- ship, so long as we adore the principle rather than the personality; for it is through the great, inspired souls that God most reveals Himself. How poverty- stricken we would be without a Shakespeare, a Goethe, an Emerson, or a Whitman! What a new and luminous view of Nature we would miss with- out a Darwin or a Spencer! How much of beauty would have been left out of the world without a Michael Angelo, a Raphael, a Beethoven, or a Wagner ! These exalted spirits, that rise into the Universal, refresh the world by telling it of immortal springs. They reveal the leternal immanence of the Over- Soul, from which come all life and glory and love. They lift us out of our pettiness and filth, our nar- row creeds and outworn customs. They give us a glimpse of broader prospects, of higher duties, of deeper sympathies, of nobler destinies. They fur- nish us, as it were, a fleeting view of the sunlight falling upon the hills of a better world. If the supply of these illuminated souls is gauged by the demand, then the world should soon be filled with such a galaxy of prophets, poets, teachers and leaders as no single age has known. Never was THE GREAT SOULS 145 •the call so widespread or insistent. Never was the need greater. Never was there such a longing for the light, such a thirsting for the truth, such a hungering for the bread of life. Never was there the appearance of such a crucial age ahead. Never, since the song of the angels over Bethlehem, was there such a prayer for the Christ-principle in human hearts. The Infinite Spirit of Love will not let these de- mands go unsatisfied, these prayers go unanswered. He has responded in every age heretofore. And now, as the need is greater, the answer will be more abundant. The materialism, greed and social in- justice in the world are so deeply rooted that it will take a violent upheaval to overthrow them; and in such times it requires spirits that can ride the storm and calm the waves. The whole world is slowly awakening to the new light. The voices of protest and prophecy, a few years ago so few and far between, are now swelling into a chorus. The practical religion and restless civilization of the Occident are stirring the Orient into new life, and in return the Ancient Wisdom of the Orient is flooding the Occident like a sunrise. God does not make mistakes. To Him Time is not. Empires and races may vanish. He only keeps in view the larger purpose. What seem to us great revolutions and catastrophes are to Him but incidents in the working out of the Cosmical Plan. He sees always the goal — His kingdom on the earth. But it is a part of the law that man himself must attain this kingdom. God, the All-Father, starts His children out in the Universe for themselves. He differentiates them into individuals. He gives them freedom that thereby they may learn self-reliance; I46 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL that they may wrestle with the forces and attain strength ; that they may gather experience and grow to the uttermost. But, starting them thus to make their own way, He gives them some little reminis- cence, a spiritual remembrance of home. It is only a faint gleam, but it is enough that if they follow it, they can work back, work back, work back through the aeons to Him. This is their ultimate goal — to know themselves and again to come into harmony with the All-Loving Father. But while they are free, He does not leave them unaided. He gives them the lights of revelations to illuminate their shadowed paths. He sends them a Christ to point the way. He speaks to them through seers and sages. He inspires great leaders to direct them over the rougher places. He puts melody into the hearts of the poets, that the journey may be cheered by song. And He ever works in the souls of all that are ready to listen, encouraging, soothing and stirring them to nobler aspirations and brighter hopes. The God-led leaders ! The great-souled masters ! Through them we worship the Infinite Source of Power and Wisdom. For they are, at the moment, the instruments through which He speaks unto the race. HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU Men search through all the external world for happiness, and miss it because its source and home are within themselves. They look everywhere for peace, and do not find it because their own souls and bodies are at war. They seek in conditions about them for liberty, but do not discover it, for the reason that the inner truth alone can make them free. They grope through all the world of matter for God, not knowing that if they will but look they can perceive Him in the temples of their own souls. The Father is not afar. He stands in the inner court of your spirit; and if you will but open the outer chambers of your life to Him He will flood your whole being, even to the most external shell of it, with light, love, wisdom, health and peace. Religion is not a form, a ceremony, a creed or the worship of an external image, but it is the pure mind, the loving heart and the union of your own spirit with that of God. There is no mystery about it, no far-fetched in- terpretations, no cant or flummery, Pharisaism or pretense; but it is simply a divine inflowing of the life ineffable that thrills and warms you like nothing on earth. But when thou prayest go not as the formalists do, who love to be heard of men, but withdraw into the secret chamber of thine own soul, and the Father who dwelleth in that secret chamber will hear thee and will reward thee openly. 148 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL The kingdom of heaven is not a place, with time and space relations. It is a state of the soul, and you can enter into it to-day. You need not wait for death. Paradise is within you. But, like the prodigal son, you have wandered far from it, out into the external, to feed on the husks of life with the swine, in the wallows of matter. Return in- ward, where the Father waits you, and claim your inheritance. The Christ is not a distant dream. He was not killed. He is living. He is with you. He went ahead to show you the way. He is one with the Father. Follow Him inward and upward and He will lift you to the same sweet plane of conscious- ness. These truths are so simple and so plain that it is hard to comprehend why all men cannot see; and they could, did they not live wholly in the material, with their thoughts centered on greed, sensuality and selfish distinction over their neighbors. For a truth, they feed with the swine on the husks of life. Religion is about to take a step upward — the greatest step since Jesus of Nazareth — the revelation of God in the individual soul. What are material treasures after all? What does it matter whether you have much or little of them? The real treasures are yours, and they are free. The others bring strife and contention. These give peace. The others pass away in a day. These are eternal. The others are but shadows. These are substance. The others are outside of you and never can become part of you. These are within. They flow from all the universe through you. If you but claim them, they become you yourself. The HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU 149 more you draw into oneness with them, the more their glory grows on you. Like a light, God's life flows into you; it leads ever up through the infinite distance ; if your heart opens to it, as a magnet it draws you; and as you rise there comes to you a higher happiness, a fuller truth, a diviner peace day by day. "Yes," you say, "all this sounds well. But how am I to know ?" By simply opening your soul, with a prayer to the Father that dwells therein. The way to know that a certain realm exists is to go into that realm. It matters not how much other people may tell you. You still doubt until you see for yourself. If someone were to describe a beautiful tropical isle, a veritable material Paradise, you would say, if you had the time and means, I will go and find it. I will enjoy its beautiful scenery, its fruits and flowers, its soft skies and verdure, the songs of its birds, the shining of its fountains, its green fields and forests, its perfumed airs and eternal summers, for myself. But someone tells you of the kingdom of heaven. In some way you have gained the vague idea that you must wait until death before you reach it. That is not true. You can go to it now. It will cost you neither time nor money. It is not a ma- terial Paradise. But as you more and more per- ceive its beauty, all things material will fade into dust and ashes as compared to it. How will you reach it? Here is a chart of the journey: From the station of a pure heart, on the train of prayer, through the valley of Silence, speed on into the far interior of a country called Consciousness. You will pass out of a sub-realm known as Material 150 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL into another termed Soul. At last you will reach a temple known as the Spirit. Herein is the king- dom of Heaven. The outward eye has not seen, the outward ear has not heard, the outward sense has not perceived aught of its glories. These belong only to the intuition of the inner man and cannot be told in the language of physical speech. Be it enough to say that Love, Light and Truth flow into this kingdom forever. Men have searched through the world for Eldo- rado and the Fountain of Eternal Youth. Their souls had intimated to them that there were such a realm and such a fountain; but they knew not where to look. Through long and weary years they explored distant lands and lost life in searching for its immortal source. They made the mistake of looking in the external for what is only found in the internal. They went afar # off for what was at their very doorstep. Eldorado is the land of the Soul. The Fountain of Eternal Youth sends aloft its singing and shining waters in the inner court of the Temple of the Spirit. They are not in the material at all. They are within you. We have searched through Nature for know- ledge, while neglecting the highest of all know- ledge, which is at our very hand. We have looked through material forms and cere- monies for religion and have missed the highest religion which our souls would have revealed to us. Have we read the Master to so little purpose as not to see that all His utterances simply pile precept upon precept and symbol upon symbol, each one stating in a different way this precious truth? Man in little is the microcosm of the All. He is an image of the Universal. He is a mirror of the HEAVEN IS WITHIN YOU 151 Over-Soul. He is related to all things, contains all potentiality within him. God is immanent with him, not merely at times, but always, an ever-active Cause. Even the pagan Greeks apprehended this truth when they said : "Know thyself." Wouldst perceive heaven, O man? Clear thy mind of all impurities. Take all hatred and self- seeking from thy heart. Go into the silence of thy own soul. Then in faith and love and prayer seek the Father. Accustom thyself to know that thou art spirit and not flesh, and if thou art ready to leave the husks and the swine of material greed the Father who dwelleth in spirit will show thee thine inheritance, for behold the kingdom of heaven is within thee. IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD IN pure being