IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITEWithin yourself lies the cause of whatever enters
into your life. To come into the full realization
•of your own awakened interior powers, is to be
>*hle t© condition your life in exact accord with
Mfidhat you would have it.IN TUNE
WITH THE INFINITE

OR

FULLNESS OF PEACE, POWER
AND PLENTY

BY

RALPH WALDO TRINE

' Cheap Edition (4.73rd Thousand)

WITH

“A MESSAGE TO MY READERS ”

LONDON

G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
I9I9PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION

There is a golden thread that runs through every
religion in the world. There is a golden thread that
runs through the lives and the teachings of all the
prophets, seers, sages, and saviours in the world’s
history, through the lives of all men and women of
truly great and lasting power. All that they have
ever done or attained to has been done in full accord-
ance with law. What one has done, all may do.

This same golden thread must enter into the lives
of all who to-day, in this busy work-a-day world of
ours? would exchange impotence for power, weakness
and buffering for abounding health and strength, pain
and unrest for perfect peace, poverty of whatever
nature for fullness and plenty.

Each is building his own world. We both build
from within and we attract from without. Thought is
the force with which we build, for thoughts are forces.
Like builds like and like attracts like. In the degree
that thought is spiritualized does it become more
subtle and powerful in its workings. This spiritualiz-
ing is in accordance with law and is within the power
; of all.

ai'f

Everything is first worked out in the unseen before
it is manifested in the seen, in the ideal before it is
realized in the real, in the spiritual before it shows
forth in the material. The realm of the unseen is theVI

PREFACE

realm of cause. The realm of the seen is the realm of
effect. The nature of effect is always determined and
conditioned by the nature of its cause.

To point out the great facts in connection with, and
the great laws underlying the workings of the interior,
spiritual, thought forces, to point them out so simply
and so clearly that even a child can understand, is the
author’s aim. To point them out so simply and so
clearly that all can grasp them, that all can take them
and infuse them into every-day life, so as to mould it
in all its details in accordance with what they would
have it, is his purpose. That life can be thus moulded
by them is not a matter of mere speculation or theory
with him, but a matter of positive knowledge.

There is a divine sequence running throughout the
universe. Within and above and below the human
will incessantly works the Divine will. To come into
harmony with it and thereby with all the higher laws
and forces, to come then into league and to work in
conjunction with them, in order that they can work in
league and in conjunction with us, is to come into the
chain of this wonderful sequence. This is the secret
of all success. This is to come into the possession of
unknown riches, into the realization of undreamed-of

p0WerS’	R.W.T.CONTENTS

PAGE.

A Message to My Readers, .	.	.	ix

L Prelude, ........	i

IX. The Supreme Fact of the Universe, *	3

HI. The Supreme Fact of Human Life, .	8

IV.	Fullness of Life—Bodily Health and

Vigor, .	.	.	.	,	.	.	35

V.	The Secret, Power, and Effects of Love,	83.

VI.	Wisdom and Interior Illumination, .	101

VII.	The Realization of Perfect Peace, .	13®

VIII.	Coming into F'ullnkss ok Power, .	.	14&

XX. Plenty of all Things—The Lav/ of

Prosperity, .	.	.	.	.	.174

X- Plow Men have become Prophets, Seers,

Sages, and Saviours,	.	.	.	.	192

XL The Basic Principle of all Religions—,

The Universal Religion, .	«	.	201

XII. Entering now into the Realization of

tub Highest Riches,	.	.	.	^	.	21®A MESSAGE TO MY READERS.

Never before in the world’s history, perhaps,
has there been so great and so universal a
longing on the part of all people to know,
in some way, that underneath are the Ever-
lasting Arms. This is true of Protestants,
of Catholics, of Greek Church adherents—of
all, whatever their Church connection may
be, as well as of those who have not found
it necessary or expedient to ally themselves
with any religious body or Church organiza-
tion.

That there is an inspiration and a powrer
—an effective moulding and working force—
in the Christianism of the Christ, greater
than has been even suspected on the part of
organized Christianity, has been the surmise
of big and forward-looking men for a con-
siderable time. We have now reached the
time when this fact is becoming the priceless%

A MESSAGE

possession of rapidly increasing numbers oi
men and women everywhere.

Even our Churches are now finding thiat
they have done wrong, shamefully wrong,
in giving so much time and attention to the
theories of early groups of men about the
Christ, in distinction from and to the detri-
ment of those simple but those wonderful
life-unfolding and life-ennobling revelations
and teaching of the Christ. We are now.
although tardily, learning that He, whose
great mission it Was to reveal God to man
and thereby reveal man to himself, and
through this his right and mutually advan-
tageous relations with his fellow-men,—that
He perceived and revealed and taught pre-
eminently a life} a life that it is intended by
the eternal laws of God',.that we shall live.

A marvellously advancing science has
given us a continually greater knowledge of
the laws through which God has worked, is
working, and will work, and thereby a con-
tinually greater knowledge of the finer laws
and forces in the universe about us, as well
as those at work in our own lives. This
has exerted a powerful influence in making
science, psychology and religion more con-TO MY READERS	xi

Crete, and in drawing them ever more fully
into one harmonious whole.

In the degree that religion, and especially
organized Christianity, becomes awake to
the great present-day needs and crises in
men’s and women’s lives, and in the
lives of their respective nations, in that
degree will it push more rapidly away from
the things of the past to the more vital issues
and needs of this day—a new day. There
are many evidences that the Church is see-
ing this and is making amends, amends to
itself and to its peoples; and last, but not
least, it will now be drawing into its fold
thousands and hundreds of thousands of
dear-thinking, forward-looking, and God-
aspiring men and women whom, failing to
do this, it could never hope to interest, to
inspire or to draw.

Increasing numbers of men and women
are walking these common daily walks of
life among us with a ftrmertread, with up-
turned faces written ovgr with a deeper trust,
with a^ kindlier eye and a warmer beat of the
heart, realizing, as never before, Ih&tiiwfee
realm of the unseen are the forces, the issues
and the life that abides forever.rii	A MESSAGE

Those who are awake to the great spiritual
verities of life are realizing that everything
which comes into their lives has its pur-
pose, its part toplay, its mission to fi 11, its
good to impart. Conscious, as was taught
by the Christ, of the essential oneness of
their lives with the Divine, they realize that
in God’s life there isonlygood,and that in
His life they are now living, and there they
shall live forever. They realize that even
the transition we call death is but a part of
life, the life of the spirit, perchance a most
beneficent part, something not to be shunned
or dreaded or feared, but to be welcomed
with a glad and ready smile when it comes
in its own good way and time. Of deep
significance to them is the fact that in the
Father’s house are many mansions.

At the present time, when we see the
greater part of the civilised world engaged
in a death struggle on the material plane,
we all need especially to cling firmly in faith
to the deeper truths of life as far as we are
able to grasp them. As a nation is com-
posed of individuals, so the undercurrent of
impulses and motives, which are actuating
the nations and causing the great upheavalTO MY READERS

xiil

now before us, are not different in nature
but only in degree from those which have
actuated the individuals who compose
those nations. AH are responsible, not in
one country but in all, for the present condi-
tions in the degree in which they have heen
Jiving the material life only, and overlooking
the spiritual	Such a

cataclysm, however appalling it may appear
to us, was no doubt necessary to purify the
lives of nations and individuals, and we may
j(K)kiiopefullyto.a,greaterspidtualawaken-
jpg when the war shall be ended. In the
meantime, as it is the bought jwqxM* which
ultirnately rules the visible world, we can
all in ou r degrees help the cause of progress

the ..highest ..we know and sending forth
peace

those who are engaged in the material

struggle.

In prefacing this new popular edition of
this little work with the above words, the
Author wishes to utilise the opportunity
to express his appreciation of the fact
at the volume has been so favourably
eived, not only in Great Britain and theXIV

A MESSAGE

Colonies, but throughout the world. He
desiresalso to thank numerous sympathisers
who have so generously written him of their
appreciation, to many of whose letters, from
the very nature of the case, he has been
unable personally to reply.

.' K. W, T, '

8«mine? loi*.FULLNESS OF

PEACE POWER, AND PLENTY.

PRELUDE.

The optimist is right. The pessimist is
right. The one differs from the other as
the light from the dark. Yet both are
right. ' Each is right from his own par-
ticular point jf view, and this point of view
is the determining factor in the life of each,
it determines as to whether it is a life of
power or of impotence, of peace or of pain,
of success or of failure.

The optimist has the power of seeing
things in their entirety and in their right
relations. The pessimist looks from a
limited and a one-sided point of view.
The one has his understanding illumined
by wisdom, the understanding of the other
is darkened by ignorance. Each is build-
ing his world from within, and the result
of the building is determined by the point
of view of each. The optimist, by his
superior wisdom and insight, is making his
own heaven, and in the degree that he2

PRELUDE

makes his own heaven is he helping to
make one for all the world beside. The
pessimist, by virtue of his limitations, is
making his own hell, and in the degree
that he makes his own hell is he helping
to make one for all mankind.

You and I have the predominating
characteristics of an optimist or the pre-
dominating characteristics of a pessimist.
We then are making, hour by hour, our
own heaven or our own hell; and in the
degree that we are making the one or the
other for ourselves are we helping make it
for all the world beside.

The word heaven means harmony The
word hell is from the old English hell,
meaning to build a wall around, to separ-
ate; to be helled was to be shut off from.
Now if there is such a thing as harmony
there must be that something one can be
in right relations with; for to be in right
relations with anything is to be in harmony
with it. Again, if there is such a thing
as being helled, shut off, separated from,
there must be that something from which
one is helled, shut off, or separated.THE UNIVERSE

3

THE SUPREME FACT OF THE
UNIVERSE.

The great central fact of the universe is
that Spirit of Infinite Life and Power that
is behind all, that animates all, that mani-
fests itself in and through all; that self-
existent principle of life from which all
has come, and not only from which all has
come, but from which all is continually
coming. If there is an individual life,
there must of necessity be an infinite source
of life from which it comes. If there is a
quality or a force of love, there must of
necessity be an infinite source of love
whence it comes. If there is wisdom, there
must be the all-wise source behind it from
which it springs. The same is true in
regard to peace, the same in regard to
power, the same in regard to what we call
material things.

There is, then, this Spirit of Infinite Life
and Power behind all, which is the source
of all. This Infinite Power is creating,
working, ruling through the agency of
great immutable laws and forces that run
through all the universe, that surrounds us
on every side. Every act of our every-day4

THE SUPREME FACT

lives is governed by these same great laws
and forces. Every flower that blooms by
the wayside, springs up, grows, blooms,
fades, according to certain great immutable
laws. Every snowflake that plays between
earth and heaven, forms, falls, melts,
according to certain great unchangeable
laws.

In a sense there is nothing in all the
great universe but law. If this is true
there must of necessity be a force behind
it all that is the maker of these laws and
a force greater than the laws that are made.
This Spirit of Infinite Life and Power
that is behind all is what I call God. I
care not what term you may use, be it
Kindly Light, Providence, the Over Soul,
Omnipotence, or whatever term may be
most convenient. I care not what the term
may be as long as we are agreed in regard
to the great central fact itself.

God, then, is this Infinite Spirit which
fills all the universe with Himself alone,
so that all is from Him and in Him, and
there is nothing that is outside. Indeed
and in truth, then, in Him we live and
move and have our being. He is the life
of our life, our very life itself. We have
received, we are continually receiving our
life from Him. We are partakers of theOF THE UNIVERSE

5

life of God; and though we differ from
Him in that we are individualized spirits,
while He is the Infinite Spirit including us
as well as all else beside, yet in essence
the life of God and the life of man are
identically the same, and so are one. They
differ not in essence, in quality; they differ
in degree.

There have been and are highly illumined
souls who believe that we receive our life
from God after the manner of a divine
inflow. And again, there have been and
are those who believe that our life is one
yrith the life of God, and so that God and
man are one. Which is right? Both are
right; both right when rightly understood.

In regard to the first: if God is the
Infinite Spirit of Life behind all, whence
all comes, then clearly our life as indi-
vidualized spirits is continually coming
from this Infinite Source by means of this
divine inflow. In the second place, if our
lives as individualized spirits are directly
from, are parts of this Infinite Spirit of
Life, then the degree of the Infinite Spirit
that is manifested in the life of each
must be identical in quality with that
Source, just as a drop of water taken from
the ocean is, in nature, in characteristics,
r identical with that ocean, its source. And6

THE SUPREME FACT

how could it be otherwise? The liability
to misunderstanding in this latter case,
however, is this : in that although the lif
of God and the life of man in essence ar
identically the same, the life of God so fa
transcends the life of individual man tha
it includes all else beside. In other words,
so far as the quality of life is concerned,
in essence they are the same; so far as the
degree of life is concerned, they are vastly
different.

In. this light is it not then evident that
both conceptions are true? and more, that
they are one and the same? Both con-
ceptions may be typified by one and the
same illustration.

There is a reservoir in a valley which
receives its supply from an inexhaustible
reservoir on the mountain side. It is then
true that the reservoir in the valley receives
its supply by virtue of the inflow of the
water from the larger reservoir on the
mountain side. It is also true that the
water in this smaller reservoir is in nature,
in quality, in characteristics identically the
same as that in the larger reservoir which
is its source. The difference, however, is
this : the reservoir on the mountain side,
in the amount of its water, so far transcends
the reservoir in the valley that it can supplyOF THE UNIVERSE 7

an innumerable number of like reservoirs
and still be unexhausted.

And so in the life of man. If, as I think
we have already agreed, however we may
differ in regard to anything else, there is
this Infinite Spirit of Life behind all, the
life of all, and so, from which all comes,
then the life of individual man, your life
and mine, must come by a divine inflow
from this Infinite Source. And if this is
true, then the life that comes by this inflow
to man is necessarily the same in essence
as is this Infinite Spirit of Life. There is
a difference. It is not a difference in
essence. It is a difference in degree.

If this is true, does it not then follow
that in the degree that man opens himself
to this divine inflow does he approach to
God? If so, it then necessarily follows
that in the degree that he makes this
approach does he take on the God-powers.
And if the God-powers are without limit,
does it not then follow that the only limita-
tions man has are the limitations he sets
to himself, by virtue of not knowing him-
self ?8

THE SUPREME FACT

THE SUPREME FACT OF HUMAN
LIFE.

From the great central fact of the universe
in regard to which we have agreed, namely,
this Spirit of Infinite Life that is behind all
and from which all comes, we are led to
inquire as to what is the great central
fact in human life. From what has gone
before, the question almost answers itself.

The great central fact in human life, in
your life and in mine, is the coming into a
conscious, vital realization of our oneness
with this Infinite Life, and the opening of
ourselves fully to this divine inflow. This
is the great central fact in human life, for
in this all else is included, all else follows
in its train. In just the degree that we
come into a conscious realization of our
oneness with the Infinite Life, and open
ourselves to this divine inflow, do we
actualize in ourselves the qualities and
powers of the Infinite Life.

And what does this mean ? It means
simply this : that we are recognizing our
true identity, that we are bringing our lives
into harmony with the same great laws
and forces, and so opening ourselves toOF HUMAN LIFE

9

the same great inspirations, as have all the
prophets, seers, sages, and saviours in the
world’s history, all men of truly great and
mighty power. For in the degree that we
come into this realization and connect our-
selves with this Infinite Source, do we
make it possible for the higher powers to
play, to work, to manifest through us.

We can keep closed to this divine inflow,
to these higher forces and powers, through
ignorance, as most of us do, and thus
hinder or even prevent their manifesting
through us. Or we can intentionally close
ourselves to their operations and thus
deprive ourselves of the powers to which,
by the very nature of our being, we are
rightful heirs. On the other hand, we can
come into so vital a realization of the one-
ness of our real selves with this Infinite
Life, and can open ourselves so fully to
the incoming of this divine inflow, and so
to the operation of these higher forces,
inspirations, and powers, that we can
indeed and in truth become what we may
well term, God-men.

And what is a God-man ? One in whom
the powers of God are manifesting, though
yet a man. No one can set limitations to
a man or a woman of this type; for the
only limitations he or she can have areIO THE SUPREME FACT

those set by the self. Ignorance is the
most potent factor in setting limitations to
the majority of mankind; and so the great
majority of people continue to live their
little, dwarfed, and stunted lives simply by
virtue of the fact that they do not realize
the larger life to which they are heirs.
They have never as yet come into a know-
ledge of the real identity of their true
selves.

Mankind has not yet realized that the
real self is one with the life of God.
Through its ignorance it has never yet
opened itself to the divine inflow, and so
has never made itself a channel through
which the infinite powers and forces can
manifest. When we know ourselves merely
as men, we live accordingly, and have
merely the powers of men. When we
come into the realization of the fact that
we are God-men, then again we live accord-
ingly, and have the powers of God-men.
In the degree that we open ourselves to
this divine inflow are we changed from
mere men into God-men.

A friend has a beautiful lotus pond. A
natural basin on his estate—his farm as he
always calls it—is supplied with water from
a reservoir in the foothills some distance
away. A gate regulates the flow of theOF HUMAN LIFE

ii

water from the main that conducts it from
the reservoir to the pond. It is a spot of
transcendent beauty. There, through the
days of the perfect summer weather, the
lotus flowers lie full blown upon the surface
of the clear, transparent water. The June
roses and other wild flowers are continually
blooming upon its banks. The birds come
here to drink and to bathe, and from early
until late one can hear the melody of their
song. The bees are continually at work
in this garden of wild flowers. A beautiful
grove, in which many kinds of wild berries
and many varieties of brakes and ferns
grow, stretches at the back of the pond as
far as the eye can reach.

Our friend is a man, nay more, a God-
man, a lover of his kind, and as a conse-
quence no notice bearing such words as
“ Private grounds, no trespassing allowed,”
or “Trespassers will be prosecuted,” stands
on his estate. But at the end of a beautiful
by-way that leads through the wildwood
up to this enchanting spot, stands a notice
bearing the words “ All are welcome to
the Lotus Pond.” All love our friend.
Why? They can’t help it. He so loves
them, and what is his is theirs.

Here one may often find merry groups
of children at play. Here many times tiredi2 THE SUPREME FACT

and weary looking men and women come,
and somehow, when they go their faces
wear a different expression,—the burden
seems to be lifted; and now and then I
have heard them when leaving, sometimes
in a faint murmur, as if uttering a benedic-
tion, say, “ God bless our brother-friend.”
Many speak of this spot as the Garden of
God. My friend calls it his Soul Garden,
and he spends many hours in quiet here.
Often have I seen him after the others have
gone, walking to and fro, or sitting quietly
in the clear moonlight on an old rustic
bench, drinking in the perfume of the wild
flowers. He is a man of a beautifully
simple nature. He says that here the real
things of life come to him, and that here
his greatest and most successful plans,
many times as by a flash of inspiration,
suggest themselves to him.

Everything in the immediate vicinity
seems to breathe a spirit of kindliness,
comfort, good-will, and good cheer. The
very cattle and sheep as they come to the
old stone-fence at the edge of the grove
and look across to this beautiful spot seem,
indeed, to get the same enjoyment that the
people are getting. They seem almost to
smile in the realization of their content-
ment and enjoyment; or perhaps it seems *OF HUMAN LIFE

13

so to the looker-on, because he can scarcely
help smiling as he sees the manifested
evidence of their contentment and pleasure.

The gate of the pond is always open
wide enough to admit a supply of water so
abundant that it continually overflows a
quantity sufficient to feed a stream that
runs through the fields below, giving the
pure mountain water in drink to the cattle
and flocks that are grazing there. The
stream then flows on through the neigh-
bors’ fields.

Not long ago our friend was absent for
a year. He rented his estate during his
absence to a man who, as the world goes,
was of a very “ practical ” turn of mind.
He had no time for anything that did not
bring him direct “ practical ” returns. The
gate connecting the reservoir with the lotus
pond was shut down, and no longer had
the crystal mountain water the opportunity
to feed and overflow it. The notice of our
friend, “ All are welcome to the Lotus
Pond,” was removed, and no longer were
the gay companies of children and of men
and women seen at the pond. A great
change came over everything. On account
of the lack of the life-giving water the
flowers in the pond wilted, and their long
stems lay stretched upon the mud in theH

THE SUPREME FACT

bottom. The fish that formerly swam in
its clear water soon died and gave an
offensive odor to all who came near. The
flowers no longer bloomed on its banks.
The birds no longer came to drink and to
bathe. No longer was heard the hum of
the bees; and more, the stream that ran
through the fields below dried up, so that
the cattle and the flocks no longer got their
supply of clear mountain water.

The difference between the spot now and
the lotus pond when our friend gave it his
careful attention was caused, as we readily
see, by the shutting of the gate to the
pond, thus preventing the water from the
reservoir in the hills which was the source
of its life, from entering it. And when
this, the source of its life, was shut off,
not only was the appearance of the lotus
pond entirely changed, but the surround-
ing fields were deprived of the stream to
whose banks the flocks and cattle came for
drink.

In this do we not see a complete parallel
so far as human life is concerned ? In the
degree that we recognize our oneness, our
connection with the Infinite Spirit which
is the life of all, and in the degree that we
open ourselves to this divine inflow, do we
come into harmony with the highest, theOF HUMAN LIFE

15

most powerful, and the most beautiful
everywhere. And in the degree that we
do this do we overflow, so that all who
come in contact with us receive the effects
of this realization on our part. This is
the lotus pond of our friend, he who is in
love with all that is truest and best in the
universe. And in the degree that we fail
to recognize our oneness with this Infinite
Source, and so close, shut ourselves to this
divine inflow, do we come into that state
where there seems to be with us nothing of
good, nothing of beauty, nothing of power;
and when this is true, those who come in
contact with us receive not good, but harm.
This is the spot of the lotus pond while
the farm was in the hands of a renter.

There is this difference between the lotus
pond and your life and mine. It has no
power in itself of opening tfie gate to the
inflow of the water from the reservoir which
is its source. In regard to this it is-
helpless and dependent upon an outside
agency. You and I have the power, the
power within us, to open or to close our-
selves to this divine inflow exactly as we
choose. This we have through the power
of mind, through the operation of thought.

There is the soul life, direct from God.
This it is that relates us to the Infinite.16	THE SUPREME FACT

There is, then, the physical life. This it
is that relates us to the material universe
about us. The thought life connects the
one with ,the other. It is this that plays
between the two.

Before we proceed farther let us consider
very briefly the nature of thought. Thought
is not, as is many times supposed, a mere
indefinite abstraction, or something of a
like nature. It is, on the contrary, a vital,
living force, the most vital, subtle, and
irresistible force there is in the universe.

In our very laboratory experiments we
are demonstrating the great fact that
thoughts are forces. They have form, and
quality, and substance, and power, and we
are beginning to find that there is what
we may term a science of thought. We
are beginning also to find that through the
instrumentality of our thought forces we
have creative power, not merely in a figura-
tive sense, but creative power in reality.

Everything in the material universe
about us, everything the universe has ever
known, had its origin first in thought.
From this it took its form. Every castle,
every statue, every painting, every piece
of mechanism, everything had its birth, its
origin, first in the mind of the one who
formed it before it received its materialOF HUMAN LIFE

i7

expression or embodiment. The very uni-
verse in which we live is the result of the
thought energies of God, the Infinite Spirit
that is behind all. And if it is true, as
we have found, that we in our true selves
are in essence the same, and in this sense
are one with the life of this Infinite Spirit,
do we not then see that in the degree that
we come into a vital realization of this
stupendous fact, we, through the operation
of our interior, spiritual, thought forces,
have in like sense creative power?

Everything exists in the unseen before it
is manifested or realized in the seen, and
in this sense it is true that the unseen
things are the real, while the things that
are seen are the unreal. The unseen things
are cause ; the seen things are effect. The
unseen things are the eternal; the seen
things are the changing, the transient.

The “ power of the word ” is a literal
scientific fact. Through the operation of
our thought forces we have creative power.
The. spoken word is nothing more nor less
than the outward expression of the work-
ings of these interior forces. The spoken
word is then, in a sense, the means whereby
the thought forces are focused and directed
along any particular line; and this concen-
tration, this giving them direction, is18	THE SUPREME FACT

necessary before any outward or material
manifestation of their power can become
evident.

Much is said in regard to “ building
castles in the air,” and one who is given
to this building is not always looked upon
with favor. But castles in the air are
always necessary before we can have castles
on the ground, before we can have castles
in which to live. The trouble with the one
who gives himself to building castles in
the air is not that he builds them in the
air, but that he does not go farther and
actualize in life, in character, in material
form, the castles he thus builds. He does
a part of the work, a very necessary part;
but another equally necessary part remains
still undone.

There is in connection with the thought
forces what we may term, the drawing
power of mind, and the great law operating
here is one with that great law of the
universe, that like attracts like. We are
continually attracting to us from both the
seen and the unseen side of life, forces and
conditions most akin to those of our own
thoughts.

This law is continually operating whether
we are conscious of it or not. We are all
living, so to speak, in a vast ocean ofOF HUMAN LIFE 19

thought, and the very atmosphere around
us is continually filled with the thought
forces that are being continually sent or
that are continually going out in the form
of thought waves. We are all affected,
more or less, by these thought forces, either
consciously or unconsciously; and in the
degree that we are more or less sensitively
organized, or in the degree that we are nega-
tive and so are open to outside influences,
rather than positive, which thus determine
what influences shall enter into our realm
of thought, and hence into our lives.

There are those among us who are much
more sensitively organized than others.
As an organism their bodies are more
finely, more sensitively constructed. These,
generally speaking, are people who are
always more or less affected by the men-
talities of those with whom they come in
contact, or in whose company they are.
A friend, the editor of one of our great
journals, is so sensitively organized that it
is impossible for him to attend a gathering,
such as a reception, talk and shake hands
with a number of people during the course
of the evening, without taking on to a
greater or less extent their various mental
and physical conditions. These affect him
to such an extent that he is scarcely himself20

THE SUPREME FACT

and in his best condition for work until
some two or three days afterward.

Some think it unfortunate for one to be
sensitively organized. By no means. It
is a good thing, for one may thus be more
open and receptive to the higher impulses
of the soul within, and to all higher forces
and influences from without. It may,
however, be unfortunate and extremely
inconvenient to be so organized unless one
recognize and gain the power of closing
himself, of making himself positive to all
detrimental or undesirable influences. This
power every one, however sensitively
organized he may be, can acquire.

