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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Conquest of Fear, by Basil King
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+Title: The Conquest of Fear
+
+Author: Basil King
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9944]
+[This file was first posted on November 2, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CONQUEST OF FEAR ***
+
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+E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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+
+THE CONQUEST OF FEAR
+
+BASIL KING
+
+WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY
+HENRY C. LINK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      INTRODUCTION
+
+   I. FEAR AND THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE
+
+  II. THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE AND GOD
+
+ III. GOD AND HIS SELF-EXPRESSION
+
+  IV. GOD'S SELF-EXPRESSION AND THE MIND OF TO-DAY
+
+   V. THE MIND OF TO-DAY AND THE WORLD AS IT IS
+
+  VI. THE WORLD AS IT IS AND THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR
+
+ VII. THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR AND THE FEAR OF DEATH
+
+VIII. THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+by Henry C. Link, Ph.D.
+
+_Author of_ THE REDISCOVERY OF MAN, THE RETURN TO RELIGION, etc.
+
+
+There are many books which give some help to many people. There are
+books which give a set of rules, or even one master rule, by which to
+meet the problems of life. This is not such a book. It suggests no
+simple recipe for the conquest of fear. Instead, it presents, what all
+too few of us to-day possess, a philosophy of life.
+
+Moreover, in contrast to the dominant thinking of our age, which is
+materialistic, King's philosophy is spiritual and religious. Indeed, the
+ideas in this book are so profoundly different from the commonly
+accepted ideas of our times that they will come as a shock to many
+readers. One purpose of this introduction is to prepare the reader for
+such a shock.
+
+I have said that the dominant thinking of our age is materialistic, and
+by that I mean also physical. Let me illustrate this broad statement
+with reference to the subject of fears alone. The conquest of fear has
+gone on year after year chiefly through physical means. Physical pain
+has always been one of the great sources of fear. Now ether and other
+anaesthetics have eliminated the chief pains of major operations. Older
+people can still remember their fear of the dentist, when killing a
+nerve or pulling a tooth caused excruciating pain. Now local
+anaesthetics even in minor troubles have made dentistry almost painless.
+We have not conquered these fears of pain--rather their cause has
+been removed.
+
+Twilight sleep, the artificial sleep to alleviate the pains of
+childbirth, is the perfect expression of the scientific and
+materialistic elimination of fear. By a chemical blackout of the mind, a
+dimming of the conscious self, the person is enabled to escape the
+necessity of facing and conquering fear through his own resources.
+
+I am not condemning the physical alleviation of pain or the progress of
+physical science. I am only describing a trend, and that is the growing
+emphasis on the elimination of fears by science rather than on their
+conquest by the individual.
+
+Illness has always been a great source of fear, and still is. The dread
+of cancer is one of the terrifying fears of our time and fortunes are
+spent in cancer research and education. THE CONQUEST OF FEAR was written
+as a result of the author's threatened total blindness. He faced a fact
+for which there seemed no physical remedy--hence his great need for a
+spiritual conquest of this great fear.
+
+And yet, year by year, physical science has been eliminating or
+reducing the dangers of sickness. Vaccines for the prevention of the
+dread disease, small-pox, are now a matter of course. Vaccines and
+specifics against the deadly tetanus, against typhoid fever, diphtheria,
+syphilis, and other fearful diseases have become commonplace. The fear
+of pneumonia has been almost eliminated through the discoveries of the
+miraculous sulpha drugs. Science has done wonders toward the elimination
+of such fears. A man need hardly conquer the fear of any particular
+sickness--there is left for his conquest chiefly the fear of dying.
+
+In addition to physical disease, our civilization has now developed
+mental ailments of all kinds. These include a large category of fears
+called phobias--claustrophobia, agoraphobia, photophobia, altaphobia,
+phonophobia, etc.
+
+Three fields or professions, other than religion and philosophy, have
+sought to deal with these fears, the psychiatric, the psychoanalytic,
+and the psychological. The medical psychiatric profession has naturally
+emphasized physical remedies beginning with sedatives and bromides to
+induce artificial relaxation and ending up with lobectomy or the
+complete cutting off of the frontal lobes of the brain, the centers of
+man's highest thought processes. Between these two extremes are the
+shock treatments in which an injection of insulin or metrazol into the
+blood stream causes the person to fall into a sort of epileptic fit
+during which he loses consciousness. Through a series of such shock
+treatments some of the higher nerve centers or nerve pathways are
+destroyed. By this process a person's fears may also be eliminated and
+he may be permanently or temporarily cured. In short, the person does
+not conquer the fears in his mind; the psychiatrist or neurologist, by
+physically destroying a part of the person's brain, destroys also
+the fears.
+
+How strongly this physical approach has taken hold of people was made
+plain to me through an article of mine on how to conquer fears. The
+emphasis in this article was on how people could overcome their fears
+and worries through their own efforts. To illustrate the opposite
+extreme, I mentioned the brain operations and shock treatments by which
+psychiatry now often deals with fears. Among the many people who wrote
+to me as a result of this article, _the majority inquired where they
+could obtain such an operation_! To such extremes have many people gone
+in their desire to eliminate fear by physical means rather than conquer
+it through their own spiritual powers.
+
+The psychoanalyst deals with a person's phobias through what seems like
+an intellectual or rational process. According to psychoanalysis,
+phobias or fears are due to some buried or subconscious complex. By
+daily or frequent talks with a psychoanalyst for a period of six months
+or a year, a person's subconscious disturbance _may_ be brought to
+light, and if so, the fear is supposed automatically to disappear. Even
+if true, this process is a highly materialistic one, at least in the
+sense that only people who can spend thousands of dollars can afford
+such treatments.
+
+The psychologist, as well as some psychiatrists who have studied normal
+psychology, regard many fears as normal experiences which the individual
+can cope with largely through his own resources and with very little
+help in the way of visits or treatment. The trouble arises in the case
+of those people who have no personal resources to draw on. Their lives
+are so lacking in spiritual power, or so full of intellectual scepticism
+and distrust, that they cannot help themselves. They have no religious
+convictions or certainties by which to obtain leverage in their
+struggles. They have no firm philosophy of life on which they or those
+who would help them can lay hold. They are putty in the hands of the
+fears and forces that beset them from without.
+
+The psychologist and the psychiatrist both find it difficult to do much
+to help such a person. And yet, this is the kind of person our
+civilization and education tends increasingly to produce. By the
+physical elimination of the causes of fear we have gradually undermined
+man's inner resources for the conquest of fear.
+
+This materialistic trend has received a new impetus from the fields of
+political science, economics, and sociology. A dozen years ago economic
+disaster threatened to stampede the nation. Millions who had lost their
+jobs began to fear penury and want. Millions who still had jobs feared
+that they would lose them. Other millions began to fear the loss of
+their money and possessions. Rich and poor, becoming afraid that the
+country was going to pieces, rushed to the banks to withdraw their
+savings and brought on the nation-wide bank closings. Those were days
+when everyone knew paralyzing fears.
+
+History will record the fact that these fears were met, not by conquest,
+not by drawing on the moral resources and inner fortitude of the
+American citizen, but by a collection of wholesale materialistic
+schemes. These schemes included such devices as inflating the dollar,
+raising prices, expanding the government debt, paying farmers not to
+produce crops, government housing projects, and many others. The fears
+of unemployment and poverty in old age were to be eliminated wholesale
+through a planned economy, a new social order. By an elaborate system of
+book-keeping called Social Security, a whole nation was to win freedom
+from want and freedom from fear.
+
+But while we were building our smug little house of Social Security, the
+whole world was crashing around us. Instead of achieving local security
+we find ourselves now in the midst of world-wide insecurity. Far from
+having eliminated the economic causes of fear, we now find these causes
+multiplied many times. To the fear of losing our money is now added the
+fear of losing our sons. To the fear of losing our jobs is added the
+fear of losing our lives. To the fear of depression and inflation is
+added the fear of losing the very freedoms for which the war is
+being fought.
+
+At last we see, or are on the point of seeing, that materialism breeds
+worse fears than it cures; that economics and sociology create more
+social problems than they solve; that science makes it possible to
+destroy wealth and lives much faster than it can build them. It took
+years of science to achieve the airplane and to eliminate people's fear
+of flying. Now, suddenly, the airplane has become the greatest source of
+destruction and of fear on the globe. Cities which were decades in the
+building are blasted out of being in a night. Millions of people must
+regulate their lives in fear of these dread visitors.
+
+This is the background against which the conquest of fear presents its
+philosophy of courage and of hope. It is a philosophy diametrically
+opposed to the dominant beliefs and practices of our materialistic age.
+One hesitates to use the words spiritual and moral because they have
+become catch words. Nevertheless, King's philosophy is a spiritual and a
+moral one, and the reader will gain from it a clearer concept of what
+these words really mean.
+
+When I remember my reactions to the first portion of this book, I can
+readily picture the impatience and even scorn of many intellectuals and
+pseudo-intellectuals. Because of its emphasis on the religious nature of
+the universe and on the spiritual power of the individual, it may seem
+to them naive. Because of its consistent condemnation of Mammon, of
+materialism and the economic-sociological interpretation of life, it may
+seem to them old-fashioned. Actually, the book is highly sophisticated
+and is more novel to-day than the day it was written because since that
+time we have strayed twenty years further from the truth.
+
+One day I was having luncheon with a man who, during the course of the
+conversation, remarked: "I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your
+latest book,--" As almost any writer would, I pricked up my ears
+expectantly.
+
+"Yes," he went on, "I got a great deal out of your recent book, but the
+book which helped me more than any I have ever read is a book called THE
+CONQUEST OF FEAR, by Basil King. Do you happen to know it?"
+
+"Know it!" I exclaimed. "I not only know it, I am just on the point of
+writing an introduction to a new edition of the book. Would you mind
+telling me how it helped you?"
+
+He thereupon related how, at a certain period of his life, he had left
+an excellent position to take a new one which seemed more promising. It
+soon developed that the difficulties of this position were such as to
+make his success seem almost hopeless. He became obsessed with the idea
+that the people with whom he had to deal were "out to get him." His
+fears of the job and of his associates grew to the point where a nervous
+breakdown seemed inevitable.
+
+One day his daughter told him that she needed a book in her school work
+which he remembered having packed in a box that had been stored in the
+attic and not yet opened. When he opened the box, the first book which
+he picked up was THE CONQUEST OF FEAR. It was evidently one of those
+books which had somehow come into the possession of his family, but
+which he had never read.
+
+This time, however, he sat down in the attic and began to read it.
+During the course of the next year or so he read it carefully not once
+but four or five times. "It marked the turning point in my life," he
+told me. "It enabled me to conquer the fears which were threatening to
+ruin me at the time, and it gave me a philosophy which has stood me in
+good stead ever since."
+
+A philosophy which marked the turning point in his life and which has
+stood him in good stead ever since! THE CONQUEST OF FEAR offers
+such a philosophy not only to individuals suffering from fears peculiar
+to them, but to a world of individuals suffering, or about to suffer,
+from the collapse of world-wide materialism. In this day of chaos and
+uncertainty, here is the modern version of the parable of the man who
+built his house upon a rock instead of on the sand: "and the rain
+descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
+house; and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock."
+
+H. C. L.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FEAR AND THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+When I say that during most of my conscious life I have been a prey to
+fears I take it for granted that I am expressing the case of the
+majority of people. I cannot remember the time when a dread of one kind
+or another was not in the air. In childhood it was the fear of going to
+bed, of that mysterious time when regular life was still going on
+downstairs, while I was buried alive under sheets and blankets. Later it
+was the fear of school, the first contact of the tender little soul with
+life's crudeness. Later still there was the experience which all of us
+know of waking in the morning with a feeling of dismay at what we have
+to do on getting up; the obvious duties in which perhaps we have grown
+stale; the things we have neglected; those in which we have made
+mistakes; those as to which we have wilfully done wrong; those which
+weary or bore or annoy or discourage us. Sometimes there are more
+serious things still: bereavements, or frightfully adverse conditions,
+or hardships we never expected brought on us by someone else.
+
+It is unnecessary to catalogue these situations, since we all at times
+in our lives have to face them daily. Fear dogs one of us in one way and
+another in another, but everyone in some way.
+
+Look at the people you run up against in the course of a few hours.
+Everyone is living or working in fear. The mother is afraid for her
+children. The father is afraid for his business. The clerk is afraid for
+his job. The worker is afraid of his boss or his competitor. There is
+hardly a man who is not afraid that some other man will do him a bad
+turn. There is hardly a woman who is not afraid that things she craves
+may be denied her, or that what she loves may be snatched away. There is
+not a home or an office or a factory or a school or a church in which
+some hang-dog apprehension is not eating at the hearts of the men,
+women, and children who go in and out. I am ready to guess that all the
+miseries wrought by sin and sickness put together would not equal those
+we bring on ourselves by the means which perhaps we do least to
+counteract. We are not sick all the time; we are not sinning all the
+time; but all the time all of us--or practically all of us--are afraid
+of someone or something. If, therefore, one has the feeblest
+contribution to make to the defeat of such a foe it becomes difficult to
+withhold it.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+But even with a view to conquering fear I should not presume to offer to
+others ideas worked out purely for myself had I not been so invited. I
+do not affirm that I have conquered fear, but only that in self-defence
+I have been obliged to do something in that direction. I take it for
+granted that what goes in that direction will go all the way if pursued
+with perseverance and good will. Having thus made some simple
+experiments--chiefly mental--with what to me are effective results, I
+can hardly refuse to tell what they have been when others are so good as
+to ask me.
+
+And in making this attempt I must write from my own experience. No other
+method would be worth while. The mere exposition of a thesis would have
+little or no value. It is a case in which nothing can be helpful to
+others which has not been demonstrated for oneself, even though the
+demonstration be but partial.
+
+In writing from my own experience I must ask the reader's pardon if I
+seem egoistic or autobiographical. Without taking oneself too smugly or
+too seriously one finds it the only way of reproducing the thing that
+has happened in one's own life and which one actually knows.
+
+And when I speak above of ideas worked out purely for myself I do not,
+of course, mean that these ideas are original with me. All I have done
+has been to put ideas through the mill of my own mind, co-ordinating
+them to suit my own needs. The ideas themselves come from many sources.
+Some of these sources are, so deep in the past that I could no longer
+trace them; some are so recent that I know the day and hour when they
+revealed themselves, like brooks in the way. It would be possible to say
+to the reader, "I owe this to such and such a teaching, and that to such
+and such a man," only that references of the kind would be tedious. I
+fall back on what Emerson says: "Thought is the property of him who can
+entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain
+awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have
+learned what to do with them, they become our own. Thus all originality
+is relative." The thoughts that I shall express are my own to the extent
+that I have lived them--or tried to live them--though the wind that
+bloweth where it listeth may have brought them to my mind.
+
+Nor do I think for a moment that what I have found helpful to me must of
+necessity be helpful to everyone. It may be helpful to someone. That is
+the limit of my hope. It is simple fact that no one can greatly help
+anyone else. The utmost we can do is to throw out an idea here and there
+which another may seize, and by which he may help himself. Borrowed help
+has the awkwardness which Emerson attributes to borrowed thoughts. It is
+only when a concept has lain for a time in a man's being, germinated
+there, and sprung into active life, that it is of much use to him; but
+by that time it has become his own. The kingdom of heaven must begin
+within oneself or we shall probably not find it anywhere.
+
+These pages will contain, then, no recipe for the conquest of fear; they
+will offer, with much misgiving and diffidence, no more than the record
+of what one individual has done toward conquering it. This record is
+presented merely for what it is worth. It may be worth nothing. On the
+other hand, someone may find it worth something, and in that case all
+that the writer hopes for will be attained.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+As a matter of fact, in my own case the reaction against fear was from
+the beginning more or less instinctive. With the first exercise of the
+reasoning faculty I tried to argue against the emotion. I remember that
+as a little boy I was afraid of a certain dog that barked at me when I
+went to a certain house to which I was sent perhaps two or three times a
+week. The house had a driveway, and from the minute of passing the
+entrance my knees trembled under me. But even then, I recall, it seemed
+to me that this terror was an incongruous thing in life, that it had no
+rightful place there, and that, if the world was what my elders told me
+it was, there must be in it a law of peace and harmony which as yet I
+hadn't arrived at. I cannot say that when the dog barked this reasoning
+did more than nerve me to drag my quaking limbs up to the doorstep,
+whence my enemy, a Skye terrier, invariably took flight.
+
+During a somewhat stormy childhood and boyhood, in which there was a
+good deal of emotional stress, I never got beyond this point. Specific
+troubles were not few, and by the time I reached early manhood a habit
+of looking for them had been established. "What's it going to be now?"
+became a formula of anticipation before every new event. New events
+presented themselves most frequently as menaces. Hopes rarely loomed up
+without accompanying probabilities of disappointment. One adopted the
+plan of "expecting disappointment" as a means of cheating the "jinx." I
+am not painting my early life as any darker than most lives. It was, I
+fancy, as bright as the average life of youth.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+But, contrary to what is generally held, I venture to think that youth
+is not a specially happy period. Because young people rarely voice
+their troubles we are likely to think them serene and unafraid. That has
+not been my experience either with them or of them. While it is true
+that cares of a certain type increase with age the knowledge of how to
+deal with them increases, or ought to increase, in the same progression.
+With no practical experience to support them the young are up against
+the unknown and problematical--occupation, marriage, sexual urge, life
+in general--around which clings that terror of the dark which frightened
+them in childhood. Home training, school training, college training,
+religious training, social influences of every kind, throw the emphasis
+on dangers rather than on securities, so that the young life emerges
+into a haunted world. Some are reckless of these dangers, some grow
+hardened to them, some enjoy the tussle with them, some turn their minds
+away from them, while others, chiefly the imaginative or the
+intellectual, shrink from them with the discomfort which, as years go
+on, becomes worry, anxiety, foreboding, or any other of the many
+forms of care.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+My own life followed what I assume to be the usual course, though in
+saying this I am anxious not to give an exaggerated impression. It was
+the usual course, not an unusual one. "There's always something" came to
+be a common mental phrase, and the something was, as a rule, not
+cheering. Neither, as a rule, was it terrible. It was just
+_something_--a sense of the carking hanging over life, and now and then
+turning to a real mischance or a heartache.
+
+It strikes me as strange, on looking back, that so little attempt was
+made to combat fear by religion. In fact, as far as I know, little
+attempt was made to combat fear in any way. One's attention was not
+called to it otherwise than as a wholly inevitable state. You were born
+subject to fear as you were born subject to death, and that was an
+end of it.
+
+Brought up in an atmosphere in which religion was our main
+preoccupation, I cannot recall ever hearing it appealed to as a
+counteragent to this most persistent enemy of man. In dealing with your
+daily dreads you simply counted God out. Either He had nothing to do
+with them or He brought them upon you. In any case His intervention on
+your behalf was not supposed to be in this world, and to look for
+rewards from Him here and now was considered a form of impiety. You were
+to be willing to serve God for naught; after which unexpected favours
+might be accorded you, but you were to hope for nothing as a right. I do
+not say that this is what I was taught; it was what I understood; but to
+the best of my memory it was the general understanding round about me.
+In my fight against fear, in as far as I made one, God was for many
+years of no help to me, or of no help of which I was aware. I shall
+return to the point later in telling how I came to "discover God" for
+myself, but not quite the same God, or not quite the same concept of
+God, which my youthful mind had supposed to be the only one.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+At the same time it was to a small detail in my religious training--or
+to be more exact in the explanation of the Bible given me as a boy--that
+I harked back when it became plain to me that either I must conquer fear
+or fear must conquer me. Having fallen into my mind like a seed, it lay
+for well on to thirty years with no sign of germination, till that
+"need," of which I shall have more to say presently, called it
+into life.
+
+Let me state in a few words how the need made itself pressing.
+
+It was, as life goes, a tolerably dark hour. I was on the borderland
+between young manhood and early middle age. For some years I had been
+losing my sight, on top of which came one of those troubles with the
+thyroid gland which medical science still finds obscure. For reasons
+which I need not go into I was spending an autumn at Versailles in
+France, unoccupied and alone.
+
+If you know Versailles you know that it combines all that civilisation
+has to offer of beauty, magnificence, and mournfulness. A day's visit
+from Paris will give you an inkling of this, but only an inkling. To get
+it all you must live there, to be interpenetrated by its glory of decay.
+It is always the autumn of the spirit at Versailles, even in summer,
+even in spring; but in the autumn of the year the autumnal emotion of
+the soul is poignant beyond expression. Sad gardens stretch into sad
+parks; sad parks into storied and haunting forests. Long avenues lead to
+forgotten chateaux mellowing into ruin. Ghostly white statues astonish
+you far in the depths of woods where the wild things are now the most
+frequent visitors. A Temple of Love--pillared, Corinthian, lovely--lost
+in a glade to which lovers have probably not come in a hundred
+years--will remind you that there were once happy people where now the
+friendliest sound is that of the wood-chopper's axe or the horn of some
+far-away hunt. All the old tales of passion, ambition, feud, hatred,
+violence, lust, and intrigue are softened here to an aching sense of
+pity. At night you will hear the castle clock, which is said never once
+to have failed to strike the hour since Louis the Fourteenth put it in
+its place, tolling away your life as it has tolled away epochs.
+
+Amid these surroundings a man ill, lonely, threatened with blindness,
+can easily feel what I may call the spiritual challenge of the ages. He
+must either be strong and rule; or he must be weak and go down. He must
+get the dominion over circumstance, or circumstance must get the
+dominion over him. To be merely knocked about by fate and submit to it,
+even in the case of seemingly inevitable physical infirmity, began to
+strike me as unworthy of a man.
+
+It is one thing, however, to feel the impulse to get up and do
+something, and another to see what you can get up and do. For a time the
+spectre of fear had me in its power. The physical facts couldn't be
+denied, and beyond the physical facts I could discern nothing. It was
+conceivable that one might react against a mental condition; but to
+react against a mysterious malady coupled with possibly approaching
+blindness was hardly to be thought of. When one added one's incapacity
+to work and earn a living, with all that that implies, it seemed as if
+it would take the faith that moves mountains to throw off the weight
+oppressing me. It is true that to move mountains you only need faith as
+a grain of mustard seed, but as far as one can judge not many of us have
+that much.
+
+It was then that my mind went back all of a sudden to the kernel planted
+so many years before, in my island home, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If
+I become prolix over this it is only that I want to show how often it
+happens to parents, teachers, and others who deal with children, to
+throw out a thought which after lying dormant for years will become a
+factor in the life. Had it not been for the few words spoken then I
+should not, as far as I can see, now have such mastery over self as I
+have since attained--not very much--but I should not be writing
+these lines.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+My boyhood was placed in the times when Darwin's "Origin of Species" and
+"Descent of Man" had thrown the scientific and religious worlds into
+convulsion. The struggle between the old ideas and the new calls for no
+more than a reference here; but the teacher to whom I owe most was one
+who, while valuing the old, saw only an enrichment in the new,
+explaining the Bible in that spirit. So it happened that he spoke one
+day of the extraordinary ingenuity of the life-principle, which somehow
+came to the earth, in adapting itself to perpetually new conditions.
+
+Nothing defeated it. For millions of years it was threatened by climatic
+changes, by the lack of food, by the ferocity of fellow-creatures. Heat,
+cold, flood, drought, earthquake, and volcanic eruption were forever
+against it. Struggling from stage to stage upward from the slime a new
+danger was always to it a new incentive to finding a new resource.
+
+Pursued through the water it sought the land. Pursued on the land it
+sought the air. Pursued in the air it developed fleetness of wing, and
+in fleetness of wing a capacity for soaring, circling, balancing,
+dipping, and swinging on itself of which the grace must not blind us to
+the marvellous power of invention.
+
+In other words, the impulses leading to the origin of species proclaim a
+resourcefulness on the part of what we call life which we have every
+reason to think inexhaustible. Whatever the Fount of Being from which
+the life-principle first came into the waters of our earth there is no
+question but that with it came a conquest-principle as well. Had it been
+possible to exterminate the life-principle it would never have gone
+further than the age which saw the extinction of the great reptiles. The
+great reptiles went, but the life-principle stayed on, with the ability
+to assume, within our limited observation, all the forms between the
+bacillus and the elephant, while as to what lies beyond our observation
+the possibilities are infinite.
+
+Long before it works up to man we see this amazing force stemming an
+uncountable number of attacks, and meeting ruinous conditions with
+daring contrivances. For one kind of danger it develops a shell, for
+another a sting, for another a poison, for another a protective
+colouration. To breathe in the sea it puts forth gills, and makes lungs
+for itself when stranded on the land. In glacial cold it finds the means
+of growing fur; when heat and cold assail it by turns it packs itself
+with feathers; when climates become temperate it produces hair. For the
+creature which keeps to the water it webs the foot; for that which takes
+to the trees it makes the toes prehensile; for the one which learns to
+stand erect and run along the ground it flattens the sole, making it
+steady and supporting. To resist, to survive, to win through, is the end
+to which the life-principle sets itself with such singleness of aim as
+to unfold a wealth of potentiality astounding to us in looking backward.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+This was the idea which came back to me that autumn at Versailles, and
+from which in the course of time I drew my conclusions.
+
+Briefly, those conclusions were to the effect that as individuals we
+need difficulties to overcome, and that fear is a stimulus to overcoming
+them. Otherwise expressed, fear loses much of its fearfulness when we
+see it as the summons to putting forth new energies. Unless we were
+conscious of the energies such a call would not reach us. The creatures
+preceding man could have felt no misgiving, since they lacked the
+imagination essential to a dread. Such fear as they were equal to must
+have seized them in paroxysms of terror when calamities threatened to
+overwhelm them. If they made good their escape no trace of the fear
+remained behind, the brain having little or no power of retention. We
+may take it for granted that the pterodactyl and the trachodon had none
+of the foreboding based on experience which destroys the peace of man.