there is no shadow, there is no dis- cord, there is no limitation, there is nothing but overwhelming tides of light, of love, of faith, of truth and of things universal. The soul has no sense of space and time, of personality, of particular manifestations; it only has the realization of con- sciousness extending from the amoeba to the arch- angel, it only basks in a golden sunlight that is all- pervading, it only has the awareness of the infinite, it only floats out and out and out on the tides of the spirit, utterly content to be and to worship. Music is the only language to express things like these. If every sentence were a song, then it were worth while to speak. But words express concep- tions of objects or actions, and what place have such where there is only pure and infinite light? God is like a sea of love, of faith, of truth, a consciousness that is universal and an objective manifestation that is infinite in its variety. How express the inexpressible? It is as though one had walked with an angel and were trying to tell of it in language to be comprehended at the corner grocery. I signal to you across the silence, but my signal can mean little of the song in my heart. Truth cannot be measured in the few guttural sounds of the Fiji islanders, and our word-vessels are but little larger. Before the sweetest and deep- est things of life our lips fall silent. At best we have but a few symbols and signs into which to translate infinity. IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 153 Did you ever gaze upon a sunset where the gold- tipped clouds seemed a stairway leading away into another world? Did you ever hear a robin's song in the early dawn, whose notes floating through the dewy leaves about your window were so sweet that you almost broke your heart in trying to perceive the shades of their meaning that just escaped you? Did you ever touch another soul till you entered into its consciousness and lived its life? Did you ever make yourself a part of the trees, of the flowers, and of elemental things ? Did you ever gaze upon a far mountain range until you became merely an impersonal vision, living in the thing you contem- plated ? If so, you have some faint analogy of that which the soul perceives when it awakens in the consciousness of God. Before that can be, every shred of self must be purged away. There must be not the faintest shadow of misunderstanding or resentment between any soul and your own. You must seek in the purest motive of truth and love. You must abide in the single purpose of helping your fellow men.- You must become as a little child, with the innocence and faith of the child-heart. You must surrender utterly, lay down your life on the altar of un- questioning love, and with a pure prayer for light await the quickening touch of the Spirit of Truth. These are but disjointed exclamations, little cries of delight at some newly-revealed beauty, inarticu- late attempts to utter the unutterable. If they con- vey some faint hint, however, of the joy that gave them birth they will not be wholly in vain. It is not necessary to die a physical death in order to come into the consciousness of God. It is only 154 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL necessary to die to self. It is only necessary to bring the body into perfect harmony with the soul, and both into concord with universal love. The highest object of living in the physical is the attainment of heaven on earth. You are as much an immortal soul now as you will ever be. Then why wait till after death to climb the delectable mountains ? Enoch walked with God; Gautama saw veil after veil removed until he gazed upon the very heart of things; Jesus lived in perfect identity with the Father; Paul saw himself hid with Christ in God; Swedenborg talked with angels and beheld the spiritual sunlight falling upon the hills beyond. This earth has been glorified by the feet of those who brought heaven with them. Why should we shut ourselves out from the kingdom? We are not di- vided from them except in our consciousness. We are as dear to the universal love as any. No thing that any human soul has known is withheld from us. God is not farther from us than He was from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We can be conscious of Him as they were conscious of Him. He never withdraws Himself from His children. It is we who put up barriers, not He. He is as near as our souls are near. Why should we not be aware of Him ? He will be to us as much as we will let Him be. In the inner temples of our own spirit He abides. Why not feel Him, why not know Him now ? In the attitude of love to all that is, we may come into His presence. Love is not gush, or mere senti- ment. It is a yearning toward, a kindliness, an ap- preciation, an understanding. It looks on all beings as its own. It is the universal creative agency. It is God Himself. IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF GOD 155 To him who comes into the consciousness of God narrowness is impossible. Wherever men are, there he is. No life is excluded from him. He sees truth in all things, truth in all religions. He is a citizen of the world, and through love for his family and his country expresses love for all mankind. All life to him is holy, whether expressed in the Christ or the worm at his feet. He is so full of the Father he has no room for hate. He knows not only that his own soul is immortal, but that all things are im- mortal ; that there is nothing but immortality in the universe. He knows that manifestations come and go, but that the thing manifested- is eternal. Being in the consciousness of God he is in the conscious- ness of all things ; for the whole cannot do less than include every part. All truth is axiomatic and is capable of simple statement. It is so clear that most look through it and see nothing. It is so apparent that all accept it on the mere statement. Yet it is infinite and only as much comes to you as you are capable of taking. While you think you see it all, others may see depth after depth beyond the limits of your vision. All the universe is made up of correspondences and you may but see the correspondences on one plane. Grow not spiritually vain over one glimpse, for there are worlds upon w r orlds undiscovered. Be pure in heart, cleansed from all taint of un- worthy motive; abide in faith, love and truth; be child-like in spirit; be sweet in your attitude, with- out guile and without condemnation ; yearn ever for the larger light; and sometime, like a revelation from on high, you will come into the consciousness of God. SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST Many are deterred from seeking religion be- cause there are hypocrites who profess it. Would these same people cease trying to make money because there are counterfeit coins in circulation? A thing must never be condemned be- cause it has imitations. Rather are these uninten- tional testimonials to its worth. For, were it with- out merit, no one. would care to imitate it. The fact that there are wolves in sheep's clothing is no reflection on the sheep. That there are imi- tation diamonds does not detract from the value of the genuine stone. That anyone assumes a virtue which he does not possess is an unconscious tribute to that virtue. Neither can there be any imitation where there is not a genuine article to be imitated. For there would be no model. Nor would there be any in- centive. Men only counterfeit those things which people esteem. The genuine always precedes the spurious. So the existence of the spurious always proves that somewhere is the genuine. The fact that there are imitation religionists is very sincere flattery to the true religionists. That there are hypocrites is all the more reason everyone else should seek to be really good. All is not false. There is truth somewhere. The only thing for us is to find that truth. There is one rock of safety. That is God. Not what anybody says of God, but the supreme good- ness and love that in your own soul you feel to be. SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST 157 This can be trusted. All else may fail. This abides. Go to this Perfect and you can be deceived no longer. You feel this to be true because your soul knows it. All falsehood vanishes away from this Presence, as the mist and darkness vanish away from the sunlight. Kneel to the Father. Commune with Him in soul. And you will rest in faith, love and truth. After all, much of the hypocrisy we think we see in others comes only from our own misunderstand- ing of them. We are never qualified to judge an- other until we can put ourselves in his place, see through his eyes and feel with his consciousness. After that, we shall not desire to judge him. Our main concern is to get right ourselves. Then we shall be surprised to see how nearly everyone else is right. If you want to realize how beautiful the world is, get beautiful in your own spirit. It is truly marvelous what a transformation it works. Try it. A pessimist always advertises his own interior condition. He projects his inharmonies outward and imagines the whole universe a discord. The world can only be as fair, or as good, or as true to us as we permit it to be. If our mental glasses are colored yellow, we are apt to imagine more or less of a yellow streak in everyone else. If we scowl at folks, they are pretty apt to scowl at us, or cease looking at us at all. Whatever our attitude toward the universe, in the very nature of the case, will be the attitude of the universe toward us. If we are true ourselves, we shall have little trouble in finding the true in others. So when we get an idea that everyone else is something of a 158 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL hypocrite, it. is time to take a little of the hypocrisy out of our own hearts. It is. Try it. Then ob- serve how much more genuine other folks seem after the operation. Seek for truth, yearning for it as a man in the desert yearns for the cooling springs at which he drank in his boyhood. Not only seek for it, but be it in your own life. Then you will not be deceived ; and then the false side of others will not appear to you. Religion, rightly understood, is the love of the genuine. The devil has been called the father of lies, these masks and seemings of things with which men delude themselves. Live the thing for which you pray. Is it success you desire? Live success, think success, will suc- cess, be success. Would you have love? Be loving. Do you long for rest? Be tranquil, reposeful and poised. Thus you can rest in action. Do you lack faith? Believe in everything about you, in your fellows, in yourself, in all that is. Your belief, if you truly believe, will not be disappointed. Do you yearn for God? Be Godlike. Have compassion unto all things. Be pure in thought. Help and in- spire all you touch. Cast out evil from your heart, not only the deed, but the concept that there is such a thing as evil. Be master of your own body, your own environment, your own thought, your own feelings, your own life. Do you say you cannot? O, but you can. Remember what is promised to him that overcometh. He becomes master. Nothing longer has power over him for hurt. Then he can know God. The highest is for you. Be content with nothing less. You