This he can acquire through the mind’s
action. And, moreover, there is no habit
of more value to anyone, be he sensitively
or less sensitively organized, than that of
occasionally taking and holding himself
continually in the attitude of mind—I close
myself, I make myself positive to all things
below, and open and receptive to all higher
influences, to all things above. By taking
this attitude of mind consciously now and
then, it soon becomes a habit, and if one
is deeply in earnest in regard to it, it
puts into operation silent but subtle and
powerful influences in effecting the desired
results. In this way all lower and undesir-OF HUMAN LIFE

21

able influences from both the seen and the
unseen side of life are dosed out, while all
higher influences are invited, and in the
degree that they are invited will they enter.
And what do we mean fay the unseen
:side of life? First, the thought forces, the
mental and emotional coeditions in .the
atmosphere about us that are generated fay
those manifesting on the physical plane
through the agency of physical bodies.
Second, the same forces generated, by those
who have dropped the physical body, or
from whom it has been struck away, and.
who are now manifesting through the
agency of bodies of a different nature,

* The individual existence of man begins
on the sense plane of die physical world,
but rises through successive gradations of
ethereal and celestial spheres, correspond-
ing with his ever unfolding deilc life
and powers, to a destiny of unspeakable
grandeur and glory. Within- and above
#very physical planet is a ' corresponding
ethereal planet, or soul world, as within
mud above every physical organism is a
-corresponding ethereal organism, or soul
body, of which the physical is but the
external counterpart and materialized-ex-
pression, From this etfaerealized or soul
planet, which is the immediate home of our22 THE SUPREME FACT

arisen humanity, there rises or deepens in
infinite gradations spheres within and
above spheres, to celestial heights of
spiritualized existence utterly inconceivable
to the sense man. Embodiment, accord-
ingly, is two-fold,—the physical being but
the temporary husk, so to speak, in and by
which the real and permanent ethereal
organism is individualized and perfected,
somewhat as ‘the full corn in the ear* is
reached by means of its husk, for which
there is no further use. By means of this
indestructible ethereal body and the corre-
sponding ethereal spheres of environment
with the social life and relations in the
spheres, the individuality and personal life
is preserved forever.”

The fact of life in whatever form means
the continuance of life, even though the
form be changed. Life is the one eternal
principle of the universe and so always
continues, even though the form of the
agency through which it manifests be
changed. 11 In my Father’s house are
many mansions.” And surely, because
the individual has dropped, has gone out
of the physical body, there is no evidence
at all that the life does not go right on
the same as before, not commencing,—for
there is no cessation,—but commencing inOF HUMAN LIFE

23

the other form, exactly where it has left
off here; for all life is a continuous evolu-
tion, step by step; there one neither skips
mor. jumps.

There are in the other form, then,
mentalities and hence lives of all grades
and influences, just as there are in the
physical form. If, then, the great law
that like attracts like is ever operating, we
are continually attracting to us from this
side of life influences and conditions most
akin to those of our own thoughts and
lives. A grewsome thought that we should
be so influenced, says one. By no means,
all life is one; we are all bound together
in the one common and universal life, and
especially not when we take into considera-
tion the fact that we have it entirely in
our own hands to determine the order of
thought we entertain, and consequently the
order of influences we attract, and are not
mere willowy creatures of circumstance*
unless indeed we choose to be.

In our mental lives we can either keep
hold of the rudder and so determine exactly
what course we take, what points we touch,
or we can fail to do this, and failing, we
drift, and are blown hither and thither by
every passing breeze. And so, on the
contrary, welcome should be the thought,24 THE SUPREME FACT

for thus we may draw to us the influence
and the aid of the greatest, the noblest, and
the best who have lived on the earth,
whatever the time, wherever the place.

We cannot rationally believe other than
that those who have labored in love and
with uplifting power here are still laboring
in the same way, and in all probability
with more earnest zeal, and with still
greater power.

“ And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I
pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see.
And the Lord opened the eyes of the young
man; and he saw : and, behold, the moun-
tain was full of horses and chariots of fire
round about Elisha.”

While riding with a friend a few days
ago, we were speaking of the great interest
people are everywhere taking in the more
vital things of life, the eagerness with
which they are reaching out for a know-
ledge of the interior forces, their ever
increasing desire to know themselves and
to know their true relations with the
Infinite. And in speaking of the great
spiritual awakening that is so rapidly
coming all over the world, the beginnings
of which we are so clearly seeing during
the closing years of this, and whose ever
increasing proportions we are to witnessOF HUMAN LIFE 25

during the early years of the coming
century, I said, “ How beautiful if Emer-
son, the illumined one so far in advance of
his time, who labored so faithfully and so
fearlessly to bring about these very con-
ditions, how beautiful if he were with us
to-day to witness it all! how he would
rejoice! ”	“ How do we know,” was the

reply, “ that he is not witnessing it all ?
and more, that he is not having a hand in
it all,—a hand even greater, perhaps, than
when we saw him here ? ” Thank you, my
friend, for this reminder. And, truly,
“ are they not all ministering spirits sent
forth to minister to those who shall be
heirs of salvation ? ”

As science is so abundantly demonstrat-
ing today,—the things that we see are but
a very small fraction of the things that
are. The real, vital forces at work in our
own lives and in the world about us are
not seen by the ordinary physical eye. Yet
they are the causes of which all things we
see are merely the effects. Thoughts are
forces; like builds like, and like attracts
like. For one to govern his thinking,
then, is to determine his life.

Says one of deep insight into the nature
of things : “ The law of correspondences
between spiritual and material things is26	THE SUPREME FACT

wonderfully exact in its workings. People
ruled by the mood of gloom attract to them
gloomy things. People always discouraged
and despondent do not succeed in any-
thing, and live only by burdening some
one else. The hopeful, confident, and
cheerful attract the elements of success. A
man’s front or back yard will advertise that
man’s ruling mood in the way it is kept.
A woman at home shows her state of mind
in her dress. A slattern advertises the
ruling mood of hopelessness, carelessness,
and lack of system. Rags, tatters, and
dirt are always in the mind before being
on the body. The thought that is most
put out brings its corresponding visible
element to crystallize about you as surely
and literally as the visible bit of copper in
solution attracts to it the invisible copper
in that solution. A mind always hopeful,
confident, courageous, and determined on
its set purpose, and keeping itself to that
purpose, attracts to itself out of the ele-
ments things and powers favorable to that
purpose.

“ Every thought of yours has a literal
value to you in every possible way. The
strength of your body, the strength of your
mind, your success in business, and the
pleasure your company brings others,OF HUMAN LIFE

27

depends on the nature of your thoughts.
... In whatever mood you set your mind
does your spirit receive of unseen substance
in correspondence with that mood. It is
as much a chemical law as a spiritual law.
Chemistry is not confined to the elements
we see. The elements we do not see with
the physical eye outnumber ten thousand
times those we do see. The Christ injunc-
tion, ‘ Do good to those who hate you,’ is
based on a scientific fact and a natural
law. So, to do good is to bring to yourself
all the elements in nature of power and
good. ' To do evil is to bring the contrary
destructive elements. When our eyes are
opened, self-preservation will make us stop
all evil thought. Those who live by hate
will die by hate : that is, ‘ those who live
by the sword will die by the sword.*
Every evil thought is as a sword drawn
on the person to whom it is directed. If
a sword is drawn in return, so much the
worse for both.”

And says another who knows full well
whereof he speaks : “ The law of attraction
works universally on every plane of action,
and we attract whatever we desire or expect.
If we desire one thing and expect another,
we become like houses divided against
themselves, which are quickly brought to28 THE SUPREME FACT

desolation. Determine resolutely to expect
only what you desire, then you will attract
only what you wish for. . . . Carry any
kind of thought you please about with you,
and so long as you retain it, no matter how
you roam over land or sea, you will unceas-
ingly attract to yourself, knowingly or
inadvertently, exactly and only what
corresponds to your own dominant quality
of thought. Thoughts are our private
property, and we can regulate them to suit
our taste entirely by steadily recognizing
our ability so to do.”

We have just spoken of the drawing
power of mind. Faith is nothing more nor
less than the operation of the thought forces
in the form of an earnest desire, coupled
with expectation as to its fulfillment. And
in the degree that faith, the earnest desire
thus sent out, is continually held to and
watered by firm expectation, in just that
degree does it either draw to itself, or does
it change from the unseen into the visible,
from the spiritual into the material, that
for which it is sent.

Let the element of doubt or fear enter in,
and what would otherwise be a tremendous
force will be so neutralized that it will fail
of its realization. Continually held to and
continually watered by firm expectation, itOF HUMAN LIFE

becomes a force, a drawing power, that
irresistible and absolute, and the results
will be absolute in direct proportion as it
is absolute.

We shall find, as we are so rapidly
beginning to find to-day, that the great
things said in regard to faith, the great
promises made in connection with it, are
not mere vague sentimentalities, but are all
great scientific facts, and rest upon great
immutable laws. Even in our very labora-
tory experiments we are beginning to
discover the laws underlying and governing
these forces. We are now beginning,
some at least, to use them understanding^
and not blindly, as has so often and so
long been the case.

Much is said to-day in regard to the will.
It is many times spoken of as if it were a
force in itself. But will is a force, a power,
only in so far as it is a particular form of
the manifestation of the thought forces;
for it is by what we call the “ will ” that
thought is focused and given a particular
direction, and in the degree that thought
is thus focused and given direction, is it
effective in the work it is sent out to accom-
plish.

In a sense there are two kinds of will,—
the human and the divine. The humanTHE SUPREME FACT

1 is the will of what, for convenience’
sake, we may term the lower self. It is the
will that finds its life merely in the realm
of the mental and the physical,—the sense
will. It is the will of the one who is not
yet awake to the fact that there is a life
that far transcends the life of merely the
intellect and the physical senses, and which
when realized and lived, does not do away
with or minify these, but which, on the
contrary, brings them to their highest per-
fection and to their powers of keenest
enjoyment. The divine will is the will of
the higher self, the will of the one who
recognizes his oneness with the Divine, and
who consequently brings his will to work
in harmony, in conjunction with the divine
will. “ The Lord thy God in the midst of
thee is mighty.”

The human will has its limitations. So
far and no farther, says the law. The
divine will has no limitations. It is
supreme. All things are open and subject
to you, says the law, and so, in the degree
that the human will is transmuted into the
divine, in the degree that it comes into
harmony with, and so acts in conjunction
with the divine, does it become supreme.
Then it is that “ Thou shalt decree a thing
and it shall be established unto thee.” TheOF HUMAN LIFE

connection with this Infinite Source.

The power of every life, the very life
itself, is determined by what it relates itself
to. God is immanent as well as transcen-
dent. He is creating, working, ruling in
the universe to-day, in your life and in
mine, just as much as He ever has been.
We are too apt to regard Him after the
manner of an absentee landlord, one who
has set into operation the forces of this
great universe, and then taken Himself
away.

In the degree, however, that we recognize
Him as immanent as well as transcendent,
are we able to partake of His life and
power. For in the degree that we recognize
Him as the Infinite Spirit of Life and
Power that is to-day, at this very moment,
working and manifesting in and through
all, and then, in the degree that we come
into the realization of our oneness with
this life, do we become partakers of, and
so do we actualize in ourselves the qualities
of His life. In the degree that we open
ourselves to the inflowing tide of this
immanent and transcendent life, do we
make ourselves channels through which the
Infinite Intelligence and Power can work.THE SUPREME FACT

is through the instrumentality of the
mind that we are enabled to connect the
real soul life with the physical life, and so
enable the soul life to manifest and work
through the physical. The thought life
needs continually to be illumined from
within. This illumination can come in
just the degree that through the agency
of the mind we recognize our oneness with
the Divine, of which each soul is an
individual form of expression.

This gives us the inner guiding which
we call intuition. “ Intuition is to the
spiritual nature and understanding practi-
cally what sense perception is to the
sensuous nature and understanding. It is
an inner spiritual sense through which
man is opened to the direct revelation and
knowledge of God, the secrets of nature
and life, and through which he is brought
into conscious unity and fellowship with
God, and made to realize his own deific
nature and supremacy of being as the son
of God. Spiritual supremacy and illumina-
tion thus realized through the development
and perfection of intuition under divine
inspiration, gives the perfect inner vision
and direct insight into the character, pro-
perties, and purpose of all things to which
the attention and interest are directed. . . .OF HUMAN LIFE

33

It is, we repeat, a spiritual sense opening
inwardly, as the physical senses open out-
wardly; and because it has the capacity
to perceive, grasp, and know the truth at
first hand, independent of all external
sources of information, we call it intuition.
All inspired teaching and spiritual revela-
tions are based upon the recognition of
this spiritual faculty of the soul, and its
power to receive and appropriate them.
. . . Conscious unity of man in spirit and
purpose with the Father, born out of his
supreme desire and trust, opens his soul
through this inner sense to immediate
inspiration and enlightenment from the
Divine Omniscience, and the co-operative
energy of the Divine Omnipotence, under
which he becomes a seer and a master.

“ On this higher plane of realized
spiritual life in the flesh the mind holds
the impersonal attitude and acts with
unfettered freedom and unbiased vision,
grasping truth at first hand, independent
of all external sources of information.
Approaching all beings and things from
the divine side, they are seen in the light
of the Divine Omniscience. God’s pur-
pose in th^m, and so the truth concerning
them, as it rests in the mind of God, are
v thus revealed by direct illumination from

B34

HUMAN LIFE

the Divine Mind, to which the soul is
opened inwardly through this spiritual
sense we call intuition.” Some call it the
voice of the soul; some call it the voice
of God; some call it the sixth sense. It is
our inner spiritual sense.

In the degree that we come into the
recognition of our own true selves, into
the realization of the oneness of our life
with the Infinite Life, and in the degree
that we open ourselves to this divine inflow,
does this voice of intuition, this voice of
the soul, this voice of God, speak clearly;
and in the degree that we recognize, listen
to, and obey it, does it speak ever more
clearly, until by-and-by there comes the
time when it is unerring, absolutely uner-
ring, in its guidance.FULLNESS OF LIFE

35

FULLNESS OF LIFE—BODILY
HEALTH AND VIGOR.

QaJT> is the Spirit of Infinite Life. If we
aI:e partakers of this life, and have the
pfeower of opening ourselves fully to its
divine inflow, it means more, so far as
even the physical life is concerned, than
we may at first think. For very clearly,
the life of this Infinite Spirit, from its very
pature, can admit of no disease; and if this
is true, no disease can exist in the body
where it freely enters, through which it
freely flows.

Let us recognize at the outset that, so
far as the physical life is concerned, all life
is from within outwards. There is an
immutable law which says: “ As within,
so without; cause, effect.” In other words,
the thought forces, the various mental
states and the emotions, all have in time
their effects upon the physical body.

Some one says: “ I hear a great deal
said today in regard to the effects of the
mind upon the body, but I don’t know
that I place very much confidence in this.”
Don’t you ? Some one brings you sudden
news. You grow pale, you tremble, or36 FULLNESS OF LIFE :

perhaps you fall into a faint. It is, how-
ever, through the channel of your mind
that the news is imparted to you. A friend
says something to you, perhaps at \ the
table, something that seems very unki\nd.
You are hurt by it, as we say. You have
been enjoying your dinner, but from this
moment your appetite is gone. But whaj
was said entered into and affected you
through the channel of your mind.

Look ! yonder goes a young man, drag-
ging his feet, stumbling over the slightest
obstruction in the path. Why is it?
Simply that he is weak-minded, an idiot.
In other words, a falling state of mind is
productive of a falling condition of the
body. To be sure minded is to be sure
footed. To be uncertain in mind is to be
uncertain in step.

Again, a sudden emergency arises. You
stand trembling and weak with fear. Why
are you powerless to move ? Why do you
tremble? And yet you believe that the
mind has but little influence upon the body.
You are for a moment dominated by a fit
of anger. For a few hours afterwards you
complain of a violent headache. And still
you do not seem to realize that the thoughts
and emotions have an effect upon the
body.BODILY HEALTH fc? VIGOR 37

A day or two ago, while conversing with
a friend, we were speaking of worry.
“ My father is greatly given to worry,” he
said. “ Your father is not a healthy man,”
I said. “ He is not strong, vigorous,
robust, ^and active.” I then went on to
describe to him more fully his father’s
condition and the troubles which afflicted
him. He looked at me in surprise and
said, “ Why, you do not know my father ? ”
“ No,” I replied. “ How then can you
describe so accurately the disease with
which he is afflicted?” “You have just
told me that your father is greatly given
to worry. When you told me this you
indicated to me cause. In describing your
father’s condition I simply connected with
the cause its own peculiar effects.”

Fear and worry have the effect of closing
up the channels of the body, so that the
life forces flow in a slow and sluggish
manner. Hope and tranquillity open the
channels of the body, so that the life forces
go bounding through it in such a way that
disease can rarely get a foothold.

Not long ago a lady was telling a friend
of a serious physical trouble. My friend
happened to know that between this lady
and her sister the most kindly relations did
not exist. He listened attentively to her38 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

delineation of her troubles, and then,
looking her squarely in the face, in a
firm but kindly tone said: “ Forgive your
sister.” The woman looked at him in
surprise and said: “ I can’t forgive my
sister.” “ Very well, then,” he replied,
“ keep the stiffness of your joints and your
kindred rheumatic troubles.”

A few weeks later he saw her again.
With a light step she came toward him and
said: “ I took your advice. 1 saw my
sister and forgave her. We have become
good friends again, and I don’t know how
it is, but somehow or other from the very
day, as I remember, that we became
reconciled, my troubles seemed to grow
less, and today there is not a trace of the
old difficulties left; and really, my sister
and I have become such good friends that
now we can scarcely get along without one
another.” Again we have effect following
cause.

We have several well-authenticated cases
of the following nature: A mother has
been dominated for a few moments by an
intense passion of anger, and the child at
her breast has died within an hour’s time,
so poisoned became the mother’s milk by
virtue of the poisonous secretions of the
system while under the domination of thisBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 39

fit of anger. In other cases it has caused
severe illness and convulsions.

The following experiment has been tried
a number of times by a well-known
scientist: Several men have been put into
a heated room. Each man has been
dominated for a moment by a particular
passion of some kind; one by an intense
passion of anger, and others by different
other passions. The experimenter has
taken a drop of perspiration from the body
of each of these men, and by means of a
careful chemical analysis he has been able
to determine the particular passion by
which each has been dominated. Practi-
cally the same results revealed themselves
in the chemical analysis of the saliva of
each of the men.

Says a noted American author, an able
graduate of one of our greatest medical
schools, and one who has studied deeply
into the forces that build the body and the
forces that tear it down : “ The mind is
the natural protector of the body. . . .
Every thought tends to reproduce itself,
and ghastly mental pictures of disease,
sensuality, and vice of all sorts, produce
scrofula and leprosy in the soul, which
reproduces them in the body. Anger
changes the chemical properties of the4o

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

saliva to a poison dangerous to life. It is
well known that sudden and violent emo-
tions have not only weakened the heart in
a few hours, but have caused death and
insanity. It has been discovered by
scientists that there is a chemical difference
between that sudden cold exudation of a
person under a deep sense of guilt and
the ordinary perspiration; and the state of
the mind can sometimes be determined by
chemical analysis of the perspiration of a
criminal, which, when brought into contact
with selenic acid, produces a distinctive
pink color. It is well known that fear has
killed thousands of victims; while, on the
other hand, courage is a great invigorator.

“ Anger in the mother may poison a
nursing child. Rarey, the celebrated horse-
tamer, said that an angry word would
sometimes raise the pulse of a horse ten
beats in a minute. If this is true of a
beast, what can we say of its power upon
human beings, especially upon a child ?
Strong mental emotion often causes vomit-
ing. Extreme anger or fright may pro-
duce jaundice. A violent paroxysm of
rage has caused apoplexy and death.
Indeed, in more than one instance, a
single night of mental agony has wrecked
a life. Grief, long-standing jealousy,BODILY HEALTH 6f VIGOR 41

constant care and corroding anxiety some-
times tend to develop insanity. Sick
thoughts and discordant moods are the
natural atmosphere of disease, and crime
is engendered and thrives in the miasma
of the mind.”

From all this we get the great fact we
are scientifically demonstrating today,—
that the various mental states, emotions,
and passions have their various peculiar
effects upon the body, and each induces in
turn, if indulged in to any great extent,
its own peculiar forms of disease, and these
in time become chronic.

Just a word or two in regard to their
mode of operation. If a person is domin-
ated for a moment by, say a passion of
anger, there is set up in the physical
organism what we might justly term a
bodily thunder-storm, which has the effect
of souring, or rather of corroding, the
normal, healthy, and life-giving secretions
of the body, so that instead of performing
their natural functions they become poison-
ous and destructive. And if this goes on
to any great extent, by virtue of their
cumulative influences, they give rise to a
particular form of disease, which in turn
becomes chronic. So the emotion opposite
to this, that of kindliness, love, benevo-42

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

lence, good-will, tends to stimulate a
healthy, purifying, and life-giving flow of
all the bodily secretions. All the channels
of the body seem free and open; the life
forces go bounding through them. And
these very forces, set into a bounding
activity, will in time counteract the poison-
ous and disease-giving effects of their
opposites.

A physician goes to see a patient. He
gives no medicine this morning. Yet the
very fact of his going makes the patient
better. He has carried with him the spirit
of health; he has carried brightness of
tone and disposition; he has carried hope
into the sick chamber; he has left it there.
In fact, the very hope and good cheer he
has carried with him has taken hold of and
has had a subtle but powerful influence
upon the mind of the patient; and this
mental condition imparted by the physician
has in turn its effects upon the patient’s
body, and so through the instrumentality of
this mental suggestion the healing goes on.

“ Know, then, whatever cheerful and serene
Supports the mind, supports the body, too.
Hence the most vital movement mortals feel
Is hope\ the balm and life-blood of the soul.”

We sometimes hear a person in weak
health say to another, M I always feel betterBODILY HEALTH &? VIGOR 43

when you come.” There is a deep scientific
reason underlying the statement. “ The
tongue of the wise is health.” The power
of suggestion so far as the human mind is
concerned is a most wonderful and interest-
ing field of study. Most wonderful and
powerful forces can be set into operation
through this agency. One of the world’s
most noted scientists, recognized every-
where as one of the most eminent anato-
mists living, tells us that he has proven
from laboratory experiments that the entire
human structure can be completely changed,
made over, within a period of less than
one year, and that some portions can be
entirely remade within a period of a very
few weeks.

“ Do you mean to say,” I hear it asked,
“ that the body can be changed from a
diseased to a healthy condition through the
operation of the interior forces ? ” Most
certainly; and more, this is the natural
method of cure. The method that has as
its work the application of drugs, medicines
and external agencies is the artificial
method. The only thing that any drug
or any medicine can do is to remove
obstructions, that the life forces may have
simply a better chance to do their work.
The real healing process must be performed44

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

by the operation of the life forces within.
A surgeon and physician of world-wide
fame recently made to his medical associates
the following declaration: “ For genera-
tions past the most important influence that
plays upon nutrition, the life principle
itself, has remained an unconsidered ele-
ment in the medical profession, and the
almost exclusive drift of its studies and
remedial paraphernalia has been confined
to the action of matter over mind. This has
seriously interfered with the evolutionary
tendencies of the doctors themselves, and
consequently the psychic factor in pro-
fessional life is still in a rudimentary or
comparatively undeveloped state. But the
light of the nineteenth century has dawned,
and so the march of mankind in general
is taken in the direction of the hidden forces
of nature. Doctors are now compelled to
join the ranks of students in psychology
and follow their patrons into the broader
field of mental therapeutics. There is no
time for lingering, no time for skepticism
or doubt or hesitation. He who lingers
is lost, for the entire race is enlisted in the
movement.”

I am aware of the fact that in connection
with the matter we are now considering
there has been a great deal of foolishnessBODILY HEALTH VIGOR 45

during the past few years. Many absurd
and foolish things have been claimed and
done; but this says nothing against, and
it has absolutely nothing to do with the
great underlying laws themselves. The
same has been true of the early days of
practically every system of ethics or philo-
sophy or religion the world has ever
known. But as time has passed, these
foolish, absurd things have fallen away,
and the great eternal principles have stood
out ever more and more clearly defined.

I know personally of many cases where
an entire and permanent cure has been
effected, in some within a remarkably short
period of time, through the operation of
these forces. Some of them are cases that
had been entirely given up by the regular
practice, materia medica. We have numer-
ous accounts of such cases in all times and
in connection with all religions. And why
should not the power of effecting such
cures exist among us today? The power
does exist, and it will be actualized in just
the degree that we recognize the same
great laws that were recognized in times
past.

One person may do a very great deal in
connection with the healing of another, but
this almost invariably implies co-operation46 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

on the part of the one who is thus treated.
In the cures that Christ performed He almost
always needed the co-operation of the one
who appealed to him. His question almost
invariably was, “ Dost thou believe? ” He
thus stimulated into activity the life-giving
forces within the one cured. If one is in
a very weak condition, or if his nervous
system is exhausted, or if his mind through
the influence of the disease is not so strong
in its workings, it may be well for him for
a time to seek the aid and co-operation of
another. But it would be far better for
such a one could he bring himself to a vital
realization of the omnipotence of his own
interior powers.

One may cure another, but to be per-
manently healed one must do it himself.
In this way another may be most valuable
as a teacher by bringing one to a clear
realization of the power of the forces
within, but in every case, in order to have
a permanent cure, the work of the self is
necessary. Christ’s words were almost
invariably,—Go, and sin no more, or, Thy
sins are forgiven thee, thus pointing out
the one eternal and never-changing fact,—
that all disease and its consequent suffering
is the direct or the indirect result of the
violation of law, either consciously orBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 47

unconsciously, either intentionally or unin-
tentionally.

Suffering is designed to continue only so
long as sin continues, sin not necessarily
in the theological, but always in the
philosophical sense, though many times
in the sense of both. The moment the
violation ceases, the moment one comes
into perfect harmony with the law, the
cause of the suffering ceases; and though
there may be residing within the cumula-
tive effects of past violation, the cause is
removed, and consequently there can be
no more effects in the form of additions,
and even the diseased condition that has
been induced from past violation will begin
to disappear as soon as the right forces
are set into activity.

There is nothing that will more quickly
and more completely bring one into har-
mony with the laws under which he lives
than this vital realization of his oneness
with the Infinite Spirit, which is the life
of all life. In this there can be no disease,
and nothing will more readily remove from
the organism the obstructions that have
accumulated there, or in other words, the
disease that resides there, than this full
realization and the complete opening
of one’s self to this divine inflow. “ I48 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

shall put My spirit in you, and ye shall
live.”

The moment a person realizes his oneness
with the Infinite Spirit he recognizes him-
self as a spiritual being, and no longer
as a mere physical, material being. He
then no longer makes the mistake of
regarding himself as body, subject to ills
and diseases, but he realizes the fact that
he is spirit, spirit now as much as he ever
will or can be, and that he is the builder
and so the master of the body, the house
in which he lives; and the moment he
thus recognizes his power as master he
ceases in any way to allow it the mastery
over him. He no longer fears the elements
or any of the forces that he now in his
ignorance allows to take hold of and affect
the body. The moment he realizes his own
supremacy, instead of fearing them as he
did when he was out of harmony with
them, he learns to love them. He thus
comes into harmony with them; or rather,
he so orders them that they come into
harmony with him. He who formerly was
the slave has now become the master. The
moment we come to love a thing it no
longer carries harm for us.

There are almost countless numbers
today, weak and suffering in body, whoBODILY HEALTH £5? VIGOR 49

would become strong and healthy if they
would only give God an opportunity to
do His work. To such I would say, Don't
shut out the divine inflow. Do anything
else rather than this. Open yourselves to
it. Invite it. In the degree that you open
yourselves to it, its inflowing tide will
course through your bodies a force so vital
that the old obstructions that are dominat-
ing them today will be driven out before
it. “ My words are life to them that find
them, and health to all their flesh.”

There is a trough through which a
stream of muddy water has been flowing
for many days. The dirt has gradually
collected on its sides and bottom, and it
continues to collect as long as the muddy
water flows through it. Change this.
Open the trough to a swift-flowing stream
of clear, crystal water, and in a very little
while even the very dirt that has collected
on its sides and bottom will be carried away.
The trough will be entirely cleansed. It
will present an aspect of beauty and no
longer an aspect of ugliness. And more,
the water that now courses through it will
be of value; it will be an agent of refresh-
ment, of health and of strength to those
who use it.