+
+Fear, as we understand it, was in itself a signal of advance. It could
+only have begun with the exercise of reason. Arrived at the rudiments of
+memory the creature must have been able to perceive, however dimly, that
+the thing which had happened might happen again. Adding the first
+stirrings of imagination he must have constructed possible events in
+which the danger would come from the same causes as before. With the
+faculties to remember, to reason, and to imagine all at work we reach
+the first stages of man.
+
+Man was born into fear in that he was born into a world of which most of
+the energies were set against him. He was a lone thing fighting his own
+battle. The instinct for association which made the mammals different
+from other animals didn't help him much, since association did not bring
+mutual help as a matter of course, and never has done so. A man could
+count on no one but himself. Not only were prodigious natural forces
+always menacing him with destruction; not only was the beast his enemy
+and he the enemy of the beast; but his hand was against his fellow-man
+and his fellow-man's hand against him. This mutual hostility followed
+men in their first groupings into communities, and only to a degree have
+we lived it down in the twentieth century.
+
+Perhaps this conviction that a man's strength lay in standing
+single-handed against circumstance was the first small discovery I made
+in my own fight with fear. Looking back on the developments which had
+brought man into the world I saw a marvellous power of getting round
+difficulties when you couldn't cut through them. Just as a river which
+cannot flow over a rock can glide about its feet and turn it into a
+picturesque promontory, so I recognised in myself an inborn human
+faculty for "sidestepping" that which blocked my way, when I couldn't
+break it down.
+
+I left Versailles with just that much to the good--a perception that the
+ages had bequeathed me a store of abilities which I was allowing to lie
+latent. Moving into Paris, to more cheerful surroundings, I took up
+again the writing of the book I had abandoned more than a year
+previously. After long seclusion I began to see a few people, finding
+them responsive and welcoming. My object in stating these unimportant
+details is merely to show that in proportion as I ceased to show fear
+the life-principle hastened to my aid. Little by little I came to the
+belief that the world about me was a system of co-operative
+friendliness, and that it was my part to use it in that way.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+To use it in that way was not easy. I was so accustomed to the thought
+of Nature as a complex of self-seeking cruelties, the strong preying on
+the weak, and the weak defenceless, that the mere idea of its containing
+a ruling co-operative principle seemed at times far-fetched. To the
+common opinion of the day, my own included, the conception of a
+universe that would come to a man's aid the minute a man came to his own
+was too much like a fairy tale. It may indeed be a fairy tale. All I
+know is that in my own case it is the way in which it seems to have
+worked. I think I have caught a glimpse of a constructive use for that
+which I had previously thought of as only destructive and terrible.
+
+This is what I mean. The life-principle having, through unknown millions
+of years, developed the conquest-principle by meeting difficulties and
+overcoming them, the difficulties had a value. To man, especially, the
+menace of Nature, the ferocity of the beast, and the enmity of his
+fellow-man furnished the incentive to his upward climb. Had all been
+easy he would have stayed where he was. He would never have called
+mental powers to his physical aid, nor appealed to spiritual faculties
+when the mental fell short of his requirements. Spurred on by a
+necessity which grew more urgent in proportion as the life-principle
+widened its scope, the conquest-principle became an impulse which would
+brook no denying. Man grew by it; but the fact remains that he would not
+have grown had there been nothing for him to struggle with.
+
+To me it seems basic to the getting rid of fear to know that our trials,
+of whatever nature, are not motiveless. In our present stage of
+development we could hardly do without them. So often looking like mere
+ugly excrescences on life they are in reality the branches by which we
+catch on and climb. They are not obstacles to happiness for the reason
+that the only satisfying happiness we are equal to as yet is that of
+wrestling with the difficult and overcoming it. Every call of duty has
+its place in this ideal; every irksome job, every wearisome
+responsibility. The fact that we are not always aware of it in no way
+annuls the other fact that it is so. Boredom, monotony, drudgery,
+bereavement, loneliness, all the clamour of unsatisfied ambitions and
+aching sensibilities, have their share in this divine yearning of the
+spirit to grasp what as yet is beyond its reach. All of that hacking of
+the man to fit the job rather than the shaping of the job to fit the
+man, which is, I imagine, the source of most of the discontent on earth,
+has its place here, as well as the hundreds of things we shouldn't do if
+we were not compelled to. Whatever summons us to conflict summons us to
+life, and life, as we learn from a glance at the past, never shirks the
+challenge.
+
+It never shirks the challenge, and, what is more, it never fails to find
+the expedient by which the new demand is to be satisfied. To the
+conquest of fear that plank must be foundational. As far as we can learn
+there never was an emergency yet which the life-principle was not
+equipped to meet. When all existing methods had been used up it invented
+new ones; when seemingly at the end of its new resources it was only
+beginning to go on again.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+The deduction I make is this, that a law which was operative on such a
+scale before man had come into the world at all must be still more
+effective now that we can help to carry it out. The life-principle is
+not less ingenious than it ever was, while the conquest-principle must
+have widely expanded. It is an axiom in all progress that the more we
+conquer the more easily we conquer. We form a habit of conquering as
+insistent as any other habit. Victory becomes, to some degree, a state
+of mind. Knowing ourselves superior to the anxieties, troubles, and
+worries which obsess us, we _are_ superior. It is a question of attitude
+in confronting them. It is more mental than it is material. To be in
+harmony with the life-principle and the conquest-principle is to be in
+harmony with power; and to be in harmony with power is to be strong as a
+matter of course.
+
+The individual is thus at liberty to say: "The force which never failed
+before is not likely to fail in my case. The fertility of resource which
+circumvented every kind of obstacle to make me what I am--a vertebrate,
+breathing, walking, thinking entity, capable of some creative
+expression of my own--will probably not fall short now that I have
+immediate use for it. Of what I get from the past, prehistoric and
+historic, perhaps the most subtle distillation is the fact that so far
+is the life-principle from balking at need, need is essential to its
+activity. Where there is no need it seems to be quiescent; where there
+is something to be met, contended with, and overcome, it is furiously
+'on the job.' That life-principle is my principle. It is the seed from
+which I spring. It is my blood, my breath, my brain. I cannot cut myself
+off from it; it cannot cut itself off from me. Having formed the
+mastodon to meet one set of needs and the butterfly to meet another, it
+will form, something to meet mine, even if something altogether new. The
+new--or what seems new to me--is apparently the medium in which it is
+most at home. It repeats itself never--not in two rosebuds, not in two
+snowflakes. Who am I that I should be overlooked by it, or miss being
+made the expression of its infinite energies?"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+What this reasoning did for me from the start was to give me a new
+attitude toward the multifold activity we call life. I saw it as
+containing a principle that would work with me if I could work with it.
+My working with it was the main point, since _it_ was working with me
+always. Exactly what that principle was I could not at the time have
+said; I merely recognised it as being there.
+
+The method of working with it was simple in idea, however difficult in
+practice. It was a question of my own orientation. I had to get mentally
+into harmony with the people and conditions I found about me. I was not
+to distrust them; still less was I to run away from them. I was to make
+a parable of my childish experience with the Skye terrier, assuming that
+life was organised to do me good. I remembered how many times the Bible
+begins some bit of pleading or injunction with the words, "Fear not."
+Other similar appeals came back to me. "Say to them that are of a
+fearful heart, Be strong I fear not."[1] "Quit yourselves like men; be
+strong."[2] "O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be unto thee! Be
+strong, yea, be Strong."[3] When, at some occasional test, dismay or
+self-pity took hold of me I formed a habit of saying to myself, in our
+expressive American idiom: "This is your special stunt. It's up to you
+to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly,
+and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and Coming to
+your aid."
+
+[1] The Book of Isaiah.
+
+[2] First Book of Samuel.
+
+[3] Book of Daniel.
+
+Which is just what I did find. To an amazing degree people were
+friendly, while conditions became easier. Fear diminished because I had
+fewer things to be afraid of. Having fewer things to be afraid of my
+mind was clearer for work. Work becoming not only more of a resource but
+more remunerative as well, all life grew brighter. Fear was not
+overcome; I had only made a more or less hesitating stand against it;
+but even from doing that I got positive results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE AND GOD
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It is obvious that one could not dwell much on the power of the
+life-principle without coming sooner or later to the thought of God. As
+already hinted, I did not come to it at once because my conception of
+God made Him of so little use to me.
+
+And yet, in popular phraseology, I had "served" God all my life. That
+is, brought up in an atmosphere in which the Church was a divinely
+instituted system for utilising God, I served the system, without
+getting much beyond the surface plane of what were technically known as
+"services." When trial came such services offered me an anodyne, but
+not a cure.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The first suggestion, that my concept of God might not be sufficient to
+my needs came out of a conversation in New York. It was with a lady whom
+I met but that once, within a year or two after my experience at
+Versailles. I have forgotten how we chanced on the subject, but I
+remember that she asked me these questions:
+
+"When you think of God _how_ do you think of Him? How do you picture
+Him? What does He seem like?"
+
+Trying to reply I recognised a certain naivete, a certain childishness,
+in my words even as I uttered them. In my thoughts I saw God as three
+supernal men, seated on three supernal thrones, enshrined in some vague
+celestial portion of space which I denominated Heaven. Between Him and
+me there was an incalculable distance which He could bridge but I could
+not. Always He had me at the disadvantage that He saw what I did, heard
+what I said, read what I thought, punishing me for everything amiss,
+while I could reach Him only by the uncertain telephony of what I
+understood as prayer. Even then my telephone worked imperfectly. Either
+the help I implored wasn't good for me, or my voice couldn't soar to
+His throne.
+
+The lady smiled, but said nothing. The smile was significant. It made me
+feel that a God who was no more than what I had described could hardly
+be the Universal Father, and set me to thinking on my own account.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I wish it were possible to speak of God without the implication of
+dealing with religion. By this I mean that I am anxious to keep religion
+out of this whole subject of the conquest of fear. The minute you touch
+on religion, as commonly understood, you reach the sectarian. The minute
+you reach the sectarian you start enmities. The minute you start
+enmities you get mental discords. And the minute you get mental
+discords no stand against fear is possible.
+
+But I mean a little more than this. Man, as at present developed, has
+shown that he hardly knows what to do with religion, or where to put it
+in his life. This is especially true of the Caucasian, the least
+spiritually intelligent of all the great types of our race.
+Fundamentally the white man is hostile to religion. He attacks it as a
+bull a red cloak, goring it, stamping on it, tearing it to shreds. With
+the Caucasian as he is this fury is instinctive. Recognising religion as
+the foe of the materialistic ideal he has made his own he does his best
+to render it ineffective.
+
+Of this we need no better illustration than the state of what we
+conventionally know as Christendom. Christendom as we see it is a purely
+Caucasian phase of man's struggle upward, with Caucasian merits and
+Caucasian defects. Nowhere is its defectiveness more visible than in
+what the Caucasian has made of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It was
+probably a misfortune for the world that almost from the beginning that
+teaching passed into Caucasian guardianship. I see in the New Testament
+no indication on the part of Our Lord and the Apostles of wishing to
+separate themselves from Semitic co-operation. The former taught daily
+in the Temple; the latter, as they went about the world, made the
+synagogue the base of all their missions. The responsibility for the
+breach is not under discussion here. It is enough to note that it took
+place, and that Caucasian materialism was thus deprived of a
+counteragent in Hebrew spiritual wisdom. Had this corrective maintained
+its place it is possible that religion might now be a pervasive element
+in the Caucasian's life instead of being pigeon-holed.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The Caucasian pigeon-holes God. Otherwise expressed, he keeps God in a
+specially labelled compartment of life, to be brought out for occasional
+use, and put back when the need is over. It is difficult to mention God
+to a Caucasian reader without inducing an artificial frame of mind. As
+there are people who put on for strangers and guests an affected,
+unnatural politeness different from their usual breezy spontaneity, so
+the Caucasian assumes at the thought of God a mental habit which can
+only be described as sanctimonious. God is not natural to the Caucasian;
+the Caucasian is not natural with God. The mere concept takes him into
+regions in which he feels uneasy. He may call his uneasiness reserve or
+reverence, or by some other dignified name; but at bottom it is neither
+more nor less than uneasiness. To minimise this distress he relegates
+God to special days, to special hours, to services and ceremonials. He
+can thus wear and bear his uncomfortable cloak of gravity for special
+times, after which he can be himself again. To appeal to God otherwise
+than according to the tacitly accepted protocol is to the average
+Caucasian either annoying or in bad form.
+
+I should like, then, to dissociate the thought of God from the
+artificial, sanctimonious, preternaturally solemn connotations which
+the Name is certain to bring up. I want to speak of Him with the same
+kind of ease as of the life-principle. I repeat, that I never found Him
+of much use in allaying fear till I released Him from the Caucasian
+pigeon-hole to see Him, as it were, in the open. Once in the open I got
+rid, to some degree, of the Caucasian limitations of thinking along the
+lines of sect, just as in the infinitude of the air you can forget for a
+minute houses with rooms and walls. The discovery--that is, discovery
+for myself--that God is Universal, which is not so obvious as it sounds,
+was, I think, the first great step I made in finding that within that
+Universal fear should be impossible.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+About the same time I chanced on a passage written by Joseph Joubert, an
+eighteenth-century French Catholic, not so well known to the modern
+reader as he ought to be, which impressed me deeply.
+
+"L'ame ne peut se mouvoir, s'eveiller, ouvrir les yeux, sans santir
+Dieu. On sent Dieu avec l'ame comme on sent l'air avec le corps.
+Oseraije le dire? On connait Dieu facilement pourvu qu'on ne se
+contraigne pas a le definir--The soul cannot move, wake, or open the
+eyes without perceiving God. We perceive God through the soul as we feel
+air on the body. Dare I say it? We can know God easily so long as we do
+not feel it necessary to define Him."
+
+I began to see that, like most Caucasian Christians, I had been laying
+too much stress on the definition. The Trinity had, so to speak, come
+between me and the Godhead. I had, unconsciously, attached more
+importance to God's being Three than to His being God. Seeing Him as
+Three I instinctively saw Him as Three Persons. Seeing Him as Three
+Persons I did not reflect that the word Person as applied to God must be
+used in a sense wholly different from that in which we employ it with
+regard to men. To get into what I call the open I had to bring myself to
+understand that we cannot enclose the Infinite in a shape, or three
+shapes, resembling in any way the being with digestive organs, arms, and
+legs, which worked its way up from slime.
+
+That is, in order to "dwell in the secret place of the Most High,"[4]
+where one is immune from fear, I was obliged to give up the habit of
+embodying God in any form. I had to confess that what is meant by the
+Three Persons in One God I did not know. Furthermore, I saw no necessity
+for thinking that I knew, since such knowledge must transcend all scope
+of the human mind. The formula, if you must have a formula, is one
+thing; but the turning it into a statute of limitations and applying it
+to the Illimitable is another.
+
+[4] The Book of Psalms.
+
+To make my position clearer, and to avoid the subject of religion, let
+me add that, inferring from the Bible that there is a Father, a Son, and
+a Holy Ghost, I did not feel it imperative on my part to go beyond this
+use of terms. Merely to abstain from definition was like a load taken
+off my mind. How the Son was begotten of the Father, or the Holy Ghost
+proceeded from them both, or what eternal mysteries were symbolised in
+this purely human phraseology, were, it seemed to me, matters with which
+I need not concern myself, seeing that they passed all my comprehension.
+Not the Trinity should come first to powers so limited as mine--but God.
+
+It dawned on me, too, that God need not necessarily be to me what He is
+to others, nor to others what He is to me. Of the Infinite the finite
+mind can only catch a finite glimpse. I see what I can see; another sees
+what he can see. The visions may be different, and yet each vision may
+be true. Just as two painters painting the same landscape will give
+dissimilar views of it, so two minds contemplating God will take of Him
+only what each is fitted to receive. Water poured into differently
+coloured glasses will take on the colour of the cup which it fills, even
+though it be the self-same water in them all. If I find God for myself I
+shall probably not behold in Him exactly what anyone else in the whole
+world or in all time has ever beheld in Him before.
+
+I saw, too, that from a certain point of view the stand of the agnostic
+is a right one. We cannot know God in the sense of knowing His being or
+His "Personality," any more than we can know the essence of the
+life-principle. Just as we know the life-principle only from what it
+does, so we know God only from such manifestations of Himself as reach
+our observation. Everything else is inference. Because we see something
+of His goodness we infer that He is good; because we experience
+something of His love we infer that He is loving; because we behold
+something of His power we infer that He is almighty. It is first of all
+a matter of drawing our conclusions, and then of making those
+conclusions the food of the inner spiritual man whose life is
+independent of the mortal heart and brain. But a sense in which God is
+"unknowable" to us has to be admitted.
+
+I make this statement now in order not to be misunderstood when later I
+may say that God must be this or that. Though I shall do so for the
+sake of brevity it will always be in the sense that, if God is what we
+have inferred from His manifestations, He must be this or that. In other
+words, having to some degree worked my own way out of fear I must tell
+how I came to feel that I know the Unknowable, doing it with the inexact
+phraseology which is all I find to hand.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Reaching the conclusions noted above I was relieved of the pressure of
+traditions and instructions. Traditions and instructions helped me in
+that they built the ship in which I was to put to sea. The discoveries
+had to be my own. The God of whom I had heard at my mother's knee, as
+the phrase goes, had always been shadowy to me; the God who was served
+by "services" had always seemed remote. A God who should be "_my_ God,"
+as the psalmists say so often, must, I felt, be found by me myself,
+through living, searching, suffering, and struggling onward a step or
+two at a time. "That's pretty near free-thinking, isn't it?" a
+clergyman, to whom I tried to explain myself, once said to me. "No," I
+replied; "but it _is_ pretty near thinking _free_."
+
+To think freely about God became a first necessity; to think simply a
+second one. The Universal Father had been almost lost to me behind veil
+after veil of complexities. The approaches to Him seemed to have been
+made so roundabout, requiring so many intermediaries. Long before I had
+dared to think of what I may call emancipation, the "scheme of
+salvation," as it was termed, had struck me as an excessively
+complicated system of machinery, considering the millions upon millions
+who had need of it. In theory you were told, according to St. Paul, to
+"come boldly before the throne of the heavenly grace," but in practice
+you were expected to do it timidly.
+
+You were expected to do it timidly because the pigeon-holed Caucasian
+God was represented--unconsciously perhaps--as difficult, ungenial,
+easily offended. He measured your blindness and weakness by the
+standard of His own knowledge and almightiness. A puritan God, extremely
+preoccupied with morals as some people saw them, He was lenient,
+apparently, to the narrow-minded, the bitter of tongue, and the
+intolerant in heart. He was not generous. He was merciful only when you
+paid for His mercy in advance. To a not inconsiderable degree He was the
+hard Caucasian business man, of whom He was the reflection, only
+glorified and crowned.
+
+It will be evident, of course, that I am not speaking of "the Father" of
+the New Testament, nor of the official teaching of any church or
+theology. To the rank and file of Caucasians "the Father" of the New
+Testament is very little known, while the official teaching of churches
+and theologies is so hard to explain that not much of it gets over to
+the masses of those willing to subscribe to it. I refer only to the
+impression on the mind of the man in the street; and to the man in the
+street God, as he understands Him, is neither a very friendly nor a very
+comprehensible element in life. Instead of mitigating fear He adds to
+it, not in the Biblical sense of "fearing God," but in that of sheer
+animal distrust.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+While turning these things over in my mind I got some help from two of
+the words most currently in Christian use. I had long known that the
+English equivalents of the Latin equivalents of the terms the New
+Testament writers used gave but a distorted idea of the original sense;
+but I had let that knowledge lie fallow.
+
+The first of these words was Repentance. In these syllables there is
+almost no hint of the idea which fell from the evangelistic pen, while
+the word has been soaked in emotional and sentimental associations it
+was never intended to be mixed with. The _Metanoia_; which painted a
+sober, reflective turning of the mind, had been so overcharged with the
+dramatic that sober, reflective people could hardly use the expression
+any more. Repentance had come to have so strong a gloss of the
+hysterical as to be almost discredited by men of common sense. It was a
+relief, therefore, to remember that it implied no more than a turning to
+God by a process of thought; and that a process of thought would
+find Him.
+
+The other word was Salvation. Here again our term of Latin derivation
+gives no more than the faintest impression of the beauty beyond beauty
+in that which the sacred writer used. _Soteria_--a Safe Return! That is
+all. Nothing complicated; nothing high-strung; nothing casuistical. Only
+a--Safe Return! Yet all human experience can be read into the little
+phrase, with all human liberty to wander--and come back. True, one son
+may never leave the Father's home, so that all that it contains is his;
+but there is no restraint on the other son from getting his knowledge as
+he will, even to the extent of becoming a prodigal. The essential is in
+the Safe Return, the _Soteria_, when the harlots and the husks have been
+tried and found wanting.
+
+I do not exaggerate when I say that the simplicity of these conceptions
+was so refreshing as almost to give me a new life. One could say to God,
+with the psalmist, "Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me
+from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of
+deliverance"--and mean it. One could conceive of it as possible to turn
+toward Him--and reach, the objective. The way was open; the access was
+free; the progress as rapid as thought could make it. One could think of
+oneself as _knowing God_, and be aware of no forcing of the note.
+
+"We can know God easily so long as we do not feel it necessary to define
+Him." Once having grasped this truth I began to see how natural knowing
+God became. The difficulty of the forced, of the artificial, of the mere
+assent to what other people say, of which the Caucasian to his credit is
+always impatient, seemed by degrees to melt away from me. No longer
+defining God I no longer tried to know Him in senses obviously
+impossible. I ceased trying to _imagine_ Him. Seeing Him as infinite,
+eternal, changeless, formless because transcending form, and
+indescribable because transcending words and thoughts, I could give
+myself up to finding Him in the ways in which He would naturally be
+revealed to me.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+These, of course, were in His qualities and His works.
+
+Let me speak of the latter first.
+
+I think light was the medium through which I at once felt myself to be
+seeing God. By this I mean nothing pantheistic--not that the light was
+God--but God's first and most evident great sign. Then there was the
+restful darkness. There were the moon and the stars, "the hosts of
+heaven," as the Hebrews aptly called them, becoming more and more
+amazing as an expression of God the more we learn how to read them. Then
+there were the elements, the purifying wind, the fruitful rain, the
+exhilaration of snow-storms, the action and reaction from heat and cold.
+Then there was beauty: first, the beauty of the earth, of mountains, of
+seas, and all waters, of meadows, grainfields, orchards, gardens, and
+all growing things; then, the beauty of sound, from the soughing of the
+wind in the pines to the song of the hermit-thrush. There was the beauty
+wrought by man, music, painting, literature, and all art. There were the
+myriad forms of life. There were kindness and friendship and family
+affection and fun--but the time would fail me! God being the summing up
+of all good things, since all good things proceed from Him, must be seen
+by me in all good things it I am to see Him at all.
+
+I had heard from childhood of a world in which God was seen, and of
+another world, this world, in which He was not seen. I came to the
+conclusion that there was no such fantastic, unnatural division in what
+we call creation--that there was only one world--the world in which God
+is seen. "The soul cannot move, wake, or open the eyes without
+perceiving God." It is a question of physical vision, with spiritual
+comprehension.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Seeing God breaking through all that I had previously thought of as
+barriers, it was easy to begin to think of Him as Universal. I say begin
+to think, because God's Infinitude had been only a word to me hitherto,
+not a quality realised and felt. I do not presume to say that to any
+adequate degree I feel and realise it now; but the habit of looking on
+every good thing as a sign of His activity cannot but bring Him close
+to me.
+
+That is my chief point with regard to the Infinite--that it must be
+_here_. As I used to think of infinity I saw it stretching to boundless
+reaches away from me; but only from the point of view of present Good
+being present God did the value of the Infinite come to lie in its
+nearness rather than in its power of filling unimaginable space. On my
+part it was inverse mental action, seeking God where I was capable of
+finding Him, and not in regions I could never range.
+
+But having grasped the fact that the Universal, wherever else it was,
+must be with me the purely abstract became a living influence. I felt
+this the more when to the concept of Infinitude I added that of
+Intelligence. I use the much-worked word intelligence because there is
+no other; but when one thinks for a second of what must be the
+understanding of an Infinite Mind, intelligence as a descriptive term
+becomes absurdly inadequate.
+
+This was the next fact which, if I may so express myself, I made my
+own--that not only the Universal is ever with me, but that it is ever
+with me with ever-active concern. There was a time when it was hard for
+me to believe that a Mind busied with the immensities of the universe
+could come down to such trivial affairs as mine. Important as I might be
+to myself I could hardly be otherwise than lost amid the billions of
+forms of life which had come into existence through the ages. To the
+Three in One, on the Great White Throne, in the far-away Heaven, I must
+be a negligible thing, except when I forced myself on the divine
+attention. Even then it was hardly conceivable that, with whole solar
+systems to regulate, I could claim more than a passing glance from the
+all-seeing eye.
+
+But to an Infinite Mind bathing me round and round I must be as much the
+object of regard as any solar system. To such a Mind nothing is small,
+no one thing farther from its scope than another. God could have no
+_difficulty_ in attending to me, seeing that from the nature of His
+mental activity, to put it in that way, He could not lose sight of me
+nor let me go. When an object is immersed in water it gives no extra
+trouble to the water to close round it. It can't help doing it. The
+object may be as small as a grain of dust or as big as a warship; to the
+water it is all the same. Immersed in the Infinite Mind, closed round by
+it, it was giving God no extra trouble to think of me, of my work, my
+desires, the objects with which I was living, since by the nature of His
+Being He could do nothing else.
+
+Having established it with myself that Universal Presence was also
+Universal Thought I had made another step toward the elimination of
+fear. I took still another when I added the truth of Universal Love.