make your own world, your own heaven, SEEK ONLY THE HIGHEST 159 your own hell. Nothing is in your way but your- self. You are absolutely free. The delusion that you are in bondage in any way is the very father of lies. You are free, free in God, free to come into the very perfection of your own nature. Know yourself. Look into the depths of your own soul. Come into your heritage. Claim your birthright. You are divinely here, with the uni- versal love enfolding you. Why should you be willing to stop short of the very last round of the ladder? But the last round of the ladder is the consciousness of God, the fullness of life, the knowl- edge of immortality, the sense of infinite freedom, the mastery of self — and he who has mastered self has mastered all things. Do not be mean in your aspirations. There is no goal too far for you to reach. Point your footsteps up the shining way. GOING HOME Sometimes we grow tired of feeding on the husks of life. We have tried them all, and find them unsatisfying. We have followed the phantom of riches until we have learned that it has nothing of the finer and higher to give us. We have sounded the heights and depths of fame, until we have dis- covered it is but food for egotism. We have tasted the fruits of pleasure, only to have them pall. Still there was an inner yearning unsatisfied, a great soul hunger unfilled. And in the stillness, after the roar of trade, the carousals and the plaudits, died away, we have wondered if there were not something more worth while. Are not these but transient things that pass away? Are they not husks rather than food for the real self? Have we not wandered away? Is there not some reminiscence in the soul, that "comes from a far, dim childhood, where we knew a home of peace and a loving father? And somehow, as we think of it, there grows upon us a longing for its rest. We have been as the prodigal son, and have spent our soul substance in riotous living. When we were allured by the glitter and enchantment of the world, we have forgotten. But now that we have seen the tinsel of it all, now that we have sounded its shallows, now that we have seen its vice unmasked and hideous, now that we know its apples of selfishness contain but ashes, now our thoughts return to the immortal fields, the living brooks, the spiritual sunshine, the content- ment and loving kindness we knew about the Home GOING HOME from which we have wandered. The very thought of it touches us with an ineffable calm. A foun- tain of joy springs within us. The hardness of the world passes, and we are again as a little child. We are humble in spirit, and are ready to take even the most menial place, just so we can be in the blessed atmosphere once more. We are no longer worthy to be considered a son, but we want to be at Home. So from the very soul of our soul we cry, "I will arise and go to my Father/' And think you not, in the ineffable Love, is room for us there? Know you not the joy over the one that is found? The great Father-Heart has been with us in all our wanderings. The arms are open, the place in the Home is waiting. There is a great feast of the food of Life waiting for us. There we can eat and be filled. But do not think we must die to go Home. That has been the mistake of all the ages. We are as much a spirit this moment as we ever shall be. We are in Eternity now. We can arise and go to our Father to-day. Not in some dim hereafter are we to gain the kingdom, but this very hour. We are souls, not bodies. We are children of God, not of the dust. We are fashioned of eternal substance, not of passing shadows. There is the Other Self within us that is the real I. How long will it be till the glorious meaning of that truth bursts upon our consciousness? The thing, that knows I am, cannot die. It is as eternal as the heavens in which it lives. Within you is there no reminiscence of this truth? Is there not something that tells you of it so that you know ? l62 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Is there not a self far within you that stirs and awakens at the call? Do you not remember how the Christ spoke of the little ones? "But in heaven their angels, which do always look on the face of my Father." What did he mean by "their angels/' unless it were their own selves, their souls ? You are not different. Get acquainted with your angel. Awaken. Know that you are immortal. Know that the thing that thinks is substance ; all else is but manifestation. And know that anything that is substance can never pass away. "I think, therefore I am." I am, therefore I ever shall be. Real being cannot die. It is a part of the eternal life of the universe. This truth of the soul life is the cornerstone of all religions. Forms come and go. Systems arise and fall. But the spirit lives on. About it, like a kaleidoscope, life revolves with its ever changing variety of manifestation. But the spirit -is ever the same. From everlasting to everlasting, it is Alpha and Omega, the beginning that never began and the ending that has no end. It is this we worship. Creeds die. Faiths are as various as the brains that conceive them. But the spirit abides. As it was when Krishna bowed before it, so it is now. It has not changed since Osiris. It is in no wise different from what it was when it shone through the life and deeds of Jesus. Men babble about their little dogmas until the great Silence swallows both. They are as children, and the infinite love and compas- sion chides them not. But their half-lights and their wranglings, their images and their rituals, their in- stitutions and their formulas, pass like the figures of a dream, while in eternal beneficence the spirit continues forever. GOING HOME 163 That spirit we call God. It is the Father to which we turn. Forms, symbols and names matter little. But to hold to this substance of Life matters everything. We wrangle about the personality of the All-in- All. What child's play! Let us leave it to our souls. They know better. He is personal to us be- cause we are personal. We must phrase Him in the terms of our own limitations. That is our rela- tion to Him, and conversely must be His relation to us. In other words, the Universe is to us what- ever our consciousness permits it to be. It is the voice of the immortal within us that calls us to return to an awareness of the spirit. That is the going back to the Father. That is leaving the husks of the outward for the food that satisfies, the bread of Life. Awaken, O soul ! Turn back to the Home from which thou hast wandered. Long enough hast thou fed with the swine. Go and claim the heritage that awaits thee. There are the eternal meadow T s, the life-giving streams. There thy Father cometh out to meet thee. Thou canst go to Him now, while yet on earth. And from His mansion, O soul — from the windows of its spiritual sight — canst thou truly see the beauty and gladness of the world. THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE IN their heart of hearts all men desire what is best. In their normal moments they wish to be in harmony with that which is true and good and right. In these times, which are really the only sane times men have, they desire to be at peace with their fellows; they want every being to prosper and would be happy to see the whole world blessed; passions are lulled, animosities lose their edge, and, in place of these, come a certain tranquility and good will. The world with its clamor is silent and the soul has a touch of divine peace. It is now we come nearest to God ; it is now we are in the blessed, receptive attitude, when our outer minds are some- what at rest and the inner has voice ; it is now that we can open our spirits for the inflow of love and light from the eternal. Each one has experienced some such interval of calm. You felt it good simply to be. You were not struggling after things. You were content to be in tune with nature and with your own soul. The self had died away and you sensed the universal. These are the really divine moments. These are the times that we are truly touching the kingdom, if we only knew. These are the times when we are in fact natural, our true and better selves. These are the times when we feel the things that make poets. The artificialities of life have gone. We have slipped off our delusions as a cloak. We are simply what we are. We come as little children. We cease cudgeling our brains about things. We simply feel THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE 165 and know and are content. We do not try to find reasons to convince us of the existence of God; everything makes us aware that God is. We grow impersonal and know in a way our kinship and oneness with the trees, the sunlight, our fellowmen and the life and spirit back of all. In the larger sense that comes to us in the groves, on the mountains or by the sea do we gain the self- less sense that is on the very threshold of worship. This is the attitude of mind in which you must be if you would know of things spiritual. This is the sweet humility, the letting go, that is necessary before you can come into the receptive state. Many things will help you in reaching it — a beautiful view, quietude, a great soul touching your own through a book, anything that gives you a glimpse or a breath of the universal, anything that takes you out of your petty self, with its worries, strifes and passions. It is not such a difficult or wonderful thing, this. We have all known it. It is so easy, so simple, so unobtrusive, we think little of it. And yet this very state of mind is the approach to the temple, the holy of holies. It is the base of the mount of vision. It is the letting go of the outward, so that we may take hold of the inward, or, rather, so that it may take hold of us. It is the stilling of the outward tumult, so that we may hear the inward harmony. Not through intellectual quibbles, fine-spun theories, excitement, sentimentality, self -righteous- ness, sanctimonious visage, forms, creeds or cere- monies do you come nearer to the Universal Spirit we call God, but rather by escaping all these things, which are but so many expressions of the self-life and rising out of the physical sense of separation l66 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL and isolation into the feeling of unity with this Uni- versal. It is only when you escape from your own bonds and gain the larger freedom that you can realize how splendid is all life and how great is your own soul. The universe will be to you whatever you will let it be. Whatever your attitude to it will be its attitude to you. It will seem dark and cruel and evil and terrible, if you make it so. Or it will hold for you an ineffable light and a song of joy, if you yourself are attuned to the key of light and joy. Nothing is evil except man makes it so. Nothing is terrible to him who sees beyond the event to the blessing behind it. An unfaltering trust, a faith that knows no turning, are the only sane and sensible mental attitudes. Any other frame of mind is an impeachment of the justice of the universe. When you doubt you imply by that very act that there is something wrong with the constitution of things. That is the most illogical thought in all the world. If there were one thing fundamentally wrong with the universe everything else would