Yes, in just the degree that you realize50 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

your oneness with this Infinite Spirit of
Life, and thus actualize your latent possi-
bilities and powers, you will exchange
dis-ease for ease, inharmony for harmony,
suffering and pain for abounding health
and strength. And in the degree that you
realize this wholeness, this abounding
health and strength in yourself, will you
carry it to all with whom you come in
contact; for we must remember that health
is contagious as well as disease.

I hear it asked, What can be said in a
concrete way in regard to the practical
application of these truths, so that one can
hold himself in the enjoyment of perfect
bodily health; and more, that one may
heal himself of any existing disease? In
reply, let it be said that the chief thing that
can be done is to point out the great under-
lying principle, and that each individual
must make his own application ; one person
cannot well make this for another.

First let it be said, that the very fact of
one’s holding the thought of perfect health
sets into operation vital forces which will
in time be more or less productive of the
effect,—perfect health. Then speaking
more directly in regard to the great
principle itself, from its very nature, itBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 51

is clear that more can be accomplished
through the process of realization than
through the process of affirmation, though
for some affirmation may be a help, an aid
to realization.

In the degree, however, that you come
into a vital realization of your oneness with
the Infinite Spirit of Life, whence all life
in individual form has come and is con-
tinually coming, and in the degree that
through this realization you open yourself
to its divine inflow, do you set into opera-
tion forces that will sooner or later bring
even the physical body into a state of
abounding health and strength. For to
realize that this Infinite Spirit of Life caa
from its very nature admit of no disease,
and to realize that this, then, is the life in
you, by realizing your oneness with it, you
can so open yourself to its more abundant
entrance that the diseased bodily conditions
—effects—will respond to the influences of
its all-perfect power, this either quickly or
more tardily, depending entirely upon
yourself.

There have been those who have been
able to open themselves so fully to this
realization that the healing has been instan-
taneous and permanent. The degree of
intensity always eliminates in like degree52

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

the element of time. It must, however, be
a calm, quiet, and expectant intensity,
rather than an intensity that is fearing,
disturbed, and non-expectant. Then there
are others who have come to this realization
by degrees.

Many will receive great help, and many
will be entirely healed by a practice some-
what after the following nature : With a
mind at peace, and with a heart going out
in love to all, go into the quiet of your
own interior self, holding the thought,—I
am one with the Infinite Spirit of Life, the
life of my life. I then as spirit, I a
spiritual being, can in my own real nature
admit of no disease. I now open my body,
in which disease has gotten a foothold, I
open it fully to the inflowing tide of this
Infinite Life, and it now, even now, is
pouring in and coursing through my body,
and the healing process is going on.
Realize this so fully that you begin to
feel a quickening and a warming glow
imparted by the life forces to the body.
Believe the healing process is going on.
Believe it, and hold continually to it.
Many people greatly desire a certain thing,
but expect something else. They have
greater faith in the power of evil than in
the power of good, and hence remain ill.BODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 53

If one will give himself to this meditation*
realization, treatment, or whatever term it
may seem best to use, at stated times, as
often as he may choose, and then continu-
ally hold himself in the same attitude of
mind, thus allowing the force to work
continually, he will be surprised how
rapidly the body will be exchanging
conditions of disease and inharmony for
health and harmony. There is no par-
ticular reason, however, for this surprise*
for in this way he is simply allowing the
Omnipotent Power to do the work, which
will have to do it ultimately in any
case.

If there is a local difficulty, and one
wants to open this particular portion, in
addition to the entire body, to this inflow-
ing life, he can hold this particular portion
in thought, for to fix the thought in this
way upon any particular portion of the
body stimulates or increases the flow of
the life forces in that portion. It must
always be borne in mind, however, that
whatever healing may be thus accom-
plished, effects will not permanently cease
until causes have been removed. In other
words, as long as there is the violation of
law, so long disease and suffering will
result.54

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

This realization that we are considering
will have an influence not only where there
is a diseased condition of the body, but
even where there is not this condition it
will give an increased bodily life, vigor,
and power.

We have had many cases, in all times
and in all countries, of healing through the
operation of the interior forces, entirely
independent of external agencies. Various
have been the methods, or rather, various
have been the names applied to them, but
the great law underlying all is one and the
same, and the same today. When the
Master sent his followers forth, his injunc-
tion to them was to heal the sick and the
afflicted, as well as to teach the people.
The early church fathers had the power of
healing, in short, it was a part of their
work.

And why should we not have the power
today, just as they had it then ? Are
the laws at all different? Identically the
same. Why, then ? Simply because, with
a few rare exceptions here and there, we
are unable to get beyond the mere letter of
the law into its real vital spirit and power.
It is the letter that killeth, it is the spirit
that giveth life and power. Every soul
who becomes so individualized that heBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 55

breaks through the mere letter and enters
into the real vital spirit, will have the
power, as have all who have gone before,
and when he does, he will also be the
means of imparting it to others, for he will
be one who will move and who will speak
with authority.

We are rapidly finding today, and we
shall find even more and more, as time
passes, that practically all disease, with its
consequent suffering, has its origin in
perverted mental and emotional states and
conditions. The mental attitude we take
toward anything determines to a greater or
less extent its effects upon us. If we fear
it, or if we antagonize it, the chances are
that it will have detrimental or even dis-
astrous effects upon us. If we come into
harmony with it by quietly recognizing and
inwardly asserting our superiority over it,
in the degree that we are able successfully
to do this, in that degree will it carry with
it no injury for us.

No disease can enter into or take hold
of our bodies unless it find therein some-
thing corresponding to itself which makes
it possible. And in the same way, no evil
or undesirable condition of any kind can
come into our lives unless there is already
in them that which invites it and so makes56	FULLNESS OF LIFE :

it possible for it to come. The sooner we
begin to look within ourselves for the cause
of whatever comes to us, the better it will
be, for so much the sooner will we begin
to make conditions within ourselves such
that only good may enter.

We, who from our very natures should
be masters of all conditions, by virtue of
our ignorance are mastered by almost
numberless conditions of every description.

Do I fear a draft? There is nothing in
the draft—a little purifying current of
God’s pure air—to cause me trouble, to
bring on a cold, perhaps an illness. The
draft can affect me only in the degree that
I myself make it possible, only in the
degree that I allow it to affect me. We
must distinguish between causes and mere
occasions. The draft is not cause, nor does
it carry cause with it.

Two persons are sitting in the same draft.
The one is injuriously affected by it, the
other experiences not even an inconveni-
ence, but he rather enjoys it. The one is
a creature of circumstances; he fears the
draft, cringes before it, continually thinks
of the harm it is doing him. In other
words, he opens every avenue for it to
enter and take hold of him, and so it—
harmless and beneficent in itself—brings toBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 57

him exactly what he has empowered it to
bring. The other recognizes himself as
the master over and not the creature of
circumstances. He is not concerned about
the draft. He puts himself into harmony
with it, makes himself positive to it, and
instead of experiencing any discomfort, he
enjoys it, and in addition to its doing him
a service by bringing the pure fresh air
from without to him, it does him the
additional service of hardening him even
more to any future conditions of a like
nature. But if the draft was cause, it
would bring the same results to both. The
fact that it does not, shows that it is not a
cause, but a condition, and it brings to
each, effects which correspond to the con-
ditions it finds within each.

Poor draft! How many thousands, nay
millions of times it is made the scapegoat
by those who are too ignorant or too unfair
to look their own weaknesses square in the
face, and who instead of becoming imperial
masters, remain cringing slaves. Think of
it, what it means ! A man created in the
image of the eternal God, sharer of His
life and power, born to have dominion,
fearing, shaking, cringing before a little
draft of pure life-giving air. But scape-
goats are convenient things, even if the58 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

only thing they do for us is to aid us in
our constant efforts at self-delusion.

The best way to disarm a draft of the
bad effects it has been accustomed to bring
one, is first to bring about a pure and
healthy set of conditions within, then, to
change one’s mental attitude toward it.
Recognize the fact that of itself it has no
power, it has only the power you invest it
with. Thus you will put yourself into har-
mony with it, and will no longer sit in fear
of it. Then sit in a draft a few times and
get hardened to it, as every one, by going
at it judiciously, can readily do. “ But
suppose one is in delicate health, or
especially subject to drafts?” Then be
simply a little judicious at first; don’t seek
the strongest that can be found, especially
if you do not as yet in your own mind feel
equal to it, for if you do not, it signifies
that you still fear it. That supreme regu-
lator of all life, good common sense, must
be used here, as elsewhere.

If we are born to have dominion, and
that we are is demonstrated by the fact that
some have attained to it,—and what one
has done, soon or late all can do,—then it
is not necessary that we live under the
domination of any physical agent* In the
degree that we recognize our own interiorBODILY HEALTH & VIGOR $9

powers, then are we rulers and able ta
dictate; in the degree that we fail to
recognise them, we are slaves, and are
dictated to. We build whatever we find
within us; we attract whatever comes to
us, and all in accordance with spiritual law,
for all natural law is spiritual law.

The whole of human life is cause and
effect; there is no such thing in it as
chance, nor is there even in all the wide
universe. Are we not satisfied with what-
ever comes into our lives ? The thing to
do, then, is not to spend time in railing
against the imaginary something we create
and call fate, but to look to the within,
and change the causes at work there, in
order that things of a different nature may
come, for there will come exactly what we
cause to come. This is true not only of
the physical body, but of all phases and
conditions of life. We invite whatever
comes, and did we not invite it, either
consciously or unconsciously, it could not
and it would not come. This may
undoubtedly be hard for some to believe,
or even to see, at first. But in the degree
that one candidly and open-mindedly looks
at it, and then studies into the silent, but
subtle and, so to speak, omnipotent work-
ings of the thought forces, and as he traces6o FULLNESS OF LIFE:

their effects within him and about him, it
becomes clearly evident, and easy to under-
stand.

And then whatever does come to one
depends for its effects entirely upon his
mental attitude toward it. Does this or
that occurrence or condition cause you
annoyance? Very well; it causes you
annoyance, and so disturbs your peace
merely because you allow it to. You are
born to have absolute control over your
own dominion, but if you voluntarily hand
over this power, even if for a little while,
to some one or to some thing else, then you
of course, become the creature, the one
controlled.

To live undisturbed by passing occur-
rences you must first find your own centre.
You must then be firm in your own centre,
and so rule the world from within. He
who does not himself condition . circum-
stances allows the process to be reversed,
and becomes a conditioned circumstance.
Find your centre and live in it. Surrender
it to no person, to no thing. 9 In the degree
that you do this will you find yourself
growing stronger and stronger in it. And
how can one find his centre ? By realizing
his oneness with the Infinite Power, and
by living continually in this realization.BODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 61

But if you do not rule from your own
centre, if you invest this or that with the
power of bringing you annoyance, or evil,
or harm, then take what it brings, but cease
your railings against the eternal goodness
and beneficence of all things.

“ I swear the earth shall surely be complete
To him or her who shall be complete;

The earth remains jagged and broken

Only to him who remains jagged and broken.”

If the windows of your soul are dirty and
streaked, covered with matter foreign to
them, then the world as you look out of
them will be to you dirty and streaked and
out of order. Cease your complainings,
however; keep your pessimism, your “ poor,
unfortunate me ” to yourself, lest you
betray the fact that your windows are badly
in need of something. But know that your
friend, who keeps his windows clean, that
the Eternal Sun may illumine all within
and make visible all without,—know that
he lives in a different world from
yours.

Then, go wash your windows, and
instead of longing for some other world,
you will discover the wonderful beauties
of this world; and if you don’t find
transcendent beauties on every hand here,62

FULLNESS OF LIFE i

the chances are that you will nfever find
them anywhere.

“The poem hangs on the berry-bush
When comes the poet’s eye,

And the whole street is a masquerade
When Shakspeare passes by.”

This same Shakspeare, whose mere
passing causes all this commotion, is the
one who put into the mouth of one of his
creations the words: “ The fault, dear
Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,
that we are underlings.” And the great
work of his own life is right good evidence
that he realized full well the truth of the
facts we are considering. And again he
gave us a great truth in keeping with what
we are considering when he said:

“Our doubts are traitors,

And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.”

There is probably no agent that brings
us more undesirable conditions than fear.
We should live in fear of nothing, nor will
we when we come fully to know ourselves.
An old French proverb runs:

“ Some of your griefs you have cured,

And the sharpest you still have survived ;

But what torments of pain you endured
From evils that never arrived.”BODILY HEALTH £5? VIGOR 63

Fear and lack of faith go hand in hand.
The one is born of the other. Tell me how
much one is given to fear, and I will tell
you how much he lacks in faith. Fear is
a most expensive guest to entertain, as
also is worry: so expensive are they
that no one can afford to entertain them.
We invite what we fear, just as, by a
different attitude of mind, we invite and
attract the influences and conditions we
desire. The mind dominated by fear opens
the door for the entrance of the very things,
for the actualization of the very conditions
it fears.

“ Where are you going ? ” asked an
Eastern pilgrim on meeting the plague
one day. “ I am going to Bagdad to kill
five thousand people,” was the reply. A
few days later the same pilgrim met the
plague returning. “ You told me you were
going to Bagdad to kill five thousand
people,” said he, “but instead, you killed
fifty thousand.” “ No,” said the plague.
“ 1 killed only five thousand, as I told you
I would; the others died of fright.”

Fear can paralyze every muscle in the
body. Fear affects the flow of the blood,
likewise the normal and healthy action of
all the life forces. Fear can make the body
rigid, motionless, and powerless to move.64 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

Not only do we attract to ourselves the
things we fear, but we also aid in attracting
to others the conditions we in our own
minds hold them in fear of. This we do
in proportion to the strength of our own
thought, and in the degree that they are
sensitively organized and so influenced by
our thought, and this, although it be
unconscious both on their part and on ours.

Children, and especially when very
young, are, generally speaking, more
sensitive to their surrounding influences
than grown people are. Some are veri-
table little sensitive plates, registering the
influences about them, and embodying
them as they grow. How careful in their
prevailing mental states then should be
those who have them in charge, and especi-
ally how careful should a mother be during
the time she is carrying the child, and
when every thought, every mental as well
as emotional state has its direct influence
upon the life of the unborn child. Let
parents be careful how they hold a child,
either younger or older, in the thought of
fear. This is many times done, unwittingly
on their part, through anxiety, and at times
through what might well be termed over-
care, which is fully as bad as under-care.

I know of a number of cases where aBODILY HEALTH £5? VIGOR 65

child has been so continually held in the
thought of fear lest this or that condition
come upon him, that the very things that
were feared have been drawn to him, which
probably otherwise never would have come
at all. Many times there has been no
adequate basis for the fear. In case there
is a basis, then far wiser is it to take exactly
the opposite attitude, so as to neutralize
the force at work, and then to hold the
child in the thought of wisdom and strength
that it may be able to meet the condition
and master it, instead of being mastered
by it.

But a day or two ago a friend was telling
me of an experience of his own life in this
connection. At a period when he was
having a terrific struggle with a certain
habit, he was so continually held in the
thought of fear by his mother and the
young lady to whom he was engaged,—
the engagement to be consummated at the
end of a certain period, the time depending
on his proving his mastery,—that he, very
sensitively organized, continually felt the
depressing and weakening effects of their
negative thoughts. He could always tell
exactly how they felt toward him; he was
continually influenced and weakened by
their fear, by their questionings, by their
c66 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

suspicions, all of which had the effect of
lessening the sense of his own power,
all of which had an endeavor-paralyzing
influence upon him. And so instead of
their begetting courage and strength in
him, they brought him to a still greater
realization of his own weakness and the
almost worthless use of struggle.

Here were two who loved him dearly,
and who would have done anything and
everything to help him gain the mastery,
but who, ignorant of the silent, subtle,
ever-working and all-telling power of the
thought forces, instead of imparting to him
courage, instead of adding to his strength,
disarmed him of this, and then added an
additional weakness from without. In this
way the battle for him was made harder in
a three-fold degree.

| Fear and worry and all kindred mental
states are too expensive for any person,
man, woman, or child, to entertain or
indulge in. Fear paralyzes healthy action,
worry corrodes and pulls down the organ-
ism, and will finally tear it to pieces.
Nothing is to be gained by it, but every-
thing to be lost. Long-continued grief at
any loss will do the same. Each brings
its own peculiar type of ailment. An
inordinate love of gain, a close-fisted,BODILY HEALTH fc? VIGOR 67

hoarding disposition will have kindred
effects. Anger, jealousy, malice, con-
tinual fault-finding, lust, has each its own
peculiar corroding, weakening, tearing-
down effects.

We shall find that not only are happiness
and prosperity concomitants of righteous-
ness,—living in harmony with the higher
laws, but bodily health as well. The
great Hebrew seer enunciated a wonderful
chemistry of life when he said,—44 As
righteousness tendeth to life, so he that
purstieth evil, pursueth it to his own
death.” On the other hand, 44 In the way
of righteousness is life; and in the.path-
way thereof there is no death.” The time
will come when it will be seen that this
means far more than most people dare even
to think as yet.	44 It rests with man to say

whether his soul shall be housed in a stately
mansion of ever-growing splendor and
beauty, or in a hove! of his own building,—
a hovel at last ruined and abandoned to
decay.”

The bodies of almost untold numbers,
living their one-sided, unbalanced lives,
are every year, through these influences,
weakening and falling by the wayside long
before their time. Poor, poor houses!
Intended to he beautiful temples, brought68 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

to desolation by their ignorant, reckless,
deluded tenants* Poor houses!

A dose observer, a careful student of the
power of the thought forces, will soon be
able to read in the voice, in the movements,
in the features, the effects registered by the
prevailing mental states and conditions*
Or, if he is told the prevailing mental states
and conditions, he can describe the voice,
the movements, the features, as well as
describe, in a general way, the peculiar
physical ailments their possessor is heir to*
We are told by good authority that a
study of the human body, its structure,
and the length of time it takes to come
to maturity, in comparison with the time
it takes the bodies of various animals and
their corresponding longevity, reveals the
fact that its natural age should be nearer
a hundred and twenty years than what we
commonly find it today. But think of the
multitudes all about us whose bodies are
aging, weakening, breaking, so that they
have to abandon them long before they
reach what ought to be a long period of
strong, vigorous middle life* Then, the
natural length of life being thus shortened,
it comes to be what we might term a race
belief that this shortened period is theBODILY HEALTH £5? VIGOR 69

natural period. And as a consequence
many, when they approach a certain age,
seeing that as a rule people at this period
of life begin to show signs of age, to break
and go down hill as we say, they, thinking
it a matter of course and that it must be
the same with them, by taking this attitude
of mind, many times bring upon themselves
these very conditions long before it is
necessary. Subtle and powerful are the
influences of the mind in the building and
rebuilding of the body. As we understand
them better it may become the custom for
people to look forward with pleasure to the
teens of their second century.

There comes to mind at this moment a
friend, a lady well on to eighty years of
age. An old lady, some, most people in
fact, would call her, especially those who
measure age by the number of the seasons
that have come and gone since one’s birth.
But to call our friend old, would be to call
black white. She is no older than a girl
of twenty-five, and indeed younger, I am
glad to say, or I am sorry to say, depending
upon the point of view, than many a girl
of this age. Seeking for the good in all
people and in all things, she has found the
good everywhere. The brightness of dis-
position and of voice that is hers today,70

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

that attracts all people to her and that
makes her so beautifully attractive to all
people, has characterized her all through
life. It has in turn carried brightness and
hope and courage and strength to hundreds
and thousands of people through all these
years, and will continue to do so, appar-
ently, for many years yet to come.

No fears, no worryings, no hatreds, no
jealousies, no sorrowings, no grievings, no
sordid graspings after inordinant gain,
have found entrance into her realm of
thought. As a consequence her mind, free
from these abnormal states and conditions,
has not externalized in her body the various
physical ailments that the great majority
of people are carrying about with them,
thinking, in their ignorance, that they are
natural, and that it is all in accordance with
the “ eternal order of things ” that they
should have them. Her life has been one
of varied experiences, so that all these
things would have found ready entrance
into the realm of her mind and so into her
life were she ignorant enough to allow them
entrance. On the contrary she has been
wise enough to recognize the fact that in
one kingdom at least she is ruler,—the
kingdom of her mind, and that it is hers
to dictate as to what shall and what shallBODILY HEALTH & VIGOR 71

not enter there. She knows, moreover,
that in determining this she is determining
all the conditions of her life. It is indeed
a pleasure as well as an inspiration to see
her as she goes here and there, to see her
sunny disposition, her youthful step, to
hear her joyous laughter. Indeed and in
truth, Shakspeare knew whereof he spoke
when he said,—“ It is the mind that makes
the body rich.”

With great pleasure I watched her but
recently as she was walking along the
street, stopping to have a word and so a
part in the lives of a group of children at
play by the way-side, hastening her step a
little to have a word with a washerwoman
carrying her bundle of clothes, stopping
for a word with a laboring man returning
with dinner can in hand from his work,
returning the recognition from the lady in
her carriage, and so imparting some of her
own rich life to all with whom she came
in contact.

And as good fortune would have it, while
still watching her, an old lady passed her,
—really old, this one, though at least ten
or fifteen years younger, so far as the count
by the seasons is concerned. Nevertheless
she was bent in form and apparently stiff
in joint and muscle. Silent in mood, she72

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

wore a countenance of long-faced sadness,
which was intensified surely several fold by
a black, sombre headgear with an immense
heavy veil still more sombre looking if
possible. Her entire dress was of this
description. By this relic-of-barbarism
garb, combined with her own mood and
expression, she continually proclaimed to
the world two things,—her own personal
sorrows and woes, which by this very
method she kept continually fresh in her
mind, and also her lack of faith in the
eternal goodness of things, her lack of
faith in the love and eternal goodness of
the Infinite Father.

Wrapped only in the thoughts of her
own ailments, and sorrows, and woes, she
received and she gave nothing of joy,
nothing of hope, nothing of courage,
nothing of value to those whom she passed
or with whom she came in contact. But
on the contrary she suggested to all and
helped to intensify in many, those mental
states all too prevalent in our common
human life. And as she passed our friend
one could notice a slight turn of the head
which, coupled with the expression in her
face, seemed to indicate this as her thought,
—Your dress and your conduct are not
wholly in keeping with a lady of yourBODILY HEALTH fc? VIGOR 73

years. Thank God, then, thank God they
are not. And may He in His great good-
ness and love send us an innumerable
company of the same rare type; and may
they live a thousand years to bless man-
kind, to impart the life-giving influences
of their own royal lives to the numerous
ones all about us who stand so much in
need of them.

Would you remain always young, and
would you carry all the joyousness and
buoyancy of youth into your maturer
years ? Then have care concerning but
one thing,—how you live in your thought
world. This will determine all. It was
the inspired one, Gautama, the Buddha,
who said,—“ The mind is everything: what
you think you become.” And the same
thing had Ruskin in mind when he said,—
“ Make yourself nests of pleasant thoughts.
None of us as yet know, for none of us
have been taught in early youth, what
fairy palaces we may build of beautiful
thought,—proof against all adversity
And would you have in your body all the
elasticity, all the strength, all the beauty
of your younger years? Then live these
in your mind, making no room for unclean
thought, and you will externalize them in
your body. In the degree that you keep74

FULLNESS OF LIFE:

young in thought will you remain young
in body. And you will find that your body
will in turn aid your mind, for body helps
mind just as mind builds body.

You are continually building, and so
externalizing in your body, conditions most
akin to the thoughts and emotions you
entertain. And not only are you so
building from within, but you are also
continually drawing from without, forces of
a kindred nature. Your particular kind of
thought connects you with a similar order
of thought from without. If it is bright,
hopeful, cheerful, you connect yourself
with a current of thought of this nature.
If it is sad, fearing, despondent, then this
is the order of thought you connect yourself
with.

If the latter is the order of your thought,
then perhaps unconsciously and by degrees
you have been connecting yourself with it.
You need to go back and pick up again
a part of your child nature, with its careless
and cheerful type of thought. “ The minds
of the group of children at play are uncon-
sciously concentrated in drawing to their
bodies a current of playful thought. Place
a child by itself, deprive it of its com-
panions, and soon it will mope and become
slow of movement. It is cut off from thatBODILY HEALTH fc? VIGOR 75

peculiar thought current and is literally
* out of its element/

“ You need to bring again this current
of playful thought to you which has gradu-
ally been turned off. You are too serious
or sad, or absorbed in the serious affairs
of life. You can be playful and cheerful
without being puerile or silly. You can
carry on business all the better for being
in the playful mood when your mind is off
your business. There is nothing but ill
resulting from the permanent mood of
sadness and seriousness,—the mood which
by many so long maintained makes it
actually difficult for them to smile at all.

“ At eighteen or twenty you commenced
growing out of the more playful tendency
of early youth. You took hold of the
more serious side of life. You went into
some business. You became more or less
involved in its cares, perplexities and
responsibilities. Or, as man or woman,
you entered on some phase of life involving
care or trouble. Or you became absorbed
in some game of business which, as you
followed it, left no time for play. Then
as you associated with older people you
absorbed their old ideas, their mechanical
methods of thinking, their acceptance of
errors without question or thought of76	FULLNESS OF LIFE :

question. In all this you opened your
mind to a heavy, care-laden current of
thought. Into this you glided uncon-
sciously. That thought is materialized in
your blood and flesh. The seen of your
body is a deposit or crystallization of the
unseen element ever flowing to your body
from your mind. Years pass on and you
find that your movements are stiff and
cumbrous,—that you can with difficulty
climb a tree, as at fourteen. Your mind
has all this time been sending to your body
these heavy, inelastic elements, making
your body what now it is. . . .

“ Your change for the better must be
gradual, and can only be accomplished by
bringing the thought current of an all-
round symmetrical strength to bear on it,—
by demanding of the Supreme Power to
be led in the best way, by diverting your
mind from the many unhealthy thoughts
which habitually have been flowing into it
without your knowing it, to healthier
ones. . . .

“ Like the beast, the bodies of those of
our race have in the past weakened and
decayed. This will not always be. In-
crease of spiritual knowledge will show
the cause of such decay, and will show,
also, how to take advantage of a Law orBODILY HEALTH fc? VIGOR 77

Force to build us up, renew ever the body
and give it greater and greater strength,
instead of blindly using that Law or Force,
as has been done in the past, to weaken
our bodies and finally destroy them.”

Full, rich, and abounding health is the
normal and the natural condition of life.
Anything else is an abnormal condition,
and abnormal conditions as a rule come
through perversions. God never created
sickness, suffering, and disease; they are
man’s own creations. They come through
his violating the laws under which he lives.
So used are we to seeing them that we
come gradually, if not to think of them as
natural, then to look upon them as a matter
of course.

The time will come when the work of
the physician will not be to treat and
attempt to heal the body, but to heal the
mind, which in turn will heal the body.
In other words, the true physician will be
a teacher; his work will be to keep people
well, instead of attempting to make them
well after sickness and disease comes on;
and still beyond this there will come a time
when each will be his own physician. In
the degree that we live in harmony with
the higher laws of our being, and so, in78 FULLNESS OF LIFE:

the degree that we become better acquainted
with the powers of the mind and spirit,
will we give less attention to the body,—
no less care, but less attention.

The bodies of thousands today would be
much better cared for if their owners gave
them less thought and attention. As a
rule, those who think least of their bodies
enjoy the best health. Many are kept
in continual ill health by the abnormal
thought and attention they give them.