+
+I need hardly say that this progression was not of necessity in a
+strictly consecutive order, nor did it come by a process of reasoning
+out from point to point. I was simply the man in the street dealing with
+great ideas of which he had heard ever since he had been able to hear
+anything, but trying at last to see what they meant to him. My position
+might have been described in the words used by William James in one of
+his _Letters_ to indicate his own. "The Divine, for my _active_ life, is
+limited to abstract concepts, which, as ideals, interest and determine
+me, but do so but faintly, in comparison with what a feeling of God
+might effect, if I had one. It is largely a question of intensity, but
+differences of intensity may make the whole centre of one's energy
+shift." I did have a "feeling of God" however vague; but I had more of
+the feeling of a Church. I could dimly discern the Way, without going
+on to the Truth and the Life which give the Way its value. It will be
+evident then that if my "discoveries" along these lines were discoveries
+in the obvious, it was in that obvious to which we mortals so often
+remain blind.
+
+During many years the expression, the love of God, was to me like a
+winter sunshine, bright without yielding warmth. I liked the words; I
+knew they expressed a truth; but between me and the truth there was the
+same kind of distance which I felt to lie between myself and God. "It is
+largely a question of intensity," to repeat what has just been quoted
+from William James, "but differences of intensity may make the whole
+centre of one's energy shift." My conception of the love of God lacked
+just that quality--intensity.
+
+It came, to some degree, with the realisation that the Universal Thought
+must be with _me_. A non-loving Universal Thought was too monstrous a
+concept to entertain. The God who "broke through" my many
+misunderstandings with so much good and beauty could have only one
+predominating motive. The coming of my spiritual being to this planet
+might be a mystery wrapped in darkness, and yet I could not but believe
+that the Universal Father was behind that coming and that I was His son.
+I could rest my case there. The love of God, after having long been like
+a doctrinal tenet for which one had to strive, became reasonable,
+natural, something to be understood. Finding that love in so many places
+in which I had seen mere physical phenomena, and in so many lovely
+things I had never placed to its credit, I began to feel that life could
+be infused and transformed by it, in proportion as my own perception
+grew. So, little by little, the centre of energy shifted, as one came to
+understand what the Sons of Korah meant when they sang, "God is our
+refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore _will we
+not fear_ though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
+carried into, the midst of the sea."[5] With Universal Thought
+concentrated in love upon oneself fear must be forced backward.
+
+[5] The Book of Psalms.
+
+And especially when you add to that the concept of Almighty Power. This
+fourth and last of the great attributes is the one with which I, as an
+individual, have found it most difficult to clothe the Infinite. I mean
+that it is the one for which it is hardest for me to develop what
+William James calls "a feeling," an inner realisation. I lay no stress
+upon this. It is a question of growth. The Presence, the Thought, the
+Love have become to me what I may be permitted to call tremulously
+vivid. In proportion as they are vivid I get the "feeling" of
+Almightiness exercised on my behalf; in proportion as they are tremulous
+the Almightiness may remain in my consciousness, but it seems exercised
+on my behalf but slightly.
+
+In other words, the Infinitude of Thought and Love are, to some extent,
+apprehended by my inner self, while the Infinitude of Power is as yet to
+me rather an intellectual abstraction. What my inner self may be I am
+not prepared to say, but I know that it is there, as everyone else
+knows that it is in him. "Strengthened with might by the Spirit in the
+inner man,"[6] is what St. Paul says, and I suppose most of us recognise
+the fact that our inner self is stronger or weaker in proportion as it
+is more nourished or less nourished by our sense of the Being of God. It
+is largely a question of intensity. If I interpret William James aright
+he means by "a feeling" an intellectual concept after it has passed
+beyond the preliminary keeping of the brain, and become the possession
+of that inner man which is the vital self. To this vital self the sense
+of Almighty Power really used for me is still, to a great degree,
+outside my range.
+
+[6] Epistle to the Ephesians.
+
+I make the confession not because it is of interest, but because it
+illustrates a main deduction which I should now like to draw. It is to
+the effect that God is with us _to be utilised_. His Power, His Love,
+His Thought, His Presence, must be at our disposal, like other great
+forces, such as sunshine and wind and rain. We can use them or not, as
+we please. That we could use them to their full potentiality is, of
+course, not to be thought of; but we can use them in proportion to our
+ability. If I, the individual, still lack many things; if I am still a
+prey to lingering fears; it is probably because I have not yet rooted
+out a stubborn disbelief in His Power. If I succeed in this I shall
+doubtless be able to seize more of His bounty. It is not a question of
+His giving, but of my capacity to take.
+
+The contrary, I venture to think, is the point of view of most of us. We
+consider God somewhat as we do a wealthy man whom we know to be a miser,
+forming the shrewd surmise that we shall not get much out of him. The
+God who fails to protect us from fear fails, I believe, because we see
+Him first of all as a niggard God. He is a niggard not merely with
+regard to money but all the good things for which He has given us a
+desire, with no intention of allowing that desire to be gratified. Once
+more, He is the hard Caucasian business man, whom His subordinates serve
+because they don't see what else to do, but whom they rarely love.
+
+We shall not, in my judgment, overcome fear till we see Him as He surely
+must be, generous beyond all our conceptions of generosity. Years,
+experience, many trials, and some knowledge of the world, have convinced
+me that we have no lawful or harmless cravings for which, _as far as God
+is concerned_, there is not abundant satisfaction. I am convinced that
+absolute confidence in God's overflowing liberality of every sort is
+essential to the conquest of fear. If we don't profit by that liberality
+the fault is not His but our own. I am tempted to think that the belief
+of so many generations of nominal Christians in a God whose power was
+chiefly shown in repressions, denials, and capricious disappointments is
+responsible, in so small measure, for our present world-distress.
+
+In my own case it was a matter of re-education. To find God for myself I
+had to be willing to let some of my old cherished ideas go. They may
+have been true of God as He reveals Himself to others; they are not true
+of Him as He makes Himself known to me. The Way that leads _me_ to the
+Truth and the Life is undoubtedly the Way I must follow.
+
+Doing that I have found so much, mentally, emotionally, materially,
+which I never had before, that I cannot but look for more as my
+absorbing power increases. The process is akin to that of the
+unshrivelling of the inner man, as a bud will unfold when the sunshine
+becomes strong enough. The transformation must be in thought. There must
+be first the _Metanoia_, the change of mind, the new set of concepts;
+and then the _Soteria_, the Safe Return, to the high, sane ideal of a
+co-operative Universe, with a loving, lavish Universal Heart behind it.
+
+"To the chief Musician for the Sons of Korah:
+
+"'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
+Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and though the
+mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.... Come, behold the
+works of the Lord.... He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the
+earth; he breaketh the bow, he cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth
+the chariot in the fire.... _Be still then, and know that I am
+God,'"_[7]
+
+[7] Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+GOD AND HIS SELF-EXPRESSION
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It will be clear from what I have said already that I see no fundamental
+conquest of fear that is not based in God. There may be knacks by which
+fear can be nipped and expedients by which it may be outwitted, but its
+extermination can be brought about, it seems to me, only in one way.
+According to our capacity and our individual needs we must know God; and
+knowing God is not as difficult as the Caucasian mind is apt to think.
+It stands to reason that if knowing God, in the senses in which it is
+possible to know Him, is so essential to mankind it could not be
+difficult. The making it difficult is part of the dust the Caucasian
+throws in his own eyes.
+
+We know God through His Self-Expression, and His Self-Expression is
+round about us in every form. Except through His Self-Expression there
+is no way of our knowing Him. No speculation or theory will teach us to
+know Him. It must be His own revelation of Himself, or nothing.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Such little knowledge of Him as has come to me came much more freely
+when I began to look for that revelation not alone in solemn mysteries,
+or through the mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient scriptures,
+but in the sights and sounds and happenings of every day. Here I must
+ask not to be misunderstood. The solemn mysteries have their place, but
+it is one of climax. The mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient
+scriptures is of unreckonable value, after I have done something for
+myself. By this I do not mean that all cannot work together
+simultaneously, but rather that it is useless for the soul to strike
+only at the more advanced, having ignored the elementary.
+
+As I write I look out on a street full of the touches of spring. The
+rain-washed grass is of bright new green. The elms are in tenderest
+leaf, the hawthorn bursting into flower. Here and there a yellow clump
+of forsythia is like a spot of sunshine. Tulips are opening their
+variegated cups, and daffodils line the walls. Dogs are capering about,
+a collie, a setter, a Boston terrier. Birds are carrying straws or bits
+of string to weave into their nests--or singing--or flying--or perching
+on boughs. Children are playing--boys on bicycles eagerly racing
+nowhere--little girls with arms round each others' waists, prattling
+after their kind. Overhead is a sky of that peculiar blue for which the
+Chinese have a word which means "the blue of the sky after rain," a hue
+which only these masters in colour have, to my knowledge,
+specially observed.
+
+How can I help seeing so much beauty and sweetness as the manifestation
+of God? How could He show Himself to me more smilingly? How can I talk
+of not seeing God when I see _this_? True, it may be no more than the
+tip of the fringe of the hem of the robe in which His Being is arrayed;
+but at least it must be that. True, also, that beautiful as these things
+appear to physical eyes they must be still more beautiful to spiritual
+eyes--the eyes of those who have passed on, for instance--to say nothing
+of the delight which God must have in them Himself. But even with my
+imperfect mortal vision they are rapturously good, a veritable glimpse
+of the Divine.
+
+This is what I mean by the elementary--the common, primary thing, the
+thing I look at every day and hardly ever accredit to its source. I am
+not speaking pantheistically here, any more than when I spoke of light.
+These things are not God, or part of God. They are expressions of God.
+If I speak of seeing God in them I mean that in them, as well as in many
+other simple things, we see Him as nearly as is possible to such
+comprehension as ours. "No human eye," writes St. John, "has ever seen
+God: the only Son, who is in the Father's bosom--He has made Him
+known."[8] He made Him known in His own Person; but He appealed also to
+the everyday sights and sounds, the lily of the field, the blowing wind,
+the sparrow falling, the children at their mothers' knees, for the
+evidence to declare Him. As expressions of Him they may be
+misinterpreted by the error in my physical senses, or distorted by my
+limitations of spiritual perception; but even then they bring Him near
+to me in the kind of radiance which I can catch.
+
+[8] Most of the quotations from the New Testament are taken from a
+recent translation, "The New Testament in Modern Speech," by R.F.
+Weymouth and E. Hampden-Cook.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+In order to banish fear I think it necessary to train the thought to
+seeing God as expressing Himself in all the good and pleasant and
+enjoyable things that come to us. This means forming a habit. It means
+saying to oneself daily, hourly, "This is God," "That is God," of
+incidents, persons, and things we have rarely thought of in that
+relation. To do this is not as easy as it would be if our race-mind
+worked that way; but unfortunately it does not. In general we take our
+good things for granted, complaining that they are not better. The
+things we lack are more vivid to us, as a rule, than those we have
+acquired. Having hung, as it were, a cloud about ourselves we disregard
+the uncountable ways in which God persists in shining through, in spite
+of our efforts to shut Him out.
+
+To try to enumerate the uncountable would be folly. You cannot reckon
+the good which comes to every one of us through such channels as family,
+home, friendship, income, business, amusements, studies, holidays,
+journeys, sports, books, pictures, music, and the other hardly noticed
+pleasures of any single day. We are used to them. To ascribe them
+specially to God would seem to us far-fetched. That is, theoretically we
+may ascribe them to God, but practically we dissociate Him from them.
+Few of us, I think, ever pause to remember that through them He is
+making Himself known to us before doing it in any other way.
+
+And yet, it seems to me, this is the beginning of our recognition of the
+Divine. I have little hesitation in saying that this is what parents
+should teach children before they teach them to lisp prayers. The
+prayers have hardly any meaning to the baby-mind, and not much more than
+a sentimental influence on the later life, if they have as much as that.
+But any child, from the very budding of the intelligence, could grasp
+the idea of a great, loving Super-Father, who was making Himself visible
+through gifts and care. If he prayed to Him later he would know to whom
+he was praying. As it is, the later prayers are neglected, or definitely
+given up, oftener than not, because this is precisely what the child
+does _not_ know. He does not know it because he was never taught it; and
+he was never taught it because his parents have probably not been aware
+of it themselves.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I myself was never taught it. Notwithstanding all for which I am truly
+grateful, I regret most deeply that so many years of my life went by
+before I was led to the fact. I am willing to believe that the lack of
+understanding was my own fault, but a lack of understanding there was. I
+got the impression that God, so far from making Himself known to me, was
+hiding away from me, and that I must have faith to believe in One of
+whom I had no more than hearsay evidence. If I could do this violence to
+such measure of reason as I possessed I could count on a reward in some
+other world than this, though on little or nothing here.
+
+Faith I saw as of the nature of a _tour de force_. You took it as you
+took a leap. It was spiritually acrobatic. You didn't understand but you
+_believed_. The less you understood the more credit your belief became
+to you. The more hidden and difficult and mysterious and unintelligible
+God made Himself the greater your merit in having faith in spite of
+everything. I am far from saying that this is the common understanding
+of Christians, or from holding others responsible for my misconceptions.
+I speak of these misconceptions only because they were mine, and it was
+I who had to work away from them.
+
+For this reason, too, I speak of my reaching the idea of a God who had
+been visibly smiling at me all my life while I had never seen Him, as a
+"discovery." To me it _was_ a discovery; and it came at a moment when I
+sorely needed something of the kind.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+It was perhaps three or four years after the turning-point at
+Versailles. The intervening time had been one of what I may call
+spiritual ups and downs. It had not all been straight progress by any
+means. I had got hold of what for me was a great idea, round which other
+great ideas grouped themselves; but I grasped them waveringly or
+intermittently. Nevertheless, during seasons in Boston, Nice, Cannes,
+Munich, London, and Berlin, life on the whole went hopefully. The malady
+I have already mentioned tended to grow better rather than worse; the
+advancing blindness became definitely arrested. I worked easily,
+happily, successfully. Returning to the New England city which had
+become my adopted home, I bought a house and settled down to American
+life once more.
+
+I mention these facts only because they help me to make myself clearer.
+For all at once my affairs, like the chariots of Pharaoh in crossing the
+Red Sea, began to drive heavily. Trust in an all-conquering
+life-principle which had meant much to me for a time no longer seemed
+effective. Difficulties massed themselves. Business misunderstandings
+sprang up. Friendships on which I had counted suddenly grew cold. Worse
+than all, the working impulse gave out. There were two whole years in
+which I slaved at producing little more than what had to be thrown away.
+My active life had apparently come to another deadening full stop.
+
+I reached the decision that there was but one thing to do--give up the
+pretence at working, sell the house to which I had grown attached, and
+resume once more the life of aimless, but at that time inexpensive,
+European wandering. There came a day when I actually offered my
+house for sale.
+
+And yet that day proved to be another turning-point. On the very morning
+when I had put my house in the market the chain of small events which we
+commonly call accidents brought me into touch with a man I had never
+seen before. During a first meeting, as well as in several that
+followed, he made certain matters clear to me which changed my course
+not only then but ever since. These explanations came under three
+distinct headings, to each of which I should like to give a
+little space.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Of these the one I put first is probably familiar to most of my readers,
+but to me, I confess, it was new.
+
+God among His other functions must be a tireless activity working
+towards an end. Everything He calls into being works toward that end, I
+myself with the rest. I am not a purposeless bit of jetsam flung out on
+the ocean of time to be tossed about helplessly. God couldn't so will an
+existence. It would not be in keeping with His economy to have any
+entity wasted. As Our Lord puts it, the sparrow cannot fall without Him;
+without Him the lilies are not decked; the knowledge possessed by His
+infinite intelligence is so minute that the very hairs of the head are
+numbered. My life, my work, myself--all are as much a necessary part of
+His design as the thread the weaver weaves into the pattern in a carpet.
+
+In other words, I am not a free agent. I am His agent. Not only am I
+responsible to him, but He is responsible for me. His responsibility for
+me will be seen as soon as I give up being responsible for myself.
+
+It was upon this last point that I seized with most avidity. I was tired
+of trying to steer a course for myself, with no compass to go by. I was
+tired of incessantly travelling along roads which seemed to lead to
+nothing but blind-ends. To change the figure to one I used not
+infrequently at that time, my life seemed pitchforked, first in one way
+and then in another, no way bringing me anywhere. It had no even tenor.
+It was a series of seismic pulls and jerks.
+
+But in the light of what my new friend told me I saw I had been too
+busily engaged in directing my life for myself. I was like a child who
+hopes to make a smoothly working machine go still more smoothly by
+prodding it. I couldn't leave it alone. It had not occurred to me that
+the course of that life was God's own business, and that if I could
+follow the psalmist's advice and "commit my way unto him he would bring
+it to pass." It had seemed to me that nothing would be brought to pass
+unless I worried and fretted over it myself, whereas the same wise old
+psalmist says, in words which our generation would do well to lay to
+heart, _"fret not thyself_ else shall thou be moved to do evil."
+
+"Trust in the Lord and do good," he goes on; "so shalt thou dwell in
+the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the
+Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
+
+This was nothing new; it was only new to me. To feel that I could give
+up being responsible for results and devote myself to my work was in
+itself a relief. If I tried to "trust in the Lord and do good"--by which
+I suppose is meant doing my duty to the best of my small ability--He
+would look after the rest. My position was somewhat that of a trusted
+subordinate given a free hand, but having over him a supreme authority
+taking charge of all consequences. I was not working on what our modern
+idiom neatly summarises as "my own." _I was His agent_.
+
+Thus it might be said to be to His interest to see that as His agent I
+was sheltered, clothed, fed, and in every way kept in such condition as
+to be up to the highest standard of His work. This provision would
+naturally include those dependent on me, and without whose well-being I
+could not have peace of mind. I need worry about them no more than about
+myself. They, too, were His agents. In certain conditions He might
+provide for them through me, or in certain conditions He might provide
+for me through them; but in all conditions He would provide for all
+of us.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The second point was this: those with whom I had had misunderstandings
+were equally His agents. They might not be more aware of the fact than
+I; but this in no way disqualified them as His trusted subordinates
+given a free hand. Their work with me and mine with them, whatever its
+nature, wrought one of the infinite number of blends going to make up
+the vast complexity of His design.
+
+It was, therefore, out of the range of possibility that under Him there
+could be opposition or contradiction between one of His agents and
+another. It would be inconsistent with His being that one man's
+advantage should be brought about at another man's cost. Where that was
+apparently the case it was due to both sides taking the authority into
+their own hands, and neither sufficiently recognising Him. If His
+trusted subordinates in being given a free hand played Him false, they
+naturally played each other false, and played false to themselves first
+of all. Where one was afraid of another and strove to outwit him there
+was treachery against the supreme command.
+
+Again there was nothing new in this; but to me it was a new point of
+view with regard to those with whom and for whom I worked. For the first
+time I saw their true relation to me, as mine to them, and something of
+the principle of brotherhood. Up to this time brotherhood had been a
+charming, sentimental word to me, and not much more. Children of one
+Father, yes; but discordant children, with no restraint that I could see
+on their natural cut-throat enmities.
+
+But here was a truth which made all other men my necessary helpmates,
+and me the necessary helpmate of all other men. I couldn't do without
+them; they couldn't do without me. Hostility between us was as out of
+place as between men pulling together on the rope which is to save all
+their lives. If peril could bring about unity God could bring it about
+even more effectively. God was the great positive, the solvent in which
+irritation and unfriendliness must necessarily melt away.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The third point, involving my obvious first step, was to put suspicion
+out of my own mind. I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working
+with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I.
+It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His
+Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could
+effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with
+God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or
+had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view
+being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order.
+Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were
+many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.
+
+This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we
+should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what
+is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all
+the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting
+one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect
+my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on
+myself--a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves--I am
+not to _fret myself_, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am
+not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents.
+God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He
+expresses Himself through them; we all. I as well as they, they as well
+as I, are partakers of His Sonship; and the Son--His Expression--is
+always "in the Father's bosom," [9] in His love and care.
+
+[9] St. John
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Having grasped this idea the new orientation was not difficult. There
+was in it too much solace to allow of its being difficult. If I state
+the results it is once more not because I consider them important to
+anyone but myself, but only because they became the starting-point of a
+new advance in the conquest of fear.
+
+Within forty-eight hours, with no action on my part except the
+_Metanoia_, the change in my point of view, all misunderstandings had
+been cleared away. The other side had taken the entire initiative, I
+making no advance whatever toward them. A telegram expressing their
+hearty good will was followed by an interview, after which I was at work
+again. I have not only worked easily ever since but with such fecundity
+that one plan is always formed before I have its predecessor off my
+hands. This says nothing of the quality of my work, which, humble as it
+may be, is simply the best I know how to do. I refer only to its
+abundance. I have found that in "working together with God," I am less
+involved in conflicts of wills than I was before, and that the words of
+Amos are literally fulfilled to me, "that the plowman shall overtake the
+reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." I say it
+without knocking on wood, and with no fear lest my "good luck" will be
+withdrawn, that from that time to this I have had plenty of work which I
+have accomplished happily, and have never lacked a market for my
+modest wares.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+From all of which I have drawn one main inference--the imperative
+urgency of Trust.
+
+I had hitherto thought of trust as a gritting of the teeth and a
+stiffening of the nerves to believe and endure, no matter what
+compulsion one put upon oneself. Gradually, in the light of the
+experience sketched above, I came to see it as simply the knowledge that
+the supreme command rules everything to everyone's advantage. The more
+we can rest mentally, keep ourselves at peace, _be still and know that
+it is God_,[10] the single and sole Director, the more our interests will
+be safe. This, I take it, is the kind of trust for which the great
+pioneers of truth plead so persistently in both the Old and New
+Testaments.
+
+[10] The Book of Psalms.
+
+Trust, then, is not a force we wrest from ourselves against reason,
+against the grain. To be trust at all it must be loving and spontaneous.
+It cannot be loving and spontaneous unless there is a natural impulse
+behind it. And there can be no natural impulse behind it unless we have
+something in our own experience which corroborates the mere hearsay
+testimony that there is a Power worth trusting to. Job's "Though He slay
+me yet will I trust in Him," could only have been wrung from a heart
+which had proved the Divine Good Will a thousand times and knew what it
+was doing. Some experience of our own we _must_ have. It is an absolute
+necessity. Desperate hope in another man's God may do something for us,
+but it cannot do much. A small thing which I have proved for myself is a
+better foundation for trust than a Bible learnt parrot-like by rote and
+not put to the practical test. Once I have found out for myself that to
+rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him is the surest way to
+security and peace I have the more willing confidence in doing it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GOD'S SELF-EXPRESSION AND THE MIND OF TO-DAY
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+To the mind of to-day trust would be easier were it not for the terror
+lest God's plans involve us in fearful things from which we shrink. We
+have heard so much of the trials He sends; of the gifts of Tantalus He
+keeps forever in our sight but just beyond our reach; of the blessings
+He actually bestows upon us only to snatch them away when we have come
+to love them most--we have heard so much of this that we are often
+afraid of His will as the greatest among the evils of which we stand
+in dread.
+
+In many cases this is the root of our fear. We cannot trust without
+misgiving to the love of God. What is there then that we can trust to?
+We can't trust to ourselves; still less can we trust to our fellow-men.
+Those whom we love and in whom we have confidence being as weak as
+ourselves, if not weaker than we, establish our spirits not at all. If,
+therefore, we mentally poison the well of Universal Good-intent at its
+very source what have we to depend on?
+
+I have already referred to the God of repressions and denials, and now
+must speak a little more freely of this travesty on "the Father," as
+expressed to us in Jesus Christ. Of all the obstacles to the rooting out
+of fear the lingering belief in such a distortion of Divine Love is to
+my mind the most deeply based.
+
+I often think it a proof of the vital truth in the message of Jesus
+Christ that it persists in holding the heart in spite of the ugly thing
+which, from so many points of view, the Caucasian has managed to make of
+it. Nowhere is the cruelty of Caucasian misinterpretation more evident
+than in the meanings given to the glorious phrase, "the Will of God." I
+do not exaggerate when I say that in most Caucasian minds the Will of
+God is a bitter, ruthless force, to which we can only drug ourselves
+into submission. It is always ready to thwart us, to stab us in the
+back, or to strike us where our affections are tenderest. We hold our
+blessings only on the tenure of its caprice. Our pleasures are but the
+stolen moments we can snatch from its inattention.
+
+As an example I quote some stanzas from a hymn frequently sung where
+English-speaking people worship, and more or less expressive of the
+whole Caucasian attitude toward "God's Will."
+
+My God, my Father, while I stray
+Far from my home on life's rough way,
+Oh, teach me from my heart to say,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+Though dark my path and sad my lot,
+Let me be still, and murmur not,
+Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+What though in lonely grief I sigh
+For friends beloved no longer nigh,
+Submissive still would I reply,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+If thou shouldst call me to resign
+What most I prize, it ne'er was mine;
+I only yield thee what is thine;
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+These lines, typical of a whole class of sentimental hymnology, are
+important only in as far as they are widely known and express a more or
+less standardised point of view. The implication they contain is that
+all deprivation is brought upon us by the Will of God, and that our
+wisest course is to beat ourselves down before that which we cannot
+modify. Beneath the car of this Juggernaut we must flout our judgments
+and crush our affections. As He knows so well where to hit us we must
+stifle our moans when He does so. As He knows so well what will ring our
+hearts we must be content to let Him give so that He can the more
+poignantly take away. The highest exercise of our own free will is to
+"be still and murmur not"--to admit that we need the chastisement--to
+crouch beneath the blows which we tell ourselves are delivered in love,
+even though it is hard to see where the love comes in.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I know nothing more tragic than those efforts on the part of
+heart-broken people, coming within the experience of all of us, to make
+themselves feel that this terrible "Will of God" must be right, no
+matter how much it seems wrong.
+
+A young man with a wife and family to support is struck down by a
+lingering illness which makes him a burden. All his Job's comforters
+tell him that God has brought the affliction upon him, and that to bow
+to the "Inscrutable Will" must be his first act of piety.