be consigned to chaos at once. It is like an arch. If one brick is out of place it all tumbles to the ground. No. The fault is in your thought, not in the world. Learn this — really learn it, not merely in your intellect, but in your consciousness — and you have solved the riddle of the Sphinx. If you would know truth you must be in the humble, the teachable, the receptive attitude of mind. "Except ye become as little children !" Lay down your prejudices and preconceived opinions. Put aside the self and be in the frame of mind to say, 'Thy will, not mine, be done." Then open the windows of your soul and let the light flow in. It THE RECEPTIVE ATTITUDE 167 will come to you as fast as you demand it and are ready to receive it. Simply have perfect faith that the God of Truth is the all-in-all and that as you come into His truth you will know. "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shal 1 find." These things were all taught by the Master. Only we are so far away from Him, both in time and thought, and we have piled up such a mass of formalism, literalism and intellectualities between us and His light, that we do not see. The thing He gave to the world is the simple, spiritual' faith, divinely natural, sweetly reasonable. But so long as we seek it in the letter and the out- ward shell, we must fail. "God is spirit" and He must be worshiped "in spirit and in truth." "The letter kills, but the spirit makes alive." We must lay down the outward, quit thrashing around and struggling with our outward minds, and perceive the truth within. "He who lays down his life for My sake shall find it." We must remember in all these quotations from the Christ that it is the Spirit within that speaks. "The Father within me, He doeth the works." That Spirit is living as much to-day as it was 1,900 years ago. It may come to you. For the Master promised that for anyone that sought Him, He and His Father would come to such and abide with him. He also promised the Com- forter, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Truth. All of His promises, in fact, were spiritual, if truly interpreted. He blessed Peter because the thing he had seen was not revealed to him by flesh and blood. "Upon this rock I found my church." Upon what rock? The rock of the Spirit, the only Rock l68 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL of Ages that endures after all other things have passed away. These things are so plain, so simple, so satisfying, that it seems all men should see them. But there is so much of the outward, the things of this world, "the deceitfulness of riches," that get into men's hearts, they no longer have the clear vision. The only way to find the truth is to desire it; honestly, earnestly, deeply desire it. If. you do desire it in this way and are willing to lay aside all pride of opinion, be assured the truth will come to you. Simply let your better self have voice and be receptive to the light. THE WAY OF LIFE Once a boy, who by fraud had taken his brother's birthright and blessing, in terror of that brother's vengeance fled away from all he loved. Oppressed by a sense of guilt, utter weariness and loneliness, at last he lay down in the wilderness with a stone for a pillow. In his sleep came a vision. He saw an infinite stairway leading up- ward. Over it poured an ineffable light, in which a few distant and fleecy vapors shone golden. On the stairway tall, sweet-faced angels in dazzling robes ascended and descended. At the far summit of this double line of the immortals appeared a figure with a sun-burst around it. From Him in words of silence a message of peace and promise flowed into the soul of the sleeper. When the youth arose the sense of desolation and weariness was gone. He felt a new strength, a new hope, a new life. His guilt slipped from him and a nobler manhood awakened within. He said, "Surely God is in this place," so he marked the spot and called it Bethel. Ages later another soul wrote a song in memory of the young man's vision. It was a simple song, with but a single thought running through it. But no song ever reached the world as did this. It has touched the heart of the mourner, cheered the soul of the despondent and given to the spirit of the be- liever a sweet assurance that was like heaven itself. It has been murmured by dying lips and has been breathed like a sigh by those who were bowed under some great disappointment or sorrow. Sometimes 170 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL it has been accompanied by the falling of tears and at others has rung out with a joy and triumph un- speakable. It has come brokenly from the lonely ones in the deserts of life and has swelled out in power from every home and church in Christendom. Many are the souls that have been wafted nearer the throne upon its waves of harmony. Inspired by the vision that came to the lonely and heart-sick boy, has come the dearest, sweetest hymn that ever fell from human lips. And as he was inspired and uplifted by his dream, so millions of others in our own time have been inspired and uplifted by the strains of "Nearer, My God, to Thee/' The way of life is a golden road that leads up- ward, ever into a fuller consciousness of God. Only those can walk in this path who see by the light of truth, are sustained by the strength of faith and are drawn by the power of love. All the weight of personal desires and of the false self must have slipped from them. They must have surrendered utterly to the will of God and laid down the lower life that they may find the higher. They must be pure of heart and as open in mind as a little child. They must thirst for the water and hunger for the bread of the Spirit. And last and greatest of all they must be filled with good will for their fellow men. The way of life leads through the Christ-con- sciousness. Through the Man of Galilee spoke the Universal Spirit. In Him was the infinite love of God to man. He was lifted up into oneness with the Divine. He was the measureless manifestation of faith, of truth, of love. He was in the Father, the Father in Him. He had come into the full consciousness of His sonship. He knew the law, He saw both THE WAY OF LIFE - 171 worlds, He was master of all the forces. Expressing through a body, he yet felt and lived purely in the spiritual. All souls are in the universal, if they but knew, if they but knew. He did know. He was that universal, including all and in all. He was the way, the truth and the life. He yet lives, is yet the universal, and is yet the way, the truth and the life. There is no personality in this. There is the Christ spirit. That is in all who will open their hearts to it. That is the presence of the Infinite Soul in the soul of man. It is so hard to say these things. However phrased, they are liable to misinterpretation. After all, words, forms, symbols are only aids. They come and go. It is the substance we need. Our expressions are faulty, but the Infinite Spirit is per- fect. It is for that we yearn. Whatever he o lps us in reaching it should be cherished. Whatever hinders us should be swept aside. We bicker and quarrel over terms and thus hold ourselves from our divine inheritance. They are not worth our breath. Many stumble at the idea of personality, when it should be perfectly plain to us that God seems personal only because we are personal. In other words, our attitude to the Infinite is reflected back to us. The universe is to us whatever we let it be. Why permit such things to shut out from us the light? It is the universal love we want, the uni- versal faith, the universal truth. It is the Christ life. That is the way. Happy is he who finds it. The Christ yet speaks to us as truly as He did to the multitudes of old. He is ever with us, if we have room for Him. This is not a distant dream, 172 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL a pleasant myth, or a preacher's phrase. It is a vital truth, as near to us as our souls are near. How are our eyes to be opened? How long will we turn away from the only thing that is really worth our while? How long will we miss the way of life? Here are the waters, the immortal -springs. He that thirsteth let him drink freely. The draught will be sweet to his soul. Here is the path up the divine heights of being. He that climbs to their summits shall look beyond to the sunrise over im- mortal fields. He that mourns shall be comforted. God shall wipe away all tears from his eyes. He shall be filled with an everlasting joy. He shall arise from his dream of age and bitterness to know that youth is eternal and happiness is for him, if he will but take it. The false fears of life will affright him no more. The desire for things that are not worth while will die away from him. Why will you doubt ? Your own soul knows the truth. Give it a chance. Cease placing barriers in the way of your own progress. They alone do things who believe. They trust in truth, in right, in good; and these are but other names for God. All things are built on faith. So let your own life be built. Far up the golden road of the spirit stands the Master beckoning. He wants you, for you are His own. Turn and look. When once you behold that supernal vision, all else will seem but poor beside it. It will not be hard then to cease doing the things you should not do, for the desire of them will die. Your heart will turn longingly to the golden road and soon your feet will be pointed up its shining THE WAY OF LIFE 173 ways. Once let that vision sink into your thought and never again can you eradicate it. It will grow upon you until the beauty of all else fades before it. Then you cannot turn away from the figure on the shining height above you. Like a magnet He will draw your soul until at last you have no desire but to follow, follow onward. All this is but a symbol. Yet if it help you to take hold of the substance of faith, truth and love, it will not have been in vain. The way of life is the shining stair of Jacob's dream. When you are desolate and alone, sick and weary and fleeing from your own misdeeds, may God visit your tired eyes with some such emblem of the immortal truth. But whether you see the vision or not, let its lesson sink into your heart as you sing that sweetest of all songs, "Nearer, My God, to Thee." THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER It is as natural for a soul to turn to God as it is for a flower to turn to the sun. In both the action is prompted by need, for it is thus they draw unto themselves life and strength. The blossom has no words. It needs none. The sunlight does not withhold its blessings because it is not asked according to set formula. So the soul requires no phrasing for its prayer. The Father knows its lack before it calls. According to its receptivity and faith is it answered. Its own want and its own attitude determine the response. It is given what- ever it can take. A flower cup half closed cannot receive as much dew as one fully opened. Do men pray nowadays ? True, there are certain public addresses delivered to the Lord at the open- ing of religious services. These are all very well, often are eloquently phrased, and occasionally find their way into the papers as high examples of de- votional rhetoric. Sometimes they are spoken in loud tones, as though God were on