Give the body the nourishment, the
exercise, the fresh air, the sunlight it
requires, keep it clean, and then think of
it as little as possible. In your thoughts
and in your conversation never dwell upon
the negative side. Don’t talk of sickness
and disease. By talking of these you do
yourself harm and you do harm to those
who listen to you. Talk of those things
that will make people the better for listening
to you. Thus you will infect them with
health and strength and not with weakness
and disease.

To dwell upon the negative side is always
destructive. This is true of the body
just as it is true of all other things. The
following from one whose thorough train-
ing as a physician has been supplemented
by extensive study and observations alongBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR 79

the lines of the powers of the interior forces,
are of special significance and value in this
connection : “ We can never gain health
by contemplating disease, any more than
we can reach perfection by dwelling upon
imperfection, or harmony through discord.
We should keep a high ideal of health and
harmony constantly before the mind. . . .

“ Never affirm or repeat about your
health what you do not wish to be true.
Do not dwell upon your ailments, nor
study your symptoms. Never allow your-
self to be convinced that you are not
complete master of yourself. Stoutly affirm
your superiority over bodily ills, and do
not acknowledge yourself the slave of any
inferior power. ... I would teach children
early to build a strong barrier between
themselves and disease, by healthy habits
of thought, high thinking, and purity of
life. I would teach them to expel all
thoughts of death, all images of disease,,
all discordant emotions, like hatred, malice,,
revenge, envy, and sensuality, as they
would banish a temptation to do evil. I
would teach them that bad food, bad drink*
or bad air makes bad blood; that bad blood
makes bad tissue, and bad flesh bad morals.
I would teach them that healthy thoughts
are as essential to healthy bodies as pureFULLNESS OF LIFE:

80

thoughts to a clean life. I would teach
them to cultivate a strong will power, and
to brace themselves against life's enemies
in every possible way. I would teach the
sick to have hope, confidence, cheer. Our
thoughts and imaginations are the only
real limits to our possibilities. No man's
success or health will ever reach beyond
his own confidence; as a rule, we erect
our own barriers.

“ Like produces like the universe through.
Hatred, envy, malice, jealousy, and revenge
all have children. Every bad thought
breeds others, and each of these goes on
and on, ever reproducing itself, until our
world is peopled with their offspring. The
true physician and parent of the future will
not medicate the body with drugs so much
as the mind with principles. The coming
mother will teach her child to assuage the
fever of anger, hatred, malice, with the
great panacea of the world,—Love. The
coming pHysician will teach the people to
cultivate cheerfulness, good-will, and noble
deeds for a health tonic as well as a heart
tonic; and that a merry heart doeth good
like a medicine.”

The health of your body, like the
health and strength of your mind, dependsBODILY HEALTH 6? VIGOR

upon what you relate yourself with. This
Infinite Spirit of Life, this Source of all
Life, can from its very nature, we have
found, admit of no weakness, no disease.
Come then into the full, conscious, vital
realization of your oneness with this Infinite
Life, open yourself to its more abundant
entrance, and full and ever-renewing bodily
health and strength will be yours.

“And good may ever conquer ill,

Health walk where pain has trod ;

6 As a man thinketh, so is he,’

Rise, then, and think with God.”

The whole matter may then be summed
up in the one sentence, “ God is welLmd
so are you.” You must awaken to the
TEnowledge of your re&l being. When this
awakening comes, you will have, and you
will see that you have, the power to
determine what conditions are externalized
in your body. You must recognize, .you
muM^ljeali.ze_yourself as_^

Spirit. God’s will is then your will; your
will is God’s will, and “ with God all things
are possible.” When we are able to do
away with all sense of separateness by
living continually in the realization of this
oneness, not only will our bodily ills and
weaknesses vanish, but all limitations along
all lines.FULLNESS OF LIFE

Then “ delight thyself in the Lord, and
He shall give thee the desires of thine
heart.” Then will you feel like crying all
the day long, “ The lines are fallen unto
me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly
heritage.” Drop out of mind your belief
in good things and good events coming
to you in the future. Come now into the
real life, and coming, appropriate and
actualize them now. Remember that only
the best is good enough for one with a
heritage so royal as yours.

“We buy ashes for bread;

We buy diluted wine;

Give me the true,—

Whose ample leaves and tendrils curled
Among the silver hills of heaven,

Draw everlasting dew.”EFFECTS OF LOVE 83

THE SECRET, POWER, AND
EFFECTS OF LOVE.

This is the Spirit of Infinite Love. The
moment we recognize ourselves as one with
it we become so filled with love that we
see only the good in all. And when we
realize that we are all one with this Infinite
Spirit, then we realize that in a sense we
are all one with each other. When we
come into a recognition of this fact, we
can then do no harm to any one, to any
thing. We find that we are all members
of the one great body, and that no portion
of the body can be harmed without all the
other portions suffering thereby.

When we fully realize the great fact of
the oneness of all life,—that all are par-
takers from this one Infinite Source, and
so that the same life is the life in each
individual, then prejudices go and hatreds
cease. Love grows and reigns supreme.
Then, wherever we go, whenever we come
in contact with the fellowman, we are able
to recognize the God within. We thus
look only for the good, and we find it. It
always pays.

There is a deep scientific fact underlying84 THE SECRET, POWER

the great truth, “ He that takes the sword
shall perish by the sword.” The moment
we come into a realization of the subtle
powers of the thought forces, we can
quickly see that the moment we entertain
any thoughts of hatred toward another, he
gets the effects of these diabolical forces
that go out from us, and has the same
thoughts of hatred aroused in him, which
in turn return to the sender. Then when
we understand the effects of the passion,
hatred or anger, even upon the physical
body, we can see how detrimental, how
expensive this is. The same is true in
regard to all kindred thoughts or passions,
envy, criticism, jealousy, scorn. In the
ultimate we shall find that in entertaining
feelings of this nature toward another, we
always suffer far more than the one toward
whom we entertain them.

And then when we fully realize the fact
that selfishness is at the root of all error,
sin, and crime, and that ignorance is the
basis of all selfishness, with what charity
we come to look upon the acts of all. It
is the ignorant man who seeks his own
ends at the expense of the greater whole.
It is the ignorant man, therefore, who is
the selfish man. The truly wise man is
never selfish. He is a seer, and recognizesAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 85

the fact that he, a single member of the
one great body, is benefited in just the
degree that the entire body is benefited,
and so he seeks nothing for himself that
he would not equally seek for all mankind.

If selfishness is at the bottom of all error,
sin, and crime, and ignorance is the basis
of all selfishness, then when we see a
manifestation of either of these qualities,
if we are true to the highest within us, we
will look for and will seek to call forth the
good in each individual with whom we
come in contact. When God speaks to
God, then God responds, and shows forth
as God. But when devil speaks to devil,
then devil responds, and the devil is always
to pay.

I sometimes hear a person say, “ I don’t
see any good in him.” No? Then you
are no seer. Look deeper and you will
find the very God in every human soul.
But remember it takes a God to recognize
a God. Christ always spoke to the highest,
the truest, and the best in men. He knew
and he recognized the God in each because
he had first realized it in Himself. He ate
with publicans and sinners. Abominable,
the Scribes and Pharisees said. They were
so wrapped up in their own conceits,
their own self-centredness, hence their own86 THE SECRET, POWER

ignorance, that they had never found the
God in themselves, and so they never
dreamed that it was the real life of even
publicans and sinners.

In the degree that we hold a person in
the thought of evil or of error, do we
suggest evil and error to him. In the
degree that he is sensitively organized, or
not well individualized, and so, subject to
the suggestions of the thought forces from
others, will he be influenced; and so in
this way we may be sharers in the very
evil-doing in which we hold another in
thought. In the same way when we hold
a person in the thought of the right, the
good, and the true, righteousness, good-
ness, and truth are suggested to him, and
thus we have a most beneficent influence
on his life and conduct. If our hearts go
out in love to all with whom we come in
contact, we inspire love, and the same
ennobling and warming influences of love
always return to us from those in whom
we inspire them. There is a deep scientific
principle underlying the precept—If you
would have all the world love you, you
must first love all the world.

In the degree that we love will we be
loved. Thoughts are forces-.. Each creates
of its kind. Each comes back laden withAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 87

the effect that corresponds to itself and of
which it is the cause.

‘‘Then let your secret thoughts be fair—

They have a vital part, and share
In shaping words and moulding fate ;

God’s system is so intricate.”

I know of no better practice than that
of a friend who continually holds himself
in an attitude of mind that he continually
sends out his love in the form of the
thought,—“ Dear everybody, I love you.”
And when we realize the fact that a thought
invariably produces its effect before it
returns, or before it ceases, we can see how
he is continually breathing out a blessing
not only upon all with whom he comes in
contact, but upon all the world. These
same thoughts of love, moreover, tokened
in various ways, are continually coming
to him from all quarters.

Even animals feel the effects of these
forces. Some animals are much more
sensitively organized than many people
are, and consequently they get the effects
of our thoughts, our mental states, and
emotions much more readily than many
people do. Therefore wheoeve^ meet
an animal we can do it good by sending
out to it these thoughts of love. It will
feel the effects whether we simply entertain88 THE SECRET, POWER

or whether we voice them. And it is often
interesting to note how quickly it responds,
and how readily it gives evidence of its
appreciation of this love and consideration
on our part.

What a privilege and how enjoyable it
would be to live and walk in a world where
we meet only Gods. In such a world you
can live. In such a world I can live. For
in the degree that we come into this higher
realization do we see only the God in each
human soul; and when we are thus able
to see Him in every one we meet, we then
live in such a world.

And when we thus recognize the God
in every one, we by this recognition help
to call it forth ever more and more. What
a privilege,—this privilege of yours, this
privilege of mine ! That hypocritical judg-
ing of another is something then with
which we can have nothing to do; for we
have the power of looking beyond the
evolving, changing, error-making self, and
seeing the real, the changeless, the eternal
self which by and by will show forth in
the full beauty of holiness. We are then
large enough also to realize the fact that
when we condemn another, by that very
act we condemn ourselves.

This realization so fills us with love thatAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 89

we continually overflow it, and all with
whom we come in contact feel its warming
and life-giving power. These in turn send
back the same feelings of love to us, and
so we continually attract love from all
quarters. Tell me how much one loves
and I will tell you how much he has seen
of God. Tell me how much he loves and
I will tell you how much he lives with
God. Tell me how much he loves and I
will tell you how far into the Kingdom of
Heaven,—the kingdom of harmony, he has
entered, for “ love is the fulfilling of the
law.”

And in a sense love is everything. It
is the key to life, and its influences are
those that move the world. Live, only in
the thought of love (or all, and,Xo,u will
draw love to you from all. Live in the
thought of malice or hatred, and malice
and hatred will come back to you.

“For evil poisons ; malice shafts
Like boomerangs return,

Inflicting wounds that will not heal
While rage and anger burn.”

r‘ Every thought you entertain is a force
I that goes out, and every thought comes
back laden with its kind. This is an
immutable law. Every thought you enter-
\ tain has moreover a direct effect upon your9o THE SECRET, POWER

body. Love and its kindred emotions are
the normal and the natural, those in
accordance with the eternal order of the
universe, for “ God is love.” These have
a life-giving, health-engendering influence
upon your body, besides beautifying your
countenance, enriching your voice, and
making you ever more attractive in every
way. And as it is true that in the degree
that you hold thoughts of love for all, you
call the same from them in return, and as
these have a direct effect upon your mind,
and through your mind upon your body,
it is as so much life force added to your
own from without. You are then continu-
ally building this into both your mental
and your physical life, and so your life is
enriched by its influence.

Hatred and all its kindred emotions are
the unnatural, the abnormal, the perver-
sions, and so, out of harmony with the
eternal order of the universe. For if love
is the fulfilling of the law, then these, its
opposites, are direct violations of law, and
there can never be a violation of law
without its attendant pain and suffering in
one form or another. There is no escape
from this. And what is the result of this
particular form of violation ? When you
allow thoughts of anger, hatred, malice,AND EFFECTS OF LOVE 91

jealousy, envy, criticism, or scorn to exer-
cise sway, they have a corroding and
poisoning effect upon the organism ; they
pull it down, and if allowed to continue
will eventually tear it to pieces by external-
izing themselves in the particular forms
of disease they give rise to. And then in
addition to the destructive influences from
your own mind you are continually calling
the same influences from other minds, and
these come as destructive forces augmenting
your own, thus aiding in the tearing down
process.

And so love inspires love; hatred breeds
hatred. Love and good-will stimulate and
build up the body; hatred and malice
corrode and tear it down. Love is a savor
of life unto life; hatred is a savor of death
unto death.

“ There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave,
There are souls that are pure and true;

Then give to the world the best you have,

And the best will come back to you.

“ Give love, and love to your heart will flow,

A strength in your utmost need;

Have faith, and a score of hearts will show
Their faith in your word and deed.”

I hear it said,—How in regard to one
who bears me hatred, towards whom I have
entertained no such thoughts and feelings,92 THE SECRET, POWER

and so have not been the cause of his
becoming my enemy ? This may be true,
but the chances are that you will have but
few enemies if there is nothing of an
antagonistic nature in your own mind and
heart. Be sure there is nothing of this
nature. But if hatred should come from
another without apparent cause on your
part, then meet it from first to last with
thoughts of love and good-will. In this
way you can, so to speak, so neutralize
its effects that it cannot reach you and so
cannot harm you. Love is positive, and
stronger than hatred. Hatred can always
be conquered by love.

On the other hand, if you meet hatred
with hatred, you simply intensify it. You
add fuel to the flame already kindled, upon
which it will feed and grow, and so you
increase and intensify the evil conditions.
Nothing is to be gained by it, everything
is to be lost. By sending love for hatred
you will be able so to neutralize it that it
will not only have no effect upon you, but
will not be able even to reach you. But
more than this, you will by this course
sooner or later be able literally to transmute
the enemy into the friend. Meet hatred
with hatred and you degrade yourself.
Meet hatred with love and you elevate notAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 93

only yourself but also the one who bears
you hatred.

The Persian sage has said, “ Always
meet petulance with gentleness, and per-
verseness with kindness. A gentle hand
can lead even an elephant by a hair.
Reply to thine enemy with gentleness.
Opposition to peace is sin.” The Buddhist
says, “ If a man foolishly does me wrong
I will return him the protection of my
ungrudging love. The more evil comes
from him the more good shall go from
me.” “ The wise man avenges injuries by
benefits,” says the Chinese. “ Return good
for evil, overcome anger by love; hatred
never ceases by hatred, but by love,” says
the Hindu.

The truly wise man or woman will
recognize no one as an enemy. Occasion-
ally we hear the expression, “ Never mind;
I’ll get even with him.” Will you? And
how will you do it? You can do it in one
of two ways. You can, as you have in
mind, deal with him as he deals, or
apparently deals, with you,—pay him, as
we say, in his own coin. If you do this
you will get even with him by sinking
yourself to his level, and both of you will
suffer by it. Or, you can show yourself
the larger, you can send him love for94 THE SECRET, POWER

hatred, kindness for ill-treatment, and so
get even with him by raising him to the
higher level. But remember that you can
never help another without by that very
act helping yourself; and if forgetful of
self, then in most cases the value to you
is greater than the service you render
another. If you are ready to treat him as
he treats you, then you show clearly that
there is in you that which draws the hatred
and ill-treatment to you; you deserve what
you are getting and should not complain,,
nor would you complain if you were wise.
By following the other course you most
effectually accomplish your purpose,—you
gain a victory for yourself, and at the same
time you do a great service for him, of
which it is evident he stands greatly in
need.

Thus you may become his saviour. He
in turn may become the saviour of other
error-making, and consequently care-en-
cumbered men and women. Many times"
the struggles are greater than we can ever
know. We need more gentleness and
sympathy and compassion in our common
human life. Then we will neither blame
nor condemn. Instead of blaming or
condemning we will sympathize, and all
the more we will—AND EFFECTS OF LOVE 95

“Comfort one another,

For the way is often dreary,

And the feet are often weary,

And the heart is very sad.

There is a heavy burden bearing,

When it seems that none are caring,

And we half forget that ever we were glad.

“ Comfort one another
With the hand-clasp close and tender,

With the sweetness love can render,

And the looks of friendly eyes.

Do not wait with grace unspoken,

While life’s daily bread is broken—

Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies.’*

When we come fully to realize the great
fact that all evil and error and sin with all
their consequent sufferings come through
ignorance, then wherever we see a mani-
festation of these in whatever form, if our
hearts are right, we will have compassion,
sympathy and compassion for the one in
whom we see them. Compassion will then
change itself into love, and love will
manifest itself in kindly service. Such is
the divine method. And so instead of
aiding in trampling and keeping a weaker
one down, we will hold him. up until he
can stand alone and become the master.
But all life-growth is from within out, and
one becomes a true master in the degree
that the knowledge of the divinity of hisc.6 THE SECRET, POWER

own nature dawns upon his inner conscious-
ness and so brings him to a knowledge of
the higher laws; and in no way can we
so effectually hasten this dawning in the
inner consciousness of another, as by
showing forth the divinity within ourselves
simply by the way we live.

By example and not by precept. By
living, not by preaching. By doing, not
by professing. By living the life, not by
dogmatizing as to how it should be lived.
There is no contagion equal to the con-
tagion of life. Whatever we sqw, that
shall we also reap, and each thing sown
produces of its kind. We can kill not only
by doing another bodily injury directly,
but we can and we do kill by every antago-
nistic thought. Not only do we thus kill,
but while we kill we suicide. Many a man
has been made sick by having the ill
thoughts of a number of people centred
upon him; some have been actually killed.
Put hatred into the world and we make it
a literal hell. Put love into the world and
heaven with all its beauties and glories
becomes a reality.

Not to love is not to live, or it is to live
a living death. The life that goes out in
love to all is the life that is full, and rich,
and continually expanding in beauty andAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 97

in power. Such is the life that becomes
ever more inclusive, and hence larger in
its scope and influence. The larger the
man or the woman, the more inclusive
they are in their love and their friendships.
The smaller the man or the woman, the
more dwarfed and dwindling their natures,
the more they pride themselves upon their
“ exclusiveness.” Any one—a fool or an
idiot—can be exclusive. It comes easy.

u
3

m

self-centred, self-seeking nature is exclusive.
The man or the woman of a large, royal,
unself-centred nature never is. The small
nature is the one that continually strives
for effect. The larger nature never does.
The one goes here and there in order to
gain recognition, in order to attach himself
to the world. The other stays at home and
draws the world to him. The one loves
merely himself. The other loves all the
world; but in his larger love for all the
world he finds himself included.

Verily, then, the more one loves the
nearer he approaches to God, for God is
the spirit of infinite love. And when we
come into the realization of our oneness
with this Infinite Spirit, then divine love

takes and it signifies a large nature to
Quniversa^T^r^bgijm^sive. Only the
an or the woman of a small, personal,

D98 THE SECRET, POWER

so fills us that, enriching and enrapturing
our own lives, from them it flows out to
enrich the life of all the world.

In coming into the realization of our
oneness with the Infinite Life, we are
brought at once into right relations with
our fellowmen. We are brought into
harmony with the great law, that we find
our own lives in losing them in the service
of others. We are brought to a knowledge
of the fact that all life is one, and that we
are all parts of the one great whole. We
then realize that we cannot serve another
without at the same time serving our-
selves. We also realize that we cannot
do harm to another without by that very
act doing harm to ourselves. We realize
that the man who lives to himself alone
lives a little, dwarfed, and stunted life,
because he has no part in this larger life
of humanity. But the one who in service
loses his own life in this larger life,
has his own life increased and enriched
a thousand or a million fold, and every
joy, every happiness, everything of value
coming to each member of this greater
whole comes as such to him, for he has a
part in the life of each and all.

And here let a word be said in regard
to true service. Peter and John were oneAND EFFECTS OF LOVE 99

day going up to the temple, and as they
were entering the gate they were met by
a poor cripple who asked them for alms.
Instead of giving him something to supply
the day’s needs and then leaving him in
the same dependent condition for the
morrow and the morrow, Peter did him a
real service, and a real service for all
mankind by saying, Silver and gold have
I none, but such as I have I give unto thee.
And then he made him whole. He thus
brought him into the condition where he
could help himself. In other words, the
greatest service we can do for another is
to help him to help himself. To help him
directly might be weakening, though not
necessarily. It depends entirely upon cir-
cumstances. But to help one to help
himself is never weakening, but always
encouraging and strengthening, because it
leads him to a larger and stronger life.

There is no better way to help one to
help himself than to bring him to a know-
ledge of himself. There is no better way
to bring one to a knowledge of himself
than to lead him to a knowledge of the
powers that are lying dormant within his
own soul. There is nothing that will
enable him to come more readily or more
completely into an awakened knowledge ofIOO

EFFECTS OF LOVE

the powers that are lying dormant within
his own soul, than to bring him into the
conscious, vital realization of his oneness
with the^ Infinite Lif^
he mayopen: hi^
may work and 4nanF

We shall find that these same great
truths lie at the very bottom of the solution
of our social situation; and we shall also
find that we shall never have a full and
permanent solution of it until they are
fully recognized and built upon.INTERIOR ILLUMINATION ioi

WISDOM AND INTERIOR
ILLUMINATION.

This is the Spirit of Infinite Wisdom, and
in the degree that we open ourselves to it
does the highest wisdom manifest itself to
and through us. We can in this way go
to the very heart of the universe itself and
find the mysteries hidden to the majority
of mankind,—hidden to them, though not
hidden of themselves.

In order for the highest wisdom and
insight we must have absolute confidence
in the Divine guiding us, but not through
the channel of some one else. And why
should we go to another for knowledge and
wisdom ? With God is no respect of
persons. Why should we seek these things
second hand ? Why should we thus stultify
our own innate powers ? Why should we
ngt-go direct to the Infinite Source itself?
w If any man lack wisdom let him ask of
God.” “ Before they call I will answer,
and while they are yet speaking, I will
hear.”

When we thus go directly to the Infinite
Source itself we are no longer slaves to
personalities, institutions, or books. We102

WISDOM AND

should always keep ourselves open to
suggestions of truth from these agencies.
We should always regard them as agencies,
however, and never as sources. We should
never recognize them as masters, but simply
as teachers. With Browning, we must
recognize the great fact that—

\ “Truth is within ourselves : it takes no rise
< From out ware things, whatever you may believe.

\ There is an inmost centre in us all,

Where truth abides in fullness.”

There is no more important injunction
in all the world, nor one with a deeper
interior meaning, than “ To thine own self
be true.” In other words, be true to your
own soul, for it is through your own soul
that the voice of God speaks to you. This
is the interior guide. This is the light
that lighteth every man that cometh into
the world. This is conscience. This is
intuition. This is the voice of the higher
self, the voice of the soul, the voice of God.
"Thou shalt hear a voice behind thee,
saying: This is the way, walk ye in it.”

When Elijah was on the mountain it
was after the various physical commotions
and manifestations that he heard the “ still,
small voice,” the voice of his own soul,
through which the Infinite God was speak-
ing. If we will but follow this voice ofINTERIOR ILLUMINATION iL

intuition, it will speak ever more clearly
and more plainly, until by and by it will
be absolute and unerring in its guidance.
The great trouble with us is that we do
not listen to and do not follow this voice
within our own souls, and so we become
as a house divided against itself. We are
pulled this way and that, and we are never
certain of anything, I have a friend who
listens so carefully to this inner voice, who,
in other words, alvrays acts so quickly and
so fully in accordance with his intuitions,
and whose life as a consequence is so
absolutely guided by them, that he always
does the right thing at the right time and
in the right way. He always knows when
to act and how to act, and he is never in
the condition of a house divided against
itself.

But some one says, “May it not be
dangerous for us to act always upon our
intuitions? Suppose we should have an
intuition to do harm to some one ? ” We
need not be afraid of this, however, for
the voice of the soul, this voice of God
speaking through the soul, will never direct
one to do harm to another, nor to do
anything that is not in accordance with
the highest standards of right, and truth,
and justice. And if you at any time haveWISDOM AND

4

a prompting of this kind, know that it is
not the voice of intuition; it is some
characteristic of your lower self that is
prompting you.

Reason is not to be set aside, but it is
to be continually illumined by this higher
spiritual perception, and in the degree that
it is thus illumined will it become an agent
of light and power. When one becomes
thoroughly individualized he enters into
the realm of all knowledge and wisdom;
and to be individualized is to recognize no
power outside of the Infinite Power that is
at the back of all. When one recognizes
this great fact and opens himself to this
Spirit of Infinite Wisdom, he then enters
upon the road to the true education, and
mysteries that before were closed now
reveal themselves to him. This must
indeed be the foundation of all true edu-
cation, this evolving from within, this
evolving of what has been involved by
the Infinite Power.

All things that it is valuable for us to
know will come to us if we will but open
ourselves to the voice of this Infinite Spirit.
It is thus that we become seers and have
the power of seeing into the very heart of
things. There are no new stars, there are
no new laws or forces, but we can so openINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 105

ourselves to this Spirit of Infinite Wisdom
that we can discover and recognize those
that have not been known before; and in
this way they become new to us. When
in this way we come into a knowledge of
truth we no longer need facts that are
continually changing. We can then enter
into the quiet of our own interior selves.
We can open the window and look out,
and thus gather the facts as we choose.
This is true wisdom. “ Wisdom is the
knowledge of God.” Wisdom comes by
intuition. It far transcends knowledge.
Great knowledge, knowledge of many
things, may be had by virtue simply of
a very retentive memory. It comes by
tuition. But wisdom far transcends know-
ledge, in that knowledge is a mere incident
of this deeper wisdom.

He who would enter into the realm of
wisdom must first divest himself of all
intellectual pride. He must become as
a little child. Prejudices, preconceived
opinions and beliefs always stand in the
way of true wisdom. Conceited opinions
are always suicidal in their influences.
They bar the door to the entrance of truth.

All about us we see men in the religious
world, in the world of science, in the
political, in the social world, who throughWISDOM AND

io 6

intellectual pride are so wrapped in their
own conceits and prejudices that larger and
later revelations of truth can find no
entrance to them; and instead of growing
and expanding, they are becoming dwarfed
and stunted, and still more incapable of
receiving truth. Instead of actively aiding
in the progress of the world, they are as
so many dead sticks in the way that would
retard the wheels of progress. This, how-
ever, they can never do. Such always in
time get bruised, broken, and left behind,
while God’s triumphal car of truth moves
steadily onward.

When the steam engine was still being
experimented with, and before it was
perfected sufficiently to come into practical
use, a well-known Englishman—well known
then in scientific circles—wrote an extended
pamphlet proving that it would be impos-
sible for it ever to be used in ocean
navigation, that is, in a trip involving the
crossing of the ocean, because it would be
utterly impossible for any vessel to carry
with it sufficient coal for the use of its
furnace. And the interesting feature of
the whole matter was that the very first
steam vessel that made the trip from
England to America, had among its cargo
a part of the first edition of this carefullyINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 107

prepared pamphlet. There was only the
one edition. Many editions might be sold
now.