+
+A young mother is rejoicing in her baby when its little life is suddenly
+snuffed out. She must school herself to say, quite irrespective of the
+spirit of renunciation which inspires the words, "The Lord gave and the
+Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."
+
+A woman is left a widow to earn a living for herself, and bring up her
+children fatherless. She must assume that the Lord had some good purpose
+in leaving her thus bereft and must drill herself into waiting on a
+Will so impossible to comprehend.
+
+Storms sink ships, drowning passengers and crew; lightning sets fire to
+houses and strikes human beings dead; earthquakes swallow up whole
+districts destroying industry and human life; tidal waves sweep inland
+carrying away towns; and our legal phraseology can think of no better
+explanation of such calamity than to ascribe it to "the act of God."
+
+It is needless to multiply these instances. Our own knowledge supplies
+them by the score. Our personal lives are full of them. God's Will,
+God's Love, God's Mercy, become strangely ironic forces, grim beyond any
+open enmity. They remind us of the "love," the "pity," the "mercy," in
+which the orthodox sent the heretic to the hangman or the stake,
+destroying the body to save the soul.
+
+It is a far cry from this appalling vision of "the Father" to the
+psalmist's "Delight thou in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires
+of thine heart." How could anyone delight in the Caucasian God, as the
+majority of Caucasians conceive of Him? As a matter of fact, how many
+Caucasians themselves, however devout, however orthodox, attempt to
+delight, or pretend to delight, in the God to whom on occasions they bow
+down? Delight is a strong word, and a lovely one; but used of the
+Caucasian and his Deity it is not without its elements of humour.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Naturally enough! It is impossible for any human being to delight in a
+God whose first impulse in "doing us good" is so often to ravage our
+prosperity and affections. So long as we believe in Him fear will rule
+our lives. It is because the Caucasian believes in Him that he lives in
+fear and dies in fear. To attempt to eliminate fear and retain this
+concept of God is vain.
+
+Understanding this the average Caucasian has made little or no effort to
+eliminate fear. He would rather live and die in fear than change this
+concept of God. It is dear to him. He finds it useful. To its shoulders
+he can shift the ills of which he is unwilling himself to accept the
+responsibility. Where God is a puzzle life is a puzzle; and where life
+is a puzzle the Caucasian gets his chance for making the materialistic
+ideal the only one that seems practical. In a world which was to any
+noticeable degree freed from the spectre of fear most of our existing
+systems of government, religion, business, law, and national and
+international politics, would have to be remodelled. There would be
+little or no use for them. Built on fear and run by fear, fear is as
+essential to their existence as coal to our industries. A society that
+had escaped from fear would escape from their control.
+
+In this present spring of 1921 we are having an exhibition of fear on a
+scale so colossal that the heart of man is dazed by it. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of some other government. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of its own people. There is not a people
+which is not afraid of its own government. There is not a country in
+which one group is not afraid of some other group. All is rivalry,
+enmity, suspicion, confusion, and distrust, "while men's hearts are
+fainting for fear, and for anxious expectation of what is coming on the
+world." All statesmen, all ministers, all ambassadors, all politicians,
+all bankers, all business men, all professional men, all journalists,
+all farmers, all laborers, all workers in the arts, all men and women of
+all kinds--with the exception of one here and there who has reached the
+understanding of the love which casteth out fear--live and work in fear,
+and in mistrust of their colleagues. From the supreme councils of the
+Allies down to the crooks and conspirators in dives and joints everyone
+is afraid of being double-crossed. There is so much double-crossing
+everywhere that we have been obliged to invent this name for the
+operation. England is afraid of being double-crossed by Germany, France
+by England, Italy by France, the United States by Europe, and Japan by
+the United States, while within these general limitations minor
+double-crossing interests seethe like bacteria in a drop of poisoned
+blood. The nations are infected with fear because they elect to believe
+in a God of fear, and the Caucasians more than others because they have
+chosen to see a God of fear in Him who was put before them as a God
+of Love.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I see no way out of all this except as one of us after another reaches
+the _Metanoia_, the new point of view as regards God. Other ways have
+been sought, and have been found no more than blind alleys. Much
+reference is made nowadays to the disillusionment of those who hoped
+that the war would lead to social and spiritual renovation; but any such
+hope was doomed in advance, so long as the Caucasian concept of God was
+unchanged. When you cannot trust God you cannot trust anything; and when
+you cannot trust anything you get the condition of the world as it is
+to-day. And that you _cannot_ trust a God whose "love" will paralyse the
+hand by which you have to earn a living, or snatch your baby from your
+breast--to say nothing of a thousand ingenious forms of torture
+inflicted just because "He sees that it is best for you," after having
+led you to see otherwise--that you cannot trust a God like that must be
+more or less self-evident. If you are part of His Self-Expression He
+cannot practise futilities through your experience and personality. He
+must be kind with a common-sense kindness, loving with a common-sense
+love. Whatever explanation of our sufferings and failures there may be
+we must not shuffle them off on God. "Let us hold God to be true," St.
+Paul writes, "though every man should prove false."[11] Let us hold that
+God would not hurt us, however much we may wilfully hurt each other or
+ourselves.
+
+[11] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I should not lay so much emphasis on this if so much emphasis were not
+laid on it in the other direction. God has so persistently, and for so
+many generations, been held up to us as a God who tries and torments and
+punishes that we can hardly see Him as anything else. Torture comes, in
+the minds of many of us, to be not only His main function but His only
+function. "I am all right," is the unspoken thought in many a heart, "so
+long as I am not overtaken by the Will of God. When that calamity falls
+on me my poor little human happiness will be wrecked like a skiff in a
+cyclone." This is not an exaggeration. It is the secret mental attitude
+of perhaps ninety percent of those Caucasians who believe in a God of
+any kind. Their root-conviction is that if God would only let them alone
+they would get along well enough; but as a terrible avenging spirit,
+like the Fury or the Nemesis of the ancients, he is always tracking them
+down. The aversion from God so noticeable in the mind of to-day is, I
+venture to think, chiefly inspired by the instinct to get away from, or
+to hide from, the pursuit of this Avenger.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+And in a measure this impulse to flight can be understood. I can
+understand that common-sense men should be cold toward the Caucasian
+God, and that they should even renounce and denounce him. I will go so
+far as to say that I can more easily understand the atheist than I can
+many of my own friends who pathetically try to love and adore their
+capricious un-Christlike Deity. To my certain knowledge many of them are
+doing it against their own natural and better instincts, because they
+dare not forsake the tradition in which they have been dyed. "I try to
+love God and I can't," has been said to me many a time by conscientious
+people who felt that the fault must lie in themselves. There was no
+fault in themselves. If their God could have been loved they would have
+loved him.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+I come here to a point of no small importance to the conquest of fear,
+the courage to release oneself from the tether of tradition. Few people
+have it, in the sense of rejecting old theories because of having worked
+out to new spiritual knowledge. When it comes to the eternal verities
+many of us are cowardly; nearly all of us are timid. The immense
+majority of us prefer a God at second or third hand. We will accept what
+somebody else has learned, rather than incur the trouble or the
+responsibility of learning anything for ourselves. We take our knowledge
+of God as we take our doses of medicine, from a prescription which one
+man has written down, and another has "put up," and still another
+administers. By the time this traditional, handed-on knowledge of God
+has reached ourselves it is diluted by all kinds of outside opinions and
+personalities. It is not strange that when we have swallowed the dose it
+does little to effect a cure. I do not deny that a second or third hand
+knowledge of God may do something. I only deny that it can do much. To
+support my denial I need only point to what the world has become in a
+second and third hand Christendom. The illustration is enough.
+
+It should be plain, I think, that no one will ever be released from fear
+by clinging to the teachings which have inspired fear. We are fearless
+in proportion as we grow independent enough to know for ourselves. I
+cannot but stress this point to some extent, for the reason that I
+myself suffered so long from inability to let the traditional go. It
+seemed to me to have a sanctity just because it was traditional. The
+fact that other people had accepted certain ideas had weight in making
+me feel that I should accept them too. To go off on a line of my own
+seemed dangerous. I might make mistakes. I might go far wrong. Safety
+was spelled by hanging with the crowd.
+
+It was the chance remark of an old acquaintance which dislodged me from
+this position. In the lobby of a hotel we had met by chance, after not
+having seen each other for a good many years. The conversation, having
+touched on one theme and another, drifted to subjects akin to that which
+I am now discussing. I ventured to disclose some of my own "seeking God,
+if perhaps I could grope for Him and find Him."[12]
+
+[12] Acts of the Apostles.
+
+My friend straightened himself and squared his shoulders. "I stand
+exactly where I did thirty years ago."
+
+There was a pride in the statement with regard to which my first feeling
+was a pang of envy. A rapid calculation told me that thirty years ago he
+had been about twenty; and the superiority of a man who at twenty had
+attained to so much spiritual insight that he had not needed to learn
+anything more in the interim was evident. I was two or three days
+turning this incident over in my mind before the exclamation came to me,
+"How terrible!" To have lived through the thirty years of the richest
+experience the ordinary man ever knows and still have remained on
+precisely the same spot as to spiritual things struck me then as a
+woeful confession.
+
+I beg to say here that I am not talking of external and official
+religious connections. I am trying to avoid the subject of external and
+official religion altogether. I am speaking not of religion but of God.
+To my mind the two have no more than the relation of the words of a song
+and the music of its setting. You may use them together or you may
+consider them apart. I am considering them apart, and confining myself
+wholly to the words of the song. What is known as church-affiliation,
+the music of the setting, I am not concerned with. My only topic is the
+way in which the meaning of the words gets over to the average inner
+man, and the effect upon him mentally.
+
+I revert, therefore, to the statement that to make the kind of spiritual
+progress which will overcome fear it will be often necessary to let go
+the thing we have outlived. Often the thing we have outlived will be
+something dear to us, because there was once a time when it served our
+turn. But our turn to-day may need something different from the turn of
+yesterday, and the refusal to follow new light simply because it is new
+leads in the end to mental paralysis. I was once asked to sign a
+petition to the mayor of a city praying that, on the ground of its
+novelty, electric lighting might be excluded from the street in which I
+lived. Exactly this same reluctance often keeps us from making changes
+of another sort, even when we feel that the light which hitherto was
+enough for us has been outgrown and outclassed.
+
+The danger of the lone quest leading a man astray can be easily
+exaggerated. It is not as if God were difficult to find. "The soul
+cannot move, wake, or open the eyes, without perceiving God." "For this
+commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee,
+neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go up for us to heaven and bring it down unto us that we may hear
+it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us that we may hear it
+and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy
+heart."[13] No motion toward the Universal can miss the Universal. I
+cannot escape from the Ever-Present; the Ever-Present cannot escape from
+me. Intellectually I may make mistakes in deduction, but spiritually I
+cannot but find God. The little I learn of God for myself is to me
+worth more than all the second and third hand knowledge I can gather
+from the saints.
+
+[13] The Book of Deuteronomy.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+It is the more necessary to dwell on this for the reason that whatever
+_Metanoia_, or new orientation, is to be brought about must be on the
+part of individuals. There is no hope for large numbers acting together,
+or for any kind of group-impulse. Group-impulse among Caucasians is
+nearly always frightened, conservative, reactionary, or derisive of the
+forward step. There is hardly an exception to this in the whole history
+of Caucasian ideas.
+
+Otherwise it would be a pleasant dream to imagine what might now be
+happening on the great international stage. Let us suppose that the
+leaders of the so-called Christian countries were all convinced of the
+three main lines of God's direction I have already tried to sketch. Let
+us think of such men as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Sforza, President
+Harding, and the heads of government in Belgium, Russia, Germany, and
+all other countries affected by the present war of moves and
+counter-moves--let us think of them as agreed on the principles:
+
+1. That each knows himself and his country as an agent in the hand of
+God, directed surely toward a good end;
+
+2. That each knows each of his colleagues and his country as equally an
+agent in the hand of God, directed surely toward a similar good end;
+
+3. That each knows that between God's agents there can be neither
+conflicting interests nor clash of wills, and that suspicion and
+counter-suspicion must be out of place, since under God's direction no
+double-crossing is possible.
+
+The picture is almost comic in its incongruity with what actually is.
+The mere thought of these protagonists of the century working in harmony
+to one great purpose, without distrust of each other's motives, and with
+no necessity for anyone's dodging political foul play, summons the smile
+of irony. Mutual trust was never so much a suggestion to laugh down.
+The mere hint that it might be possible would make one a target for the
+wit of the experienced.
+
+In what we call the practical world of to-day there is no appeal from
+the God of Fear but _to_ the God of Fear. The great mass of Caucasians
+will not have it otherwise. And it requires no prophetic vision to
+foresee the results of the efforts to bring about international harmony
+while all are obeying the decrees of the Goddess of Discord. Nearly
+three years after the signing of the armistice the world is in a more
+hopeless situation than it was when at war. Up to the present each new
+move only makes matters worse. There are those who believe that our
+phase of civilisation is staggering into the abyss and that nothing, as
+far as can now be descried, will save it from the deluge.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Possibly! Fear tends always to produce the thing it is afraid of. I
+mention this dark outlook only for the reason that even if the
+cataclysm were to come the individual can escape from it.
+
+Cataclysms are not new in the history of our race. The rise and fall of
+civilisations may be called mankind's lessons in "how not to do it." Of
+these lessons there are no such records as those which we find in the
+Old Testament; and in these records it is unfailingly pointed out that
+whatever the calamity which overtakes the world at large the individual
+has, if he chooses, a way of safety. The innocent are not overwhelmed
+with the guilty, except when the innocent deliberately shut their eyes
+to the opening toward the _Soteria_--the Safe Return. But that,
+unhappily, the innocent do so shut their eyes is one of the commonest
+facts in life.
+
+Back in that twilight of history of which the later tale could be told
+only by some symbol, some legendary hieroglyph, there was already an
+"Ark" by which the faithful few could be saved from the "Flood." The
+symbol became permanent. The Ark of the Covenant--the sign of a great
+spiritual understanding--remained as a token to man that in God he had
+a sure refuge. It was laid up in his Holy of Holies, a mystic,
+consecrated pledge, till the ruthless Caucasian came and rifled it.
+
+But no rifling could deprive mankind of its significance. That endures.
+To bring it home to the desolate and oppressed was a large part of the
+mission of psalmists and prophets. The Ark of the Covenant--of the Great
+Understanding--meant as much to those who sought God in the ancient
+world as the Cross does to Christendom. It meant that whatever the
+collapse, national or general, through siege or sack or famine, those
+who would escape could escape by the simple process of mentally taking
+refuge in God. The Ark of God would bear them safely when all material
+help failed.
+
+Among the themes which run through the Old Testament this is of
+paramount importance. It is impossible to do more than refer to the many
+times the spiritually minded were implored to seek this protection. It
+was needful to implore them since they found the assurance so difficult
+to believe. No matter how often it was proved to them they still
+doubted it. Saved by this method once they would reject it when it came
+to danger the second time. Saved the second time they rejected it the
+third. "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
+thee, because he trusteth in thee," is the declaration of Jeremiah, who
+perhaps more than any other was a prophet of disaster. Similar
+statements are scattered through the Old Testament by the score, by the
+hundred. It was a point on which leaders, seers, and teachers insisted
+with a passionate insistence. They knew. They had tested the truth for
+themselves. Disaster was a common feature in their history. During the
+three thousand years and more which their experiences cover these
+Israelites had seen more than one invasion sweep across their land, more
+than one civilisation come and go. All that Belgium knew in the Great
+War they knew time and time again. Between Egypt and Assyria, the France
+and Germany of that special epoch, theirs was a kind of buffer state
+over which every new anguish rolled. "Let it roll," was the cry of
+their prophets. "The Lord will fight for you. Stand still and see what
+he will do. His arm is not shortened neither his strength diminished. It
+is of the Lord to save whether by many or by few. Trust in the Lord and
+be doing good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be
+fed. Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou hast wrought for them that
+trust in thee before the sons of men. I said in my haste, I am cut off!
+Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried
+unto thee. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye
+that hope in the Lord."[14]
+
+[14] Various Old Testament Sources.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+In many ways this is the burden of the more ancient Scriptures--the
+protection which surrounds those who know that protection is God. It was
+a gospel that had to be preached with tears and beseechings from one
+generation to another. No generation accepted it. The belief in
+material power was always too dense. It is still too dense. In the Ark
+of the Great Understanding the Caucasian has practically never seen more
+than a symbol that has gone out of date. Lost materially in the Tiber
+mud it was, for him, lost forever. But not so. Its significance remains
+as vital to mankind as when, veiled and venerated, it stood between
+the cherubim.
+
+The time may be close at hand when we shall need this assurance as we
+need nothing else. However optimistic we try to keep ourselves, no
+thinking man or woman can be free, at this crisis in world-history, from
+deep foreboding. For the memory to go back ten years is, even for us in
+the New World, like returning to a Golden Age; while for the Old World
+mere recollection must be poignant.
+
+The possibility that all countries in both hemispheres may find
+themselves in some such agony as that of the Russia of to-day is not too
+extravagant to be entertained. This is not saying that they are likely
+so to find themselves; it means only that in the world as it is the
+safest is not very safe. My point is that whether catastrophe
+overwhelms us or not, he who chooses not to fear can be free from fear.
+There is a refuge for him, a defence, a safeguard which no material
+attack can break down. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
+High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the
+Lord, He is my refuge--my fortress--my God. In Him will I trust."[15]
+There is this Ark for me, this Ark of the Great Understanding, and I can
+retire into it. I can also have this further assurance: "Because thou
+hast made the Lord which is my refuge--even the Most High--thy
+habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague
+come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to
+keep thee in all thy ways."[16]
+
+[15] The Book of Psalms.
+
+[16] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+This is the eternal agreement, but an agreement of which we find it
+difficult to accept the terms. To the material alone we are in the habit
+of ascribing power. Though we repeat a thousand times in the course of
+a year, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," we do not
+believe it. To few of us is it more than a sonorous phrase.
+
+I remember the impression of this which one received at the great
+thanksgiving for peace in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some twenty
+years ago. The Boer War had ended in an English victory, and while the
+thanksgiving was not precisely for this, it did express the relief of an
+anxious nation that peace was again restored. It was what is generally
+known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer
+to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors,
+ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens
+filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of
+that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral choirs guard
+the secret.
+
+But the detail I remember best was the way in which the repetition of
+the Lord's Prayer rolled from the lips of the assembly like the sound
+of the surging of the sea. It was the emotional effect of a strongly
+emotional moment. One felt tense. It was hard to restrain tears. As far
+as crowd-sympathy has any spiritual value it was there. The Caucasian
+God was taken out of His pigeon-hole and publicly recognised.
+
+Then He was put back.
+
+I take this service merely as an instance of what happens in all the
+so-called Christian capitals in moments of national stress. Outwardly it
+happens less in the United States than it does elsewhere, for the reason
+that this country has no one representative spiritual expression; but it
+does happen here in diffused and general effect. As a Christian nation
+we ascribe in common with other Christian nations the kingdom, the
+power, and the glory to God--on occasions. We do it with the pious
+gesture and the sonorous phrase. Then we forget it. The habit of
+material trust is too strong for us. Kings, queens, presidents, princes,
+prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives
+of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause;
+but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the
+lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves
+saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God
+is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world for us to give
+Him more than the consideration of an act of courtesy."
+
+Practically that is all we ever get from group-impulse--an act of
+courtesy. I repeat and repeat again that whatever is done toward the
+conquest of fear must be done by the individual. _I_ must do what I can
+to conquer fear in myself, regardless of the attitude or opinions of men
+in general.
+
+To men in general the appeal to spiritual force to bring to naught
+material force is little short of fanatical. It has never been otherwise
+as yet; it will probably not be otherwise for long generations to come.
+Meanwhile it is much for the individual to know that he can act on his
+own initiative, and that when it comes to making God his refuge he can
+go into that refuge alone. He needs no nation, or government, or
+society, or companions before him or behind him. He needs neither leader
+nor guide nor friend. In the fortress of God he is free to enter merely
+as himself, and there know that he is safe amid a world in agony.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+This is not theory; it is not doctrine; it is not opinion. It is what
+the great pioneers of truth have first deduced from what they understood
+to be the essential beneficence of God, and then proved by actual
+demonstration. Anyone else can demonstrate it who chooses to make the
+experiment. My own weakness is such that I have made the experiment but
+partially; but partial experiment convinces me beyond all further
+questioning that the witness of the great pioneers is true.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Nor is this conviction to be classed as idealism, or ecclesiasticism, or
+mysticism, or anything else to which we can put a tag. It is not
+sectarian; it is not peculiarly Christian. It is the general possession
+of mankind. True, it is easier for the Christian than for any other to
+enter on this heritage, since his spiritual descent is more directly
+from the pioneers of truth who first discovered God to be His children's
+safety; but the Universal is the Universal, the property of all.
+Discovery gives no one an exclusive hold on it. Anyone with a
+consciousness of Almighty, Ever-Present Intelligence must have some
+degree of access to it, though his access may not be to the fullest or
+the easiest. It is not possible that the Universal Father should be the
+special property of the Christian or of anyone else. The Christian view
+of the Father is undoubtedly the truest; but every view is true in
+proportion to its grasp of truth. No one will deny that the Buddhist,
+the Mahometan, the Confucianist, have their grasp of truth. Even the
+primitive idolater has some faint gleam of it, distorted though it may
+have become. Very well, then; the faintest gleam of such knowledge will
+not go without its recompense.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Exclusiveness is too much our Caucasian habit of mind. It is linked with
+our instinct for ownership. Because through Jesus Christ we have a
+clearer view of a greater segment of the Universal, if I may so express
+myself, than the Buddhist can have through Buddha or the Mahometan
+through Mahomet, our tendency is to think that we know the whole of the
+Universal, and have it to give away. Any other view of the Universal is
+to us so false as to merit not merely condemnation but extirpation.
+Extirpation has been the watchword with which Caucasian Christianity has
+gone about the world. We have taken toward other views of truth no such
+sympathetic stand as St. Paul to that which he found in Greece, and
+which is worth recalling:
+
+"Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably
+religious. For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I
+found also an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. The
+Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing it, revere, Him I now
+proclaim to you. God who made the universe and everything in it--He
+being Lord of heaven and earth--does not dwell in sanctuaries built by
+men. Nor is He administered to by human hands as though He needed
+anything--but He Himself gives to all men life and breath and all
+things. He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race,
+for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked for them
+an appointed span of life, and the boundaries of their homes; that they
+might seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him. Yes,
+though He is not far from any one of us. For it is in closest union with
+Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the
+poets in repute among yourselves have said, 'For we are also His
+offspring.'"[17]
+
+[17] Acts of the Apostles.
+
+To the conquest of fear this splendid universalism is another
+essential. God being "not far from any one of us" cannot be far from me.
+He who gives to all men life and breath and all things will not possibly
+deny me the things I require most urgently. Our whole civilisation may
+go to pieces; the job by which I earn a living may cease to be a job;
+the money I have invested may become of no more value than Russian
+bonds; the children whom I hoped I had provided for may have to face
+life empty-handed; all my accustomed landmarks may be removed, and my
+social moorings swept away; nevertheless, the Universal cannot fail me.
+"Although the figtree shall not blossom nor fruit be in the vines;
+though the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields yield no meat;
+though the flocks be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the
+stalls; yet I will rejoice in God, I will joy in the God of my
+salvation." It is safe to say that this confidence on the part of
+Habakkuk was not due to mere grim forcing of the will. It was the fruit
+of experience, of knowledge, of demonstration. In spite of the dangers
+national and personal he saw threatening, his certainty of God must
+have been spontaneous.
+
+Anyone, in any country, in any epoch, and of any creed or no creed, who
+has shared this experience shares also this assurance. To the Christian
+it comes easiest; but that it does not come easy even to the Christian
+is a matter of common observation. It can only come easily when some
+demonstration has been made for oneself, after which there is no more
+disputing it.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Nor is it a question of morals or morality.
+
+I must venture here on delicate ground and say what I should hesitate to
+say were the contrary not so strongly underscored. I mean that God, from
+what we understand to be His nature, could not accord us His protection
+by weighing the good and the evil in our conduct, and giving or
+withholding help according to our worthiness. The Universal is too great
+to be measured and doled in that way. Nothing but our own pinchbeck
+ideas could ascribe to Him this pettiness. As it is the kind of sliding
+scale we ourselves adopt, we limit the Divine Generosity by our own
+limitations.
+
+Not so was the understanding of Jesus Christ. That we should be kind to
+the so-called evil as we are to the so-called good was a point on which
+He dwelt in the Sermon on the Mount. To discriminate between them when
+it comes to the possibility of conferring benefits is in His opinion
+small. "You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
+and hate thine enemy.' But I command you all, Love your enemies, and
+pray for your persecutors; that so you may become true sons of your
+Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the wicked as well as
+on the good, and sends rain upon those who do right and those who do
+wrong."[18]
+
+[18] St. Matthew.
+
+In other words, we are not to feel ourselves turned out of our
+"habitation" in God by a sense of our moral lapses. Moral lapses are to
+be regretted, of course; but they do not vitiate our status as the Sons
+of God. It is possible that no one believes they do; but much of the
+loose statement current among those who lay emphasis on morals would
+give that impression. There is a whole vernacular in vogue in which
+souls are "lost" or "saved" according to the degree to which they
+conform or do not conform to other people's views as to what they ought
+to do. Much of our pietism is to the effect that God is at the bestowal
+not merely of a sect, but of some section of a sect, and cannot be found
+through any other source.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+This brings me to the distinction between morals and righteousness,
+which is one for the mind of to-day to keep as clearly as possible
+before it. I have said that the refuge in God is not a question of
+morals; but it is one of righteousness. Between righteousness and morals
+the difference is important.
+
+Morals stand for a code of observances; righteousness for a direction of
+the life.