a journey and it required a voice of some carrying power to reach him, or were asleep and it were necessary thus to awaken him; and sometimes they are very per- suasively and cogently put, as though He needed special pleading to win Him over to the petitioner's side. More often, however, they are matters of formula, uttered by one man for an entire congre- gation, the members of which, having been duly prayed for, let it go at that, without taking the trouble to pray for themselves. This of those who THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER 175 profess religion. The ones who make no such pro- fession, it is reasonable to suppose, fail to pray even by proxy. It still remains true that prayer is the natural attitude of the soul. Artificial attitudes are some- times superimposed, however, and the spontaneous utterance of the inner self is suppressed. There has been such a progress in material things, we are so wise in our own knowledge, that we forget. The question still remains, do men pray now- adays? If not, they should be taught to pray, not so much in words as in consciousness ; not so much at stated times and places as in their constant attitude. God is. We may differ as to everything else in the universe, but whatever our religion, or even lack of religion, we come back to that basic truth. God is. Empires and systems have risen and fallen, creeds have come and gone, scientific theories have appeared and disappeared, even entire civilizations have vanished with naught but a legend to tell the story, but through all the vicissitudes, dimly or clearly, has remained the consciousness. God is. In Him are life and light for all. He withholds nothing. It is we who withhold from ourselves. When we turn to Him in perfect self-surrender, in love and trust, whatever our souls require is granted us. When we give all, we receive all. Make of the universal a fountain of health and strength. Drink there of the life-giving waters. The soul that quaffs of them shall thirst no more. Throughout its being it shall feel the divine and healing touch. Make of the universal a spring of love and joy. Take from it until there is left in you no hatred 176 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL for any creature and life grows like a song. Know that you are in the perfect love of the Father, the perfect joy of immortality. Let fear and envy de- part from you, for you have nothing of which to be afraid and no one of whom to be envious. Every- thing is for you when you are ready to receive it, and you are happy in the happiness of all. You have no condemnation in your heart for any other being. They are all yours and you would help them. Make of the universal a well of faith and truth. Draw from its crystal depths draughts of pure in- spiration. Know that he whose lips touch these waters shall doubt no more and shall see with the clear vision. He has learned that as his faith is thus is it done unto him. He has dared to trust utterly and utter security has come to him in return. He has laid hold of the things of God and time and circumstance cannot affright him more. His faith has made him whole. He has learned that if he approaches the universe in an attitude of truth nothing but truth can flow back to him. Delusion slips from him as a cloak and he is free in the free- dom, of God. Make of the universal a pillow. There rest in perfect content. No more weariness for you, no more weeping, no more heart-breaks. You know that your own must always come to you; and you desire nothing but your own. You know that separation is only in seeming, that you are united forever to all that belongs to you. You gain perfect poise, for you learn that he in the reposeful attitude alone is capable of the highest action. You no longer have any personal wish to gratify, but are content to act in harmony with the universal will. All this is prayer, conscious and confident prayer. THE ATTITUDE OF PRAYER 177 It asks for nothing but what God wills, and knows that what God wills must come. It has given every- thing unreservedly into His hands and desires to act only for the furtherance of His cause. So far as motive goes, -every shred of personal feeling has been sacrificed on His altar. The soul that has learned thus to lay down self can rest content in the universal arms. All Nature prays and the prayer is not in vain. The trees, as they lift their leaves, like hands to heaven, make supplication for the sunlight, the dew and the rain. They risk all, for without these they would perish. But their faith is perfect and their prayer is answered. In the drought their trust fails not, and in the tempest they do not complain. Go to the oaks, O weak-heart, and learn from them of devotion. The seed in the earth prays. Its prayer is for that which it needs in its growth. In answer come the moisture and the elements it requires. It pushes up through the dark soil with utter trust that air and sunlight are above. It crowds away the clod and lifts its cup in prayer for the dewdrop. When the sun arises, it turns its leaf to him, praying that his energy may infuse it. It regrets not the past and fears not the future, but with all its strength develops the life that is within it. Go to the seed, O ye of little faith, and learn to trust to the germ of God within you ; that though planted in the tomb shall rise above the clod and grow in the sunlight eternal. Teach us to pray — not as those who love to be heard of men — but in the secret places of the heart and in the innocent faith of little children. Teach us to pray for a rain of love in the famine of the 178 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL heart, as Elijah prayed for the tempest on the burnt fields of Palestine, knowing in the wisdom of the soul that if we have faith even as a grain of mustard seed, our prayer must bring its own answer. Teach us to pray for strength, for health, knowing in very truth that only our own unfaith can keep them from us. Teach us to pray, as the flowers pray for the sun, or the leaves for the dew, confident that he who calls upon the universal love can never call in vain. Teach us to pray only for the true and the good, in the full knowledge that he who gains the faith to command can only do so through losing the desire to command aught except the high and holy. Teach us that we % are in eternity now ; that we are immortal souls this hour ; that all things are divine; and that here, even here on earth, we are in the holy city of God. THE PURE IN HEART Do we not place too much stress on externals? Are we not too much concerned about the rules of convention and too little about the rules of brotherly kindness? Do we not think too much of the world's opinion of what we do rather than of our own soul's opinion? Are not our efforts too. much in the line of being respectable .rather than righteous? Are we not actuated too much by the desire for the world's applause and too little by the desire for the applause of the inner voice? It is very well to conform to the laws of appear- ance; but it is still better to conform to the laws of reality. It is well to be guided by the letter; but it is better to be impelled by the spirit. It is well to respect the rights of others because we fear them ; but is is better to respect the rights of others because we love them. We keep acting from the circumference instead of the center. We look at the symbol instead of the substance. We judge a man's dress rather than his heart. We measure him by his outward accumu- lations rather than his inward stores of love and truth. We take into consideration his circum- stances rather than his character. The Christ never said : Blessed are the respect- able, blessed are the prosperous, blessed are the self- righteous, or blessed are they that are fair in seem- ing; but blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the meek, and blessed are the pure in heart. l80 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Purity! How many have condemned in thy name that have had no conception of thy spirit! The purity of light, of a dewdrop, of a lily in bloom, or of a heart that loves truth- — these reflect the clear being of God. , In the starshine, the blue of the sky, the air that blows from the summer snow of the mountains, the bird song at the dawn, or the awakening of a soul, is beheld the quality that the Master saw in the pure in heart. Innocent, trustful, childlike, thinking no guile, seeing the beautiful and good in all things — this is the spirit, fresh and wholesome and clean, that sees God mirrored in its own pellucid depths. The purest thing in all the world is love ; for love that is not pure should be called by another name. This essence of love, that goes out in good will to all mankind, never seeks a selfish or degrading ex- pression. Rather is it told in good deeds, in kindly words, in the shining eye, the tender smile and in a charity that covers the faults of all about. Perfect love, truth and faith are the fires that refine every nature they touch. Beware of purity, so called, that ever finds flaws in others, that sees the impure or imagines it, that blackens the name of any human being. .This is the holier-than-thou attitude that brought forth al- most the only rebuke which ever fell from the Master's lips. This is not goodness, but a counter- feit. If we are really pure in heart we behold the pure in all things. We see that which we are. Whatever we hold within ourselves we find reflected hack to us from others. If we are dishonest we ascribe dishonest motives to our fellows. If we are false, we find them false. If we are unjust, we discover them THE PURE IN HEART l8l to be unjust. If we are impure, we see the impure in them. But if we are without guile, no stain of guile in them will come to cloud our vision. In the last analysis we make our own world. To him that is in the Christ consciousness there appears the Christlike touch in every man. Every soul that turns to Him has a new revelation. All inspire him. They shine in upon his vision like blossoms, each with its heart of gold and with petals that reflect the various hues of the one-light. Some of them are crushed, some stunted and dwarfed, because they have lacked the sunshine of love; but they are flowers still, that in God's own time shall grow tall and straight and beautiful, and shall blow freely and fully, giving out their aroma in the univer- sal air. Do you love the flowers ? They are the symbols of the souls of men and women. Then love the souls. Cast you no shadow on any. Blight not their growth by an unkind thought or word. Give them the sunshine of your love, the dew of your sympathy. And if you can do nothing else for them, let them alone. Do not bend and crush them awry by trying to force them to grow your way. Remember, the flower needs freedom and air. Water it, cut away the noxious weeds of circum- stance from around it, improve its environment, give it a chance, and its own God-implanted life will do the rest. To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness all things are divine. Each thing, rightly understood and rightly used, is holy. All days are sacred, all places are temples, all human beings are sons of God, and all books have some inspiration from on high. He sees the great central truths of all