This seems indeed an amusing fact; but
far more amusing is the man who volun-
tarily closes himself to truth because,
forsooth, it does not come through con-
ventional, or orthodox, or heretofore
accepted channels; or because it may
not be in full accord with, or possibly
may be opposed to, established usages or
beliefs. On the contrary—

“ Let there be many windows in your soul,

That all the glory of the universe
May beautify it. Not the narrow pane
Of one poor creed can catch the radiant rays
That shine from countless sources. Tear away
The blinds of superstition: let the light
Pour through fair windows, broad as truth itself
And high as heaven. . . . Tune your ear
To all the worldless music of the stars
And to the voice of nature, and your heart
Shall turn to truth and goodness as the plant
Turns to the sun. A thousand unseen hands
Reach down to help you to their peace-crowned
heights,

l And all the forces of the firmament
\ Shall fortify your strength. Be not afraid
\ To thrust aside half-truths and grasp the whole.”

There is a great law in connection with
the coming of truth. It is this : Whenever108	WISDOM AND

a man or a woman shuts himself or herself
to the entrance of truth on account of
intellectual pride, preconceived opinions,
prejudices, or for whatever reason, there
is a great law which says that truth in its
fullness will come to that one from no
source. And on the other hand, when a
man or a woman opens himself or herself
fully to the entrance of truth from whatever
source it may come, there is an equally
great law which says that truth will flow
in to him or to her from all sources, from
all quarters. Such becomes the free man,
the free woman, fox it isi the„.,tmtk.^that
makes us free. The other remains in

-	MV.'"'-	*0

bondage, for truth has had no invitation
and will not enter where it is not fully and
freely welcomed.

And where truth is denied entrance the
rich blessings it carries with it cannot take
up their abode. On the contrary, when
this is the case, it sends an envoy carrying
with it atrophy, disease, death, physically
and spiritually as well as intellectually.
And the man who would rob another of
his free and unfettered search for truth,
who would stand as the interpreter of truth
for another, with the intent of remaining
in this position, rather than endeavoring
to lead him to the place where he can beINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 109

his own interpreter, is more to be shunned
than a thief and a robber. The injury he
works is far greater, for he is doing direct
and positive injury to the very life of the
one he thus holds.

Who has ever appointed any man,
whoever he may be, as the keeper, the
custodian, the dispenser of God’s illimitable
truth ? Many indeed are moved and so are
called to be teachers of truth; but the true
teacher will never stand as the interpreter
of truth for another. The true teacher is
the one whose endeavor is to bring the one
he teaches to a true knowledge of himself
and hence of his own interior powers,
that he may become his own interpreter.
All others are, generally speaking, those
animated by purely personal motives,
self-aggrandizement, or personal gain.
Moreover, he who would claim to have
all truth and the only truth, is a bigot,
a fool, or a knave.

In the Eastern literature is a fable of
a frog. The frog lived in a well, and out
of his little well he had never been. One
day a frog whose home was in the sea
came to his well. Interested in all things,
he went in. “ Who are you? Where do
you live? ” said the frog in the well. “ I
am so and so, and my home is in the sea.”IIO

WISDOM AND

“ The sea ? What is that ? Where is
that ? ” It is a very large body of water,
and not far away.” “ How big is your
sea?” “Oh, very big.” “As big as
this? ” pointing to a little stone lying near.
“Oh, much bigger.” “As big as this?”
pointing to the board upon which they
were sitting. “ Oh, much bigger.” “ How
much bigger, then ? ”	“ Why, the sea in

which I live is bigger than your entire
well; it would make millions of wells such
as yours.” “ Nonsense, nonsense; you are
a deceiver and a falsifier. Get out of my
well. Get out of my well. I want nothing
to do with any such frogs as you.”

“Ye shall know the truth and the truth
shall make you free,” is the promise. Ye
shall close yourselves to truth, ye shall live
in your own conceits, and your own con-
ceits shall make fools and idiots of you,
would be a statement applicable to not a
few, and to not a few who pride themselves
upon their superior intellectual attainments.
Idiocy is arrested mental growth. Closing
one’s self for whatever reason to truth and
hence to growth, brings a certain type of
idiocy, though it may not be called by this
name. And on the other hand, another
type is that arrested growth caused by
taking all things for granted, withoutINTERIOR ILLUMINATION hi

proving them for one’s self, merely because
they come from a particular person, a
particular book, a particular institution.
This is caused by one’s always looking
without instead of being true to the light
within, and carefully tending it that it may
give an ever-clearer light.

With brave and intrepid Walt Whitman,
we should all be able to say—

“ From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and
imaginary lines,

Going where I list, my own master total and
absolute,

Listening to others, considering well what they

say,

Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,

Gently, but with undeniable will divesting myself of
the holds that would hold me.8

Great should be the joy that God’s
boundless truth is open to all, open equally
to all, and that it will make each one
its dwelling place in proportion as he
earnestly desires it and opens himself
to it.

And in regard to the wisdom that guides
us in our daily life, there is nothing that
it is right and well for us to know that
may not be known when we recognize the
law of its coming, and are able wisely to
use it. Let us know that all things are112

WISDOM AND

ours as soon as we know how to appropriate
them.

“ I hold it as a changeless law,

From which no soul can sway or swerve,

We have that in us which will draw
Whate’er we need or most deserve.”

If the times come when we know not
what course to pursue, when we know not
which way to turn, the fault lies in our-
selves. If the fault lies in ourselves then
the correction of this unnatural condition
lies also in ourselves. It is never necessary
to come into such a state if we are awake
and remain awake to the light and the
powers within us. The light is ever
shining, and the only thing that it is
necessary for us diligently to see to is that
we permit neither this thing nor that to
come between us and the light. “ With
Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light
shall we see light.”

Let us hear the words of one of the most
highly illumined men I have ever known,
and one who as a consequence is never in
the dark, when the time comes, as to what
to do and how to do it. “ Whenever you
are in doubt as to the course you should
pursue, after you have turned to every
outward means of guidance, let the inward
eye see, let the inward ear hear, and allowINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 113

this simple, natural, beautiful process to
go on unimpeded by questionings or
doubts. ... In all dark hours and times
of unwonted perplexity we need to follow
one simple direction, found, as all needed
directions can be found, in the dear old
gospel, which so many read, but alas, so
few interpret. ‘ Enter into thine inner
chamber and shut the door.’ Does this
mean that we must literally betake ourselves
to a private closet with a key in the door ?
If it did, then the command could never
be obeyed in the open air, on land or sea,
and the Christ loved the lakes and the
forests far better than the cramping rooms
of city dwelling houses; still his counsels
are so wide-reaching that there is ho spot
on earth and no conceivable situation in
which any of us may be placed where we
cannot follow them.

“ One of the most intuitive men we ever
met had a desk in a city office where several
other gentlemen were doing business con-
stantly and often talking loudly. Entirely
undisturbed by the many various sounds
about him, this self-centred, faithful man
would, in any moment of perplexity, draw
the curtains of privacy so completely about
him that he would be as fully enclosed in
his own psychic aura, and thereby asWISDOM AND

114

effectually removed from all distractions as
though he were alone in some primeval
wood. Taking his difficulty with him into
the mystic silence in the form of a direct
question, to which he expected a certain
answer, he would remain utterly passive
until the reply came, and never once
through many years’ experience did he find
himself disappointed or misled. Intuitive
perceptions of truth are the daily bread to
satisfy our daily hunger; they come like
the manna in the desert day by day; each
day brings adequate supply for that
day’s need only. They must be followed
instantly, for dalliance with them means
their obscuration, and the more we dally
the more "we invite erroneous impressions
to cover intuition with a pall of conflicting
moral phantasy born of illusions of the
terrene will.

“ One condition is imposed by universal
law, and this we must obey. Put all
wishes aside save the one desire to know
truth; couple with this one demand the
fully consecrated determination to follow
what is distinctly perceived as truth
immediately it is revealed. No other
affection must be permitted to share the
field with this all-absorbing love of truth
for its own sake. Obey this one directionINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 115

and never forget that expectation and desire
are bride and bridegroom and forever
inseparable, and you will soon find your
hitherto darkened way grow luminous with
celestial radiance, for with the heaven
within, all heavens without incessantly
co-operdte.” This may be termed going
into the “ silence.” This it is to perceive
and to be guided by the light that lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.
This it is to listen to and be guided by
'ne voice of your own soul, the voice of
your higher self.

The soul is divine and in allowing it to
become translucent to the Infinite Spirit
it reveals all things to us. As man turns
away from the Divine Light do all things
become hidden. There is nothing hidden
of itself. When the spiritual sense is )
opened, then it transcends all the limita- S
tions of the physical senses and the intellect*^
And in the degree that we are able to get
away from the limitations set by them, and
realize that so far as the real life is con-
cerned it is one with the Infinite Life, then
we begin to reach the place where this voice
will always speak, where it will never fail
us, if we follow it, and as a consequence
where we will always have the divine
illumination and guidance. To know this116	WISDOM AND

and to live in this realization is not to live
in heaven hereafter, but to live in heaven
here and now, today and every day.

No human soul need be without it.
When we turn our face in the right direc-
tion it comes as simply and as naturally
as the flower blooms and the winds blow.
It is not to be bought with money or with
price. It is a condition waiting simply to
be realized, by rich and by poor, by king
and by peasant, by master and by servant
the world over. All are equal heirs to it.
And so the peasant, if he find it first, lives
a life far transcending in beauty and in
real power the life of his king. The
servant, if he find it first, lives a life sur-
passing the life of his master.

If you would find the highest, the fullest,
and the richest life that not only this world
but that any world can know, then do away
with the sense of the separateness of your
life from the life of God. Hold to the
thought of your oneness. In the degree
that you do this you will find yourself
realizing it more and more, and as this life
of realization is lived, you will find that no
good thing will be withheld, for all things
are included in this. Then it will be yours,
without fears or forebodings, simply to doINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 117

today what your hands find to do, and so
be ready for tomorrow, when it comes,
knowing that tomorrow will bring tomor-
row’s supplies for the mental, the spiritual,
and the physical life. Remember, however,
that tomorrow’s supplies are not needed
until tomorrow comes.

If one is willing to trust himself fully
to the Lawr, the Law will never fail him.
It is the half-hearted trusting to it that
brings uncertain, and so, unsatisfactory
results. Nothing is firmer and surer than
Deity. It will never fail the one who
throws himself wholly upon it. The secret
of life then, is to live continually in this
realization, whatever one may be doing,
wherever one may be, by day and by night,
both waking and sleeping. It can be lived
in while we are sleeping no less than when
we are awake. And here shall we consider
a few facts in connection with sleep, in
connection with receiving instruction and
illumination while asleep ?

During the process of sleep it is merely
the physical body that is at rest and in
quiet; the soul life with all its activities
goes right on. Sleep is nature’s provision
for the recuperation of the body, for the
rebuilding and hence the replacing of the
waste that is continually going on duringWISDOM AND

xx8

the waking hours. It is nature’s great
restorer. If sufficient sleep is not allowed
the body, so that the rebuilding may
equalize the wasting process, the body is
gradually depleted and weakened, and any
ailment or malady, when it is in this con-
dition, is able to find a more ready entrance.
It is for this reason that those who are
subject to it will take a cold, as we term
it, more readily when the body is tired or
exhausted through loss of sleep than at
any other time. The body is in that con-
dition where outside influences can have
a more ready effect upon it, than when it
is in its normal condition. And when they
do have an effect they always go to the
weaker portions first.

Our bodies are given us to serve far
higher purposes than we ordinarily use
them for. Especially is this true in the
numerous cases where the body is master
of its owner. In the degree that we come
into the realization of the higher powers
of the mind and spirit, in that degree does
the body, through their influence upon it,
become less gross and heavy, finer in its
texture and form. And then, because the
mind finds a kingdom of enjoyment in
itself, and in all the higher things it
becomes related to, excesses in eating andINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 119

drinking, as well as all others, naturally
and of their own accord fall away. There
also falls away the desire for the heavier,
grosser, less valuable kinds of food and
drink, such as the flesh of animals, alcoholic
drinks, and all things of the class that
stimulate the body and the passions rather
than build the body and the brain into a
strong, clean, well-nourished, enduring,
and fibrous condition. In the degree that
the body thus becomes less gross and
heavy, finer in its texture and form, is
there less waste, and what there is is more
easily replaced, so that it keeps in a more
regular and even condition. When this is
true, less sleep is actually required. And
even the amount that is taken does more
for a body of the finer type than it can
do for one of the other nature.

As the body in this way grows finer, in
other words, as the process of its evolution
is thus accelerated, it in turn helps the
mind and the soul in the realization of
ever higher perceptions, and thus body
helps mind just as mind builds body. It
was undoubtedly this fact that Browning
had in mind when he said:

“Let us cry ‘All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh, more now,

Than flesh helps soul.’”120

WISDOM AND

Sleep, then, is for the resting and the
rebuilding of the body. The soul needs
no rest, and while the body is at rest in
sleep the soul life is just as active as when
the body is in activity.

There are some, having a deep insight
into the soul’s activities, who say that we
travel when we sleep. Some are able to
recall and bring over into the conscious,
waking life the scenes visited, the infor-
mation gained, and the events that have
transpired.

Most people are not able to do this
and so much that might otherwise be
gained is lost. They say, however, that
it is in our power, in proportion as we
understand the laws, to go where we will,
and to bring over into the conscious,
waking life all the experiences thus gained.
Be this, however, as it may, it certainly
is true that while sleeping we have the
power, in a perfectly normal and natural
way, to get much of value by way of light,
instruction, and growth that the majority
of people now miss.

If the soul life, that which relates us to
Infinite Spirit, is always active, even while
the body is at rest, why may not the mind
so direct conditions as one falls asleep, that
’while the body is at rest, it may continuallyINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 121

receive illumination from the soul and
bring what it thus receives over into the
conscious, waking life ? This, indeed, can
be done, and is done by some to great
advantage; and many times the highest
inspirations from the soul come in this
way, as would seem most natural, since
at this time all communications from the
outer, material wTorld no longer enter. I
know those who do much work during
sleep, and who get much light along
desired lines. By charging the mind on
going to sleep as to a particular time
for waking, it is possible, as many of us
know, to wake on the very minute. Not
infrequently we have examples of difficult
problems, problems that defied solution
during waking hours, being solved during
sleep.

A friend, a well-known journalist, had
an extended newspaper article clearly and
completely worked out for her in this way.
She frequently calls this agency to her aid.
She was notified by the managing editor
one evening to have the article ready in the
morning,—an article requiring more than
ordinary care, and one in which quite a
knowledge of facts was required. It was
a matter in connection with which she
knew scarcely anything, and all her efforts122

WISDOM AND

at finding information regarding it seemed
to be of no avail.

She set to work, but it seemed as if
even her own powers defied her. Failure
seemed imminent. Almost in desperation
she decided to retire, and putting the matter
into her mind in such a way that she would
be able to receive the greatest amount of
aid while asleep, she fell asleep and slept
soundly until morning. When she awoke
her work of the previous evehing was the
first thing that came into her mind. She
lay quietly for a few minutes, and as she
lay there, the article, completely written,
seemed to stand before her mind. She ran
through it, arose, and without dressing
took her pen and transcribed it on to
paper, literally acting simply as her own
amanuensis.

The mind acting intently along a par-
ticular line will continue so to act until
some other object of thought carries it
along another line. And since in sleep
only the body is in quiet while the mind
and soul are active, then the mind on being
given a certain direction when one drops
off to sleep, will take up the line along
which it is directed, and can be made, in
time, to bring over into consciousness
the results of its activities. Some willINTERIOR ILLU MIN ATI O

be able very soon to get results bf this
kind; for some it will take longer. Quiet
and continued effort will increase the
faculty.

Then by virtue of the law of the drawing
power of mind, since the mind is always
active, we are drawing to us even while
sleeping, influences from the realms kin-
dred to those in which we in our thoughts,
are living before we fall asleep. In this
way we can put ourselves into relation with
what ever kinds of influence we choose and
accordingly gain much during the process
of sleep. In many ways the interior
faculties are more open and receptive while
we are in sleep than while we are awake.
Hence the necessity of exercising even
greater care as to the nature of the thoughts
that occupy the mind as we enter into sleep,
for there can come to us only what we by
our own order of thought attract. We
have it entirely in our own hands.

And for the same reason,—this greater
degree of receptivity during this period,—
we are able by understanding and using
the law, to gain much of value more readily
in this way than when the physical senses
are fully open to the material world about
us. Many will find a practice somewhat
after the following nature of value: When124

I

WISDOM AND

light or information is desired along any
particular line, light or information you
feel it is right and wise for you to have,
as, for example, light in regard to an
uncertain course of action, then as you
retire, first bring your mind into the
attitude of peace and good-will for all.
You in this way bring yourself into an
harmonious condition, and in turn attract
to yourself these same peaceful conditions
from without.

Then resting in this sense of peace,
quietly and calmly send out your earnest
desire for the needed light or information;
cast out of your mind all fears or fore-
bodings lest it come not, for “ in quietness
and in confidence shall be your strength.”
Take the expectant attitude of mind, firmly
believing and expecting that when you
awake the desired results will be with you.
Then on awaking, before any thoughts or
activities from the outside world come in
to absorb the attention, remain for a little
while receptive to the intuitions or the
impressions that come. When they come,
when they manifest themselves clearly,
then act upon them without delay. In the
degree that you do this, in that degree
will the power of doing it ever more
effectively grow.INTERIOR

ILLUMINAti^n i

Or, if for unselfish purposes you desire
to grow and develop any of your faculties,
or to increase the health and strength of
your body, take a corresponding attitude
of mind, the form of which will readily
suggest itself in accordance with your
particular needs or desires. In this way
you will open yourself to, you will connect
yourself with, and you will set into opera-
tion within yourself, the particular order
of forces that will make for these results.
Don’t be afraid to voice your desires. In
this way you set into operation vibratory
forces which go out and which make their
impress felt somewhere, and which, arous-
ing into activity or uniting with other
forces, set about to actualize your desires.
No good thing shall be withheld from him
who lives in harmony with the higher laws
and forces. There are no desires that shall
not be satisfied to the one who knows and
who wisely uses the powers with which he
or she is endowed.

Your sleep will be more quiet, and
peaceful, and refreshing, and so your
power increased mentally, physically, and
spiritually, simply by sending out as you
fall asleep, thoughts of love and good-will,
thoughts of peace and harmony for all. In
this way you are connecting yourself with2

ISDOM AND

all the forces in the universe that make
for peace and harmony*

A friend who is known the world over
through his work along humane lines, has
told me that many times in the middle of
the night he is awakened suddenly and
there comes to his mind, as a flash of
inspiration, a certain plan in connection
with his work. And as he lies there
quietly and opens himself to it, the methods
for its successful carrying out all reveal
themselves to him clearly. In this way
many plans are entered upon and brought
to a successful culmination that otherwise
would never be thought of, plans that seem,
indeed, marvelous to the world at large.
He is a man with a sensitive organism,
his life in thorough harmony with the
higher laws, and given wholly and unre-
servedly to the work to which he has
dedicated it. Just how and from what
source these inspirations come he does not
fully know. Possibly no one does, though
each may have his theory. But this we
do know, and it is all we need to know
now, at least,—that to the one who lives in
harmony with the higher laws of his being,
and who opens himself to them, they come.

Visions and inspirations of the highest
order will come in the degree that we makeINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 127

for them the right conditions. One who
has studied deeply into the subject in hand
has said : “ To receive education spiritually
while the body is resting in sleep is a
perfectly normal and orderly experience,
and would occur definitely and satisfac-
torily in the lives of all of us, if we paid
more attention to internal and consequently
less to external states with their supposed
but unreal necessities. . . . Our thoughts
make us what we are here and hereafter,
and our thoughts are often busier by night
than by day, for when we are asleep to
the exterior we can be wide awake to the
interior world; and the unseen world is
a substantial place, the conditions of which
are entirely regulated by mental and moral
attainments. When we are not deriving
information through outward avenues of
sensation, we are receiving instruction
through interior channels of perception,
and when this fact is understood for what
it is worth, it will become a universal
custom for persons to take to sleep with
them the special subject on which they most
earnestly desire particular instruction. The
Pharaoh type of person dreams, and so
does his butler and baker; but the Joseph
type, which is that of the truly gifted seer,
both dreams and interprets.”But why had not Pharaoh the power ot
interpreting his dreams ? Why was Joseph
the type of the “ truly gifted seer ” ? Why
did he not only dream, but had also the
power to interpret both his own dreams
and the dreams of others? Simply read
the lives of the two. He who runs may
read. In all true power it is, after all,
living the life that tells. And in pro-
portion as one lives the life does he not
only attain to the highest power and joy
for himself, but he also becomes of ever
greater service to all the world. One need
remain in no hell longer than he himself
chooses to ; and the moment he chooses
not to remain longer, not all the powers in
the universe can prevent his leaving it.
One can rise to any heaven he himself
chooses; and when he chooses so to rise,
all the higher powers of the universe
combine to help him heavenward.

When one awakes from sleep and so
returns to conscious life, he is in a
peculiarly receptive and impressionable
state. All relations with the material
world have for a time been shut off, the
mind is in a freer and more natural state,
resembling somewhat a sensitive plate,
where impressions can readily leave their
traces. This is why many times theINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 129

highest and truest impressions come to one
in the early morning hours, before the
activities of the day and their attendant
distractions have exerted an influence*
This is one reason why many people can
do their best work in the early hours of
the day.

But this fact is also a most valuable one
in connection with the moulding of every-
day life. The mind is at this time as
a clean sheet of paper. We can most
valuably use this quiet, receptive, impres-
sionable period by wisely directing the
activities of the mind along the highest
and most desirable paths, and thus, so to
speak, set the pace for the day.

Each morning is a fresh beginning.
We are, as it were, just beginning life.
We have it entirely in our own hands.
And when the morning with its fresh
beginning comes, all yesterdays should be
yesterdays, with which we have nothing
to do. Sufficient is it to know that the
way we lived our yesterday has determined
for us our today. And, again, when the
morning with its fresh beginning comes,
all tomorrows should be tomorrows, with
which we have nothing to do. Sufficient
to know that the way we live our today
determines our tomorrow.130

WISDOM AND

“Every day is a fresh beginning,

Every morn is the world made new;

You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you,

A hope for me and a hope for you.

“All the past things are past and over,

The tasks are done, and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;

Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which might has shed

****** *

“Let them go, since we cannot relieve them,
Cannot undo and cannot atone.

God in His mercy receive, forgive them!

Only the new days are our own.

Today is ours, and today alone.

“ Here are the skies all burnished brightly;

Here is the spent earth all reborn;

Here are the tired limbs springing lightly
To face the sun and to share with the morn
In the chrism of dew and the cool of dawn.

“Every day is a fresh beginning,

Listen, my soul, to the glad refrain,

And, spite of old sorrow and older sinning,

And puzzles forecasted, and possible pain,
Take heart with the day and begin again.”

Simply the first hour of this new day,
with all its richness and glory, with all its
sublime and eternity-determining possi-
bilities, and each succeeding hour as it
comes, but not before it comes. This isINTERIOR ILLUMINATION 13 r

the secret of character building. This
simple method will bring any one to the
realization of the highest life that can be
even conceived of, and there is nothing
in this connection that can be conceived of
that cannot be realized somehow, some-
when, somewhere.

This brings such a life within the possi-
bilities of all, for there is no one, if really
in earnest and if he really desires it, who
cannot live to his highest for a single hour.
But even though there should be, if he is
only earnest in his endeavor, then, through
the law that like builds like, he will be able
to come a little nearer to it the next hour,
and still nearer the next, and the next,
until sooner or later comes the time when
it becomes the natural, and any other
would require the effort.

In this way one becomes in love and in
league with the highest and best in the
universe, and as a consequence, the highest
and best in the universe becomes in love
and in league with him. They aid him
at every turn; they seem literally to move
all things his way, because forsooth, he
has first moved their way.i32 the realization of

THE REALIZATION OF PERFECT
PEACE.

This is the Spirit of Infinite Peace, and
the moment we come into harmony with it
there comes to us an inflowing tide of
peace, for peace is harmony. A deep
interior meaning underlies the great truth,
“ To be spiritually minded is life and
peace.” To recognize the fact that we are
spirit, and to live in this thought, is to be
spiritually minded, and so to be in har-
mony and peace. Oh, the thousands of
men and women all about us weary with
care, troubled and ill at ease, running
hither and thither to find peace, weary in
body, soul, and mind; going to other
countries, traveling the world over, coming
back, and still not finding it. Of course
they have not found it and they never will
find it in this way, because they are looking
for it where it is not. They are looking
for it without when they should look
within. Peace is to be found only within,
and unless one find it there he will never
find it at all.

Peace lies not in the external world. It
lies within one’s own soul. We may travelPERFECT PEACE 133

over many different avenues in pursuit of
it, we may seek it through the channels
of the bodily appetites and passions, we
may seek it through all the channels of
the external, we may chase for it hither
and thither, but it will always be just
beyond our grasp, because we are searching
for it where it is not. In the degree,
however, that we order the bodily appetites
and passions in accordance with the
promptings of the soul within will the
higher forms of happiness and peace enter
our lives; but in the degree that we fail
in doing this will disease, suffering, and
discontent enter in.

To be at one with God is to be at peace.
The child simplicity is the greatest agency
in bringing this full and complete realiza-
tion, the child simplicity that recognizes
its true relations with the Father’s life.
There are people I know who have come
into such a conscious realization of their
oneness with this Infinite Life, this Spirit
of Infinite Peace, that their lives are
fairly bubbling over with joy. I have
particularly in mind at this moment a
comparatively young man who was an
invalid for several years, his health com-
pletely broken with nervous exhaustion,
who thought there was nothing in life134 THE REALIZATION OF

worth living for, to whom everything and
everybody presented a gloomy aspect, and
he in turn presented a gloomy aspect to
all with whom he came in contact. Not
long ago he came into such a vital realiza-
tion of his oneness with this Infinite Power,
he opened himself so completely to its
divine inflow, that today he is in perfect
health, and frequently as I meet him now
he cannot resist the impulse to cry out,
“ Oh, it is a joy to be alive.”

I know an officer in our police force who
has told me that many times when off duty
and on his way home in the evening, there
comes to him such a vivid and vital realiza-
tion of his oneness with this Infinite Power,
and this Spirit of Infinite Peace so takes
hold of and so fills him, that it seems as
if his feet could scarcely keep to the
pavement, so buoyant and so exhilarated
does he become by reason of this inflowing
tide.

He who comes into this higher realization
never has any fear, for he has always with
him a sense of protection, and the very
realization of this makes his protection
complete. Of him it is true,—“ No weapon
that is formed against thee shall prosper; ”
“ There shall no ill come nigh thy dwel-
ling; ” “ Thou shalt be in league with thePERFECT PEACE 135

stones of the field, and the beasts of the
field shall be at peace with thee.”

These are the men and the women who
seem to live charmed lives. The moment
we fear anything we open the door for the
entrance of the actualization of the very
thing we fear. An animal will never harm
a person who is absolutely fearless in
regard to it. The instant he fears he opens
himself to danger; and some animals,
the dog for example, can instantly detect
the element of fear, and this gives them the
courage to do harm. In the degree that
we come into a full realization of our one-
ness with this Infinite Power do we become
calm and quiet, undisturbed by the little
occurrences that before so vex and annoy
us. We are no longer disappointed in
people, for we always read them aright.
We have the power of penetrating into
their very souls and seeing the underlying
motives that are at work there.