+
+Morals represent just what the word implies, the customs of an age, a
+country, or a phase in civilisation. They have no absolute standard. The
+morals of one century are not those of another. The morals of one race
+are not those of another even in the same century. In many respects the
+morals of the Oriental differ radically from those of the Occidental,
+age-long usage being behind each. It is as hard to convince either that
+his are the inferior as it would be to make him think so of his
+mother-tongue. I once asked a cultivated Chinaman, a graduate of one of
+the great American universities and a Christian of the third generation,
+in what main respect he thought China superior to the United States. "In
+morals," he replied, promptly; but even as a Christian educated in
+America his theory of morals was different from ours.
+
+Among ourselves in the United States the essence of morals is by no
+means a subject of unanimous agreement. You might say that a standard of
+morals is entirely a matter of opinion. There are millions of people who
+think it immoral to play cards, to go to the theatre, to dance, or to
+drink wine. There are millions of other people who hold all these acts
+to be consistent with the highest moral conduct.
+
+Moreover, wherever the emphasis is thrown on morals as distinct from
+righteousness there is a tendency to put the weight on two or three
+points in which nations or individuals excel, and to ignore the rest.
+For example, not to go outside ourselves, the American people may be
+fairly said to exemplify two of the great virtues: On the whole they
+are, first, sober; secondly, continent. As a result we accentuate morals
+in these respects, but not in any others.
+
+For instance, the current expression, "an immoral man," is almost
+certain to apply only under the two headings cited above, and probably
+only under one. All other morals and immoralities go by the board. We
+should not class a dishonest man as an immoral man, nor an untruthful
+man, nor a profane, or spiteful, or ungenial, or bad-tempered, man. Our
+notion of morals hardly ever rises above the average custom of the
+community in which we happen to live. Except in the rarest instances we
+never pause to reflect as to whether the customs of that community are
+or are not well founded. The consequence is that our cities, villages,
+countrysides, and social groupings are filled with men and women moral
+enough as far as the custom of the country goes, but quite noticeably
+unrighteous.
+
+It is also a fact that where you find one or two virtues singled out for
+observance and the rest obscured there you find, too, throngs of
+outwardly "moral" people with corroded hearts. Villages, churches, and
+all the quieter communities are notorious for this, the peculiarity
+having formed for a hundred and fifty years the stock-in-trade of
+novelists. Sobriety and continence being more or less in evidence the
+assumption is that all the requirements have been fulfilled. The
+community is "moral" notwithstanding the back-bitings, heart-burnings,
+slanders, cheatings, envies, hatreds, and bitternesses that may permeate
+it through and through. As I write, the cramped, venomous, unlovely life
+of the American small town is the favourite theme of our authors and
+readers of fiction. Since a number of the works now on the market have
+met with national approval one must assume that the pictures they paint
+are accurate. The conditions are appalling, but, according to the custom
+of the country, they are "moral." The shadow of insobriety and
+incontinence doesn't touch the characters who move across these pages,
+and yet the level of the life is pictured as debased, and habits
+as hideous.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+With morals in this accepted American sense righteousness has little to
+do. The two are different in origin. Morals imply the compulsion of men,
+and are never more binding than the customs of men render them. They are
+thus imposed from without, while righteousness springs from within. The
+essence of righteousness lies in the turning of the individual
+toward God.
+
+I think it safe to say that righteousness is expressed more accurately
+in attitude than in conduct. It is expressed in conduct, of course; but
+conduct may fail while the attitude can remain constant. It is worthy of
+remark that some of the great examples of righteousness cited in the
+Bible were conspicuously sinners. That is to say, they were men of
+strong human impulses against which they were not always sufficiently on
+guard, but who turned towards God in spite of everything. In the long
+line spanning the centuries between Noah and Abraham and Peter and
+Paul--from the almost prehistoric out into the light of day--not one is
+put before us except in his weakness as well as in his strength. Some of
+them commit gross sins; but apparently even gross sins do not debar them
+from their privileges in God's love. This principle was expressed in the
+words of Samuel: "Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness; yet turn
+not aside from following the Lord.... For the Lord will not forsake his
+people for his great name's sake." That the Universal who has all the
+blessings of creation to bestow should deprive me of anything just
+because in my folly or weakness I have committed sins is not consistent
+with "his great name's sake." It would not be causing His sun to rise on
+the wicked as well as on the good nor sending rain on those who do right
+and those who do wrong. I am too small for His immensity to crush with
+its punishments, but not too small to be the object of His entire love.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I hope it is plain that I say this not to make little of doing wrong but
+to put the love and fulness of God in the dominating place. I must make
+it clear to myself that He does not shut me out of His heart because I
+am guilty of sins. I may shut myself out of His heart, unless I direct
+my mind rightly; but He is always there, unchanged, unchangeable, the
+ever-loving, ever-welcoming Father. Whatever I have done I can return to
+Him with the knowledge that He will take me back. Far from sure of
+myself, I can always be sure of Him.
+
+There are those who would warn me against saying this through fear lest
+it should be interpreted as, "Don't be afraid to sin so long as you keep
+mentally close to God." I prefer to run that risk. The dread figure of
+"an angry God" has been so worked to terrorise men that large numbers of
+us have been terrorised. But experience shows us every day that being
+terrorised never produces the results at which it aims. It does not win
+us; it drives us away.
+
+Much of the alienation from God in the mind of to-day is due to
+rebellion on the part of our sense of justice. We are sinners, of
+course; but not such sinners as to merit the revenge which an outraged
+deity is described as planning against us. That the All-loving and
+All-mighty should smite us in our dearest aims or our sweetest
+affections just because we have not conformed to the lop-sided morality
+of men is revolting to our instincts. We are repulsed by the God of Fear
+when we are drawn, comforted, strengthened, and changed by Him who is
+never anything toward us but "the Father."
+
+I have no hesitation, therefore, in throwing the emphasis in what I
+have to say on the fact that He is "a place to hide me in"--the Ark of
+the Great Understanding--always open to my approach--into which,
+whatever I have done, I can go boldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MIND OF TO-DAY AND THE WORLD AS IT IS
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Much of what I have written will seem inconsistent with the fact that in
+the world as it is there are undeniable and inevitable hardships. True!
+I do not escape them more than any other man, the relative relief from
+fear saving me from only some of them.
+
+I have not meant to say that even with one's refuge in God there is
+nothing left to struggle with. My point is that whatever there may be to
+struggle with there is nothing to be afraid of. Freedom from struggle
+would profit us not at all. On the contrary, it would render us
+nerveless, flabby, flaccid, and inert.
+
+But fear, as a rule, being connected with our struggles, it is
+important, I think, to be as clear as we can concerning the purport of
+those struggles, and their source. We have already seen that fear is
+diminished in proportion as we understand that our trials are not
+motiveless, and perhaps this is the point at which to consider briefly
+what the motives are.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Struggle we may define as the act of wrestling with trial, so as to come
+out of it victoriously. It is a constant element in every human life.
+Furthermore, I am inclined to think that, taking trial as an average,
+the amount which enters into one life differs little from that which
+enters into another.
+
+There was a time when I did not think so. Some lives struck me as
+singled out for trouble; others were left comparatively immune from it.
+One would have said that destinies had been mapped with a strange
+disregard for justice. Those who didn't deserve it suffered; those whom
+suffering might have purified went scot free. Some were rich, others
+were poor; some had high positions, others humble ones; some had the
+respect of the world from the day they were born, others crept along
+from birth to death in restriction and obscurity. The contrasts were so
+cruel that they scorched the eyes of the soul.
+
+This is true, of course; and I am not saying that in the testing to
+which everyone is subjected all have an equal share of the opportunities
+for triumphing. I am speaking for the moment only of the degree to which
+the testing comes. As to that, I am inclined to feel that there is
+little to choose between one life and another, since each of us seems to
+be tried for all that he can bear.
+
+One is impressed with that in one's reading of biography. Only the lives
+of what we may call the favoured few get into print, and of those few it
+is chiefly the external events that are given us. Glimpses of the inner
+experience may be obtained from time to time, but they are rarely more
+than glimpses. Of what the man or the woman has endured in the secret
+fastnesses of the inner life practically nothing can be told. And yet
+even with the little that finds its way into words how much there is of
+desperate fighting. To this there is never an exception. The great
+statesman, the great poet, the great priest, the great scientist, the
+great explorer, the great painter, the great novelist--not one but
+suffers as anyone suffers, and of not one would the reader, as a rule,
+put himself in the place.
+
+I bring up this fact because we so often feel that the other man has an
+easier task than ourselves. The very thing I lack is that with which he
+is blessed. I see him smiling and debonair at the minute when I am in a
+ferment. While I hardly know how to make both ends meet he is building a
+big house or buying a new motor-car. While I am burying hope or love he
+is in the full enjoyment of all that makes for happiness and prosperity.
+
+We are always prone to contrast our darker minutes with our friends'
+brighter ones. We forget, or perhaps we never know, that they do the
+same with us. At times we are as much the object of their envy as they
+ever are of ours.
+
+I say this not on the principle that misery loves company, but in order
+to do away with the heathen suspicion lingering in many minds that God
+singles _me_ out for trial, heaping benefits on others who deserve them
+no more than I do.
+
+God singles no one out for trial. When trials come they spring, as
+nearly as I can observe, from one or all of the three following sources.
+There are:
+
+A. The trials which come from a world of matter;
+
+B. The trials which come from a world of men;
+
+C. The trials we bring on ourselves.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+A. The minute we speak of matter we speak of a medium which the mind of
+to-day is just beginning to understand. The mind of other days did not
+understand it at all. Few phases of modern advance seem to me more
+significant of a closer approach to the understanding of spiritual
+things than that which has been made along these lines.
+
+To all the generations before our own matter was a sheer and positive
+density. Its hardness, solidity, and actuality could not be gainsaid.
+Earth was earth; iron was iron; wood was wood. Blood was blood; flesh
+was flesh; bone was bone. A man was a material being attached to a
+material planet, as a sponge is attached to the bottom of the sea. All
+that he touched and ate and wore and used was of the same material
+Absolute. As to the spiritual there could be a question; as to the
+material there could be none. The speculation of occasional
+philosophers, that matter might not after all be more than a mental
+phenomenon, was invariably hooted down. "I know that matter is matter by
+standing on it," are in substance the words attributed to even so
+spiritually-minded a man as the great Dr. Johnson. On this point, as
+perhaps on some others, he may be taken as a spokesman for the Caucasian
+portion of our race.
+
+And now comes modern physical science reducing matter to a tenuousness
+only one remove from the purely spiritual, if it is as much as that.
+Gone is the mass of the mountains, the stoniness of rocks, the hard
+solidity of iron. The human body, as someone puts it, is no more than a
+few pails of water and a handful of ash. Ash and water are alike
+dissipated into gases, and gases into elements more subtle still.
+Keeping strictly to the material modern science has reached the confines
+of materiality. Where it will lead us next no man knows.
+
+But the inference is not unfair that the world of matter is to a
+considerable degree, and perhaps altogether, a world of man's own
+creation. That is to say, while God is doing one thing with it, the
+human mind understands another. For the human point of view to develop
+and develop and develop till it becomes identical with God's is perhaps
+the whole purpose of existence.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+To me personally it was no small help in overcoming fear when I saw the
+purpose of existence as expressed in the single word, Growth. That, at
+least, is a legitimate inference to draw from the history of life on
+this planet. Assuming that the universe contains an intelligible design
+of any sort, and that life on this planet is part of it, a vast
+development going on eternally toward complete understanding of Infinite
+Right and Happiness would give us some explanation of the mystery of our
+being here. Beginning, for reasons at which we can only guess, far away
+from that understanding, we are forever approaching it, with forever the
+joy of something new to master or to learn. New perceptions, new
+comprehensions, new insights gained, new victories, even little
+victories, won, constitute, I think, our treasures laid up in that
+heaven where neither moth nor wear-and-tear destroys, and where thieves
+do not break in and steal. Where this treasure is, there, naturally
+enough, our hearts will be also. Looking back over the ages since the
+life-principle first glided into our planet waters--how it did so is as
+yet part of our unsolved mystery--what we chiefly see is a great
+surging of the living thing upward and upward toward that Highest
+Universal to which we give the name of God.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+That is a point which we do not sufficiently seize--that God is not
+revealed to us by one avenue of truth alone, but by all the avenues of
+truth working together. With our tendency to keep the Universal in a
+special compartment of life we see Him as making Himself known through a
+line of teachers culminating in a Church or a complex of churches; and
+we rarely think of Him as making Himself known in any other way. To
+change the figure, He trickles to us like a brook instead of bathing us
+round and round like light or air.
+
+But all good things must express the Universal; and all discovery of
+truth, whether by religion, science, philosophy, or imaginative art,
+must be discovery in God. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the
+Mount are discoveries in God, but so are the advances in knowledge made
+by Plato, Aristotle, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Edison. He shows Himself
+through Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and St. Paul, but also through Homer,
+Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Beethoven, Darwin, George Eliot, William
+James, and Henry Irving. I take the names at random as illustrating
+different branches of endeavour, and if I use only great ones it is not
+that the lesser are excluded. No one department of human effort is
+specially His, or is His special expression. The Church cannot be so
+more than the stage, or music more than philosophy. His Holy Spirit can
+be no more outpoured on the bishop or the elder for his work than on the
+inventor or the scientist for his work. I say so not to minimise the
+outpouring on the bishop or the elder, but to magnify that on everyone
+working for progress. This, I take it, is what St. John means when he
+says, "God does not give the Spirit with limitations." He who always
+gives all to all His children cannot give more.
+
+When our Lord restores sight to a blind man, or Peter and John cause a
+lame man to walk, we see manifestations of God; but we see equal
+manifestations of God when one man gives us the telephone, another the
+motor-car, and another wireless telegraphy. Whatever declares His power
+declares Him; and whatever declares Him is a means by which we press
+upward to the perception of His loving almightiness. The advance may be
+irregular but it is advance; and all advance is advance toward Him.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+That is to say, we are rising above a conception of life in which matter
+is our master; and yet we are rising above it slowly. This is my chief
+point here, because by understanding it we see why we still suffer from
+material afflictions. We have overcome some of them, but only some of
+them. It is a question of racial development. As we glance backward we
+see how much of the way we have covered; as we look round on our
+present conditions we see how much there is still to be achieved.
+
+To diminish fear we should have it, I think, clearly before us that the
+human race has done as yet only part of its work, and put us in
+possession of only part of the resources which will one day belong to
+us. If we could compare ourselves with our ancestors in the days, let us
+say, of Christopher Columbus or William the Conqueror we should seem in
+relation to them like children of a higher phase of creation. If we
+could compare ourselves with our descendants of five hundred or a
+thousand years hence we should probably be amazed at our present
+futility and grossness. Our ancestors in the Middle Ages could do
+certain great things, as we, too, can do certain great things; but in
+general access to the Universal Storehouse which is God we have made
+progress in ways unknown to them, as our children will make such
+progress after us.
+
+But we have made only the progress we have made. We have its advantages,
+but there are advantages to which we have not yet attained. We might
+liken ourselves to people who have reached the fourth or fifth step of a
+stairway in which there are twenty or thirty. We have climbed to a
+certain height, but we are far from having reached the plane to which we
+are ascending.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+It is worth noting this for the reason that we are so likely to think of
+ourselves as the climax to which the ages have worked up, and after
+which there is no beyond. We are the final word, or as the French
+express it, the last cry, _le dernier cri_. All that can be felt we have
+felt, all that can be known we have experienced. For the most part this
+stand is taken by the intellectuals in all modern countries. In us of
+to-day, of this very hour, the wave of Eternity has broken, throwing
+nothing at our feet but froth. The literature of the past ten years is
+soaked in the pessimism of those who regret that this should be all that
+the travail of Time could produce for us.
+
+In view of this moan from so many of the writers who have the public
+ear, especially in Europe, it is the more important to keep before us
+the fact that we are children of a race but partially developed at best.
+Compared with what will one day be within human scope our actual reach
+is only a little beyond impotence. I say this not merely at a venture,
+but on the strength of what has happened in the past. We are not a
+people which has accomplished much, but one on the way to
+accomplishment. The achievements of which we can boast are relatively
+like those of a child of five who boasts that he can count. Our whole
+world-condition shows us to be racially incompetent, and able to produce
+no more than incompetent leaders. That is our present high-water mark,
+and with our high-water mark we must learn to be satisfied.
+
+Escaping from matter we are still within the grasp of matter, and shall
+probably so continue for generations to come. Our struggles must
+therefore be largely with matter, till little by little we achieve its
+domination. In proportion as the individual does so now he reaps the
+reward of his victory; and in proportion as he reaps that reward fear is
+overcome. Our primary fear being fear of matter, much is gained by
+grasping the fact which modern science for the past ten or fifteen years
+has been carefully putting before us--vainly as far as most of us are
+concerned--that what we call matter is a force subject to the control of
+mind, while the directing of mind rests wholly with ourselves. Since we
+have controlled matter to make it in so many ways a hostile force, it
+ought to be within our power to turn it in our favour.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Which is, I suppose, the trend we are following, even if we follow it
+unconsciously. For the turning of the matter in our favour we have
+fortunately some notable examples. Our race has produced one perfectly
+normal man to whom all of us sub-normals can look as the type of what we
+are one day to become.
+
+I think it a pity that so much of our thought of Him makes Him an
+exception to human possibilities. In speaking of Him as the Son of God
+we fancy Him as being in another category from ourselves. We forget that
+we, too, are sons of God--"heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ."[19] It
+is true that He realised that Sonship to a degree which we do not; but
+it is also true that we ourselves realise it to some degree. In the
+detail of the mastery of matter to which we shall attain it is fair, I
+think, to take Him as our standard.
+
+[19] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+Taking Him as our standard we shall work out, I venture to think, to the
+following points of progress.
+
+a. The control of matter in furnishing ourselves with food and drink, by
+means more direct than at present employed, as He turned water into wine
+and fed the multitudes with the loaves and fishes.
+
+b. The control of matter by putting away from ourselves, by methods more
+sure and less roundabout than those of to-day, sickness, blindness,
+infirmity, and deformity.
+
+c. The control of matter by regulating our atmospheric conditions as He
+stilled the tempest.
+
+d. The control of matter by restoring to this phase of existence those
+who have passed out of it before their time, or who can ill be spared
+from it, as He "raised" three young people from "the dead" and Peter and
+Paul followed His example.
+
+e. The control of matter in putting it off and on at will, as He in His
+death and resurrection.
+
+f. The control of matter in passing altogether out of it, as He in what
+we call His Ascension into Heaven.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+It will be observed that I take as historic records the statements of
+the Bible. This I do in face of the efforts of many of the clergy in a
+number of the churches to make me see in the Old Testament chiefly a
+collection of myths, and in the New a series of compilations by
+irresponsible hands, of doubtful date and authority, leaving, in the
+case of our Lord, only a substratum which can be relied on as
+biographical.
+
+As an instance of what I mean I quote the following: A few weeks ago I
+happened to mention to the distinguished head of one of the most
+important theological schools of one of the largest denominations in the
+country, our Lord's turning the water into wine. "I've no idea that He
+ever did anything of the kind," were the words with which he dismissed
+the subject, which I did not take up again. I am not arguing here
+against his point of view. I merely state that I do not share it, and
+for these two main reasons:
+
+First, because the so-called Higher Criticism on which it is based is a
+purely evanescent phase of man's learning, likely to be rejected
+to-morrow by those who accept it to-day, as has been the case with other
+such phases;
+
+Secondly, because I feel sure that, with the mastery of matter to which
+we have already attained, the future development of our race will
+justify these seeming "miracles," and make them as natural and
+commonplace as telegraphy and telephony.
+
+I speak only for myself when I say that the more I can feel round me the
+atmosphere of omnipotence the less I am aware of fear. It is a matter of
+course that the one should exclude the other. The sense of being myself,
+in a measure, the inheritor of omnipotence, as an heir of God and a
+co-heir with Christ, becomes, therefore, one to cultivate. This I can do
+only in proportion as I see that my Standard and Example cultivated it
+before me. In my capacity as a son of God I take as applying to myself
+the words reported by St. John: "In most solemn truth I tell you that
+the Son can do nothing of Himself--He can only do what He sees the
+Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does in like manner."
+
+While sayings like these, of which there are many in the New Testament,
+apply doubtless, in the first place, to Him who best exemplifies the
+Sonship of God, they must apply, in the second place, I suppose, to all
+who exemplify that Sonship to any degree whatever. Man is the Son of
+God; and it is worth noting that He who is specially termed the Son of
+God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John
+writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in
+the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as
+no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a
+co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness
+exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is
+placed in my hands.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+This last, of course, is very little. Even that little I use doubtfully,
+timidly, tremblingly. That is the utmost reach to which present
+race-development and personal development have brought me. With regard
+to the opportunities all round me I am as if I stood beside an airship
+in which I could fly if I knew how to work its engines, which I do not.
+Other conveniences besides airships would be of no good at all to me if
+someone more skilful than I didn't come to my aid. There is probably no
+person living of whom the same is not true. Large portions of
+omnipotence are placed within hands which are too busy grasping other
+things to seize all that they could hold.
+
+I remember the encouragement it was to me when I understood that to hold
+anything at all was so much to the good as a starting-point. I had been
+in the habit of dwelling on the much I had missed rather than on the
+little I had apprehended. But the little I had apprehended was, after
+all, my real possession, and one I could increase. It is like the few
+dollars a man has in a savings bank. That at least is his,
+notwithstanding the millions he might have possessed if he had only
+known how to acquire them. There are many instances of a few dollars in
+the savings bank becoming the seedling of millions before the span of a
+man's life is passed.
+
+To be glad of what we can do while knowing it is only a portion of what
+will one day be done is to me a helpful point of view. "There may be
+truth in all this," is the observation of a young lady who has scanned
+what I have written, "and yet I don't believe that we shall ever conquer
+fear." That, it seems to me, is to tie chains and iron weights about
+one's feet when starting on a race. If we are to keep in the race at
+all, to say nothing of winning it, the spirit must be free. One must add
+the courage which springs from a partial knowledge of the truth to the
+patience one gets from the understanding that as yet our knowledge of
+the truth is but partial.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+I often think that if the churches could come to this last admission it
+would be a help to themselves and to all of us. As already hinted I am
+anxious to keep away from the subject of churches through a natural
+dread of bitterness; but this much I feel at liberty to say, saying it
+as I do in deep respect for the bodies which have kept alive the glimmer
+of Divine Light in a world which would have blown it out. In a
+partially developed race the churches can have no more than a partially
+developed grasp of truth. A partially developed grasp of truth is
+much--it is pricelessly much--but it is not a knowledge of the whole
+truth. Not being a knowledge of the whole truth it should be humble,
+tolerant, and eager to expand.
+
+The weakness of the ecclesiastical system strikes me as lying in the
+assumption, or practical assumption, on the part of each sect that _it_
+is the sole repository of truth, and of all the truth. There is no sect
+which does not claim more than all mankind can claim. Moreover, there is
+no sect which does not make its claims exclusively, asserting not only
+that these claims are right, but that all other claims are wrong. To the
+best of my knowledge, the sect has not yet risen which would make more
+than shadowy concessions to any other sect.
+
+True, it must not be forgotten that no sect bases its teaching on what
+it has worked out for itself, but on the revelation made to it in Jesus
+Christ. Every sect would admit that its own view of truth might have
+been partial were it not for the fact that in Jesus Christ it has
+everything. Where the theories of men might be inadequate His immense
+knowledge comes in as supplementary.
+
+This might be so had He Himself undertaken to give more than a partial
+view of truth. But He says expressly that He does not. He gives what His
+hearers might be assumed to be able to assimilate; but that is all. "I
+have much more to say to you, but you are unable at present to bear the
+burden of it."[20] It being an axiom in teaching to give the pupil only
+what he can receive, this is the utmost that our Lord attempts.
+
+[20] St. John.
+
+He goes on, however, to add these words, which are significant: "But
+when He has come--the Spirit of Truth--He will guide you into all the
+truth."[21] No doubt that process is even now going on, and will continue
+to go on in proportion as our race develops. We are being guided into
+all the truth, through all kinds of channels, spiritual, literary,
+scientific, philosophical. The naive supposition that this promise was
+kept on the Day of Pentecost, when a sudden access of knowledge
+committed all truth to the apostles and through them to the Church
+forevermore, is contradicted by the facts. The apostles had no such
+knowledge and made no claims to its possession. The Church has never had
+it, either. "All truth" covers much more ground than do questions of
+ecclesiastical forms of government or of the nature of the sacraments.
+"All truth" must go as far as the Universal goes, leaving nothing
+outside its range. "All truth" must surely be such self-evident truth as
+to admit of no further dissensions.
+
+[21] St. John.
+
+Taking truth as a circle, the symbol of perfection, we may assume that
+our Lord disclosed a view of a very large arc in its circumference. But
+of the arc which He disclosed no one group of His followers has as yet
+perceived the whole. At the same time it is probable that each group has
+perceived some arc of that arc, and an arc perceived by no other group.
+"All truth" being too large for any one group to grasp, the Baptist sees
+his segment, the Catholic his, the Methodist his, the Anglican his, the
+Congregationalist his, until the vision of Christ is made up. I name
+only the groups with which we are commonly most familiar, though we
+might go through the hundreds of Christian sects and agree that each has
+its angle from which it sees what is visible from no other. Though there
+is likely to be error in all such perceptions a considerable portion of
+truth must be there, or the sect in question would not survive. It is
+safe to say that no sect comes into existence, thrives, and endures,
+unless it is to supply that which has been missed elsewhere.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+What place is there then for intersectarian or ecclesiastical arrogance?
+
+The question is far from foreign to my subject. Fear is what arrogance
+feeds upon; fear is what arrogance produces; and arrogance is the
+special immorality of churches. To my mind the churches are almost
+precluded from combating fear, for the reason that arrogance is to so
+marked a degree their outstanding vice.