re- l82 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL ligions, the God-led march of events in all history. To him there is a choir in every brook, a priest in every tree, an altar on every rock and an oracle on every hill. To him each dawn is like the unfolding scroll of heaven, each day like a segment of Eternity, each eve like a benediction. He beholds in all things the One-Life. The grass that is a carpet for his feet, or a cushion for his repose; bees that hum a minor chord to his musings ; birds that sing for the pure joy of simply being; sunlight that shimmers upon the leaves; sheep in the meadows and cattle on the hills; and everywhere the signs of the labor and communion of men; in these he beholds the objective expression of the Soul of Things. He knows the immortality of all that is, lives in it con- sciously in his every moment. He beholds the uni- versality of every entity, the unity that runs through the fabric of being. To him all manifesta- tion is the symbol of spirit. The universal love burns within him like a fire. He is in the thought of the soul which is faith, and which not only be- lieves, but knows. The veil between the seen and the unseen to him is very thin; and he grasps the hands of beings in both worlds. All he touches love him, for he loves them in return. He has no personal desire except to do good and scatter happi- ness. His individual will he keeps in concord with the will universal. He does not believe in God, but knows Him, for he has walked with Him upon the heights and talked with Him in the Silence. The soul that is in the Christ consciousness goes out to all the great teachers of the past and strikes hands with them in the present. He sees the ladder up which he has risen and the ineffable light that glows over it from ahead. He knows that he has THE PURE IN HEART 183 come into his own universal, and so has become an individual expression of all that is, the micro- cosm of the macrocosm. He rejoices that this is for every other spirit and would help each to come into its own. He steps upon the mountain top of thought and the very infinitude of the view humbles him. He becomes as impersonal as truth, as democratic as light. If he could take all the children of men into the arms of his love he would, for his heart yearns over them with an ineffable tenderness. To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness all things are pure. He sees no mistakes in the handiwork of God. He beholds the relative and partial views of men as things that grow into the perfect unfoldment. He sees all truth in beautiful symbols, but behind the symbols is the ice-clear, pellucid and universal light. He sees the way of life that leads up to a throne with a sunburst around it; and in symbol* he mounts up to that very throne till, he merges into the golden clouds that fold it. To the soul that is in the Christ consciousness there is joy — joy that bubbles up like a fountain, everlasting, unspeakable. Doubt has fled from him, for he knows. Whatever may be the inci- dents of life, his joy and love and faith can never leave him. They would attend him through the prison, would stand undaunted with him on the scaffold and would shine triumphant even over the misunderstandings and hatred of men. They are a light to his steps, a strength to his sinews and a song in his heart. The soul that is in the Christ consciousness has overcome, and for him is the promise : "I will be his God and he shall be My son." WALKING IN THE LIGHT One step at a time! That is as far as we are given to see. Yet we walk in the light. What may be the fiftieth step ahead is hidden from us; but we do not have to take that fiftieth step until we reach it. The immediate step is plain. When that is taken, the next will be plain. Why torture ourselves thinking of the future ? It will be bright when we arrive. How must we go now? That is what concerns us. There is a voice within that tells us the way. So long as we follow that we shall never lose the path. Perhaps God has called us to a distant field. Old ties must be broken, ties that bind very closely upon our hearts. Old friends must be left, friends that are very dear to us. The old work that we loved must be left to others. The old associations seem reproaching us that we are deserting them. The little home, that has grown into the very fiber of our beings, we must press its threshold no more. The familiar trees and hills hold out mute hands to us. We turn to face a future we know not. We point our feet to a distance we can see not. We only know that God's impulse in the soul spurs us on. We only see that step by step is made plain. We go from the love of friends, but the love of God enfolds us. We go toward the darkness, but the light of God surrounds us. Our hearts are filled with misgivings, but the faith of God sustains us. Our eyes are blinded by tears and we falter and stumble in the path, but the hand of God upholds us. • WALKING IN THE LIGHT 185 Ours not to question, ours not to repine, ours only to walk forward in the light in the way where lies the Father's work. Walking in the light! If our souls are awake, we always must walk in the light. We were blind before that awakening, but now we see. We look up and the eternal radiance pours over us. We know that so long as we are thus illumined we cannot go far astray. The darkness recedes, as we approach it. The circle of light ever goes before our feet. Why pine to know the distant event? The present scene is enchanting. God's present blessing is over us. Why not trust Him to lead us all the way? If we abide in Him, harm cannot come nigh unto us. Whatever the event may be, in the consciousness of Him we can rise above it. If we follow where He would have us go, light and love will go with us all the days of our lives. He will make our burdens light and our way joy- ous. Rest in Him. Make of His love a pillow in the night, an inspiration in the day. He will ever give you strength for the present need. He will ever give you light for the present step. He who would have clearness of vision must have purity of life. Falsehood clouds the soul. False relations engender a mist before the eyes. We must be true, if we would see the truth. We must be pure in heart, if we would perceive God. We must follow the path, if we expect light to be given us to see the path. Only as we advance are we shown the way to farther advancement. Only by doing the present work fully and conscientiously are we given to see the larger work that lies beyond. We must only have faith, utter faith, that if we are doing God's will, He will reveal to us whither we l86 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL are to go. If we are but faithful to the trust, in ways that we wot not of, ways that are sweet with surprise, the next trust will be shown to us. Only as we go toward the light we now behold will the farther light appear. Step by step up the shining pathway of service! Walking in the light J Walk- ing in the light! Sometimes the way seems hard. At the very crucial point in the journey, doubts and uncertainty are round about us. There on the mountain alone are we tried, tried till we grow strong enough for the way that is before. Sometimes the light seems to disappear. We are promised that it will return, but so long is it withheld that we grow wild with the delay. A spirit of rebellion is in our hearts. We seem deserted at the very time we think we most need help. We do not understand. We are being tested, tried till our faith grows equal to the task we are yet to do. Then at the very hour when the way seems darkest, like a revelation comes the light. We go forward strengthened, fortified, with a trust that will not faint at the next dark angle in the road. The children of light! These are they who are born of the spirit. These are they whose souls no longer sleep within them. These are they who can say in very truth: "One thing I know: That whereas I was blind, now I see." These are they that perceiving the light follow it; and as they fol- low, more light appears. These are they that ask not to behold the distant view, but trust God to show them a step at a time. Some there are who place their dependence alone on the rushlight of the intellect. Even the rush- light is better than the darkness; but it is itself as WALKING IN THE LIGHT 187 the darkness when it fades in the presence of the spiritual sunlight. The chief trouble with the rush- lights is that every man thinks his own little glow the only one. But they who see truly by the spiritual sunlight come into unity of vision. There are many pitfalls along the path ; and they that travel without the Light — the Light with a capital L — are in danger of getting ditched before their journey is half over. We have all heard of the blind that lead the other blind into the gutter. And if we are not blind ourselves we perceive that very thing going on all about us. It hurts to look at it — almost as much as it does to tumble; but it is bound to go on until people get their eyes open. Then they will see that there is a path — straight and narrow it may be, but well defined— that leads safely past all the pitfalls. They will also see, if their feet touch this path that they may walk in the light. We can help each other. For the soul that really sees becomes radiative. He has a light of his own and can show some brother the way. Blessed is he if he hide not that light. Blessed is he if he use it not all for self. Blessed is he if he let it shine, so that it may become a beacon to souls that stumble in the dark. Blessed is he that walks in the light and brings others to walk in the light. THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL ove, faith and truth! These constitute the trin- 19 ity that, working- through the souls of men, is to give us a sweeter, saner, more divine hu- manity. Faith is more than mere intellectual assent, more than belief. It is the intuition of the soul, that per- ceives and knows. It is an internal reminiscence of home, an awareness of God, a consciousness of the All-Life. Its trust is as beautiful as that of a child who has never been deceived; and it has the added as- surance that it never can be deceived ; for the Uni- verse is utterly true. Faith cannot be deluded, if it is placed in universals and not in particulars. If there is any seeming inadequacy it is in us and not in the Soul of Things. . He who leaves his case unreservedly in the hands of the Father will never so leave it in vain. Every prayer that is sincere and unselfish and that has one scintilla of faith behind it is answered. The answer may not be all we had dreamed, but it is all that our own attitude will permit it to be. It is faith that sustains the fabric of society, that carries souls over the dark places of life, that up- holds us in the valley of shadow-. It dries the tears of those that mourn, puts hope in the hearts of the despondent and lightens the burden of those that labor and are heavy laden. The soul that trusts in the Father shall walk in the light; for every step will be shown him before it is taken. THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL 189 To him that lays down his own will utterly that he may do the universal will shall come a joy of service in every day of his life, and every day shall be a new day to him, with a beauty and a revelation of its own; and every duty shall be a happiness be- cause he works in love. Responsibility shall rest lightly upon him, for he shall cast his burdens upon the Lord. He shall not have worry over the mor- row, for he shall know that the Lord will care for His own. Since he does the universal work, he shall trust in the universal to guide and sustain him. He lives not unto himself, but for all ; that he may render service unto all; that his life may be given for God and Humanity in a perfect labor of love. The soul that does the universal work must do it in faith; he must not be disheartened if none comes to hear him ; he must not be cast down if he sees no result of his effort; he must only be certain that he is true to truth, that he is pure in heart, that he has given up self utterly for the service of the All-Life. He must only know that the seed he sows is good, and trust God for the harvest. There is a faith that knows, that knows because it is conscious. It knows the Christ because it is conscious of Him. It knows the life that is in all things because conscious of that life. It knows im- mortality because it is conscious of the immortal. It knows that it is the substance behind all mani- festation, the unseen that is bodied forth in the seen, the spirit behind the symbol, the knower back of the known and the knowing of it, the sub-conscious that awakens to life more and more from mineral to man, the force that can remove mountains, that can banish disease, that can do all things in the name of the divine. 