^ A gentleman approached a friend the
other day, and with great show of cordiality
grasped him by the hand and said, “ Why,

Mr.----, I am so glad to see you.” Quick

as a flash my friend read him, and looking
him steadily in the eye, replied, “ No, you
are mistaken, you are not glad to see me;
but you are very much disconcerted, so136 THE REALIZATION OF

much so that you are now blushing in
evidence of it.” The gentleman replied,
“ Well, you know in this day and age of
conventionality and form we have to put
on the show and sometimes make believe
what we do not really feel.” My friend
once more looked him in the face and said,
“ Again you are mistaken. Let me give
you one little word of advice : You will
always fare better and will think far more
of yourself, always to recognize and to tell
the truth rather than to give yourself to
any semblance of it.”

As soon as we are able to read people
aright we will then cease to be disappointed
in them, we will cease to place them on
pedestals, for this can never be done with-
out some attendant disappointment. The
fall will necessarily come, sooner or later,
and moreover, we are thus many times
unfair to our friends. When we come into
harmony with this Spirit of Peace, evil
reports and apparent bad treatment, either
at the hands of friends or of enemies, will
no longer disturb us. When we are con-
scious of the fact that in our life and our
work we are true to that eternal principle
of right, of truth, of justice that runs
through all the universe, that unites and
governs all, that always eventually pre-PERFECT PEACE

137

vails, then nothing of this kind can come
nigh us, and come what may we will
always be tranquil and undisturbed.

The things that cause sorrow, and pain,
and bereavement will not be able to take
the hold of us they now take, for true
wisdom will enable us to see the proper
place and know the right relations of all
things. The loss of friends by the tran-
sition we call death will not cause sorrow
to the soul that has come into this higher
realization, for he knows that there is no
such thing as death, for each one is not
only a partaker, but an eternal partaker,
of this Infinite Life. He knows that the
mere falling away of the physical body by
no means affects the real soul life. With
a tranquil spirit born of a higher faith he
can realize for himself, and to those less
strong he can say—

“ Loving friends ! be wise and dry
Straightway every weeping eye;

What you left upon the bier
Is not worth a single tear;

’Tis a simple sea-shell, one
Out of which the pearl has gone.

The shell was nothing, leave it there;

The pearl—the soul—was all, is here.”

And so far as the element of separation is
concerned, he realizes that to spirit there138 THE REALIZATION OF

are no bounds, and that spiritual com-
munion, whether between two persons in
the body, or two persons, one in the body
and one out of the body, is within the
reach of all. In the degree that the higher
spiritual life is realized can there be this
higher spiritual communion.

The things that we open ourselves to
always come to us. People in the olden
times expected to see angels and they saw
them; but there is no more reason why
they should have seen them than that we
should see them now; no more reason why
they should come and dwell with them
than that they should come and dwell with
us, for the great laws governing all things
are the same today as they were then. If
angels come not to minister unto us it is
because we do not invite them, it is because
we keep the door closed through which
they otherwise might enter.

In the degree that we are filled with this
Spirit of Peace by thus opening ourselves
to its inflow does it pour through us, so
that we carry it with us wherever we go.
In the degree that we thus open ourselves
do we become magnets to attract peace
from all sources; and in the degree that
we attract and embody it in ourselves are
we able to give it forth to others. WePERFECT PEACE

i39

can in this way become such perfect
embodiments of peace that wherever we
go we are continually shedding bene-
dictions. But a day or two ago I saw a
woman grasp the hand of a man (his face
showed the indwelling God), saying, “ Oh,
it does me so much good to see you* I
have been in anxiety and almost in despair
during the past few hours, but the very
sight of you has rolled the burden entirely
away.” There are people all around us
who are continually giving out blessings
and comfort, persons whose mere presence
seems to change sorrow into joy, fear into
courage, despair into hope, weakness into
power.

It is the one who has come into the
realization of his own true self who carries
this powrer with him and who radiates it
wherever he goes,—the one who, as we
say, has found his centre. And in all the
great universe there is but one centre,—
the Infinite Power that is working in and
through all. The one who then has found
his centre is the one who has come into
the realization of his oneness with this
Infinite Power, the one who recognizes
himself as a spiritual being, for God is
spirit.

Such is the man of power. Centred in140 THE REALIZATION OF

the Infinite, he has thereby, so to speak,
connected himself with, he has attached
his belts to, the great power-house of the
universe. He is constantly drawing power
to himself from all sources. For, thus
centred, knowing himself, conscious of his
own power, the thoughts that go from his
mind are thoughts of strength; and by
virtue of the law that like attracts like, he
by his thoughts is continually attracting to
himself from all quarters the aid of all
whose thoughts are thoughts of strength,
and in this way he is linking himself with
this order of thought in the universe.

And so to him that hath, to him shall
be given. This is simply the working of
a natural law. His strong, positive, and
hence constructive thought is continually
working success for him along all lines,
and continually bringing to him help from
all directions. The things that he sees,
that he creates in the ideal, are through
the agency of this strong constructive
thought continually clothing themselves,
taking form, manifesting themselves in the
material. Silent, unseen forces are at work
•which will sooner or later be made manifest
in the visible.

Fear and all thoughts of failure never
suggest themselves to such a man; or ifPERFECT PEACE

141

they do, they are immediately sent out of
his mind, and so he is not influenced by
ihis. order of thought from, without. He
does not attract it to hi m. He is iri another
current of.. thought, ,/ponsecluently the
weakening, failure-bringing thoughts of
the fearing, the vacillating, the pessimistic
about him, have no influence upon him.
The one who is of the negative, fearing
kind not only has his energies and his
physical agents weakened, or even para-
lyzed through the^influence„of this^
thought that is born within him, but he
also in this way connects himself with this
order of thought in the world about him.
And in the degree that he does this does
he become a victim to the weak, fearing,
negative minds all around him. Instead
of growing in power, he increases in weak-
ness. He is in the same order of thought
with those of whom it is true,—and even
that which they have shall be taken away
from them. This again is simply the
working of a natural law, just as is its
opposite. Fearing lest I lose even what
I have I hide it away in a napkin. Very
well. I must then pay the price of my
a fearing lest I lose.” 7
Thoughtsof strength

from within and^ attr^Qt it.from .withaut..142 THE REALIZATION OF

Thoughts of weakness actualize weakness
from within and attract it from without.
Courage begets strength, fear begets weak-
ness. And so courage begets success, fear
begets failure. It is the man or the woman
of faith, and hence of courage, who is the
master of circumstances, and who makes
his or her power felt in the world. It is
the man or the woman who lacks faith and
who as a consequence is weakened and
crippled by fears and forebodings, who is
the creature of all passing occurrences.

Within each one lies^lbje^caiise^oL..,what-
ever comes to him. Each has it in his own
hands to determine what comes. Every-
thing in the visible, material world has
its origin in the unseen, the spiritual, the
thought world. This is the world of cause,
the former is the world of effect. The
nature of the effect is always in accordance
with the nature of the cause. What one
lives in his invisible, thought world, he
is continually actualizing in his visible,
material world. If he would have any
conditions different in the latter he must
make the necessary change in the former.
A clear realization of this great fact would
bring success to thousands of men and
women who all about us are now in the
depths of despair. It would bring health,PERFECT PEACE

H3

abounding health and strength to thousands
now diseased and suffering. It would
bring peace and joy to thousands now
unhappy and ill at ease.

And oh, the thousands all about us who
are continually living in the slavery of
fear. The spirits within that should be
strong and powerful, are rendered weak
and impotent. Their energies are crippled,
their efforts are paralyzed. “ Fear is every-
where,—fear of want, fear of starvation,
fear of public opinion, fear of private
opinion, fear that what we own today may
not be ours tomorrow, fear of sickness,
fear of death. Eear_..KJhaiS^.«b£^omfi with
millions a fixed habit. The thought is
everywhere. The thought is .thrown .upon
us from every direction. . . . To live in
continual dread, continual cringing, con-
tinual fear of anything, be it loss of love*
loss of money, loss of position or situation„
is to take the readiest means to lose what
jvye fear wre shall. ”

By fear nothing is to be gained, but on
the contrary, everything is to be lost. “ I
know this is true, ” says one, “ but I am
given to fear; it’s natural to me and I
can’t help it. Can’t help it! In saying
this you indicate one great reason of your
fear by showing that you do not even knowi44 THE REALIZATION OF

yourself as yet. You must know yourself
in order to know your powers, and not
until you know them can you use them
wisely and fully. Don’t say you can’: help
it. If you think you can’t, the chances are
that you can’t. If you think you can, and
act in accordance with this thought, then
not only are the chances that you can, but
if you act fully in accordance with it, that
you can and that you will is an absolute
certainty. It was Virgil who in describing
the crew which in his mind would win the
race, said of them,—They can because
they think they can. In other words,
this very attitude of mind on their part
will infuse a spiritual power into their
bodies that will give them the strength
and endurance which will enable them to
ivin.

Then take the thought that you can; take
it merely as a seed-thought, if need be,
plant it in your consciousness, tend it,
cultivate it, and it will gradually reach out
and gather strength from all quarters. It
will focus and make positive and active the
spiritual force within you that is now
scattered and of little avail. It will draw
to itself force from without. It will draw
to your aid the influence of other minds of
its own nature, minds that are fearless,PERFECT PEACE

i45

strong, courageous. You will thus draw
to yourself and connect yourself with this
order of thought. If earnest and faithful,
the time will soon come when all fear will
loose its hold; and instead of being an
embodiment of weakness and a creature of
circumstances, you will find yoursejf a
tower of strength and a master of circum-
stances.

We need more faith in every-day life,—
faith in the power that works for good,
faith in the Infinite God, and hence faith
in ourselves created in His image. And
however things at times may seem to go,
however dark at times appearances may
be, the knowledge of the fact that “*the
Supreme. Power has us in its charge as it
has the suns and endless systems of worlds

. ..spacejwill give us...the supreme faith

that all is well with us, just as all is well
with the world.	“ Thou wilt keep him in

perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
Thee.”

There is nothing firmer, and safer, and
surer than Deity. Then, as we recognize
the fact that we have it in our hands to
open ourselves ever more fully to this
Infinite Power, and call upon it to manifest
itself in and through us, we will find in
ourselves an ever increasing sense of146 THE REALIZATION OF

power. For in this way we are working
in conjunction with it, and it in turn is
working in conjunction wth us. We are
then led into the full realization of the fact
that all things, work together, for good
those that love the good. Then the fears
and forebodings that have dominated us
in the past will be transmuted ,intA iaiihu
and faith when rightly understood and
rightly used is a force before which nothing
can stand.

Materialism leads naturally to pessimism.
And how could it do otherwise ? A know-
ledge of the Spiritual Power working in
and through us as well as in and through
all things, a power that works for righteous-
ness, leads to optimism. Pessimism leads
to weakness. Optimism leads to power.
The one who is centred in Deity is the.one
who not only outrides every storm, but who
through the^ faith,, and so, the conscious
power that is in him, faces storm with the
same calmness and serenity that Le. faces
fair weatherj_for he knows well beforehand
what the outcome will be. He knows that
underneath are the everlasting arms. He
it is who realizes the truth of the injunction,
“ Rest in the Lord, wait patiently for Him
and He shall give thee thy heart’s desire.”
All shall be given, simply given, to himPERFECT PEACE 147

who is ready to accept it. Can anything
be clearer than this?

In the degree, then, that we work in
conjunction with the Supreme Fow§r do
we need the less to concern ourselves about
Jesuits. Xa^live -in the full realization of
this fact and all that attends it brings peace,
a full, rich, abiding..-peace,—a. peace, that
makes the present complete, and that,
going on before, brings back the assurance
that as our days, so shall our strength he.
The one who is thus centred, even in the
face of all the unrest and the turmoil about
us, can realize and say—

* * * * * * *

“I stay my haste, I make delays,

For what avails this eager pace?

I stand amid eternal ways,

And what is mine shall know my face.

“Asleep, awake, by night or day,

The friends I seek are seeking me ;

No wind can drive my bark astray,

Nor change the tide of destiny.
*******

“The waters know their own, and draw

The brooks that spring in yonder height i
So flows the good with equal law
Unto the soul of pure delight.

“ The stars come nightly to the sky;

The tidal wave unto the sea;

Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high,

Can keep my own away from me.”148

COMING INTO

COMING INTO FULLNESS OF
POWER.

This is the Spirit of Infinite Power, and
in the degree that we open ourselves to it
does power become manifest in us. With
God all things are possible,—that is, in
conjunction with God all things are pos-
sible. The true secret of power lies in
keeping one’s connection with the God
who worketh all things; and in the degree
that we keep this connection are we able
literally to rise above every conceivable
limitation.

Why, then, waste time in running hither
and thither to acquire power ? Why waste
time with this practice or that practice?
Why not go directly to the mountain top
itself, instead of wandering through the
by-ways, in the valleys, and on the
mountain sides? That man has absolute
dominion, as taught in all the scriptures
of the world, is true not of physical man,
but of spiritual man. There are many
animals, for example, larger and stronger,
over which from a physical standpoint he
would not have dominion, but he can gain
supremacy over even these by calling intoFULLNESS OF POWER 149

activity the higher mental, psychic, and
spiritual forces with which he is endowed.

Whatever cannot be done in the physical
can be done in the spiritual. And in
direct proportion as a man recognizes him-
self as spirit, and lives accordingly, is he
able to transcend in power the man who
recognizes himself merely as material.
All the^ sacred literature of the world is
teeming with examples of what we call
miracles. They are not confined to any
particular times or places. There is no
age of miracles in distinction from any
other period that may be an age of miracles.
Whatever has been done in the world’s
history can be done again through the
operation of the same laws and forces.
These miracles were performed not by those
who were more than men, but by those
who through the recognition of their one-
ness with God became God-men, so that
the higher forces and powers worked
through them.

For what, let us ask, is a miracle? Is
it something supernatural ? Supernatural
only in the sense of being above the
natural, or rather, above that which is
natural to man in his ordinary state. A
miracle is nothing more nor less than this.
One who has come into a knowledge of15o

COMING INTO

his true identity, of his oneness with the
all-pervading Wisdom and Power, thus
makes it possible for laws higher than the
ordinary mind knows of to be revealed to
him. These laws he makes use of; the
people see the results, and by virtue of their
own limitations, call them miracles and
speak of the person who performs these
apparently supernatural works as a super-
natural being. But they as supernatural
beings could themselves perform these
supernatural works if they would open
themselves to the recognition of the same
laws, and consequently to the realization
of the same possibilities and powers. And
let us also remember that the supernatural
of yesterday becomes, as in the process of
evolution we advance from the lower to the
higher, from the more material to the more
spiritual, the common ana the natural of
today, and what seems to be the super-
natural of today becomes in the same way
the natural of tomorrow, and so on through
the ages. Yes, it is the God-man who
does the things that appear supernatural,
the man who by virtue of his realization
of the higher powers transcends the
majority and so stands out among them.
But any power that is possible to one
human soul is possible to another. TheFULLNESS OF POWER 151

same laws operate in every life. We can
be men and women of power or we can
be men and women of impotence. The
moment one vitally grasps the fact that
he can rise he will rise, and he can have
absolutely no limitations other than the
limitations he sets to himself. Cream
always rises to the top. It rises simply
because it is the nature of cream to rise„

We hear much said of “ environment.”
We need to realize that environment should
never be allowed to make the man, but
that man should always, and always can,
condition the environment. When we
realize this we will find that many times
it is not necessary to take ourselves out
of any particular environment, because we
may yet have a work to do there; but by
the very force we carry with us we can so
affect and change matters that we will have
an entirely new set of conditions in an old
environment.

The same is true in regard to “ heredi-
tary ” traits and influences. We sometimes
hear the question asked, u Can they be
overcome?” Only the one who doesn’t
yet know himself can ask a question such '
as this. If we entertain and live in the
belief that they cannot be overcome, then
the chances are that they will alwaysI52

COMING INTO

remain. The moment, however, that we
come into a realization of our true selves,
and so of the tremendous powers and forces
within,—the powers and forces of the mind
and spirit,—hereditary traits and influences
that are harmful in nature will begin to
lessen, and will disappear with a rapidity
directly in proportion to the completeness
of this realization.

“ There is no thing we cannot overcome;

Say not thy evil instinct is inherited,

Or that some trait inborn makes thy whole life
forlorn,

And calls down punishment that is not merited.

“ Back of thy parents and grandparents lies

The great Eternal Will! That too is thine

Inheritance,—strong, beautiful, divine,

Sure lever of success for one who tries.

*******

“ There is no noble height thou canst not climb ;

All triumphs may be thine in Time’s futurity,

If, whatso’er thy fault, thou dost not faint or halt;

But lean upon the staff of God’s security.

“ Earth has no claim the soul cannot contest;

Know thyself part of the Eternal Source ;

Naught can stand before thy spirit’s force:
The soul’s Divine Inheritance is best.”

Again there are many who are living far
below their possibilities because they are
^continually handing over their individu-FULLNESS OF POWER 153

alities to others. Do you want to be a
power in the world? Then be yourself.
Don’t class yourself, don’t allow yourself
to be classed among the second-hand,
among the they-say people. Be true to
the highest within your own soul, and then
allow yourself to be governed by no
customs or conventionalities or arbitrary
man-made rules that are not founded upon
principle. Those things that are founded
upon principle will be observed by the
right-minded, the right-hearted man or
woman, in any case.

Don’t surrender your individuality,
which is your greatest agent of power,
to the customs and conventionalities that
have gotten their life from the great mass
of those who haven’t enough force to
preserve their individualities,—those who
in other words have given them over as
ingredients to the “ mush of concession ”
which one of our greatest writers has said
characterizes our modern society. If you
do surrender your individuality in this way,
you simply aid in increasing the undesir-
able conditions; in payment for this you
become a slave, and the chances are that
in time you will be unable to hold even
the respect of those whom you in this way
try to please.l5 4

COMING INTO

If you preserve your individuality then
you become a master, and if wise and
discreet, your influence and power will be
an aid in bringing about a higher, a better,
and a more healthy set of conditions in the
world. All people, moreover, will think
more of you, will honor you more highly
for doing this than if you show your
weakness by contributing yourself to the
same “ mush of concession ” that so many
of them are contributing themselves to.
With all classes of people you will then
have an influence. “ A great style of hero
draws equally all classes, all extremes of
society to him, till we say the very dogs
believe in him.”

To be one’s self is' the only worthy, and
by all means the only satisfactory, thing
to be. “ May it not be good policy,” says
one, “ to be governed sometimes by one’s
surroundings?” What is good policy?
To be yourself, first, last, and always.

“ This above all,—to thine own self be true ;

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man?

“ When we appeal to the Supreme and
our life is governed by a principle, we are
not governed either by fear of public
opinion or loss of others’ approbation, andFULLNESS OF POWER 155

we may be sure that the Supreme will
sustain us. If in any way we try to live
to suit others we never shall suit them, and
the more we try the more unreasonable and
exacting do they become. The government
of your life is a matter that lies entirely
between God and yourself, and when your
life is swayed and influenced from any
other source you are on the wrong path.”
When we find the kingdom within and
become centred in the Infinite, then we
become a law unto ourselves. When we
become a law unto ourselves, then we are
able to bring others to a knowledge of laws
higher than they are governed or many
times even enslaved by.

When we have found this centre, then
that beautiful simplicity, at once the charm
and the power of a truly great personality,
enters into our lives. Then all striving for
effect,—that sure indicator of weakness and
a lack of genuine power,—is absent. This
striving for effect that is so common is
always an indicator of a lack of something.
It brings to mind the man who rides behind
a dock-tailed horse. Conscious of the fact
that there is not enough in himself to attract
attention, in common with a number of
other weaklings, he adopts the brutal
method of having his horse’s tail sawedCOMING INTO

156

off, that its unnatural, odd appearance may
attract from people the attention that he
of himself is unable to secure.

But the one who strives for effect is
always fooled more than he succeeds in
fooling others. The man and the woman
of true wisdom and insight can always see
the causes that prompt, the motives that
underlie the acts of all with whom he or
she comes in contact. “ He is great who
is what he is from nature and who never
reminds us of others.”

The men and the women who are truly
awake to the real powers within are the
men and women who seem to be doing so
little, yet who in reality are doing so much.
They seem to be doing so little because
they are working with higher agencies, and
yet are doing so much because of this very
fact. They do their work on the higher
plane. They keep so completely their
connection with the Infinite Power that It
does the work for them and they are
relieved of the responsibility. They are
the care-less people. They are care-less
because it is the Infinite Power that is
working through them, and with this
Infinite Power they are simply co-operat-
ing-

The secret of the highest power is simplyFULLNESS OF POWER 157

the uniting of the outer agencies of expres-
sion with the Power that works from
within. Are you a painter? Then in the
degree that you open yourself to the power
of the forces within will you become great
instead of mediocre. You can never put
into permanent form inspirations higher
than those that come through your own
soul. In order for the higher inspirations
to come through it, you must open your
soul, you must open it fully to the Supreme
Source of all inspiration. Are you an
orator? In the degree that you come into
harmony and work in conjunction with the
higher powers that will speak through you
will you have the real power of moulding
and of moving men. If you use merely
your physical agents, you will be simply
a demagogue. If you open yourself so that
the voice of God can speak through and
use your physical agents, you will become
a great and true orator, great and true in
just the degree that you so open yourself.

Are you a singer? Then open yourself
and let the God within pour forth in the
spirit of song. You will find it a thousand
times easier than all your long and studied
practice without this, and other things
being equal, there will come to you a power
of song so enchanting and so enrapturingCOMING INTO

158

that its influence upon all who hear will
be irresistible.

When my cabin or tent has been pitched
during the summer on the edge or in the
midst of a forest, I have sometimes lain
awake on my cot in the early morning,
just as the day was beginning to break.
Silence at first. Then an intermittent chirp
here and there. And as the unfolding tints
of the dawn became faintly perceptible,
these grew more and more frequent, until
by and by the whole forest seemed to
burst forth in one grand chorus of song.
Wonderful! wonderful! It seemed as if
the very trees, as if every grass-blade, as
if the bushes, the very sky above, and the
earth beneath, had part in this wonderful
symphony. Then, as I have listened as
it went on and on, I have thought, What
a study in the matter of song! If we could
but learn from the birds. If we could but
open ourselves to the same powers and
allow them to pour forth in us, what
singers, what movers of men we might
have ! Nay, what singers and what movers
of men we would have!

Do you know the circumstances under
which Mr. Sankey sang for the first time
“ The Ninety and Nine ” ? Says one of
our able journals: “At a great meetingFULLNESS OF POWER 159

recently in Denver, Mr. Ira D. Sankey,
before singing ‘The Ninety and Nine,*
which, perhaps, of all his compositions is
the one that has brought him the most
fame, gave an account of its birth. Leav-
ing Glasgow for Edinburgh with Mr.
Moody, he stopped at a news-stand and
bought a penny religious paper. Glancing
over it as they rode in the train, his eye
fell on a few little verses in the corner of
the page. Turning to Mr. Moody he said,
‘ I’ve found my hymn.’ But Mr. Moody
was busily engaged and did not hear a
word. Mr. Sankey did not find time to
make a tune for the verses, so he pasted
them in his music scrapbook.

“ One day they had an unusually impres-
sive meeting in Edinburgh, in which Dr.
Bonar had spoken with great effect on
‘ The Good Shepherd.’ At the close of
the address Mr. Moody beckoned to his
partner to sing. He thought of nothing
but the Twenty-third Psalm, but that he
had sung so often. His second thought
was to sing the verses he had found in the
newspaper, but the third thought was, how
could it be done when he had no tune.
Then a fourth thought came, and that was
to sing them anyway. He put the verses
before him, touched the keys of the organ,COMING INTO

160

opened his mouth and sang, not knowing
where he was going to come out. He
finished the first verse amid profound
silence. He took a long breath and
wondered if he could sing the second the
same way. He tried and succeeded; after
that it was easy to sing it. When he
finished the hymn the meeting was all
broken down and the throngs were crying.
Mr. Sankey says it was the most intense
moment of his life. Mr. Moody said he
never heard a song like it. It was sung
at every meeting, and was soon going over
the world.”

When we open ourselves to the highest
inspirations they never fail us. When we
fail to do this we fail in attaining the
highest results, whatever the undertaking.

Are you a writer ? Then remember that
the one great precept underlying all suc-
cessful literary work is, Look into thine
own heart and write. Be true. Be fear-
less. Be loyal to the promptings of your
own soul. Remember that an author can
never write more than he himself is. If he
would write more, then he must be more.
He is simply his own amanuensis. He in
a sense writes himself into his book. He
can put no more into it than he himself is.

If he is one of a great personality, strongFULLNESS OF POWER i6x

in purpose, deep in feeling, open always
to the highest inspirations, a certain inde-
finable something gets into his pages that
makes them breathe forth a vital, living
power, a power so great that each reader
gets the same inspirations as those that
spoke through the author. That which is
written between the lines is many times
more than that which is written in the lines.
It is the spirit of the author that engenders
this power. It is this that gives that extra
twenty-five or thirty per cent, that takes a
book out of the class called medium and
lifts it into the class called superior,—that
extra per cent, that makes it the one of the
hundred that is truly successful, while the
ninety-nine never see more than their first
edition.

It is this same spiritual power that the
author of a great personality puts into his
work, that causes it to go so rapidly from
reader to reader; for the way that any
book circulates is mainly from personal
recommendation—any book that reaches a
large circulation. It is this that many
times causes a single reader, in view of its
value to himself, to purchase numbers of
copies for others. “ A good poem,” says
Emerson, <€ goes about the world offering
itself to reasonable men, who read it with

F162

COMING INTO

joy and carry it to their reasonable neigh-
bors. Thus it draws to it the wise and
generous souls, confirming their secret
thoughts, and through their sympathy
really publishing itself.”

This is the type of author who writes not
with the thought of having what he writes
become literature, but he writes with the
sole thought of reaching the hearts of
the people, giving them something of
vital value, something that will broaden,
sweeten, enrich, and beautify their lives;
that will lead them to the finding of the
higher life and with it the higher powers
and the higher joys. It nearly always
happens, however, that if he succeeds in
thus reaching the people, the becoming
literature part somehow takes care of itself,
and far better than if he aimed for it
directly.

The one, on the other hand, who fears
to depart from beaten paths, who allows
himself to be bound by arbitrary rules,
limits his own creative powers in just the
degree that he allows himself so to be
bound. “My book,” says one of the
greatest of modern authors, “ shall smell
of the pines and resound with the hum of
insects. The swallow over my window
shall interweave that thread or straw heFULLNESS OF POWER 163

carries in his bill into my web also*5' Far
better, gentle sage, to have it smell of the
pines and resound with the hum of insects
than to have it sound of the rules that a
smaller type of man gets by studying the
works of a few great, fearless writers like
yourself, and formulating from what he
thus gains a handbook of rhetoric. 44 Of
no use are the men who study to do exactly
as was done before, who can never under-
stand that today is a new day”

When Shakspeare is charged with debts
to his authors, Landor replies: “Yet he
was more original than his originals. He
breathed upon dead bodies and brought
them into life.” This is the type of man
who doesn’t move the world’s way, but
who moves the world his way.