+
+The Catholic is arrogant toward the Protestant; the Protestant is
+arrogant toward the Catholic; the Anglican is arrogant to him whom he
+calls a Dissenter in England, and merely "unchurches" in America; the
+Unitarian is arrogant to those whom he thinks less intellectual than
+himself; those who believe in the Trinity are arrogant toward the
+Unitarian. All other Christian bodies have their own shades of
+arrogance, entirely permitted by their codes, like scorn of the weak to
+the knights of Arthur's court. An active, recognised, and mutual
+arrogance all round is the reason why it is so rare to see any two or
+three or half a dozen Christian sects work for any cause in harmony.
+Arrogance begets fear as surely and prolifically as certain of the
+rodents beget offspring.
+
+Much has been written during the past fifty years on the beautiful theme
+of the reunion of Christendom. Rarely does any great synod or
+convention or council meet without some scheme or some aspiration toward
+this end. Every now and then a programme is put forth, now by this body,
+now by that, with yearning and good intentions. And in every such
+programme the same grim humour is to be read behind the brotherly
+invitation. "We can all unite--if others will think as we do." Is it any
+wonder that nothing ever comes of these efforts? And yet, I am
+persuaded, a day will dawn when something will.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+"When he has come--the Spirit of Truth--he will guide you into all the
+truth." That will be in the course of our race-development. As step is
+added to step, as milestone is passed after milestone, as we see more
+clearly what counts and what doesn't count, as we outgrow childishness,
+as we come more nearly to what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the
+stature of full-grown men in Christ,"[22] we shall do many things that
+now seem impossible. Among them I think we shall view intersectarian
+arrogance as a mark of enfeebled intelligence. There will come an era of
+ecclesiastical climbing down. We shall see more distinctly our own
+segment of the arc which our Lord has revealed, and because of that we
+shall know that another man sees what we have missed. The Methodist will
+then acknowledge that he has much to learn from the Catholic; the
+Catholic will know the same of the Baptist; the Anglican of the
+Presbyterian; the Unitarian of the Anglican; and a co-operative universe
+be reflected in a co-operative Church. Each will lose something of his
+present cocksureness and exclusiveness. God will be seen as too big for
+any sect, while all the sects together will sink out of sight in God.
+
+[22] Epistle to the Ephesians.
+
+In the meantime we are only working toward that end, but toward it we
+are working. Every man who believes in a church is doing something to
+bring that end about when he gives a kindly thought to any other church.
+I say this the more sincerely owing to the fact that I myself am
+naturally bigoted, and such kindly thought does not come to me easily.
+There are sects I dislike so much that my eyes jump from the very
+paragraphs in the newspapers which mention them. And yet when I curb
+myself, when I force myself to read them, when I force myself to read
+them sympathetically and with a good wish in my heart, my mental
+atmosphere grows wider and I am in a stronger, surer, steadier, and more
+fearless world.
+
+Much criticism has been levelled at the Church within the past few
+years; but it should be remembered that the Church no more than
+government, no more than business, no more than education, can be ahead
+of the only partially developed race of which she is one of the
+expressions. She is not yet out of the world of matter, though she is
+emerging. In proportion as her concepts, hopes, and aims remain material
+she will be as incompetent as any other body with the same handicaps and
+limitations. In proportion as she learns to "overthrow arrogant
+reckonings and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the
+knowledge of God,"[23] she will become the leader of the world, and our
+great deliverer from fear.
+
+[23] Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+B. Of the trials brought upon us by a world of men perhaps our chief
+resentment springs from their unreasonableness. They are not necessary;
+they might be avoided; at their worst they could be tempered. For this
+reason, too, they take us by surprise. Those who bring them on us seem
+captious, thoughtless, cruel. When they could so easily offer us a
+helping hand they obstruct us for the mere sport of doing so. People
+toward whom we have never had an unkindly thought will often go out of
+their way to do us a bad turn.
+
+I shall not enlarge on this, since most of us are in a position to
+enlarge on it for ourselves. There is scarcely an individual for whom
+the way, hard enough at any time, has not been made harder by the barbed
+wire entanglements which other people throw across his path. Almost
+anything we plan we plan in the teeth of someone's opposition; almost
+anything with which we try to associate ourselves is fraught with
+discords and irritations that often inspire disgust. The worlds in which
+co-operation is essential, from that of governmental politics to that of
+offices and homes, are centres of animosities and suspicions, and
+therefore breeding-grounds of fear.
+
+I suppose most grown-up people can recall the wounded amazement with
+which they first found themselves attacked by someone to whom they were
+not conscious of ever having given cause. Some are sensitive to this
+sort of thing; some grow callous to it; some are indifferent; and some
+are said to enjoy it. In the main I think we are sensitive and remain
+sensitive. I have been told by a relative of one of the three or four
+greatest living writers of English that the unfavourable comment of a
+child would affect him so that he would be depressed for hours.
+Statesmen and politicians, I understand, suffer far more deeply in the
+inner self than the outer self ever gives a sign of. The fact that our
+own weakness or folly or recklessness or wrong-doing lays us open to a
+blow is not much consolation when it falls.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For myself all this became more tolerable when I had fully grasped the
+fact that we are still to a considerable degree a race of savages. From
+savages one cannot expect too much, not even from oneself. We have
+advanced beyond the stage at which one naturally attacked a stranger
+simply because he was a stranger, but we have not advanced very far. The
+instinct to do one another harm is still strong in us. We do one another
+harm when it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to do one another
+good. Just as the Ashanti hiding in the bush will hurl his assegai at a
+passer-by for no other reason than that he is passing, so our love of
+doing harm will spit itself out on people just because we know
+their names.
+
+Personally I find myself often doing it. I could on the spur of the
+moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed
+to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse
+that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or
+their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do
+on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity
+to hurl my assegai as I see them pass. One does it instinctively,
+viciously, because like other semi-savages one is undeveloped mentally,
+and it is to be expected.
+
+By expecting it from others half our resentment is forestalled. Knowing
+that from a race such as ours we shall not get anything else we learn to
+take it philosophically. If I hurl my assegai at another, another hurls
+his assegai at me, and in a measure we are quits. Even if, trying to
+rise above my inborn savagery, I withhold my assegai, it is no sign that
+another will withhold his, and I may be wounded even in the effort to do
+my best. Very well; that, too, is to be expected and must be
+taken manfully.
+
+The learning to take it manfully is what as individuals we get out of
+it. For the most part we are soft at heart, soft, I mean, not in the
+sense of being tender, but in that of being flabby.
+
+On myself this was borne in less than a year ago. I had for some months
+been working hard at a picture-play which when put before the public was
+largely misunderstood. While some of the papers praised it others
+criticised it severely, but whether they praised or blamed I was seen as
+"teaching a lesson," a presumption from which I shrink. It is not that
+there is any harm in teaching a lesson if a man is qualified, but I no
+longer consider myself qualified. Sharing ideas is one thing, and the
+highest pleasure of the reason; but the assumption that because you
+suggest an idea you seek to convert is quite another thing. If I failed
+to make it plain that in this present book I was merely offering ideas
+for inspection, and in the hope of getting others in return, I should
+put it in the fire.
+
+My picture-play once handed over to the public I experienced an intense
+reaction of depression. To figure through the country, wherever there
+are screens, as "teaching a lesson" seemed more than I could bear. It
+_was_ more than I could bear, till it flashed on me that I couldn't bear
+it merely because I was inwardly flabby. I was not taking the experience
+manfully. I was not standing up to it, nor getting from it that
+toughening of the inner fibre which it had to yield. As usual in my
+case, owing to an acquaintance with the Bible imparted to me in
+childhood, a suggestion from the Bible was that which righted me again
+toward cheerfulness. It came, as such things always do, without any
+seeking, or other operation beyond that of the subconscious self.
+
+_Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ._[24]
+
+[24] St Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy.
+
+It was exactly what I needed to do--to endure hardness--to take it--to
+bear it--to be more of a man for it. Moreover, the idea was a new
+suggestion. I had not understood before that to the conquest of fear the
+hardening of the inner man is an auxiliary. My object had been to ward
+off fear so that it shouldn't touch me; but to let it strike and rebound
+because it could make no impact was an enlarging of the principle.
+Viewing the experience as a strengthening process enabled me not only to
+go through it but to do so with serenity.
+
+This, I imagine, is the main thing we are to get out of the struggle
+brought on us through living in a world of men such as men are to-day.
+It is a pity they are not better, but being no better than they are we
+can get that much from the fact--the inner hardening. When, justly or
+unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the
+knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so
+often I am without moral muscle, can be a perceptible support.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+C. Of the two main trials we bring on ourselves I suppose it would be
+only right to put sickness first.
+
+Under sickness I include everything that makes for age, decay, and the
+conditions commonly classed as "breaking up." It is becoming more and
+more recognised, I think, that physical collapse has generally behind it
+a mental cause, or a long series of mental causes too subtle for
+tabulation.
+
+I shall not dwell on this, for the reason that during the past fifty
+years so much has been written on the subject. A number of movements for
+human betterment have kept the whole idea in the forefront of the public
+mind. It is an idea only partially accepted as yet, arousing as much
+opposition among the conservative as hope on the part of the
+progressive. Since, however, science and religion are both, in their
+different ways, working on it together, some principle which can no
+longer be questioned is likely to be worked out within the next few
+generations.
+
+All I shall attempt to do now is to re-state what seems to me the
+fact--stated by others with knowledge and authority--that God, rightly
+understood, is the cure of disease and not the cause of it. There is
+something repugnant in the thought of Universal Intelligence
+propagating harmful bacteria, and selecting the crises at which we shall
+succumb to their effects. The belief that God sends sickness upon us
+amounts to neither less nor more than that. The bacilli which we try to
+destroy He uses His almighty power to cultivate, so that even our
+efforts to protect ourselves become defiances of His Will.
+
+Surely the following incident, which gives our Lord's attitude toward
+disease, affords a reasonable basis for our own.
+
+"Once He was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues where a
+woman was present who for eighteen years had been a confirmed invalid;
+she was bent double, and was unable to lift herself to her full height.
+But Jesus saw her, and calling to her, He said to her, 'Woman, you are
+free from your weakness.' And He put His hands on her, and she
+immediately stood upright and began to give glory to God. Then the
+Warden of the Synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured her on the
+Sabbath day, said to the crowd, 'There are six days in the week on
+which people ought to work. On those days therefore come and get
+yourselves cured, and not on the Sabbath day.' But the Lord's reply to
+him was, 'Hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his
+bullock or his ass from the stall and lead him to water? And this woman,
+daughter of Abraham as she is, _whom Satan had bound_ for no less than
+eighteen years, was she not to be loosed from this chain because it is
+the Sabbath day?' When He had said this all His opponents were ashamed,
+while the whole multitude was delighted at the many glorious things
+continually done by Him."[25]
+
+[25] St. Luke.
+
+It was not God, in His opinion, who had afflicted this woman; it was
+Satan, the personification of all evil. But in order that such
+references should not be misunderstood He had said of Satan, only a
+short time before, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."[26]
+
+[26] St. Luke.
+
+Heaven, I take it, is creation as its Creator sees it. "God saw
+everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."[27] And from
+this creation, with the rapidity of the quickest thing we know anything
+about, a flash of lightning, our Lord saw the personification of evil
+blotted out. What thought had formed thought could destroy. The spectre
+which misunderstanding of God had raised in a life in which everything
+was _very good_ became nothing at the instant when God was understood.
+
+[27] The Book of Genesis.
+
+The occasion of His speaking the words I have quoted is worth noting as
+bearing on the subject.
+
+A little earlier He had sent out seventy of His disciples to be the
+heralds of the Kingdom. "Cure the sick in that town, and tell them the
+Kingdom of God is now at your door."[28] By this time the seventy had
+returned, exclaiming joyfully, "Master, even the demons submit to us
+when we utter your name."[29] It was apparently the use of this word
+_demons_ which called forth from Him that explanation, "I beheld Satan
+as lightning fall from heaven." In other words, Satan is the creation of
+wrong thought; the demons are the creations of wrong thought. Where the
+Universal Good is all there can be no place for evil or evil spirits.
+Banish the concept and you banish the thing. The action is as quick as
+thought, and thought is as quick as lightning. "I have given you power,"
+He goes on to add, "to tread serpents and scorpions underfoot, and to
+trample on all the power of the Enemy; and in no case shall anything do
+you harm."[30]
+
+[28] St. Luke.
+
+[29] St. Luke.
+
+[30] St. Luke.
+
+This was no special gift bestowed on them and only on them. God has
+never, as far as we can see, dealt in special and temporary gifts. He
+helps us to see those we possess already. What our Lord seems anxious to
+make clear is the power over evil with which the human being is always
+endowed. It is probably to be one of our great future discoveries that
+in no case shall anything do us harm. As yet we scarcely believe it.
+Only an individual here and there sees that freedom and domination must
+belong to us. But, if I read the signs of the times aright, the rest of
+us are slowly coming to the same conclusion. We are less scornful of
+spiritual power than we were even a few years ago. The cocksure
+scientific which in its time was not a whit less arrogant than the
+cocksure ecclesiastical is giving place to a consciousness that man is
+the master of many things of which he was once supposed to be the slave.
+In proportion as the wiser among us are able to corroborate that which
+we simpler ones feel by a sixth or seventh sense, a long step will be
+taken toward the immunity from suffering which our Lord knew to be
+ideally our inheritance.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Sickness, age, decay, with all the horrors with which we invest our exit
+from this phase of existence, I take to be a misreading of God's
+intentions. We shall learn to read better by and by, and have already
+begun to do so. To this beginning I attribute the improvement which in
+one way or another has taken place in our general health--an
+improvement in which science and religion have worked together, often
+without perceiving the association--and in the prolonging of youth which
+in countries like the British Empire and the United States is, within
+thirty or forty years, to be noted easily.
+
+Misreading of God's intentions I might compare to that misreading of his
+parent's intentions which goes on in the mind of every child of six or
+seven. He sees the happenings in the household, but sees them in a light
+of his own. Years afterwards, when their real significance comes to him,
+he smiles at his childish distortions of the obvious.
+
+In comparison with what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the stature of
+full-grown men in Christ," our present rating might be that of a child
+of this age. It is no higher. Misreading is all that we are equal to,
+but it is something to be able to misread. It is a step on the way to
+reading correctly. Though our impulse to learn works feebly it works
+restlessly; and a day will surely come when we shall be able to
+interpret God aright.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Next to sickness I should place poverty as the second of the two great
+trials we bring upon ourselves.
+
+Under poverty I class all sense of restriction, limitation, and material
+helplessness. As the subject will be taken up more in detail elsewhere I
+wish for the minute to say no more than this: that, in an existence of
+which Growth seems to be the purpose, God could not intend that any of
+us should be without full power of expansion.
+
+What we are worth to him we must be worth as individuals; and what we
+are worth as individuals must depend on the peculiar combination of
+qualities which goes to make up each one of us. _I_, poor creature that
+I sometimes seem to others and always to myself, am so composed that God
+never before had anything exactly like me in the whole round of His
+creation. My value lies in a special blend of potentialities. Of the
+billions and trillions of human beings who have passed across this
+planet not one could ever have done what I can do, or have filled my
+place toward God and His designs.
+
+Among the billions and trillions I may seem trivial--to men. I may even
+seem trivial to myself. To such numbers as these I can add so little
+when I come, and take away so little from them when I go, that I am not
+worth counting. Quite so--to all human reckoning. But my value is not my
+value to men; it is not even my value to myself; it is my value to God.
+He alone knows my use, and the peculiar beauty I bring to the ages in
+making my contribution. It is no presumptuous thing to say that He could
+no more spare me than any other father of a normal and loving family
+could spare one of the children of his flesh and blood.
+
+Now, my value to God is my first reckoning. We commonly make it the
+last, if we ever make it at all; but it is the first and the ruling one.
+
+What I am to my family, my country, myself, is all secondary. They
+determine only the secondary results. The first results come from my
+first relationship, and my first relationship is to God. As the child of
+my parents, as a citizen of my country, as a denizen of this planet, my
+place is a temporary one. As the son of God I am from everlasting to
+everlasting, a splendid being with the universe as my home.
+
+Now this, it seems to me, is my point of departure for the estimate of
+my possible resources. I cannot expect less of the good things of the
+universe than God would naturally bestow on His son. To expect less is
+to get less, since it is to dwarf my own power of receiving. If I close
+the opening through which abundance flows it cannot be strange if I shut
+abundance out.
+
+And that is precisely what we find throughout the human race, millions
+upon millions of lives tightly shut against His generosity. The most
+generous treatment for which the majority of us look is man's. The only
+standard by which the majority of us appraise our work is man's. You
+have a job; you get your twenty or thirty or fifty or a hundred dollars
+a week for it; and by those dollars you judge your earning capacity and
+allow it to be judged. You hardly ever pause to remember that there is
+an estimate of earning capacity which measures industry and good will
+and integrity and devotion, and puts them above all tricks of trade _and
+rewards them_--rewards them, I mean, not merely in mystical blessings in
+eons far off, possibly the highest blessings we shall ever know, but
+rewards them in a way that will satisfy you now.
+
+"He satisfieth the empty soul," writes the psalmist, in one of the
+sublimest lyrics ever penned, "and filleth the hungry soul with
+goodness."
+
+"Yes, of course," says the Caucasian. "When you have crushed out all
+your present cravings and forgotten them, He will give you joys of which
+now you have no conception."
+
+But are not my present cravings those which count for me? and do they
+not make up precisely that character which renders me unique? True, my
+longings now may have to the longings I shall one day entertain only the
+relation of your little boy's craving for an alphabetic picture-book to
+the course in philosophy he will take when he is twenty-five; but so
+long as the picture-book is the thing he can appreciate you give it to
+him. Is not this common sense? And can we expect the Father of us all to
+act in other than common-sense ways?
+
+It is because we do so expect--because we do so almost universally--that
+we have blocked the channels of His blessings. The world is crowded with
+men and women working their fingers to the bone, and even so just
+squeaking along betwixt life and death and dragging their children after
+them. They are the great problem of mankind; they rend the heart with
+pity. They rend the heart with pity all the more for the reason that
+there is no sense in their poverty. There is no need of it. God never
+willed it, and what God never willed can go out of life with the speed
+of Satan out of Heaven. We have only to fulfil certain conditions,
+certain conditions quite _easy_ to fulfil, to find the stores of the
+Universal laid as a matter of course at the feet of the sons of God.
+
+"Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts," are the striking words
+of the prophet Malachi, "if I will not open you the windows of heaven
+and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to
+receive it.... And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a
+delightsome land,"
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+But it is the old story: we do not believe it. It is too good to be
+true, so we put it away from us. In a world where the material is so
+pressing we use only material measures, and bow only to material force.
+
+So be it! That is apparently as far as our race-development takes us. It
+takes us into suffering, but not out of it. Individuals have come into
+it and worked their way out again; but most of us can go no faster than
+the crowd. In that case we must suffer. In a terrible crisis in his
+history, and after many sins, David was able to write these words: "I
+sought the Lord ... and He delivered me out of all my fears." It is the
+royal avenue, and it is open to anyone. And yet if we do not take it, it
+still does not follow that all is lost.
+
+Of the world as it is the outstanding fact is the necessity for
+struggle. Struggle may conceivably enter into every other world. There
+is something in us which requires it, which craves for it. A static
+heaven in which all is won and there is nothing forevermore but to enjoy
+has never made much appeal to us. If eternal life means eternal growth
+we shall always have something with which to strive, since growth means
+overcoming.
+
+While sorry, then, that we have not released ourselves to a greater
+degree than we have, we may take heart of grace from what we have
+achieved. We must simply struggle on. Struggle will continue to make and
+shape us. Whether our problems spring from a world of matter, from a
+world of men, or from ourselves, their solving brings us a fuller grasp
+of truth. The progress may be slow but it is progress. Hardship by
+hardship, task by task, failure by failure, conquest by conquest, we
+pull ourselves up a little higher in the scale. Some day we shall see in
+the Universal all that we have been looking for, and be delivered out of
+all our fears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WORLD AS IT IS AND THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Of all fears the most dogging and haunting are those connected with
+money. Everyone knows them, even the rich. For many years I was their
+victim, and will now try to tell how I got rid of them so effectively
+that I may call it entirely.
+
+Having a good many responsibilities I lived in terror of not being able
+to keep pace with their demands. The dread was like a malign invisible
+presence, never leaving me. With much in the way of travel, friendship,
+and variety of experience, which I could have enjoyed, the evil thing
+was forever at my side. "This is all very well," it would whisper in
+moments of pleasure, "but it will be over in an hour or two, and then
+you'll be alone with me as before."
+
+I can recall minutes when the delight in landscape, or art, or social
+intercourse, became alien to me, something to be thrust away. Once in
+driving through rich, lush, storied Warwickshire on the way to
+Stratford-on-Avon--once in a great Parisian restaurant where the
+refinement, brilliancy, and luxury of the world seemed crushed into
+epitome--once at a stupendous performance of _Goetterdaemmerung_ at
+Munich--once while standing on the shores of a lovely New Hampshire lake
+looking up at a mountain round which, as Emerson says, the Spirit of
+Mystery hovers and broods--but these are only remembered high points of
+a constant dread of not being able to meet my needs and undertakings.
+There used to be an hour in the very early morning--"the coward hour
+before the dawn," it is called by a poet-friend of my own--when I was in
+the habit of waking, only to hear the sleepless thing saying, as my
+senses struggled back into play, "My God, can you be sleeping
+peacefully, with possible ruin just ahead of you?" After that further
+sleep would become impossible for an hour or two, such wakings
+occurring, in periods of stress, as often as two and three times a week.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+It was the spiritually minded man whom I have already quoted as giving
+me the three great points as to God's direction who first helped me to
+see that, on the part of anyone working hard and trying on the whole to
+do right, the fear of being left without means amounts in effect to
+denial of God. Thinking this over for myself during the course of some
+years, this fear has come to seem to me of the nature of blasphemy. It
+is like the "Curse God and die," of the wife of Job. I shall not
+hesitate to speak strongly on the subject, because so few are speaking
+on it strongly--while the urgency is pressing.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I have already said that it does not seem reasonable that the Father
+should put us into His universe to expand, and then deny us the power
+of expanding. The power of expanding is not wrapped up in money, but in
+the world as it is the independence of the one of the other is not very
+great. "One of the hardest things I ever had to do," a mother said to
+me, not long ago, "was to tell my little girl that her father and I
+could not afford to send her to college." That is what I mean. To most
+of us "expanding" and "affording" amount to the same thing.
+
+True, there are natures which transcend the limitations of "affording,"
+and by innate strength do what others resign themselves to not doing.
+For instance, there are men and women who "put themselves" through
+college, doing similar things which bring out the best in their
+characters. These are the exceptions; and they are the exceptions
+precisely for the reason that, whether they know it or not, they are
+nearer than their fellows to the divine working principle. It is not
+necessary for us to be conscious of that principle in order to get much
+of its result, though consciousness enables us to get more of it. The
+strong are strong because of harmony with God, at least to some extent.
+They may misuse their strength, as we can misuse anything; but the mere
+fact of possessing it shows a certain degree of touch with the
+Universal. But I am speaking chiefly of the weak, of those who think
+first of all in terms of restriction rather than in those of privilege
+to come and go and be and do.
+
+I repeat that though this privilege is not dependent on money, money
+expresses it to the average mind.
+
+And what is money after all? It is only a counter for what we call
+goods. Goods is the word with which, according to our Anglo-Saxon genius
+for the right phrase, we sum up the good things with which the Father
+blesses His children. The root connection between good, goods, and God
+is worth everyone's attention, A hundred dollars is simply a standard of
+measurement for so much of God's good things. A thousand dollars
+represents so much more; a million dollars so much more again. But it is
+important to note that this is not God's standard of measurement; it is
+man's, and adopted only for man's convenience.
+
+As for God's standard of measurement it is inconceivable that the
+Universal Father should give to one of His children far more of His
+"goods" than he can use, while denying to another that which he is in
+absolute need of. The Universal Father could surely not do otherwise
+than bless all alike. With His command of resources He must bless all
+alike, not by depriving anyone, but by enriching everyone. If everyone
+does not enjoy plenty it must be because of the bringing in of some
+principle of distribution which could never have been His.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The right and the wrong principles of distribution are indirectly placed
+before us by our Lord in one of the most beautiful passages which ever
+fell from human lips. Familiar as it is, I venture to quote it at
+length, for the reason that the modern translation makes some of the
+points clearer than they are in the King James version which most of us
+know best.
+
+"No man can be the bondservant of two masters; for either he will
+dislike one and like the other, or he will attach himself to one and
+think slightingly of the other. You cannot be the bondservants both of
+God and of gold. For this reason I charge you not to be over-anxious
+about your lives, inquiring what you are to eat or what you are to
+drink, nor yet about your bodies, inquiring what clothes you are to put
+on. Is not the life more precious than its food, and the body than its
+clothing? Look at the birds which fly in the air; they do not sow or
+reap or store up in barns, but your Heavenly Father feeds them; are you
+not of much greater value than they? Which of you by being over-anxious
+can add a single foot to his height? And why be anxious about clothing?
+Learn a lesson of the wild lilies. Watch their growth. They neither toil
+nor spin, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his
+magnificence could array himself like one of these. And yet if God so
+clothes the wild herbage which to-day flourishes and to-morrow is cast
+into the oven, is it not much more certain that he will clothe you, you
+men of little faith? Do not even begin to be anxious, therefore, saying,
+'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
+For all these are questions that Gentiles are always asking; but your
+Heavenly Father knows that you need these things--all of them. But make
+His Kingdom and righteousness your chief aim, and then these things
+shall be given you in addition. Do not be over-anxious, therefore, about
+to-morrow, for to-morrow will bring its own cares. Enough for each day
+are its own troubles."