1 90 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL He only can truly touch this faith who has touched the consciousness of the All-Life. Then his spirit is awake within him and he acts in accord with its direction. He has dropped a plummet into his own being and found God. He is aware that no life is alien to him. The desire for transgression has departed from him, for he feels that the way of life lies in being utterly true. He has come to reconcile flesh and spirit that both may dwell together in peace and righteousness. He hears God in the still small voice, and he would obey it ever, for he knows that only in perfect obedience is per- fect freedom. Faith reaches up through the darkness to grasp a hand that it knows will lead it to. the light. It weeps not over seeming separation, for it knows that there is no loss. It follows confidently the path into the midnight, for it knows that God is there as well as in the noon. It is without fear, for it realizes that there is nothing in all the universe of which to be afraid, except its own delusion. " Faith walks through the door called death with unfaltering tread, for it is conscious that the spirit is superior to all change. Faith is the thought of the soul. It does not contend. It states. It does not reach knowledge by laboring processes. It perceives. It does not rest upon authority. It is its own authority. It rises triumphant over doubt, passes by the bickering of sects as the prattle of children that do not under- stand, and rests at last with perfect content in the sense of Eternal Good. Faith is the measure of the soul-consciousness. The more a man is awake within, the more can he trust. THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL I9I The Master stated the law "As your faith is so be it unto you;" and "Thv faith hath made thee whole." Genuine faith can never do less than make whole. The thing we most need is to let go and trust God. When we give all we gain all. There is a profound meaning under the admoni- tion, "Take no thought of the morrow." It means giving up and trusting. We only do things as we have faith that we can do them. He who says, "I will," with perfect as- surance, already has his work half accomplished, for he has expressed faith. He is most self-reliant because he most relies on God. Words are all inadequate to tell of the sweetness and power of faith. At best they are but sign- boards that point the way. To him that has the quality within him they are not needed. To him that has it not, they at best can but help to awaken the soul. Truth is always positive. It is belief, not doubt, that accomplishes results. Belief is construction; doubt is destruction. It is faith that has made men great — faith in themselves, faith in their ideals, faith in their power to do things, faith in the future, faith in the race, faith in God. Hope and love are positive qualities; fear and hatred are their negatives. Hope and love make men brave and good; fear and hate cause them to be cowardly and mean. These principles run through all life. The opti- mist is positive, the pessimist negative. The man who builds is positive. The man who tears down is negative. He who wantonly destroys is the dis- ciple of negation. Aye, you say, but there have been iconoclasts who have done good. True; but 192 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL it was those who broke the images of to-day that they might erect the larger faith of to-morrow. They were constructive, just as is the man who tears down the one-story shack that he may erect in its place a skyscraper. Negation means nothingness. It is cynical. It seeks to belittle the efforts of others. It denies; and to be in keeping it must deny the good, for evil itself is negative. A negationist, if true to his creed, cannot believe in a principle or die for a cause, for these are positive things. Negation palsies all efforts, for if a man believes in nothing, why should he strive? There is no hope of the future, either as to the individual or as to society. What is the use of working when it all comes to naught? For work itself is positive. Supreme inaction is the only thing that comports with the negative theory. The atheist, the anarchist and the pessimist are all negationists. One says there is no God, another that there is no law, another that there is no good. One would tear down the churches, another would tear down the government, and another would tear down man's faith in himself. And they would offer nothing to take the place of what they destroyed. They would demolish the cosmos and leave chaos in its place. Not only chaos, but annihilation ; for that is the logical end of their doctrine. In the realm erf ethics, morality, righteousness, self-control, regard for the rights of others are all positive qualities. Im (no) morality, un (no) righteousness, un (no) control, dis (no) regard for others' rights — these are the negatives. And these lead to the end of all negation- — destruction. In a yet larger sense, spirituality is positive, ma- THE THOUGHT OF THE SOUL I93 terialism is negative. For God is the positive pole of the universe; matter the negative pole. And if we put our faith in this negative, that is the very apex of all negation. Reality is positive ; unreality negative. In the ul- timate sense, spirit is the reality, matter the un- reality of being. This is the final statement of the positive philosophy. To the man besotted in ma- terialism this may seem hard to understand. To the man who sees with the eye of the soul, the truth is at once apparent. Christ was the very embodiment of the positive idea. His faith was boundless. He believed it could remove mountains, could calm storms, could heal the sick, could raise the dead. He believed in all things that are positive — love, hope, goodness, truth, right, spirituality, God. It is all of a piece. Negation in one thing leads to negation in all. The murderer is a negationist, for he seeks to annihilate life. The criminal is a negationist, for he expresses by his deeds his dis- belief in morality. The man who will not work is a negationist, for his attitude is a denial of action. What the world needs is men who are positive, men who believe, who love, who act; men who are constructive reformers. Quit getting out with your hammers and seeking to destroy reputations, ideals, hopes, faiths ; at least, unless you intend to offer something better in their place. There is something wrong with the learning that makes men doubt. It is on the surface and does not reach into the depths of things. There is no doubt in the movements of the uni- verse, no faltering, no lack of confidence anywhere. 194 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL All is positive — motion throughout all the systems, all the world, all the atoms. Let this our prayer be : "God give me faith, even as a little child, for of such is the kingdom of heaven/ ' THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH Fear has no place in the awakened soul. It is a mist that vanishes before the rising of the spiritual sun. It is a discord that is swallowed up when the individual comes into harmony with the universal. Fear, like doubt, destruction and death, is a nega- tion; and the spirit knows no such thing. In the spiritual there is nothing but positive. There is only truth, error is unknown; there is only light, darkness never appears; there is only God, evil is utterly apart from that realm. Fear, doubt, discord, disease, our concept of death, error, wrong, all these things grow out of our false idea of self, our sense that we are separate and apart from God and all His creation. This concept is a negation in itself and as a direct result produces all these other negations. When the soul begins to awaken to its oneness with God, these evils which have grown out of a false conception of self, begin to vanish away; and the more the soul awakens, the fainter their hold upon it. Any falsehood is necessarily unreal. In other words it has no existence. But so long as we do dwell among negations, so long" they seem to us to have a real being. It is only by taking hold of realities that we become free. Where is there anything of which to be afraid? Poverty?. It cannot affect the soul. It is an ex- ternal thing and the soul rises superior to it. The greatest of the earth have been poor. Homer, 196 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL Socrates, Galileo, Luther, Burns, Shelley, Spencer and most of the world's great writers, teachers and prophets have had no material possessions. Even Jesus had not where to lay His head. Poverty is not an evil. It has been a breeding ground of genius through all the ages. There is nothing here to fear. Death? To the soul that has come into the new and wider consciousness death becomes only the ending of a manifestation. No real life is in any way affected by it. Such a soul is aware of its own immortality. It knows that nothing which has real existence can die. It is only the manifestation, the expression, the symbol, which ceases to be. The causal self, the pure being, continues through all outward changes. It no more ends with the body, which is its expression, than the mind ends with the ending of any given word, which is its expression. The soul that has come into the awareness of God's inward presence, lives in conscious immortality and has heaven within itself. To that soul death is only a change of the mode of expression, that is all. In- stead of being a thing to be feared it is rather to be welcomed as a necessary step in growth and as a coming nearer to the light, the love and the good- ness of God. So what is there to fear ? That some one will do you an injury? He can do you