I had rather be an amanuensis of the
Infinite God, as it is my privilege literally
to be, than a slave to the formulated rules
of any rhetorician, or to the opinions of
any critic. Oh, the people, the people
over and over! Let me give something
to them that will lighten the every-day
struggles of our common life, something
that will add a little sweetness here, a little
hope there, something that will make more
thoughtful, kind, and gentle this thought-
less, animal-natured man, something thatCOMING INTO

164

will awaken into activity the dormant
powers of this timid, shrinking little
woman, powers that when awakened will
be irresistible in their influence and that
will surprise even herself. Let me give
something that will lead each one to the
knowledge of the divinity of every human
soul, something that will lead each one to
the conscious realization of his own
divinity, with all its attendant riches, and
glories, and powers,—let me succeed in
doing this, and I can then well afford to
be careless as to whether the critics praise
or whether they blame. If it is blame,
then under these circumstances it is as the
cracking of a few dead sticks on the ground
below, compared to the matchless music
that the soft spring gale is breathing
through the great pine forest.

Are you a minister, or a religious teacher
of any kind? Then in the degree that you
free yourself from the man-made theological
dogmas that have held and that are holding
and limiting so many, and in the degree
that you open yourself to the Divine
Breath, will you be one who will speak
with authority. In the degree that you do
this will you study the prophets less and
be in the way of becoming a prophet
yourself. The way is open for you exactlyFULLNESS OF POWER 165

the same as it has ever been open for
anyone.

If when born into the world you came
into a family of the English-speaking race,
then in all probability you are a Christian.
To be a Christian is to be a follower of the
teachings of Jesus, the Christ; to live in
harmony with the same laws he lived in
harmony with : in brief, to live his life.
The great central fact of his teaching was
this conscious union of man with the
Father. It was the complete realization of
this oneness with the Father on his part
that made Jesus the Christ. It was through
this that he attained to the power he
attained to, that he spake as never man
spake.

Fie never claimed for himself anything
that he did not claim equally for all man-
kind. “ The mighty works performed by
Jesus were not exceptional, they were the
natural and necessary concomitants of his
state; he declared them to be in accordance
with unvarying order; he spoke of them
as no unique performances, but as the
outcome of a state to which all might attain
if they chose. As a teacher and demon-
strator of truth, according to his own
confession, he did nothing for the purpose
of proving his solitary divinity. . . . The166

COMING INTO

life and triumph of Jesus formed an epoch
in the history of the race. His coming
and victory marked a new era in human
affairs; he introduced a new because a
more complete ideal to the earth, and when
his three most intimate companions saw
in some measure what the new life really
signified, they fell to the earth, speechless
with awe and admiration.”

By coming into this complete realization
of his oneness with the Father, by
mastering, absolutely mastering every cir-
cumstance that crossed his path through
life, even to the death of the body, and
by pointing out to us the great laws which
are the same for us as they were for him,
he has given us an ideal of life, an ideal
for us to attain to here and now, that we
could not have without him. One has
conquered first; all may conquer afterward.
By completely realizing it first for himself,
and then by pointing out to others this
great law of the at-one-ment with the
Father, he has become probably the world’s
greatest saviour.

Don’t mistake his mere person for his
life and his teachings, an error that has
been made in connection with nearly all
great teachers by their disciples over and
over again. And if you have been amongFULLNESS OF POWER 167

the number who have been preaching a
dead Christ, then for humanity’s sake, for
Christ’s sake, for God’s sake, and I speak
most reverently, don’t steal the people’s
time any longer, don’t waste your own time
more, in giving them stones in place of
bread, dead form for the spirit of living
truth. In his own words, “ let the dead
bury their dead.” Come out from among
them. Teach as did Jesus, the living
Christ. Teach as did Jesus, the Christ
within. Find this in all its transcendent
beauty and power,—find it as Jesus found
it, then you also will be one who will speak
with authority. Then you will be able to
lead large numbers of others to its finding.
This is the pearl of great price.

It is the type of preacher whose soul has
never as yet even perceived the vital spirit
of the teaching of Jesus, and who as a
consequence instead of giving this to the
people, is giving them old forms and
dogmas and speculations, who is emptying
our churches. This is the type whose chief
efforts seem to be in getting men ready
to die. The Germans have a saying, Never
go to the second thing first. We need
men who will teach us first how to live.
Living quite invariably precedes dying.
This also is true, that when we once know168

COMING INTO

how to live, and live in accordance with
what we know, then the dying, as we term
it, will in a wonderfully beautiful manner
take care of itself. It is in fact the only
way in which it can be taken care of.

It is on account of this emptying of our
churches, for the reason that the people
are tiring of mere husks, that many short-
sighted people are frequently heard to say
that religion is dying out. Religion dying
out? How can anything die before it is
really born ? And so far as the people are
concerned, religion is just being born, or
rather they are just awaking to a vital,
every-day religion. We are just beginning
to get beyond the mere letter into its real,
vital spirit. Religion dying out? Impos-
sible even to conceive of. Religion is as
much a part of the human soul as the
human soul is a part of God. And as long
as God and the human soul exist, religion
will never die.

Much of the dogma, the form, the cere-
mony, the mere letter that has stood as
religion,—and honestly, many times, let
us be fair enough to say,—this, thank God,
is rapidly dying out, and never so rapidly
as it is today. By two methods it is dying.
There is, first, a large class of people
tired of or even nauseated with it all,FULLNESS OF POWER 169

who conscientiously prefer to have nothing
rather than this. They are simply aban-
doning it, as a tree abandons its leaves
when the early winter comes. There is,
second, a large class in whom the Divine
Breath is stirring, who are finding the
Christ within in all its matchless beauty
and redeeming power. And this new life
is pushing off the old, the same as in
the spring the newly awakened life in the
tree pushes off the old, lifeless leaves
that have clung on during the winter, to
make place for the new ones. And the
way this old dead leaf religion is being
pushed off on every hand is indeed
most interesting and inspiring to wit-
ness.

Let the places of those who have been
emptying our churches by reason of their
attempts to give stones for bread, husks
and chaff for the life-giving grain, let their
places be taken even for but a few times
by those who are open and alive to these
higher inspirations, and then let us again
question those who feel that religion is
dying out. “ It is the live coal that kindles
others, not the dead.” Let their places
be taken by those who have caught the
inspiration of the Divine Breath, who as
a consequence have a message of mightyCOMING INTO

170

value and import for the people, who by
virtue of this same fact are able to present
it with a beauty and a power so enrapturing
that it takes captive the soul. Then we
will find that the churches that today are
dotted here and there with a few dozen
people will be filled to overflowing, and
there will not be even room enough for
all who would enter. “ Let the shell perish
that the pearl may appear.” We need no
new revelations as yet. We need simply
to find the vital spirit of those we already
have. Then in due time, when we are
ready for them, new ones will come, but
not before.

“ What the human soul, all the world
over, needs,” says John Pulsford, “ is not
to be harangued, however eloquently, about
the old, accepted religion, but to be per-
meated, charmed, and taken captive by
a warmer and more potent Breath of God
than they ever felt before. And I should
not be true to my personal experience if
I did not bear testimony that this Divine
Breath is as exquisitely adapted to the
requirements of the soul’s nature as a June
morning to the planet. Nor does the
morning breath leave the trees freer to
delight themselves and develop themselves
under its influence than the Breath of GodFULLNESS OF POWER i

allows each human mind to unfold accord
ing to its genius. Nothing stirs the central
wheel of the soul like the Breath of God.
The whole man is quickened, his senses
are new senses, his emotions new emotions;
his reason, his affections, his imagination,
are all new-born. The change is greater
than he knows; he marvels at the powers
in himself which the Breath is opening and
calling forth. He finds his nature to be
an unutterable thing; he is sure therefore
that the future must have inconceivable
surprises in store. And herein lies the
evidence, which I commend to my readers,
of the existence of God, and of the Eternal
human Hope. Let God’s Breath kindle
new spring-time in the soul, start into life
its deeply buried germs, lead in heaven’s
summer; you will then have as clear
evidence of God from within as you have
of the universe from without. Indeed,
your internal experience of life, and illimit-
able Hope in God will be nearer to you,
and more prevailing, than all your external
and superficial experience of nature and
the world.”

There is but one source of power in the
universe. Whatever then you are, painter,
orator, musician, writer, religious teacher,
or whatever it may be, know that to catch2

COMING INTO

nd take captive the secret of power is so
o work in conjunction with the Infinite
Power, in order that it may continually
work and manifest through you. If you
fail in doing this, you fail in everything.
If you fail in doing this, your work, what-
ever it may be, will be third or fourth
rate, possibly at times second rate, but it
positively never can be first rate. Abso-
lutely impossible will it be for you ever to
become a master.

( Whatever estimate you put upon yourself
S’1 will determine the effectiveness of your
work along any line. As long as you live
merely in the physical and the intellectual,
you set limitations to yourself that will
hold you as long as you so live. When,
however, you come into the realization of
your oneness with the Infinite Life and
Power, and open yourself that it may work
through you, you will find that you have
entered upon an entirely new phase of life,
and that an ever increasing power will be
yours. Then it will be true that your
strength will be as the strength of ten
because your heart is pure.

“ O God! I am one forever

With Thee by the glory of birth;
The celestial powers proclaim it
To the utmost bounds of the earth.FULLNESS OF POWER 173

“ I think of this birthright immortal,

And my being expands like a rose,

As an odorous cloud of incense
Around and above me flows.

“A glorious song of rejoicing
In an innermost spirit I hear,

And it sounds like heavenly voices,

In a chorus divine and clear.

“And I feel a power uprising,

Like the power of an embryo god;

With a glorious wall it surrounds me,

And lifts me up from the sod.”i74 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

PLENTY OF ALL THINGS—THE
LAW OF PROSPERITY.

This is the Spirit of Infinite Plenty, the
Power that has brought, that is continually
bringing, all things into expression in
material form. He who lives in the realiza-
tion of his oneness with this Infinite Power
becomes a magnet to attract to himself a
continual supply of whatsoever things he
desires.

If one hold himself in the thought of
poverty, he will be poor, and the chances
are that he will remain in poverty. If he
hold himself, whatever present conditions
may be, continually in the thought of
prosperity, he sets into operation forces
that will sooner or later bring him into
prosperous conditions. The law of attrac-
tion works unceasingly throughout the
universe, and the one great and never
changing fact in connection with it is, as
we have found, that like attracts like. If
we are one with this Infinite Power, this
source of all things, then in the degree that
we live in the realization of this oneness,
in that degree do we actualize in ourselves
a power that will bring to us an abundanceTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 175

cF all things that it is desirable for us to
hare. In this way we come into possession
of a power whereby we can actualize at all
tines those conditions that we desire.

As all truth exists now, and awaits simply
our perception of it, so all things necessary
for present needs exist now, and await
simply the power in us to appropriate them.
God holds all things in His hands. His
constant word is, My child, acknowledge
me in all your ways, and in the degree
that you do this, in the degree that you
live this, then what is mine is yours.
Jehovah-jireh,—the Lord will provide.
“ He giveth to all men liberally and
upbraideth not.” He giveth liberally to
all. men who put themselves in the right
attitude to receive from Him. He forces
no good things upon any one.

The old and somewhat prevalent idea of
godliness and poverty has absolutely no
basis for its existence, and the sooner we
get away from it the better. It had its
birth in the same way that the idea of
asceticism came into existence, when the
idea prevailed that there was necessarily
a warfare between the flesh and the spirit.
It had its origin therefore in the minds of
those who had a distorted, a one-sided
view of life. True godliness is in a sensei76 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

the same as true wisdom. The one who
is truly wise, and who uses the forces and
powers with which he is endowed, to him
the great universe always opens her treasure
house. The supply is always equal to fhe
demand,—equal to the demand when the
demand is rightly, wisely made. Wien
one comes into the realization of these
higher laws, then the fear of want ceases
to tyrannize over him.

Are you out of a situation ? Let the fear
that you will not get another take hold of
and dominate you, and the chances are that
it may be a long time before you will get
another, or the one that you do get may
be a very poor one indeed. Whatever the
circumstances, you must realize that you
have within you forces and powers that
you can set into operation that will triumph
over any and all apparent or temporary
losses. Set these forces into operation and
you will then be placing a magnet that
will draw to you a situation that may be
far better than the one you have lost, and
the time may soon come when you will be
even thankful that you lost the old one.

Recognize, working in and through you,
the same Infinite Power that creates and
governs all things in the universe, the same
Infinite Power that governs the endlessTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 177

systems of worlds in space. Send out your
thought,—thought is a force, and it has
occult power of unknown proportions when
rightly used and wisely directed,—send out
your thought that the right situation or
the right work will come to you at the right
time, in the right way, and that you will
recognize it when it comes. Hold to this
thought, never allow it to weaken, hold to
it, and continually water it with firm
expectation. You in this way put your
advertisement into a psychical, a spiritual
newspaper, a paper that has not a limited
circulation, but one that will make its way
not only to the utmost bounds of the earth,
but of the very universe itself. It is an
advertisement, moreover, which if rightly
placed on your part, will be far more
effective than any advertisement you could
possibly put into any printed sheet, no
matter what claims are made in regard to
its being “ the great advertising medium.”
In the degree that you come into this
realization and live in harmony with the
higher laws and forces, in that degree will
you be able to do this effectively.

If you wish to look through the “ want ”
columns of the newspapers, then do it not
in the ordinary way. Put the higher forces
into operation and thus place it on a higher178 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

basis. As you take up the paper, take
this attitude of mind : If there is here an
advertisement that it will be well for me
to reply to, the moment I come to it I will
recognize it. Affirm this, believe it, expect
it. If you do this in full faith you will
somehow feel the intuition the moment you
come to the right one, and this intuition
will be nothing more nor less than your
own soul speaking to you. When it speaks
then act at once.

If you get the situation and it does not
prove to be exactly what you want, if you
feel that you are capable of filling a better
one, then the moment you enter upon it
take the attitude of mind that this situation
is the stepping-stone that will lead you to
one that will be still better. Hold this
thought steadily, affirm it, believe it,
expect it, and all the time be faithful,
absolutely faithful to the situation in which
you are at present placed. If you are not
faithful to it then the chances are that it
will not be the stepping-stone to something
better, but to something poorer. If you
are faithful to it, the time may soon come
when you will be glad and thankful, when
you will rejoice, that you lost your old
position.

This is the law of prosperity: WhenTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 179

apparent adversity comes, be not cast down
by it, but make the best of it, and always
look forward for better things, for con-
ditions more prosperous. To hold yourself
in this attitude of mind is to set into opera-
tion subtle, silent, and irresistible forces
that sooner or later will actualize in material
form that which is today merely an idea.
But ideas have occult power, and ideas,
when rightly planted and rightly tended,
are the seeds that actualize material con-
ditions.

Never give a moment to complaint, but
utilize the time that would otherwise be
spent in this way in looking forward and
actualizing the conditions you desire.
Suggest prosperity to yourself. See your-
self in a prosperous condition. Affirm that
you will before long be in a prosperous
condition. Affirm it calmly and quietly,
but strongly and confidently. Believe it,
believe it absolutely. Expect it,—keep it
continually watered with expectation. You
thus make yourself a magnet to attract the
things that you desire. Don’t be afraid to
suggest, to affirm these things, for by so
doing you put forth an ideal which will
begin to clothe itself in material form. In
this way you are utilizing agents among
the most subtle and powerful in the uni-i8o PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

verse. If you are particularly desirous for
anything that you feel it is good and right
for you to have, something that will
broaden your life or that will increase your
usefulness to others, simply hold the
thought that at the right time, in the right
way, and through the right instrumentality,
there will come to you or there will open
up for you the way whereby you can attain
what you desire.

I know of a young lady who a short
time ago wanted some money very badly.
She wanted it for a good purpose; she
saw no reason why she shouldn’t have it.
She is one who has come into an under-
standing of the power of the interior forces.
She took and held herself in the attitude
of mind we have just pointed out. In the
morning she entered into the silence for a
few moments. In this way she brought
herself into a more complete harmony with
the higher powers. Before the day closed
a gentleman called, a member of a family
with which she was acquainted. He asked
her if she would do for the family some
work that they wanted done. She was a
little surprised that they should ask her
to do this particular kind of work, but she
said to herself, “ Here is a call. I will
respond and see what it will lead to.” SheTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 181

undertook the work. She did it well»
When she had completed it there was put
into her hands an amount of money far
beyond what she had expected. She felt
that it was an amount too large for the
work she had done. She protested. They
replied, “ No; you have done us a service
that transcends in value the amount we
offer to pay you.” The sum thus received
was more than sufficient for the work she
wished to accomplish.

This is but one of many instances in
connection with the wise and effective use
of the higher powers. It also carries a
lesson,—Don’t fold your hands and expect
to see things drop into your lap, but set
into operation the higher forces and then,
take hold of the first thing that offers itself..
Do what your hands find to do, and do it
well. If this work is not thoroughly satis-
factory to you, then affirm, believe, and
expect that it is the agency that will lead
you to something better. “ The basis for
attracting the best of all the world can give
to you is to first surround, own, and live
in these things in mind, or what is falsely
called imagination. All so-called imagin-
ings are realities and forces of unseen
element. Live in mind in a palace and
gradually palatial surroundings will gravi-i 82 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

tate to you. But so living is not pining,
or longing, or complainingly wishing. It
is when you are ‘ down in the world,’
calmly and persistently seeing yourself as
up. It is when you are now compelled to
eat from a tin plate, regarding that tin
plate as only the certain step to one of
silver. It is not envying and growling at
other people who have silver plate. That
growling is just so much capital stock taken
from the bank account of mental force.”

A friend who knows the power of the
interior forces, and whose life is guided in
every detail by them, has given a sugges-
tion in this form : When you are in the
arms of the bear, even though he is
hugging you, look him in the face and
laugh, but all the time keep your eye on
the bull. If you allow all of your attention
to be given to the work of the bear, the
bull may get entirely out of your sight.
In other words, if you yield to adversity
the chances are that it will master you, but
if you recognize in yourself the power of
mastery over conditions then adversity will
yield to you, and will be changed into
prosperity. If when it comes you calmly
and quietly recognize it, and use the time
that might otherwise be spent in regrets,
and fears, and forebodings, in setting intoTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 18^

operation the powerful forces within you,
it will soon take its leave.

Faith, absolute dogmatic faith, is the
only law of true success. When we
recognize the fact that a man carries his
success or his failure with him, and that
it does not depend upon outside conditions,
we will come into the possession of powers
that will quickly change outside conditions
into agencies that make for success. When
we come into this higher realization and
bring our lives into complete harmony with
the higher laws, we will then be able so
to focus and direct the awakened interior
forces, that they will go out and return
laden with that for which they are sent.
We will then be great enough to attract
success, and it will not always be apparently
just a little way ahead. We can then
establish in ourselves a centre so strong
that instead of running hither and thither
for this or that, we can stay at home and
draw to us the conditions we desire. If
we firmly establish and hold to this centre,
things will seem continually to come our
way.

The majority of people of the modern
world are looking for things that are
practical and that can be utilized in every-
day life. The more carefully we examinei84 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

into the laws underlying the great truths
we are considering, the more we will find
that they are not only eminently practical,
but in a sense, and in the deepest and truest
sense, they are the only practical things
there are.

There are people who continually pride
themselves upon being exceedingly “ practi-
cal ” ; but many times those who of
themselves think nothing about this are
the most practical people the world knows.
And, on the other hand, those who take
great pride in speaking of their own practi-
cality are often the least practical. Or
again, in some ways they may be practical,
but so far as life in its totality is con-
cerned, they are absurdly impractical.

What profit, for example, can there be
for the man who, materially speaking,
though he has gained the whole world,
has never yet become acquainted with his
own soul? There are multitudes of men
all about us who are entirely missing the
real life, men who have not learned even
the a, b, c of true living. Slaves they are,
abject slaves to their temporary material
accumulations. Men who, thinking they
possess their wealth, are on the contrary
completely possessed by it. Men whose
lives are comparatively barren in serviceTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 185

to those about them and to the world at
large. Men who when they can no longer
hold the body,—the agency by means of
which they are related to the materia!
world,—will go out poor indeed, pitiably
poor. Unable to take even the smallest
particle of their accumulations with them,
they will enter upon the other form of life
naked and destitute.

The kindly deeds, the developed traits of
character, the realized powers of the soul,
the real riches of the inner life and unfold-
ment, all those things that become our real
and eternal possessions, have been given
no place in their lives, and so of the real
things of life they are destitute. Nay,
many times worse than destitute. We
must not suppose that habits once formed
are any more easily broken off in the other
form of life than they are in this. If one
voluntarily grows a certain mania here, we
must not suppose that the mere dropping
of the body makes all conditions perfect.
All is law, all is cause and effect. As we
sow, so shall we also reap, not only in this
life but in all lives.

He who is enslaved with the sole desire
for material possessions here will continue
to be enslaved even after he can no longer
retain his body. Then, moreover, he will186 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

have not even the means of gratifying his
desires. Dominated by this habit, he will
be unable to set his affections, for a time
at least, upon other things, and the desire,
without the means of gratifying it will be
doubly torturing to him. Perchance this
torture may be increased by his seeing the
accumulations he thought were his now
being scattered and wasted by spendthrifts.
He wills his property, as we say, to others,
but he can have no word as to its use.

How foolish, then, for us to think that
any material possessions are ours. How
absurd, for example, for one to fence off
a number of acres of God’s earth and say
they are his. Nothing is ours that we
cannot retain. The things that come into
our hands come not for the purpose of
being possessed, as we say, much less for
the purpose of being hoarded. They come
into our hands to be used, to be wisely
used. We are stewards merely, and as
stewards we shall be held accountable for
the way we use whatever is entrusted to
us. That great law of compensation that
runs through all life is wonderfully exact
in its workings, although we may not
always fully comprehend it, or even recog-
nize it when it operates in connection with
ourselves.THE LAW OF PROSPERITY 187

The one who has come into the realization
of the higher life no longer has a desire
for the accumulation of enormous wealth,
any more than he has a desire for any other
excess. In the degree that he comes into
the recognition of the fact that he is
wealthy within, external wealth becomes
less important in his estimation. When
he comes into the realization of the fact
that there is a source within from which
he can put forth a power to call to him
and actualize in his hands at any time a
sufficient supply for all his needs, he no
longer burdens himself with vast material
accumulations that require his constant care
and attention, and thus take his time and
his thought from the real things of life.
In other words, he first finds the kingdom,
and he realizes that when he has found
this, all other things follow in full measure.

It is as hard for a rich man to enter into
the kingdom of heaven, said the Master,—
he who having nothing had everything,—
as it is for a camel to pass through the eye
of a needle. In other words, if a man give
all his time to the accumulation, the hoard-
ing of outward material possessions far
beyond what he can possibly ever use,
what time has he for the finding of that
wonderful kingdom, which when found,188 PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

brings all else with it. Which is better,
to have millions of dollars, and to have the
burden of taking care of it all,—for the
one always involves the other,—or to come
into the knowledge of such laws and forces
that every need will be supplied in -good
tim^,„to. know that no, good, thing shall.he
withheld, to know that we have it in our
power to make the supply always equal
to. the demand ?

The one who enters into the realm of
this higher knowledge, never cares to bring
upon himself the species of insanity that
has such a firm hold upon so many in the
world today. He avoids it as he would
avoid any loathsome disease of the body.
When we come into the realization of the
higher powers, we will then be able to give
more attention to the real life, instead of
giving so much to the piling up of vast
possessions that hamper rather than help
it. It is the medium ground that brings
the true solution here, as it is in all phases
of life.

Wealth beyond a certain amount cannot
be used, and when it cannot be used it
then becomes a hindrance rather than an
aid, a curse rather than a blessing. All
about us are persons with lives now stunted
and dwarfed which might be made rich andTHE LAW OF PROSPERITY 189

beautiful, filled with a perennial joy, if
they would begin wisely to use that which
they have spent the greater portion of their
lives in accumulating.

The man who accumulates during his
entire life, and who leaves even all when
he goes out for “benevolent purposes,”
comes far short of the ideal life. It is but
a poor excuse of a life. It is not especially
commendable in me to give a pair of old,
worn-out shoes that I shall never use again
to another who is in need of shoes. But
it is commendable, if indeed doing any-
thing we ought to do can be spoken of as
being commendable, it is commendable for
me to give a good pair of strong shoes to
the man who in the midst of a severe winter
is practically shoeless, the man who is
exerting every effort to earn an honest
living and thereby take care of his family's
needs. And if in giving the shoes I also
give myself, he then has a double gift, and
I a double blessing.

There is no wiser use that those who
have great accumulations can make of them
than wisely to put them into life, into
character, day by day while they live. In
this way their lives will be continually
enriched and increased. The time will
come when it will be regarded as a disgraceipo PLENTY OF ALL THINGS

for a man to die and leave vast accumu-
lations behind him.

Many a person is living in a palace today
who in the real life is poorer than many
a one who has not even a roof to cover
him. A man may own and live in a palace,
but the palace for him may be a poorhouse
still.

Moth and rust are nature’s wise pro-
visions—God’s methods—for disintegrating
and scattering, in this way getting ready
for use in new forms, that which is hoarded
and consequently serving no use. There
is also a great law continually operating
the effects of which are to dwarf and deaden
the powers of true enjoyment, as well as all
the higher faculties, of the one who hoards.

Multitudes of people are continually
keeping away from them higher and better
things because they are forever clinging
on to the old. If they would use and pass
on the old, room would be made for new
things to come. Hoarding always brings
loss in one form or another. Using, wisely
using, brings an ever renewing gain.

If the tree should as ignorantly and as
greedily hold on to this year’s leaves when
they have served their purpose, where
would be the full and beautiful new life
that will be put forth in the spring?THE LAW OF PROSPERITY 191

Gradual decay and finally death would be
the result. If the tree is already dead,
then it may perhaps be well enough for it
to cling on to the old, for no new leaves
will come. But as long as the life in the
tree is active, it is necessary that it rid
itself of the old ones, that room may be
made for the new.

Opulence is the law of the universe, an
abundant supply for every need if nothing
is put in the way of its coming. The
natural and the normal life for us is this,—
To have such a fullness of life and power
by living so continually in the realization
of our oneness with the Infinite Life and
Power that we find ourselves in the con-
stant possession of an abundant supply of
all things needed.

Then not by hoarding but by wisely
using and ridding ourselves of things as
they come, an ever .renewing supply will
be ours, a supply far better adapted to
present needs than the old could possibly
be. In this way we not only come into
possession of the richest treasures of the
Infinite Good ourselves, but we also become
open channels through which they can flow
to others.192

PROPHETS, SEERS,

HOW MEN HAVE BECOME
PROPHETS, SEERS, SAGES, AND
SAVIOURS.

I have tried thus far to deal fairly with
you in presenting these vital truths, and
have spoken of everything on the basis of
our own reason and insight. It has been
my aim to base nothing on the teachings
of others, though they may be the teachings
of those inspired. Let us now look for a
moment at these same great truths in the
light of the thoughts and the teachings as
put forth by some of the world’s great
thinkers and inspired teachers.

The sum and substance of the thought
presented in these pages is,, you will
remember, that the great central fact in
human life is the coming into a conscious,
vital realization of our oneness with the
Infinite Life, and the opening of ourselves
fully to this divine inflow. I and the
Father are one, said the Master. In this
we see how he recognized his oneness with
the Father’s life. Again he said, The
words that I speak unto you I speak not
of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in
me, He doeth the works. In this we seeSAGES, AND SAVIOURS 193

how clearly he recognized the fact that he
of himself could do nothing, only. as he
worked in conjunction with the Father.
Again, My Father works and I work. In
other words, my Father sends the power,
I open myself to it, and work in conjunction
with it.