+
+In this passage there are two points, each of which may merit a few
+words as a means of eliminating fear.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The first point is the reference to what we are to make our "chief
+aim"--the Kingdom of God and righteousness.
+
+I feel sure we generally miss the force of these words through our
+Caucasian sanctimoniousness. We can think of God's Kingdom and
+righteousness only in the light of the pietistic. The minute they are
+mentioned we strike what I have already called our artificial pose, our
+funereal frame of mind. I am not flippant when I say that in the mind of
+the Caucasian the first step toward seeking the Kingdom of God and
+righteousness is in pulling a long face. We can hardly think of
+righteousness except as dressed in our Sunday clothes, and looking and
+feeling wobegone. To most of us the seeking of righteousness suggests at
+once an increase in attending church services, or going to
+prayer-meetings, or making missionary efforts--excellent practices in
+themselves--according to the form of pietism we are most familiar with.
+Those of us who have no form of pietism feel cut off from making the
+attempt at all.
+
+Oh, to be simple!--to be natural!--to be spontaneous!--to be free from
+the concept of a God shut up within the four walls of a building and
+whose chief interests are the sermon and the number of parishioners!
+The Kingdom of God is the Universal Kingdom, including everyone and
+everything--all interests, all commerce, all government, all invention,
+all art, all amusement, all the staid pursuits of the old and all the
+ardour of the young, all sport, all laughter, all that makes for
+gladness. It is the Kingdom of the bird and the flower and the horse and
+the motor-car and the motion-picture house and the office and the
+theatre and the ballroom and the school and the college and everything
+else that man has evolved for himself. He has evolved these things
+wrongly because nine times out of ten he has seen them as outside God's
+Kingdom, instead as being God's own undertakings because they are ours.
+All that we have to do to seek His Kingdom is to do what we are doing
+every day, with energy and fun, but to do it knowing we are His agents
+and co-workers. As a matter of fact, most of us are, to some extent,
+doing that already, getting food, shelter, clothing, and all other
+necessary things as our reward. What we do not get is relief from fear,
+because we do not understand that fear above all things is what He
+would take away from us.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The second point is a curious one, and all the more emphatic for being
+curious. Our Lord invents a false god. He names the false god of fear,
+who was never named before. Mammon is the word which the modern
+translator gives as gold. As Mammon it is translated in the Authorised
+Version, whence we get the familiar phrase, "Ye cannot serve God
+and Mammon."
+
+But Mammon was never the name of an idol or other form of false deity.
+The word, which is Syriac, means money. Our Lord, apparently, made it
+the name of a false god in order to set before us, and make vivid to us,
+a false principle.
+
+That false principle is in the belief that the material essentials for
+living and expanding are dependent on man's economic laws.
+
+This is a point of vast importance to the individual who desires to
+strike out beyond the crowd, not only getting what he needs, but
+ridding himself of fear.
+
+The law of supply and demand is the most practical which the human race
+in its present stage has been able to evolve. That it is not an ideal
+law is obvious. There are ways in which it works, and ways in which it
+does not. When the Christians began to act for themselves they
+established a community of goods, such as had obtained among the little
+band who gathered round our Lord. Almost at once it was given up,
+presumably as being too advanced for the existing world of men. I
+suppose we might say the same of the various systems of Socialism and
+Communism urged on us at the present day. However good they may be, we
+are not ready to put them into practice. That, I judge--without
+positively knowing--is the reason why certain great Christian bodies
+oppose both. These bodies, I assume, are not hostile to equal
+distribution in itself, but only to equal distribution before men are
+developed to a stage at which it would be wise.
+
+But my point is independent of all men's theories, and rests simply on
+the fact that, whatever the law of man, God is not bound by it.
+
+If we can believe the Old and New Testaments--which, of course, some of
+us do not--He has shown on many, many occasions that He is far from
+being bound by it. Time after time He comes to the individual's relief
+according to His own law. We reject these occurrences as mythical on the
+ground that the laws of supply and demand--and some other laws as law is
+understood by us--do not support them; and yet it is in the power of the
+individual to test the truth for himself.
+
+That is one of the burdens of both Testaments. The individual is
+implored to see the only real system for the distribution of "goods" as
+God's. It is not expressed in that way, but that is what it comes to.
+God owns and disposes of everything. He has not put us into His Universe
+and left us to fend for ourselves. He follows us. He cares for us. Not
+one is forgotten or overlooked by Him. It is personal watching and
+brooding and defence. He is our Father, not merely for the purpose of
+hearing us sing hymns, and forgiving our sins when we stop committing
+them, but for all our aims and objects. Nothing that concerns us is so
+small but that His Infinite Intelligence follows it; no need of ours is
+so large but that His All-Ownership can meet it. "Do not two sparrows
+sell for a half-penny?" is our Lord's illustration on this point, "yet
+not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's leave. But
+as for you," He reasons, in order that we may understand the
+infinitesimal nature of God's care, "the very hairs on your heads are
+all numbered. Away then with fear!"[31]
+
+[31] St Matthew.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Away then with fear, because our first and over-ruling and
+all-determining relationship is to Him.
+
+In eliminating money-fears from my own life that was the fact which
+helped me most. I had not only to seize it intellectually, but to get
+what William James calls the "feeling" of it, the apprehension of it in
+my subconsciousness. It was like acquiring a new instinct. The
+_Metanoia_, the re-directing of my thought, was a thorough and
+basic change.
+
+It meant getting up in the morning with a new conception as to why I was
+working and for whom. I had taken it for granted hitherto that I was
+working for such and such a firm, for as much money as they would pay
+me. As much money as they would pay me was the limit of my expectation.
+Beyond the law of supply and demand I had no vision; and whenever the
+demand fell short fear was the result.
+
+The change in my base was in seeing that working for such and such a
+firm, for as much money as they would pay me, was merely incidental. It
+was secondary. It was not what determined my position. It was not what
+determined my reward. It was a small way of looking at a situation which
+was big. It was a small way of looking at a situation which was big,
+merely to confine my objective to such selling and buying as goes on in
+the planet called the Earth. I was working for the Master of the
+Universe, who had all the resources of the universe with which to pay me
+for what I was worth _to Him_.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+It is this last fact, as I have hinted already, which fixes my true
+value. To the firm for which I am working I am worth so many dollars and
+cents, and if for any reason I am unable to do their work they will get
+someone else who can. I am not essential to them in any way, however
+essential they may be to me. It is my part to "keep my job," since if I
+don't I may find it hard to get another. If I do get another it will be
+on the same principle, of being paid what I can be made to work for, and
+not a penny more.
+
+But in working for the Master of the Universe I am working for One to
+whom I am essential. My "job" could not be "swung" by anyone else, since
+everyone else is essential to the swinging of his own. I am not "taken
+on" to do what anyone else could do as well; I am positively needed for
+this thing and for no other thing.
+
+The nature of "this thing" for which I am needed may be seen in the
+obvious duties of my situation--as regards my family, my employers, and
+my surroundings, which sum up my responsibilities toward men in general.
+No explanation of myself can be independent of men in general, since my
+work is for them in its final aim. If I forget them I forget God, God
+expressing Himself to me through men in general, as through my family
+and my employers in particular.
+
+Incidentally, then, I work for men, but essentially and consciously I
+work for God, and look to God for my recompense.
+
+Now God is the most generous of all paymasters. It is natural enough
+that He should be so. He who delights in the grace of a bird or the
+colour of a flower must delight in a man in proportion to a man's higher
+place in the creative scale. As our Lord points out, that is no more
+than common sense. And, delighting in us as He does, God could not
+possibly stint us in what we earn from Him. Merely to suppose so is to
+dishonour Him. A large part of His joy must be in our joy.
+
+The simplest way in which I can express it is that in consciously trying
+to work with God, not man, as our employer, things happen to us which,
+to the best of our foresight, would not have happened otherwise. Often
+they seem accidental, and possibly we ascribe them to accident till the
+coincidences become too numerous to explain by coincidence and nothing
+more. It constantly happens to myself, for instance, to find the whole
+solution of some tangled financial problem hanging on the chance turning
+of my steps to someone's office, and the chance turning of the
+conversation to some specific observation. Chance is the explanation
+which comes to me first, till I reflect on the finespun chain which
+brought me to that particular spot and those particular words. Leading
+is what I see then; and seeing it once I am more confident of being led
+the next time. The next time, therefore, I am the less afraid, having
+the definite experience to support me.
+
+There are millions of men and women to whom life brings no more than the
+monotony of a treadmill round, year in and year out, with a cramping of
+mind, spirit, and ambition, who might have been free had they measured
+themselves by God's standards and not by men's. It is simply the taking
+of a point of view, and adjusting the life to it. In doing one's work
+primarily for God, the fear of undue restriction is put, sooner or
+later, out of the question. He pays me and He pays me well. He pays me
+and He will not fail to pay me. He pays me not merely for the rule of
+thumb task which is all that men recognise, but for everything else I
+bring to my job in the way of industry, good intention, and
+cheerfulness. If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as St Paul says, we
+may depend upon it that He loveth a cheerful worker; and where we can
+cleave the way to His love there we find His endless generosity.
+
+In my own case this generosity has most frequently been shown in
+opening doors for me where I saw nothing but blank walls. He has made
+favourable things happen. It may be said that they would have happened
+anyhow; but when they have happened on my looking to Him, and have not
+happened when I did not look to Him, it is only fair to draw the
+conclusion that He was behind the event.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+It may also be urged that if there was really a God who delighted in us
+He would make favourable things happen to us whether we looked to Him or
+not. So He does. Every life, even among those who never think of Him, is
+full of such occurrences. Every individual gets some measure of supply
+for his necessities, and in many instances a liberal one. God's sun
+rises on the wicked as well as on the good, and His rain falls on those
+who do right and those who do wrong.
+
+At the same time there is a force generated by working consciously with
+Him which we have to go without when we disregard Him. It is not, I
+suppose, that He refuses to co-operate with us, but that it is out of
+our power to co-operate with Him. If His is the only right way to our
+success and prosperity, and we are, to any extent, taking the wrong, it
+stands to reason that to that extent we must fail.
+
+It is doubtless for this reason that our Lord emphasises seeking His
+righteousness as well as His Kingdom. His Kingdom might be roughly
+defined as His power; righteousness as the right way of doing anything.
+But you never obtain power by going the wrong way to work; whereas by
+working in the right way you get your result. The conclusion is obvious.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+It is often objected to the point of view I have been trying to express
+that so much weight is thrown on material blessing. God gives spiritual
+rewards, it is contended, not material ones. To expect the material from
+Him is to make Him gross, and to become gross ourselves.
+
+And yet those who put forth this objection are doing their utmost to
+secure material comforts, and to make material provision for the future.
+Are they doing it independently of God? Are they working in a medium
+into which God cannot enter? Is it argued for a single minute that
+"goods" are not God's good things, and that money is not their token?
+True, the love of money is the root of all evil. Of course--when you
+separate money from God, as Caucasians mostly do; not when you take
+money as one of the material symbols for God's love toward his sons.
+
+As a matter of fact, we dig a gulf between the material and the
+spiritual which does not exist. We have seen that modern physical
+science is showing us how near to spirit matter comes, while it is
+highly probable that further research will diminish even the slight
+existing difference between them. Matter may really be considered as our
+sensuous misreading of the spiritual. That is to say, God sees one
+thing; our senses see another. In the wild lily cited by our Lord our
+senses see a thing exquisite in form and colour; and yet, relatively
+speaking, it is no more than a distortion of what God beholds and
+delights in. It is a commonplace fact that, even within the limitations
+of the senses, our sense-faculties perceive few things, if anything,
+quite accurately. Matter may therefore be considered as our wrong view
+of what God sees rightly. Both for Him and for us the object is there;
+but it is there with higher qualities than we can appreciate or
+understand.
+
+The situation is not unknown among ourselves. A picture by a great
+master hangs on a wall. Two men look at it--the one with an expert
+knowledge of painting, the other with none. The untrained eye will
+translate into daubs of colour and meaningless forms what the skilled
+understanding will perceive as a masterly setting forth of beauty. So
+the good things--the "goods"--with which God blesses us, as well as the
+money which is their symbol, may be taken as having to God a meaning
+which they do not possess for us, but not as being outside the sphere
+of His interest and control.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+It is the tendency to puts "goods" and money outside the sphere of His
+interest and control which has impelled us--and perhaps the Caucasian
+especially--to have one God for the spiritual and another for the
+material. We try to serve God and Mammon to an extent far beyond
+anything we are generally aware of. It is not merely the individual who
+is doing it; it is part of our collective, social, and national life.
+Our civilisation is more or less based on the principle.
+
+It is a mistake to suppose that a formal belief in One Almighty,
+All-knowing, All-loving God has, to the immense majority of us, ever
+been more than an ideal. It is a mistake to suppose that because the
+false god is no longer erected before us in silver or stone he is no
+longer served. The world has never outgrown idolatry, the so-called
+Christian world no more than any other. "Dear children," are the words
+with which St. John closes one of his epistles, "guard yourselves from
+idols." He at least did not think that the idol had been forsaken
+because the use of his name was given up.
+
+We may define as a god any force to which we ascribe a supreme and
+controlling power in our lives. It is of little consequence whether or
+not we give it name and personality, so long as that force rules us. So
+long, too, as it wields a power which the One God does not, so long as
+we make the false god greater than the true, and more influential.
+
+This is no mere figure of speech; it is fact. We have never guarded
+ourselves from idols. We have never done more toward recognising the
+Father than the putting Him in the pantheon with our other gods. Even
+though we have inscribed the whole pantheon with His name, the other
+gods have been in it.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+I have said that our whole collective life is based on the principle of
+one God for the soul and another for the body; and so it is. In what we
+call our temporal life God gets only a formal recognition, while Mammon
+is the referee. Beyond the controlling power of money we have no vision,
+and we see no laws. The sphere of material productivity being one in
+which, according to our foregone conclusion, God does not operate, we
+have to make the controlling power of money our only practical standard.
+It has its laws--chiefly the laws of supply and demand--within whose
+working we human beings are caught like flies in spider-webs. Though we
+struggle, and know we are struggling, we take it for granted that there
+is nothing to do but struggle, and struggle vainly. We take it for
+granted that we are born into a vast industrial spider-web, whence there
+is no possibility of getting out, and in which we can only churn our
+spirits rebelliously. In proportion as God is a God of love, Mammon is a
+god of torture; but such is our supineness of spiritual energy that we
+go on serving Mammon.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+But I am writing only for the individual. I am trying to suggest to him
+that however much his race, his nation, his society, may serve Mammon,
+he is free to renounce the idol and escape the idol's laws. Escaping the
+idol's laws he comes within the realm of God's laws; and coming within
+the realm of God's laws he reaches the region of plenty.
+
+He may be the poorest and most ill-paid labourer; but God will recognise
+his industry not in proportion to its technical skill, but according to
+the spiritual excellence which goes into it. Technical skill depends
+largely on the right man finding the right job; but as our world is
+organised at present the right man, more often than not, is put into the
+wrong job and has to do his best with it. God sees and estimates that
+best; and as surely as He makes His sun to rise and His rain to fall
+will give it its just compensation.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Our industrial questions are primarily spiritual. That is why they can
+never be settled on a purely economic basis, and why every attempt to
+settle them on a purely economic basis leads to conditions more confused
+than those from which we have emerged. The so-called purely economic
+basis is the basis where only Mammon's laws are considered, and God's
+are held to be impractical.
+
+Quite so! But even then the individual is free. Working with God he is
+always master of the situation as it affects _him_.
+
+The problem of Capital and Labour, for example, has, in one form or
+another, been before the world for thousands of years. The more acute it
+becomes the further we are from a solution, and were never so far from a
+solution as we are to-day. Poverty, again, is the canker at the heart of
+both Church and State, and has been so in every stage of our
+civilisation. In 1921 it is no more under control than it was in the
+days of Charlemagne or Attila or Xerxes. Charitable efforts to relieve
+it have proved as effective as tickling with a feather to cure disease.
+Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices,
+resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to
+both wages and prices alike--these things perplex the most clear-sighted
+among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping
+up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of
+industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all man's
+efforts for the common good, and the uselessness of our energies. These
+difficulties, with many kindred ones, are the working of the laws of
+Mammon. The case is simple. We shall never be free from the difficulties
+till we are free from the laws. The bondservants of Mammon will go on
+from misery to misery, till the will which opposes God is broken down.
+There is no other way. The colossal disintegration of the world now
+taking place before our eyes may be the beginning of this end.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+But I return to the point I have emphasised already, the only point to
+this book. The individual can act on his own account. He does not have
+to wait till the race as a whole gives up the service of Mammon, or even
+the nation to which he belongs. He can set _himself_ free, and enjoy the
+benefits of freedom.
+
+There must be many to whom, as to myself, the kingdom of heaven will
+really be at hand when they are delivered from the snares and
+entanglements of man's economic systems. Caught in those systems,
+imprisoned in them, more hopelessly enmeshed the more they struggle to
+save themselves, the suggestion that a change in point of view will take
+us out of them will seem to some of us too amazing to be true.
+
+Nothing will prove it true but a man's own experience. Mine will
+convince nobody; no other man's can convince me. Demonstration must be
+personal before we can make anything our own. But the fact remains, as
+sure as the surest thing we know anything about, that the law of Mammon
+does not work, while the law of God does work, and will work for anyone
+who calls it to his aid.
+
+No one who has ever seen the early morning trains into any great city
+vomiting forth their hundreds of thousands of men and women, trudging
+more or less dispiritedly to uncongenial jobs, can have felt anything
+but pity for so many lives squeezed into the smallest possible
+limitations. Admitting cheerfulness, admitting a measure of content, and
+a larger measure of acceptance of what can't be helped, there still
+remains over these hordes the shadow of a cloud from which they know
+they never will escape. Clerks, factory hands, tradesmen, working men
+and women of every stamp and occupation, they bow to the fact that they
+will always work hard at tasks which are rarely their own choice, that
+they will always work for little money, that they will always be denied
+their desires for expansion; that as it was with their fathers and
+mothers before them, so it will be with them, and so it will be with
+their children after them.
+
+With the supineness of our race most of them force themselves to be
+satisfied with what comes. But here and there is a rebel. Here and there
+is a man or a woman who feels that joyless work, and small pay, and
+little or nothing to look forward to, are cruel elements in life, not
+fair, not just, on the part of God or man. But what can they do? They
+are in man's economic machine. The machine turns round and they turn
+with it. They can do nothing else but turn with it. They see no prospect
+except of turning with it till they die.
+
+It is out of such men and women that our modern world breeds
+revolutionists, that exalted and yet dangerous band who seek redress
+from the laws of Mammon by appealing _to_ the laws of Mammon, so making
+confusion worse confounded.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+A revolution indeed is needed; but a revolution in point of view.
+
+Political revolution, for the sake of righting governmental abuses,
+has been known to produce beneficent results.
+
+Material revolution, the attack of the poor on the rich to take away
+their possessions, has never achieved anything. Many a time it has been
+tried, and many a time it has failed. Being part of the system of Mammon
+it could do nothing else than fail. The evils which Mammon has wrought
+Mammon will never remedy. There may be instances in history of economic
+cures for economic ills; but I think they are few. In general such cures
+are of the nature of our "settlements" of strikes. They settle to-day
+what is again unsettled to-morrow, leaving the work to be done all over
+again, and so on into a far future.
+
+The revolution in point of view has these great advantages:
+
+First, it contains within it the seeds of success, since it is
+revolution toward God, the owner of the Earth and the fulness thereof;
+Next, it takes place within the individual himself, doing no one
+else any harm;
+
+Lastly, it does not run counter to man's economic laws; it only uses and
+transcends them. It directs and corrects them. Working along their lines
+it stimulates their fruit. Letting the inner man out of the economic
+trap it sets him in a world in which first, and last, and before
+everything else, he is God's servant in God's pay. God's pay being sure,
+and paid in the way we need it, we no longer have money-fear to be
+afraid of. Money-fear being set aside we can the more easily give
+ourselves to the knowledge that "the Kingdom of God does not consist of
+eating and drinking, but of right conduct, peace, and joy, through the
+Holy Spirit; and whoever in this way devotedly serves Christ, God takes
+pleasure in him, and men commend him highly."[32]
+
+[32] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+And lest what I have said should seem fanciful or chimerical let me add
+that I am not saying these things merely on my own responsibility. To
+my certain knowledge there are hundreds of thousands--some millions--of
+people throughout the world who at this very minute are living according
+to this principle, and proving that it works in practical effect.
+
+Neither am I speaking theoretically, as I have tried to make plain. To a
+degree that convinces myself I have made the demonstration. Where my
+life was like a dark and crooked lane in which I might easily be lost,
+it has now become as an easy and open highway; where money-fear was the
+very air I breathed, it is now no more than a nebulous shred on a far
+horizon. Money-fear comes occasionally; but only as the memory of pain
+to a wound which you know to be healed. It comes; but, like Satan out of
+Heaven, I can cast it from me with a thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR AND THE FEAR OF DEATH
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+The fear of death was greatly diminished for me on grasping the
+principle of everlasting Growth.
+
+This principle we gather from whatever we know of life. Our observation
+of life is, of course, limited to this planet; but as far as it goes it
+shows us a persistent and perpetual system of development. We have only
+to let our imaginations go back to the first feeble stirrings of life in
+the ooze of the primeval seas, contrasting that with what it became in
+Plato, Sophocles, St. Peter, St. Paul, Raphael, Shakespeare, and Darwin,
+to see how high the climb upward has reached. Jesus of Nazareth I put on
+a plane to which we have not yet attained, though in sight as the great
+objective.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+That the same law operates in the individual life is a matter of
+everyone's experience. Such knowledge as each man has of himself is that
+of a growing entity. Each year, each day, expands him a little further,
+with increased fulness of character. At thirty he is more than he was at
+twenty; at fifty more than he was at thirty; at eighty more than he was
+at fifty. Nothing but a perverted mortal point of view stands in the way
+of further expansion still.
+
+The perverted mortal point of view is one of the impulses we have to
+struggle with. The mortal tendency, which means the deadly tendency,
+always seeks to kill whatever has the principle of life. This tendency
+is in every one of us; but in some of us more than in others.
+
+You can see it at work in the morbid mind, in the mind that is easily
+depressed, and in the mind that easily closes.
+
+Perhaps it is in this last that it becomes our most pernicious enemy.
+The closing mind is found in all our ranks; the closed mind is the
+deadwood of all our professions. It is not only deadwood; it is
+death-in-life, the foe of the developing life-principle, the enemy of
+the Holy Ghost.
+
+That the dead mind should be found among people who have had few
+intellectual advantages is not surprising. On them it is forced from
+without, by sheer pressure of circumstance. Where it is most painful is
+precisely where it does most harm, among the classes we call
+professional. There, too, it seems commonest. Lawyers, doctors,
+clergymen, teachers, writers, politicians, business men with dead minds
+choke all the highways of life. To the extent that they have influence
+they are obstacles to progress; but sooner or later the time comes when
+they no longer have influence. Life shelves them on the plea that they
+are old; but that is not the reason. They are shelved because they have
+killed their minds, becoming living dead men.
+
+As a matter of fact, one of the most valuable of our social and
+national assets is the old man who has kept his mind open. Found all too
+rarely, he is never shelved, for the reason that life cannot do without
+him. Having the habit of expansion he continues to expand, keeping
+abreast of youth and even a little in advance of it. The exception
+rather than the rule, there is no reason why he should not be the
+racial type.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+He is not the racial type because so many of us begin to die almost as
+soon as we have begun to live. Our very fear of the death-principle
+admits it into our consciousness. Admitted into our consciousness it
+starts its work of killing us. It wrinkles the face, it turns the hair
+grey, it enfeebles the limbs, it stupefies the brain. One of its most
+deadly weapons is fatigue, or the simulation of fatigue. The tired
+business man, who rules American life, is oftener than not a dead
+business man. If he looked ahead he would see what we idiomatically know
+as his "finish." He is not only dying but he infuses death into
+manners, literature, and art, since he so largely sets the standard
+which becomes the rule.
+
+War on the death-principle should be, it seems to me, one of the aims to
+which the individual gives his strength; and once more he can do it on
+his own account.
+
+In the first place, he can watch himself, that he does not mentally
+begin to grow old. To begin mentally to grow old is to begin mentally to
+die. He must think of himself as an expanding being, not as a
+contracting one. He must keep in sympathetic touch with the new, damning
+the know-it-all frame of mind. He must keep in sympathetic touch with
+youth, knowing that youth is the next generation in advance. The secrets
+of one generation are not those of another; but if he who possesses the
+earlier masters also the later he is that much the richer and wiser. The
+gulf which separates parents and children is one which the parents must
+cross. They can work onward, while the children cannot work backward. Up
+to a certain point the older teach the younger; beyond a certain point
+the younger teach the older. He who would go on living and not begin to
+die must be willing to be taught, reaping the harvest of both youth
+and age.
+
+In the second place, he who would live must not kill anyone else. The
+deadly tendency in ourselves is forever at work on those about us,
+chiefly on those we love. We watch, tabulate, and recount their symptoms
+of decay. Making notes of them for ourselves we discourse of them to
+others. "He begins to look old," is a commonplace. The response will
+probably emphasise the fact. By response to response we spin round a
+friend the age-web which lengthens into the death-web. In our expressive
+American vernacular we speak of "wishing" conditions on others, an
+instinctive folk-recognition of the force of mentality. We do it in a
+sinister sense more often than by way of helpfulness. We "wish" by
+thinking, by talking, by creating an atmosphere, by forcing things into
+the general consciousness. Old age and decay, bad enough in themselves,
+we intensify by our habits of mind. Death, which in any case awaits our
+friends, we woo to them by anticipations of demise. It is not
+ill-intentioned. It comes out of a subconsciousness in which death and
+not life is the base.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+For most of us the fear of death is a subconscious rather than an active
+fear. It becomes active for those who through illness, or in some other
+way, see a sentence of death hanging over them; but during the greater
+part of the life-span we are able to beat it off.