no real injury. He may strike at external things that for the time be- long to you. What of it? They are not a part of you and their loss takes nothing from you. A man's own self is the only being he can injure — in a real sense. Your own attitude of mind is the thing that hurts you, if any hurt comes. Others may do you wrong, but so long as you remain sweet and great THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH 197 through it all, you gain rather than lose by the at- tempted injustice. What is there to fear? Nothing but the shapes conjured up in your own imagination. Nothing but your failure to live up to your real self. No one can harm you. You are master of your own life. There is infinite progress ahead of you. It is for you to decide if you will go on to its glories. You are immortal. All things that are yours must come to you. What have you to fear ? Seek first the kingdom of God, which you will find in the awaken- ing of your soul. After you have found that king- dom all things needful will be added unto you. The discovery of this one simple truth is the pearl of great price. Men have theorized and speculated about it through all the centuries, when the thing itself was within their very reach. It does not need profundity and intellectual training to grasp it. The faith of a little child will apprehend and take hold of it as readily as the learning of the sage — in some cases more readily, for much of the sage's learning may be false learning, while the intuition of the child's soul is true. Men talk about finding God in nature, in books, in what other men have said, in systems, or insti- tutions or creeds. They cannot so find Him. The place to look for God is in the temple of your own soul. If you find Him there, then you will find Him everywhere. You will see Him. in the trees, hear Him in the birds, read Him in books, detect Him in your fellows, feel Him in all life. But you discover Him outside of yourself, because you first discover Him inside. The youth who has awakened to the miracle of love sees a more beautiful uni- verse than he had ever dreamed before. So the soul iq8 glimpses of the real that has awakened to God's love sees that love re- flected everywhere. What have you to fear? Nothing but your own sin and delusion. Nothing but your own failure to come into your divine heritage. You are your own fate, your own devil, your own undoer. Rise out of your false selfism and into harmony with the universal love and light. You will find that life is fuller of hope, of joy, of harmony, of glory and of eternal growth than you had ever dreamed. When an Adventist once approached Ralph Waldo Emerson with the cheerful information that the world would soon end, the Concord sage re- plied : "No matter. We can do very well without it." That would strike a materialist into spasms. He has an idea, or he thinks he has, that this little ball of mud and rock is all there is and that mind and soul depend on it for their being. There is not a man or woman on the earth that does not intuitively, sub-consciously know better. Men in the shock of battle are wiser, for in these crises the soul rises uppermost and laughs at death. The body and the bodily senses shrink from dissolu- tion, but the real man within has no fear. He knows that it is but another expression ended, another word spoken, another house vacated. Perhaps he even exults in the new freedom he is to gain. Those who have brought this sense-consciousness and soul-consciousness into harmony, so that they are aware of being on both planes, have no more doubt of life after death than they have of life now. They know that there is nothing but life, that all that is is immortal, that death is but an appearance, a change of form, of function, of manifestation. All things are good. Man's relation to them may THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH I99 not be good, he may not use them in the best way. If so, the fault lies with him, not with them. We have absolutely nothing to fear outside of our- selves. Fear is the falsest sentiment in the human mind. In this universe of good, there is nothing to hurt us. Everything is friendly to us if we permit it to be so. Someone else may take something that we have, place, possessions, or even reputation. Some animal may take our bodies for food. But they cannot take anything that we are. We can serenely smile at the seeming loss of to-day, know- ing that it will be exactly repaid later. Our own attitude is the only thing that can injure us. If that remains sweet, serene and triumphant through- out all that may befall us, circumstances lose their power on us and we are kings over death. We need the confident faith of Emerson, so that if one comes to us and says, "You will lose your body tonight," we can reply, "No matter. I can do very well without it." We make the mistake of regarding manifestations as real entities. They are not. They are but the expressions of entities. A particular combination is to-day, and to-morrow is not; but nothing has passed out of being; the combination merely has changed. My body is an expression, a word spoken by my soul. When the word is given utterance it ceases to be, but the speaker lives on. This truth you know within your inmost being, for there is the eternal witness. You have no need that anyone else tell you, except to remind you of knowledge you already possess, except to awaken you to the consciousness lodged in your own heart. We are in the habit of looking at things inverted. We are not bodies possessing souls, but souls pos- 200 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL sessing bodies. We should take our stand on the immortal rather than the evanescent side of -our being. You can never lose anything that you are; and if you are conscious on the soul plane you can never cease to be conscious. We must distinguish between being and having. We can only lose the things we have. The I am of us is never lost. If you are awake and conscious you will be conscious forever. Death will not even be a break to you. You will have triumphed over death and gained heaven here on earth. You are heaven in yourself, when you know. The voice of the spirit speaks to you always, if you are but listening. This is the comforter that leads you into all truth. You cannot get it by a form or a ceremony, not even by your manner of living. You can only get it by being conscious on the soul plane. This is the new birth spoken of by the Master. All the truths He enun- ciated are very simple when we come to under- stand. They are just as natural and rational as mathematics or chemistry. He did not talk at random. He talked of things concerning which he knew. There is no mystery, flubdub, or large- sounding pretense about all this, no fakery, or occult fuss and feathers. It is simply the science of the soul, the conscious awareness of real being, the awakening unto the knowledge of things that do not pass away. This awakening may come on earth. You need not wait for death. Cease being subject to death, either through fear or hope. Death has no real power over you. Come into your own now. It is for you. Open your soul to the voice of the Spirit of Truth. Thenceforth doubt will melt away from you as frost melts from the summer sun. THE TRIUMPH OVER DEATH 201 This is not mere religion. It is the real thing; and the term is not used in any flippant sense. When the soul arises above the desire for the things of the sense, the circumstances and disap- pointments of life no longer exercise dominion over it and it is ready to enter into the glorious rest of God. It can enter this rest to-day, for we are living now as much as we ever shall live. There is such a thing as faith that is knowledge, soul-knowledge. There is such a thing as con- sciously perceiving the reality behind the seeming. This is not done with the physical senses, for it is not in the physical realm. It is a spiritual insight, an inward awareness. It is the presence of God in the soul of man, irradiating all with divine per- ception. In this presence the fear of death flees as a shadow of the night flees from the face of dawn. Everything melts away except the one over- whelming love of the Father, the All of Life. Spe- cial loves are not lost but are fused in a universal kindliness. There comes a pervading sense of the oneness of being, a veritable cosmic consciousness. Truth dawns like a revelation. There is a clear vision of things, a receptive attitude of soul, a serene confidence in the right. We come to love the earth in a new way, as the symbol, the expression, the manifestation of the reality behind. We no longer unduly exalt it, or intemperately condemn it. We see its place and relation and that in such place and relation it is good. We perceive that all things are divine, in their orderly use. We cease to condemn the wrongdoer, but have compassion on him, as on the child who does not understand. And we lose fear. We perceive that there is nothing to make us afraid. Having no desire but 202 GLIMPSES OF THE REAL for the good of all, living in the perfect law of love, hatred and all negations lose their power upon us. Death no longer seems a forbidding wall, but a golden gate into a sunnier country. Other Books by J. A. Edgerton Voices of the Morning: Containing over fifty poems of the New Time. Bound in cloth, gilt back and top, 12 iTio., 121 pages. Price, 75 cents. B. O. Flower in the Coming Age: "This young poet of the Western plains seems to me to have caught the spirit of the prophet voices who have been an inspira- tion to the toilers throughout the generations of the past. * * * He has caught the spirit of our loved friend, James G. Clark, so perfectlv that it seems that the poet's mantle, as well as his broad, loving and tender spirit, had fallen on the young man who has taken up the song where the silver-haired sage left off. * * * Our poet is nothing if not genuine, and his love for the hard-working people, whose lives at best are very barren, amounts almost to a passion." Songs of the People: Containing 119 poems of Mr. Edgerton's latest and best work, handsomely bound in cloth, 12 mo., 221 pages. Price, $1.00. Wm. J. Bryan: "There is a healthy optimism and a broad humanity running through these pieces, and the sentiment is often expressed with force and eloquence. I am glad 'The Penalty' is included, for I think it is one of the best things Mr. Edgerton has written. I have reproduced it in 'The Com- moner, Condensed,' and in the introduction have made a com- plimentary reference to it." In his paper, The Commoner, Mr. Bryan also says: "Mr. Edgerton is a poet whose genius has largely been employed in the advocacy of governmental reforms. A refreshing spirit of optimism runs through his writings, and political truths are pre- sented with gracefuness as well as emphasis. While his political poems have been more widely quoted, many odes scarcely less meritorious deal with home, childhood and other subjects of uni- versal interest." Universal Chords: Now in press. Contains over seventy of the author's latest poems, nearly all in the spiritual vein. Handsomely printed and bound in white and gold. Price, $1.00. The Reed Publishing Company, - Publishers DENVER, COLORADO JAN 16 1904 'I'-ilA ' . ':,■[. mummRl 0F CONGRESS ,0 022 208 178 fi i 5 1