Again he said, Seek ye first the kingdom
of God and His righteousness, and all these
things shall be added unto you. And he
left us not in the dark as to exactly what
he meant by this, for again he said, Say
not Lo here nor lo there, know ye not that
the kingdom of heaven is within you ?
According to his teaching, the kingdom of
God and the kingdom of heaven were one
and the same. If, then, his teaching is
that the kingdom of heaven is within us,
do we not clearly see that, putting it in
other words, his injunction is nothing more
nor less than, Come ye into a conscious
realization of your oneness with the
Father’s life. As you realize this oneness
you find the kingdom, and when you find
all things else shall follow.

"Ijlie story of the prodigal son is another
beautiful illustration of this same great
teaching of the Master. After the prodigal
bad spent everything, after he had wan-
dered in all the realms of the physical

G194

PROPHETS, SEERS,

senses in the pursuit of happiness and
pleasure, and found that this did not satisfy
but only brought him to the level of the
animal creation, he then came to his senses
and said, I will arise and go to my Father.
In other words, after all these wanderings,
his own soul at length spoke to him and
said, You are not a mere animal. You
are your Father’s child. Arise and go to
your Father, who holds all things in His
hands. Again, the Master said, Call no
man your father upon the earth : for one
is your Father, which is in heaven. Here
he recognized the fact that the real life is
direct from the life of God. Our fathers
and our mothers are the agents that give
us the bodies, the houses in which we live,
but the real life comes from the Infinite
Source of Life, God, who is our Father.

One day word was brought to the Master
that his mother and his brethren were
without, wishing to speak with him. Who
is my mother and who are my brethren ?
said he. Whosoever shall do the will of
my Father which is in heaven, the s^me
is my brother, and my sister, and mother.

Many people are greatly enslaved** by
Avhat we term ties of relationship. H *s
well, however, for us to remember that our
true relatives are not necessarily those whoSAGES, AND SAVIOURS 195

are connected with us by ties of blood.
Our truest relatives are those who are
nearest akin to us in mind, in soul, in
spirit. Our nearest relatives may be those
living on the opposite side of the globe,—
people whom we may never have seen as
yet, but to whom we will yet be drawn,
either in this form of life or in another,
through that ever working and never failing
law of attraction.

When the Master gave the injunction,
Call no man your father upon the earth :
for one is your Father, which is in heaven,
he here gave us the basis for that grand
conception of the fatherhood of God. And
if God is equally the Father of all, then
we have here the basis for the brotherhood
of man. But there is, in a sense, a con-
ception still higher than this, namely, the
oneness of man and God, and hence the
oneness of the whole human race. When
we realize this fact, then we clearly see
how in the degree that we come into the
realization of our oneness with the Infinite
Life, and so, every step that we make
Godward, we aid in lifting all mankind
up to this realization, and enable them, in
turn, to make a step Godward.

The Master again pointed out our true
relations with the Infinite Life when he196 PROPHETS, SEERS,

said, Except ye become as little children
ye shall not enter into the kingdom of
heaven. When he said, Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God, he
gave utterance to a truth of far greater
import than we have as yet commenced
fully to grasp. Here he taught that even
the physical life can not be maintained by
material food alone, but that one’s connec-
tion with this Infinite Source determines
to a very great extent the condition of even
the bodily structure and activities. Blessed
are the pure in heart for they shall see God.
In other words, blessed are they who in
all the universe recognize only God, for by
such God shall be seen.

Said the great Hindu sage, Manu, He
who in his own soul perceives the Supreme
Soul in all beings, and acquires equanimity
toward them all, attains the highest bliss.
It was Athanasius who said, Even we may
become Gods walking about in the flesh.
The same great truth we are considering
is the one that runs through the life and
the teachings of Gautama, he who became
the Buddha. People are in bondage, said
he, because they have not yet removed the
idea of /. To do away with all sense of
separateness, and to recognize the onenessSAGES, AND SAVIOURS 197

of the self with the Infinite, is the spirit
that breathes through all his teachings.
Running through the lives of all the
mediaeval mystics was this same great truth*
—union with God.

Then, coming nearer to our own time,
we find the highly illumined seer, Emanuel
Swedenborg, pointing out the great laws
in connection with what he termed, the
divine influx, and how we may open our-
selves more fully to its operations. The
great central fact in the religion and
worship of the Friends is, the inner light,—
God in the soul of man speaking directly
in just the degree that the soul is opened
to Him. The inspired one, the seer who
when with us lived at Concord, recognized
the same great truth when he said, We are
all inlets to the great sea of life. And it
was by opening himself so fully to its
inflow that he became one inspired.

All through the world’s history we find
that the men and the women who have
entered into the realm of true wisdom and
power, and hence into the realm of true
peace and joy, have lived in harmony with
this Higher Pow7er. David was strong and
powerful and his soul burst forth in praise
and adoration in just the degree that he
listened to the voice of God and lived in198 PROPHETS, SEERS,

accordance with his higher promptings.
Whenever he failed to do this we hear his
soul crying out in anguish and lamentation.
The same is true of every nation or people.
When the Israelites acknowledged God and
followed according to His leadings they
were prosperous, contented, and powerful,
and nothing could prevail against them.
When they depended upon their own
strength alone and failed to recognize God
as the source of their strength, we find
them overcome, in bondage, or despair.

A great immutable law underlies the
truth, Blessed are they that hear the word
of God and do it. Then follows all. We
are wise in the degree that wre live according
to the higher light.

All the prophets, seers, sages, and
saviours in the world’s history became
wrhat they became, and consequently had
the powers they had, through an entirely
natural process. They all recognized and
came into the conscious realization of their
oneness with the Infinite Life. God is no
respecter of persons. He does not create
prophets, seers, sages, and saviours as
such. He creates men. But here and there
one recognizes his true identity, recognizes
the oneness of his life with the Source
whence it came. He lives in the realiza-SAGES, AND SAVIOURS 199

tion of this oneness, and in turn becomes
a prophet, seer, sage, or saviour. Neither
is God a respecter of races or of nations.
He has no chosen people; but here and
there a race or nation becomes a respecter
of God and hence lives the life of a chosen
people.

There has been no age or place of
miracles in distinction from any other age
or place. What we term miracles have
abounded in all places and at all times
where conditions have been made for them.
They are being performed today, just as
much as they ever have been, when the laws
governing them are respected. Mighty
men, we are told they were, mighty men
who walked with God; and in the words
“ who walked with God ” lies the secret of
the words “ mighty men.” Cause, effect.

The Lord never prospers any man, but
the man prospers because he acknowledges
the Lord, and lives in accordance with
the higher laws. Solomon was given
the opportunity of choosing whatever he
desired; his better judgment prevailed
and he chose wisdom. But when he chose
wisdom he found that it included all else
beside. We are told that God hardened
Pharaoh’s heart. I don’t believe it. God
never hardens any one’s heart. Pharaoh200 PROPHETS AND SEERS

hardened his own heart and God was
blamed for it. But when Pharaoh hardened
his heart and disobeyed the voice of God,
the plagues came. Again, cause, effect.
Had he, on the contrary, listened,—in
other words, had he opened himself to and
obeyed the voice of God, the plagues would
not have come.

We can be our own best friends or we
can be our own worst enemies. In the
degree that we become friends to the
highest and best within us, we become
friends to all; and in the degree that we
become enemies to the highest and best
within us, do we become enemies to all.
In the degree that we open ourselves to
the higher powers and let them manifest
through us, then by the very inspirations
we carry with us do we become in a sense
the saviours of our fellow-men, and in
this way we all are, or may become, the
saviours one of another. In this way you
may become, indeed, one of the world’s
redeemers.THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION 201

THE BASIC PRINCIPLE OF ALL
RELIGIONS—THE UNIVERSAL
RELIGION.

The great truth we are considering is the
fundamental principle running through all
religions. We find it in every one. In
regard to it all agree. It is, moreover, a
great truth in regard to which all people
can agree, whether they belong to the same
or to different religions. People always
quarrel about the trifles, about their per-
sonal views of minor insignificant points.
They always come together in the presence
of great fundamental truths, the threads of
which run through all. The quarrels are
in connection with the lower self, the agree-
ments are in connection with the higher
self.

A place may have its factions that quarrel
and fight among themselves, but let a
great calamity come upon the land, flood,
famine, pestilence, and these little personal
differences are entirely forgotten and all
work shoulder to shoulder in the one great
cause. The changing, the evolving self
gives rise to quarrels; the permanent, the202 THE BASIC PRINCIPLE

soul self unites all in the highest efforts
of love and service.

Patriotism is a beautiful thing; it is well
for me to love my country, but why should
I love my own country more than I love
all others? If I love my own and hate
others, I then show my limitations, and
my patriotism will stand the test not even
for my own. If I love my own country
and in the same way love all other
countries, then I show the largeness of
my nature, and a patriotism of this kind
is noble and always to be relied upon.

The view of God in regard to which we
are agreed, that He is the Infinite Spirit
of Life and Power that is at the back of all,
that is working in and through all, that is
the life of all, is a matter in regard to which
all men, all religions can agree. With this
view there can be no infidels or atheists.
There are atheists and infidels in con-
nection with many views that are held
concerning God, and thank God there are.
Even devout and earnest people among
us attribute things to God that no respect-
able men or women would permit to be
attributed to themselves. This view is
satisfying to those who cannot see how
God can be angry with his children,
jealous, vindictive. A display of theseOF ALL RELIGIONS 203

qualities always lessens our respect for
men and women, and still we attribute
them to God.

The earnest, sincere heretic is one of
the greatest friends true religion can
have. Heretics are among God’s greatest
servants. They are among the true
servants of mankind. Christ was one of
the greatest heretics the world has ever
known. He allowed himself to be bound
by no established or orthodox teachings
or beliefs. Christ is preeminently a type
of the universal. John the Baptist is a
type of the personal. John dressed in a
particular way, ate a particular kind of
food, belonged to a particular order, lived
and taught in a particular locality, and
he himself recognized the fact that he
must decrease while Christ must increase.
Christ, on the other hand, gave himself
absolutely no limitations. He allowed
himself to be bound by nothing. He was
absolutely universal and as a consequence
taught not for his own particular day, but
for all time.

This mighty truth which we have agreed
upon as the great central fact of human
life is the golden thread that runs through
all religions. When we make it the para-
mount fact in our lives we shall find that204 THE basic principle

minor differences, narrow prejudices, and
all these laughable absurdities will so fall
away by virtue of their very insignificance,
that a Jew can worship equally as well in
a Catholic cathedral, a Catholic in a Jewish
synagogue, a Buddhist in a Christian
church, a Christian in a Buddhist temple.
Or all can worship equally well about their
own hearth-stones, or out on the hillside,
or while pursuing the avocations of every-
day life. For true worship, only God and
the human soul are necessary. It does not
depend upon times, or seasons, or occa-
sions. Anywhere and at any time God
and man in the bush may meet.

This is the great fundamental principle
of the universal religion upon which all
can agree. This is the great fact that is
permanent. There are many things in
regard to which all cannot agree. These
are the things that are personal, non-
essential, and so as time passes they
gradually fall away. One who doesn’t
grasp this great truth, a Christian, for
example, asks “ But was not Christ in-
spired?” Yes, but he was not the only
one inspired. Another who is a Buddhist
asks, “ Was not Buddha inspired? ” Yes,
but he was not the only one inspired. A
Christian asks, “ But is not our ChristianOF ALL RELIGIONS 205

Bible inspired?” Yes, but there are
other inspired scriptures. A Brahmin or
a Buddhist asks, “ Are not the Vedas
inspired?” Yes, but there are other
inspired sacred books. Your error is not
in believing that your particular scriptures
are inspired, but your error is—and you
show your absurdly laughable limitations
by it—your inability to see that other
scriptures are also inspired.

The sacred books, the inspired writings,
all come from the same source,—God, God
speaking through the souls of those who
open themselves that He may thus speak.
Some may be more inspired than others.
It depends entirely on the relative degree
that this one or that one opens himself to
the Divine voice. Says one of the inspired
writers in the Hebrew scriptures, Wisdom
is the breath of the power of God, and
in all ages entering into holy souls she
maketh them friends of God and prophets.

Let us not be among the number so
dwarfed, so limited, so bigoted as to think
that the Infinite God has revealed Himself
to one little handful of His children, in
one little quarter of the globe, and at one
particular period of time. This is not the
pattern by which God works. Of a truth
I perceive that God is no respecter of206 the basic principle

persons, but in every nation he that
revereth God and worketh righteousness
is accepted of Him, says the Christian
Bible.

When we fully realize this truth we shall
then see that it makes but little difference
what particular form of religion one holds
to, but it does make a tremendous difference
how true he is to the vital principles of
this one. In the degree that we love self
less and love truth more, in that degree
will we care less about converting people
to our particular way of thinking, but all
the more will we care to aid them in
coming into the full realization of truth
through the channels best adapted to them.
The doctrine of our master, says the
Chinese, consisted solely in integrity of
heart. We shall find as we search that this
is the doctrine of every one who is at all
worthy the name of master.

The great fundamental principles of all
religions are the same. They differ only
in their minor details according to the
various degrees of unfoldment of different
people. I am sometimes asked, “ To what
religion do you belong ? ” What religion ?
Why, bless you, there is only one religion,
—the religion of the living God. There
are, of course, the various creeds of theOF ALL RELIGIONS 207

same religion arising from the various
interpretations of different people, but they
are all of minor importance. The more
unfolded the soul the less important do
these minor differences become. There
are also, of course, the various so-called
religions. There is in reality, however,
but one religion.

The moment we lose sight of this great
fact we depart from the real, vital spirit
of true religion and allow ourselves to be
limited and bound by form. In the degree
that we do this we build fences around
ourselves which keep others away from us,
and which also prevent our coming into
the realization of universal truth; there
is nothing worthy the name of truth that
is not universal.

There is only one religion. “ Whatever
road I take joins the highway that leads
to Thee,” says the inspired writer in the
Persian scriptures. “ Broad is the carpet
God has spread, and beautiful the colors
he has given it.” “ The pure man respects
every form of faith,” says the Buddhist.
“ My doctrine makes no difference between
high and low, rich and poor; like the sky,
it has room for all, and like the water, it
washes all alike.” “ The broad minded
see the truth in different religions; the208 THE BASIC PRINCIPLE

narrow minded see only the differences,”
says the Chinese. The Hindu has said,
“ The narrow minded ask, ‘ Is this man a
stranger, or is he of our tribe ?’ But to
those in whom love dwells, the whole world
is but one family.” “ Altar flowers are of
many species, but all worship is one.”
“ Heaven is a palace with many doors, and
each may enter in his own way.” “ Are
we not all children of one Father? ” says
the Christian. “ God has made of one
blood all nations, to dwell on the face of
the earth.” It was a latter-day seer who
said, “ That which was profitable to the
soul of man the Father revealed to the
ancients; that which is profitable to the
soul of man today revealeth He this day.”

It was Tennyson who said, “ I dreamed
that stone by stone I reared a sacred fane,
a temple, neither pagoda, mosque, nor
church, but loftier, simpler, always open-
doored to every breath from heaven, and
Truth and Peace and Love and Justice
came and dwelt therein.”

Religion in its true sense is the most
joyous thing the human soul can know,
and when the real religion is realized, we
shall find that it will be an agent of peace,
of joy, and of happiness, and never an
agent of gloomy, long-faced sadness. ItOF ALL RELIGIONS 209

will then be attractive to all and repulsive
to none. Let our churches grasp these
great truths, let them give their time and
attention to bringing people into a know-
ledge of their true selves, into a knowledge
of their relations, of their oneness, with
the Infinite God, and such joy will be the
result, and such crowds will flock to them,
that their very walls will seem almost to
burst, and such songs of joy will con-
tinually pour forth as will make all people
in love with the religion that makes for
every-day life, and hence the religion that
is true and vital. Adequacy for life,
adequacy for every-day life here and now,
must be the test of all true religion. If
it does not bear this test, then it simply
is not religion. We need an every-day, a
this-world religion. All time spent in
connection with any other is worse than,
wasted. The eternal life that we are now
living will be well lived if we take goods
care of each little period of time as it
presents itself day after day. If we fail
in doing this, we fail in everything.210

REALIZATION OF

ENTERING NOW INTO THE
REALIZATION OF THE HIGHEST
RICHES.

I hear the question, What can be said in
a concrete way in regard to the method
of coming into this realization ? The facts
underlying it are, indeed, most beautiful
and true, but how can we actualize in
ourselves the realization that carries with
it such wonderful results ?

The method is not difficult if we do not
of ourselves make it difficult. The princi-
pal word to be used is the word,—Open.
Simply to open your mind and heart to
this divine inflow which is waiting only
tor the opening of the gate, that it may
enter. It is like opening the gate of the
trough which conducts the water from the
reservoir above into the field below. The
water, by virtue of its very nature, will
rush in and irrigate the field if the gate
is but opened. As to the realization of
our oneness with this Infinite Life and
Power, after seeing, as I think we have
clearly seen by this time, the relations it
bears to us and we to it, the chief thing
to be said is simply,—Realize your onenessTHE HIGHEST RICHES 211

with it. The open mind and heart whereby
one is brought into the receptive attitude
is the first thing necessary. Then the
earnest, sincere desire.

It may be an aid at first to take yourself
for a few moments each day into the quiet,
into the silence, where you will not be
agitated by the disturbances that enter
in through the avenues of the physical
senses. There in the quiet alone with
God, put yourself into the receptive atti-
tude. Calmly, quietly, and expectantly
desire that this realization break in upon
and take possession of your soul. As it
breaks in upon and takes possession of
the soul, it will manifest itself to your
mind, and from this you will feel its
manifestations in every part of your body.
Then in the degree that you open yourself
to it you will feel a quiet, peaceful, illumin-
ating power that will harmonize body,
soul, and mind, and that will then har-
monize these with all the world. You are
now on the mountain top, and the voice
of God is speaking to you. Then, as you
descend, carry this realization with you.
Live in it, waking, working, thinking,
walking, sleeping. In this way, although
you may not be continually on the moun-
tain top, you will nevertheless be continu-212

REALIZATION OF

■ally living in the realization of all the
beauty, and inspiration, and power you
have felt there.

Moreover, the time will come when in
the busy office or the noisy street you
can enter into the silence by simply draw-
ing the mantle of your own thoughts
about you and realizing that there and
everywhere the Spirit of Infinite Life,
Love, Wisdom, Peace, Power, and Plenty
is guiding, keeping, protecting, leading
you. This is the spirit of continual prayer.
This it is to pray without ceasing. This
it is to know and to walk with God. This
it is to find the Christ within. This is the
new birth, the second birth. First that
which is natural, then that which is
spiritual. It is thus that the old man
Adam is put off and the new man Christ
is put on. This it is to be saved unto life
eternal, whatever one’s form of belief or
faith may be; for it is life eternal to know
God. “ The Sweet By and By ” will be a
song of the past. We shall create a new
song—“ The Beautiful Eternal Now.”

This is the realization that you and I
can come into this very day, this very hour,
this very minute, if we desire and if we
will it. And if now we merely set our
faces in the right direction, it is then butTHE HIGHEST RICHES 213

a matter of time until we come into the
full splendor of this complete realization.
To set one’s face in the direction of the
mountain and then simply to journey on,
whether rapidly or more slowly, will bring
one to it. But unless one set his face in
the right direction and make the start, he
will not reach it. It was Goethe who
said :

“ Are you in earnest ? Seize this very minute :

What you can do, or dream you can, begin it;

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Only engage, and then the mind grows heated ;

Begin, and then the work will be completed.”

Said the young man, Gautama Sid-
dhartha, I have awakened to the truth and
I am resolved to accomplish my purpose,—
Verily I shall become a Buddha. It was
this that brought him into the life of the
Enlightened One, and so into the realiza-
tion of Nirvana right here in this life. That
this same realization and life is within the
possibilities of all here and now was his
teaching. It was this that has made him
the Light Bearer to millions of people.

Said the young man, Jesus, Know ye
not that I must be about my Father’s
business? Making this the one great
purpose of his life he came into the full
and complete realization,—I and the Father214

REALIZATION OF

are one. He thus came into the full
realization of the Kingdom of Heaven
right here in this life. That all could come
into this same realization and life here and
now was his teaching. It was this that has
made him the Light Bearer to millions of
people.

And so far as practical things are con-
cerned, we may hunt the wide universe
through and we shall find that there is
no injunction more practical than, Seek
ye first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness and all other things shall
be added unto you. And in the light of
what has gone before, I think there is no
one who is open to truth and honest with
himself who will fail to grasp the under-
lying reason and see the great laws upon
which it is based.

Personally I know lives that have so
fully entered into the kingdom through the
realization of their oneness with the Infinite
Life and through the opening of themselves
so fully to its divine guidance, that they
are most wonderful concrete examples of
the reality of this great and all-important
truth. They are people whose lives are
in this way guided not only in a general
way, but literally in every detail. They
simply live in the realization of their one-THE HIGHEST RICHES 215

ness with this Infinite Power, continually
in harmony with it, and so continually in
the realization of the kingdom of heaven.
An abundance of all things is theirs.
They are never at a loss for anything.
The supply seems always equal to the
demand. They never seem at a loss in
regard to what to do or how to do it.
Their lives are care-less lives. They are
lives free from care because they are
continually conscious of the fact that the
higher powers are doing the guiding, and
they are relieved of the responsibility. To
enter into detail in connection with some
of these lives, and particularly with two
or three that come to my mind at this
moment, would reveal facts that no doubt
to some would seem almost incredible if
not miraculous. But let us remember that
v;hat is possible for one life to realize is
possible for all. This is indeed the natural
and the normal life, that which will be the
every-day life of every one who comes into
and who lives in this higher realization
and so in harmony with the higher laws.
This is simply getting into the current of
that divine sequence running throughout
the universe; and when once in it, life
then ceases to be a plodding, and moves
along day after day much as the tides flow,216 REALIZATION OF

much as the planets move in their courses,
much as the seasons come and go.

All the frictions, all the uncertainties,
all the ills, the sufferings, the fears, the
forebodings, the perplexities of life come
to us because we are out of harmony with
the divine order of things. They will
continue to come as long as we so live.
Rowing against the tide is hard and
uncertain. To go with the tide and thus
to take advantage of the working of a great
natural force is safe and easy. To come
into the conscious, vital realization of our
Gneness with the Infinite Life and Power
is to come into the current of this divine
sequence. Coming thus into harmony
with the Infinite, brings us in turn into
harmony with all about us, into harmony
with the life of the heavens, into harmony
with all the universe. And above all, it
brings us into harmony with ourselves, so
that body, soul, and mind become perfectly
harmonized, and when this is so, life
becomes full and complete.

The sense life then no longer masters
and enslaves us. The physical is sub-
ordinated to and ruled by the mental; this
in turn is subordinated to and continually
illumined by the spiritual. Life is then
no longer the poor, one-sided thing it isTHE HIGHEST RICHES 217

in so many cases; but the threefold, the
all-round life with all its beauties and ever
increasing joys and powers is entered
upon. Thus it is that we are brought to
realize that the middle path is the great
solution of life; neither asceticism on the
one hand nor license and perverted use on
the other. Everything is for use, but all
must be wisely used in order to be fully
enjoyed.

As we live in these higher realizations
the senses are not ignored but are ever
more fully perfected. As the body becomes
less gross and heavy, finer in its texture
and form, all the senses become finer, so
that powers * we do not now realize as
belonging to us gradually develop. Thus
we come, in a perfectly natural and
normal way, into the super-conscious
realms whereby we make it possible for
the higher laws and truths to be revealed
to us. As we enter into these realms we
are then not among those who give their
time in speculating as to whether this one
or that one had the insight and the powers
attributed to him, but we are able to know
for ourselves. Neither are we among those
who attempt to lead the people upon the
hearsay of some one else, but we know
whereof we speak, and only thus can we^i8

REALIZATION OF

speak with authority. There are many
things that we cannot know until by living
the life we bring ourselves into that state
where it is possible for them to be revealed
to us. “ If any man will do His will, he
shall know of the doctrine.” It was
Plotinus who said, The mind that wishes
to behold God must itself become God.
As we thus make it possible for these
higher laws and truths to be revealed to
us, we will in turn become enlightened
ones, channels through which they may be
revealed to others.

When one is fully alive to the possi-
bilities that come with this higher awaken-
ing, as he goes here and there, as he
mingles with his fellow-men, he imparts
to all an inspiration that kindles in them
a feeling of power kindred to his own.
We are all continually giving out influ-
ences similar to those that are playing in
our own lives. We do this in the same
way that each flower emits its own peculiar
odor. The rose breathes out its fragrance
upon the air and all who come near it are
refreshed and inspired by this emanation
from the soul of the rose. A poisonous
weed sends out its obnoxious odor; it is
neither refreshing nor inspiring in its
effects, and if one remain near it long heTHE HIGHEST RICHES 219

may be so unpleasantly affected as to be
made even ill by it.

The higher the life the more inspiring
and helpful are the emanations that it is
continually sending out. The lower the
life the more harmful is the influence it
continually sends out to all who come in
contact with it. Each one is continually
radiating an atmosphere of one kind or the
other.

We are told by the mariners who sail
on the Indian Seas, that many times they
are able to tell their approach to certain
islands long before they can see them by
the sweet fragrance of the sandalwood that
is wafted far out upon the deep. Do you
not see how it would serve to have such
a soul playing through such a body that
as you go here and there a subtle, silent
force goes out from you that all feel and
are influenced by; so that you carry with
you an inspiration and continually shed a
benediction wherever you go; so that your
friends and all people will say,—His
coming brings peace and joy into our
homes, welcome his coming; so that as
you pass along the street, tired, and weary,
and even sin-sick men and women will
feel a certain divine touch that will awaken
new desires and a new life in them; that220

REALIZATION OF

will make the very horse as you pass him
turn his head with a strange, half-human,
longing look ? Such are the subtle powers
of the human soul when it makes itself
translucent to the Divine. To know that
such a life is within our living here and
now is enough to make one burst forth
with songs of joy. And when the life
itself is entered upon, the sentiment of at
least one song will be :

“Oh! I stand in the Great Forever,

All things to me are divine ;

I eat of the heavenly manna,

I drink of the heavenly wine.

“In the gleam of the shining rainbow
The Father’s Love I behold,

As I gaze on its radiant blending
Of crimson and blue and gold.

“In all the bright birds that are singing,

In all the fair flowers that bloom,

Whose welcome aromas are bringing
Their blessings of sweet perfume ;

“ In the glorious tint of the morning,

In the gorgeous sheen of the night,

Oh ! my soul is lost in rapture,

My senses are lost in sight.”

When one comes into and lives continu-
ally in the full, conscious realization of
oneness with the Infinite Life and Power,
then all else follows. This it is that bringsTHE HIGHEST RICHES 221

the realization of such splendors, and
beauties, and joys as a life that is thus
related with the Infinite Power alone can
know. This it is to come into the realiza-
tion of heaven’s richest treasures while
walking the earth. This it is to bring-
heaven down to earth, or rather to bring
earth up to heaven. This it is to exchange
weakness and impotence for strength ;
sorrows and sighings for joy; fears and
forebodings for faith; longings for realiza-
tions. This it is to come into fullness of
peace, power, and plenty. This it is to be
in tune with the Infinite.

GLASGOW : PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BY ROBERT MAGLEHOSK AND CO. LTD.