+
+As to the life-span itself there is reason to suppose that it is meant
+to be more regular than man allows it to become. There may easily be an
+"appointed time" to which we do not suffer ourselves, or each other, to
+attain. Those strange, inequalities by which one human being is left to
+pass over the century mark, another is cut off just when he is most
+needed, while a third does no more than touch this plane for an hour or
+two, may be the results of our misreadings of God's Will, and not the
+decrees of that Will itself.
+
+We are here on ground which may be termed that of speculation; and yet
+speculation is not quite the right word. I dare to think that we have
+reached a stage of our development at which we are entitled to make with
+regard to death certain inferences which were hardly possible before our
+time. We may make them timidly, with all hesitation and reserve, aware
+that we cannot propound them as facts; and yet we may make them. The
+human mind is no longer where it was a hundred years ago, still less
+where it was five hundred years ago. Though we make little progress we
+make some. We are not always marking time on the same spot of ignorance
+and helplessness. What is mystery for one age is not of necessity
+mystery for another. Even when mysteries remain, they do not of
+necessity remain without some hint of a dawn which may broaden into day.
+Many of our most precious illuminations have come in just this way; a
+faint light--which slowly, feebly, through centuries perhaps, waxes
+till it becomes a radiance.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I talked some time ago to an orthodox Christian lady whose brother had
+recently died, and who was speaking of death.
+
+"The one mystery," she called it, "on which no single ray of light has
+been vouchsafed in all the ages man has been on earth."
+
+I did not agree with her, but knowing her to be an orthodox Christian
+lady I did not venture to express my opinion.
+
+But hers is the position which many, perhaps most, of us take. "No one
+has ever come back," we say, "to tell us what his experience has been,"
+and we drop the subject there. Not only do we drop the subject there,
+but we resent it if everyone else does not drop the subject there. "God
+has hidden it from us," we declare, "and what He has hidden from us it
+is presumption for us to pry into." It is useless to urge the fact that
+this way of reasoning would have kept us still in the Stone Age; we are
+not to be reached by argument.
+
+Let me say at once that I am not taking up the question of the psychic,
+or entering into it at all. I shall keep myself to the two points of
+view which have helped me, as an individual, to overcome, to some
+degree, the fear of death, considering them in reverse order from that
+in which I have mentioned them. Those two points of view are:
+
+A. That, according to God's Will, we come into this phase of being for
+an "appointed time" which we do not always reach;
+
+B. That we pass out of this phase of being as we came into it, for
+Growth.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+A. The question of an appointed time seems important chiefly to the
+right understanding of God's love. Between us and the understanding of
+that love bereavement is often a great obstacle. Oftener still it is a
+great puzzle. I do not have to catalogue the conditions in which the
+taking away of men, women, and children, sorely needed here if for no
+other purpose than to love, has moved us to deep perplexity, or to
+something like a doubt of God. We have probably all known cases where
+such tragedy has driven sufferers to renounce God altogether, and to
+curse Him. Some of us who have been smitten may have come near to doing
+this ourselves, or may have done it.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+I have already spoken of the Caucasian's habit of shuffling off on God
+those ills for which he will not face the responsibility himself, and I
+am inclined to think that this is one of them. In my own experience the
+explanation of "God's Will" made to the mother of a little family left
+fatherless, or to the parents of a dead baby, or to a young man with a
+young wife in her coffin, has always been revolting. I have made it; I
+have tried, on the faith of others, to think it must be so. I have long
+since ceased to think it, and feel happier for not crediting the
+Universal Father with any such futile tricks.
+
+I should not go so far as to say that we human beings have misapplied
+the laws of life in such a way as to kill those who are dear to us;
+rather, I think, we have never learned those laws except in their merest
+rudiments. We are not yet prepared to do more than bungle the good
+things offered us on earth, and more or less misuse them. We misuse them
+ourselves; we teach others to misuse them; we create systems of which
+the pressure is so terrible that under it the weak can do nothing but
+die. We give them no chance. We squeeze the life out of them. And then
+we say piously, "The blessed Will of God!"
+
+As an illustration of what I mean let me cite the two following cases
+among people I have known:
+
+A young lady belonging to a family of means was found to be suffering
+from incipient tuberculosis. The doctors ordered her to Saranac. To
+Saranac she went, with two nurses. Within eighteen months she was home
+again, quite restored to health. This was as it should have been.
+
+At the same time I knew a car-conductor, married some six or seven
+years, and the father of three children. He, too, was found to be
+suffering from incipient tuberculosis. He, too, was ordered to Saranac.
+But having a wife and three children to support, Saranac was out of the
+question. He went on conducting his car till his cough became
+distressing, whereupon he was "fired." A minimum allowance from his
+church kept the family from starvation, while the nearest approach to
+Saranac that could be contrived was an arrangement by which he slept
+with his head out the window. In course of time he died, and his widow
+was exhorted to submit to the Will of God.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+I cite the latter case as typical of millions and millions of deaths of
+the kind at which we stand aghast at God's extraordinary rulings. Why is
+it, we ask, that He snatches away those who are needed, leaving those
+who might be spared? As to the latter part of the question I have
+nothing to say; but when it comes to "snatching away" I feel it
+important to "absolve God" of the blame for it.
+
+In the instance I have quoted the blame for it is clear. Falling on no
+one individual, it does fall on an organisation of life which gives all
+the chances to some, denying them to others. So long as we feel unable
+to improve on this organisation we shall have these inequalities. But
+let us face honestly the consequences they bring. Let us not confuse all
+the issues of life and death as we do, by saddling the good and
+beautiful Will of God with the ills we make for ourselves.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+All untimely bereavement is, of course, not of the nature of the above
+illustration. And yet I venture to believe that in all untimely
+bereavement some similar explanation could be found. For example, in the
+intervals of writing these lines I have been reading a recent biography
+of Madame de Maintenon. In it is a chapter describing the series of
+catastrophes which fell on Louis the Fourteenth, and the French kingdom,
+within little more than a twelvemonth. His son and heir, his grandson,
+the second heir, his great-grandson, the third heir, the second heir's
+wife, and still another grandson were all carried off by smallpox. In
+the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, his wife, the aged monarch was
+counselled to submit to the awful Will of God which saw fit thus to
+smite him. What no one perceived was that by crowding round the bed of
+each sufferer in turn the survivors courted contagion.
+
+But, there again, it is not much more than a century since this fact
+became known to anyone. Easily within living memory is the discovery
+that disease is due to bacteria. Our whole system of sanitation is of
+recent development, and obtains only among the English and the Americans
+even now. In many parts of Europe and America, to say nothing of Asia
+and Africa, people still live as in the Middle Ages, and infant
+mortality is appalling. Those of us who pay most attention to sanitary
+laws live unhealthily, diminishing our powers to resist attack. I
+mention these facts, not as making a list of them, but to indicate the
+many causes through which we bring bereavement on ourselves, when the
+Will of God would naturally make for survival and happiness.
+
+It must never be forgotten that in this phase of our existence we never
+carry out that Will except to a remote degree. We only struggle towards
+doing it. When great sorrows come it is because in the struggle we have
+not been successful. Either we ourselves have failed; or the failure of
+others affects us indirectly. While God's Will may be for our happiness,
+we can attain to neither the happiness nor the Will--as yet.
+
+Nevertheless, we would not have it otherwise. In our more thoughtless or
+more agonised minutes we are likely to cry out for a life in which the
+conditions ensuring our happiness could not so easily miscarry; but that
+would mean a static life, and a static life, above all things, we will
+not endure. As already seen, we ask for difficulties to conquer,
+successes to achieve. To contend is our instinct, not to be passive
+and enjoy.
+
+Difficulties to conquer can only exist side by side with the possibility
+of not conquering them. The victory which is merely a walk-over is
+scarcely a victory. Achievement counts only when something has been
+overcome. Even then the overcoming of one thing merely spurs us on to
+overcome another. To rest on our laurels is doom. For a race which has
+the infinite as its goal the word must be on and on. The static heaven
+of bearing palms and playing harps and bliss, which the naive
+interpretation of our fathers drew from the imagery of the Apocalypse,
+has long since made us rebellious. Something to strive for we demand,
+even at the risk of bereavement.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+It is at once the disadvantage and the glory of our own generation that
+it is only on the fourth or fifth step of the stairway by which we are
+climbing. But at least it is heir to the conquests which go to its stage
+of advance. Untimely bereavement is less common to-day than it was a
+few centuries ago; it is more common to-day than it will be a few
+centuries hence. Such storms of affliction as in 1712 swept over the
+house of Louis Quatorze occur less frequently now. But they still occur.
+We have not got beyond them. They are only bound to occur less and less
+frequently, till they become no more than matters of scarcely
+credible record.
+
+In the meanwhile it may be a comfort to others, as it is to me, to be
+able to "absolve God" from the charge of capricious and intolerable
+thwarting of our love. To me, at least, the blow is easier to bear when
+I know that His beloved hand didn't strike it. I cannot understand being
+tortured out of sheer love, while patience with what leaves me with my
+whole life maimed is only the patience of the vanquished.
+
+On the other hand, I can bear with my mistakes, I can bear with the
+mistakes of others, I can bear with the failures which are the fruit of
+our lack of race-development, so long as I know that God is on my side.
+The affliction which would be too poignant as coming directly from Him
+is half soothed already when I know that He is soothing it. I may have
+lost what He gave; but far from snatching it from me He would have had
+me keep it. Of all my comforts that assurance is the first.
+
+In addition, I have the satisfaction--a meagre satisfaction you may call
+it, but a satisfaction all the same--of knowing that by the ploughing
+and harrowing of my heart a step is taken toward that future in which
+hearts shall be less harrowed and ploughed. "It must never happen
+again." That is what we keep saying with regard to the Great War. Well,
+it may happen again. We have as yet no trustworthy pledge to the
+contrary. But of this we may be sure, that it will not happen again very
+often. It is less likely to happen again for the very reason that it has
+happened. If the Great War does not prove to be the last war it is the
+more probable that the next war will. I mean that we do learn our
+lessons, though we learn them only as feeble-minded children learn
+theirs. Agony by agony, something is gained, and my personal agony
+counts with the rest. The fact may give me no more than the faintest
+consolation, and possibly none at all; and still in the long, slow
+stages of our upward climb my agony counts, whether its counting
+consoles me or not.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The inference that we come into the life of this planet for an
+"appointed time" we draw from what we see of God's system of order. All
+other things do so, as far as we observe. The plant springs, to grow and
+bloom, to bear fruit and seed, and so renew itself. Fish, bird, and
+animal have their appointed round varying only in detail from that of
+the plant. Man's appointed round would seem to vary only in detail from
+that of the animal, except that he himself interferes with it.
+
+To the best of my knowledge the plant, from the blade of grass to the
+oak or the orchid, always fulfils its life-span, unless some act or
+accident cripples or destroys it. I mean that we never see God bringing
+the shoot above the soil just to nip it before it unfolds. We never see
+Him bring the bud to the eve of blossoming just to wither it. Having
+given it its mission He supplies it with rain, sun, and sustenance to
+bring that mission to its end. True, the plant has enemies, like
+everything else, enemies which it may not escape. But generally
+speaking, it does escape them, and lives to finish its task.
+
+So, too, with the more active living thing. It, too, has its enemies.
+It, too, may not escape them. But assuming that it does, God allows it,
+to the best of our observation, to work out its full development. The
+only "bereavement" he brings to the lion, the thrush, or the elephant,
+or any other creature capable of grief is, apparently, from those
+hostile sources of which the hostility is more or less gratuitous. A man
+shoots a lion, or the lion kills an antelope; but they do so through
+misreading of God's Will, not through fulfilling it.
+
+For the lower ranks of creation misread that Will in their way as much
+as the higher in theirs. All ferocity must be misinterpretation of the
+divine law of harmony and mutual help. Internecine destruction probably
+has a meaning we can only guess at. Guessing at it we are at liberty to
+surmise that what God sees as loving contention for excellence, each
+gaining by the other's gain, we understand as bitter strife, and
+consumption of the flesh and blood. The rivalry we can best appreciate
+is that of brutality; the chief benefit the stronger creature seeks from
+the weaker is in killing and eating him. Why this should be part of our
+struggle I do not know; but part of our struggle it seems to be--from
+the humblest organism up to man--the mistaking of God's Will before
+learning to understand it.
+
+And lest I should seem to assume too much, in saying this, let me add
+that our progress out of this state of preying on each other has long
+been foreseen by the pioneers of truth. The vision is at least as
+ancient as Isaiah, when he descried from afar the accomplished rule of
+the Son of David:
+
+"With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity
+for the meek of the earth.... And righteousness shall be the girdle of
+his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall
+dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and
+the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child
+shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones
+shall lie down together.... And the sucking child shall play on the hole
+of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
+They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; _for the earth
+shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord_, as the waters cover
+the seas."
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+If I am correct in thinking that our passage across the life of this
+planet is meant to last for an "appointed time," I presume that that
+time would be measured by experience rather than by years. There exists
+what we vaguely call the round of life. We are born; we grow; we know
+family interests; we learn; we work; we love; we marry; we beget
+children; we train them to take our places; we pass beyond. There are
+variations on this routine, some of us having more, some of us having
+less; but in general it may be taken as typical. It is our mission, as
+the plants and the lower living things have theirs.
+
+It seems reasonable, then, to think that each baby born is meant by the
+Father's Will to reap this experience before it proceeds to further
+experience. It must be a stage in its growth or it would not come into
+it. When it is balked of it something is amiss. The child who dies in
+infancy has lost something. The lad or the girl whom our organised life
+drives from this plane before reaching fruition has lost something. The
+parent whom our conditions force onward before he has brought his task
+to a stage at which he can peacefully lay it down has lost something. I
+am not saying that God does not control resources by which that loss can
+be abundantly made up, but only that the loss would seem to be there.
+It is loss for the one who departs as well as for those who
+remain behind.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+That is what I gather from the instances in the Old and New Testament in
+which those who had gone on before their time were called back again.
+There are six of these instances in all: one in the Old Testament, and
+five in the New. Of four of them we are expressly told that those
+restored were young; of the other two nothing is said as to age, but one
+at least was probably young, while the other was greatly needed.
+
+The child called back by Elisha was still a little boy. The daughter of
+Jairus was still a little girl. The son of the widow of Nain was a young
+man, as was also Eutychus raised by St. Paul. Though we are not told the
+age of Lazarus we judge that he was at most no more than in man's
+maturity. Dorcas of Lydda may have been of any age, but, judging by the
+circumstances, she had not completed her task.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+My point is this, that if these things happened, they seem to bear out
+my suggestion that our own inducement of premature death cuts us off
+from fulfilling our appointed time and getting our appointed experience.
+Only on some such ground can we believe that any would be permitted
+to return.
+
+Should this be so we would be in a position to assume that all who go
+over ahead of time would be allowed to come back, if we had sufficient
+spiritual power to recall them. But that power is of the rarest. Our
+Lord, apparently, was in control of it only at times, and on at least
+one occasion, that of the raising of Lazarus, its exercise was not what
+we should call easy. But that He believed it to be at human command to
+some extent is clear from the fact that its use became one of His four
+basic principles. "Raise the dead," was the second of the commands with
+which He sent out his first seventy disciples.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+I dwell on the subject only because of its bearing on the love of God.
+If it becomes plain to us that by the understanding of God's Will we
+gain a richer experience, with less fear of being cut off before our
+work is done, that Will makes a stronger appeal for being understood.
+That we have not understood it earlier, that we have not particularly
+cared to understand it, is due, I think, to our assumption of its
+capriciousness. It has been so underscored as inscrutable--the word
+generally applied to it--that the man in the street has felt mystified
+by it from the start. Being mystified he has settled down to think as
+little about it as he could.
+
+But a great force striving with man to put common sense into his methods
+is worth comprehending. It does not compel us to common-sense methods
+for the reason that we value only that which we work out for ourselves.
+We work nothing out but through suffering. We learn nothing, we take no
+forward step, except as we are whipped to it by anguish. That is why
+there is so much mourning in the world. God does not cause it; we bring
+it on ourselves; but each time we bring it on ourselves we creep one
+tiny step nearer that race-conclusion which is now coming to us about
+war, and will one day come to us about death, that "It must never
+happen again."
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+In other words, death will be abolished by race-unanimity not to submit
+to it. We shall have travelled far in this direction when the average
+mind begins to perceive that God did not send death into His creation,
+but that we ourselves developed it. Having developed it ourselves we
+must get rid of it ourselves, and already some of that work has been
+done. "For seeing that death came through man," are the words of St.
+Paul, "through man comes also the resurrection of the dead." When he
+speaks of "Jesus Christ who hath abolished death," his words are
+stronger still. "He has put an end to death and has brought Life and
+Immortality to light by the Good News, of which I have been appointed a
+preacher, apostle, and teacher."
+
+This Life and Immortality are not to be relegated to other ages and
+worlds; they are for us to work out now.
+
+The degree to which we work them out depends on our own efforts. Death
+will be our doom for many generations to come, because so few of us have
+the energy to strive against it. Release can come only when the race at
+large is willing to cast the evil thing off. One would suppose that we
+would be willing now; but we are far from being willing. We shall go on
+forcing our dear ones to die before their time, falling sick ourselves,
+enduring agonies, and rotting in graves, till we have suffered to the
+point at which we cry out that we have had enough. There will be a day
+when in presence of the useless thing we shall say, with something
+amounting to one accord, "It must stop." That day will be the beginning
+of the end of the age-long curse to which we still submit ourselves. In
+the language of St. Paul, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death,"
+leaving us with the belief that, when we have progressed to the
+overthrow of other forces opposed to us, we shall go on to the overthrow
+of this one--and that it will be overthrown.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+From one kind of fear this reasoning has almost entirely delivered
+me--that of being taken away in the midst of my responsibilities, and
+before my work is done. I am not so audacious as to say that it may not
+happen; but only that, reasoning as I do, I am no longer a prey to
+apprehensions on the point. They used to come to me, not like the
+money-fear, an abiding visitant, but in spells of intense dread.
+
+I suppose that most men with families, and much unfinished business,
+know this dread, and have suffered from it. You think of the home you
+have built up, and of what it would be without you. You think of your
+wife, grappling with a kind of difficulty to which she is unaccustomed.
+You think of your children who turn to you as their central point, and
+who would be left without your guidance. You think of other duties you
+have undertaken, and wonder who will carry them through. You seem to be
+so essential to everyone and everything; and yet, you have been told, it
+may be the Will of God to remove you from them, and either let your
+plans collapse, or put their execution on the shoulders of someone else.
+
+I am not so presumptuous as to say that for me this may not happen. I
+only say that I do not think it will. I do not think so because,
+according to my judgment, He having helped me to go as far as I have
+gone, will help me to finish my task before giving me another one.
+
+My task, I think, He must estimate as I do. That is, my duties to others
+being not wholly of my choosing, but having come to me according to what
+I may call His weighing and measuring, I take them to be the duties He
+would have me perform. If so, He would naturally have me perform them
+till I come to the place where I can reasonably lay them down.
+
+Therefore, I dismiss the fear of untimely separation from my appointed
+work. Such a separation may come; but if it does, it will probably come
+by some such means as I have briefly tried to sketch; my own mistakes;
+the mistakes of others; the effect of race-pressure. In any case, my
+personal resistance, it seems to me, is made the stouter by feeling that
+my tasks are His tasks, and so that so long as I am needful to their
+accomplishment, I remain. If I go, it will be because He has the
+succession of events so planned as to reduce collapse, failure, or
+suffering to a minimum.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+B. The thought that the minute after death will only be another little
+step in Growth, to be followed by another and then another, as we are
+used to growing here, greatly diminishes one's shrinking at the change.
+
+It is entirely a modern thought. The past, even of a few centuries ago,
+never entertained it. It is doubtful if it was mentally prepared to
+entertain it, or evolve the idea.
+
+This is not to depreciate our fathers' mental powers. Different
+generations have different gifts. One age works along one line, another
+along another. The past had a certain revelation of truth; but the
+revelation of truth did not end with the past. Our ancestors received as
+much as they could take. What, it seems, they were unable to take was
+anything which made death less horrible. We may say, in fact, that they
+didn't want it. They liked having death made horrible. Many people like
+it still. The mitigation of that horror they condemn, resent, and often
+ascribe to the devil.
+
+And yet there is a tendency to see light through this gloom, and to seek
+views of death more in the line of common sense than those which have
+come down to us. It is not a strong tendency, but it exists. It exists
+in the face of opposition on the part of those religious conservatives
+who think conservatism and orthodoxy the same thing; and it runs the
+gauntlet of the sneers and jeers of the materially minded who make
+common cause with the old guard of the churches; but it exists. It
+exists, and goes forward, becoming a factor in the thought-life of
+our time.
+
+It is not yet two hundred years since the plea was put forth on behalf
+of mankind that, in the administration of divine justice, no one suffers
+less than he deserves, but also that no one suffers more.
+
+The hostility to this seemingly harmless teaching was of the most
+intense. There is hostility to it still, but mild as compared with that
+felt by our great-great-grandfathers. That no one should suffer less
+than he deserves went without saying; but that no one should suffer more
+was declared a black heresy. As there are those who declare it a black
+heresy to-day, it may be worth while, in the interests of the conquest
+of fear, to say a word as to the relation of God and punishment.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+To my mind it is chiefly verbal.
+
+It is permissible to say that there is no such thing as punishment;
+there are only wrong results. It depends upon your way of putting it.
+The wrong method produces wrong results in proportion as it is wrong.
+Wrong results mean wrong conditions; and wrong conditions mean
+suffering. You may call this the law of God, but it is the law of
+anything. It is not positive law, it is negative. As a matter of fact,
+God does not need to put forth a law on the point since everything
+works that way.
+
+What we call sin is simply a wrong method. It may be a wrong method
+meant to produce wrong; or it may be a wrong method in the hope of
+producing right. In any case it brings its consequence in pain.
+
+That consequence may be corrected in this phase of our being, or it may
+be carried over into the next. Carried over into the next the
+individual, according to our ancestral teaching, comes under the
+sentence in which our fathers delighted as "damnation." Not only did
+damnation involve the most fiendish torture the Almighty could invent,
+but the torture was inflicted, without an instant of relief, throughout
+the eons of eternity.
+
+I recall a sermon to which I listened as a boy of nine. It was on a
+summer's evening, when the windows of the church were open. A moth
+fluttered about a light. The church stood at the foot of a mountain. The
+preacher was trying to explain to us the eternal duration of God's
+punishment. "Think of that moth," he said, "carrying away one grain of
+sand from that mountain, and going off for a million years, after which
+it would return and take away another grain. And think of it keeping
+this up, one grain every million years, till the whole mountain was
+removed. Well, that would be only a moment as compared with the time you
+would be in hell."
+
+On the generations comforted and fortified by this sort of teaching I
+have no comment to make; but we of another generation should surely not
+be reproved for moving away from it. We move away from it in the
+direction of common sense, since common sense must be an attribute of
+the Universal Father as it is of the wiser among mankind.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+I revert, then, to my statement that God's relation to punishment is
+chiefly verbal. His "wrath against sin" is a way of "putting it." If you
+can best express the suffering which springs from wrong methods as
+"God's wrath" you are at liberty so to express yourself; but we should
+not lose sight of the fact that the wrong methods produce the suffering,
+and not an outburst of fury on the part of One who is put before us
+as Love.
+
+The fact that the Hebrew writers often used a vivid form of warning and
+invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew
+writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he
+required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying
+this I am not dodging the issue; I am stating a fact which rules in all
+historical interpretation. To make the phraseology of two thousand years
+before Christ the literal expression of the thought of two thousand
+years after Him is to be archaic beyond reason. Having grasped a
+principle, we phrase it in the language of our time.
+
+The language of our time makes, on the whole, for restraint, sobriety,
+and exactitude of statement. Few of our habits modify themselves more
+constantly and more rapidly than our forms of speech. Not only does each
+generation find something special to itself, but each year and each
+season. To me it seems that much of our misunderstanding of God springs
+from the effort to fix on Him forevermore the peculiarities we infer
+from the idiom of five thousand years ago. Only to a degree does that
+idiom convey to us what is conveyed to those who heard it as a living
+tongue; and of that degree much is lost when it percolates through
+translation. To cling to words when all we need is to know principles,
+clothing them in our own way, seems to me not only absurd in fact but
+lamentable in result. I venture to think that more people have been
+alienated from God by a pious but misapplied verbal use than were ever
+estranged from Him by sin.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Our ancient Hebrew predecessors understood God in their own way. We
+understand Him in the same way, but with the clarification wrought by
+the intervening years of progress. In other words, they bequeath us a
+treasure which we are free to enrich with our own discoveries.
+
+Among our own discoveries is a clearer comprehension of pain as
+resulting from wrong methods, and of God's detachment from pain. More
+and more, punishment becomes a concept we reject. Even in our penal
+institutions, which have been for so many centuries a barbarous token of
+our incompetence, we begin to substitute for punishment something more
+nearly akin to cure. If we find mere vengeance unworthy of ourselves we
+must find it unworthy of the Universal Father. If we concede to the
+criminal the right to a further chance we concede it to ourselves. If we
+recognise the fact that the sinner on earth may redeem himself, working
+from error towards righteousness, the same principle should rule in the
+whole range of existence. There is nothing about the earth-life to make
+it the only phase of effort and probation. Effort and probation are
+probably conditions of eternity. They will be in our next experience as
+they have been in this, leading us on from strength to strength.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+One main difference between the mind of the past and the modern mind is
+that the mind of the past tended to be static, while the mind of to-day
+is more and more attuned to a dynamic universe. Civilisation before the
+nineteenth century was accustomed to long periods with relatively little
+change. Most people spent their entire lives in the same town or the
+same countryside. In the class in which they were born they lived and
+died, with little thought of getting out of it. This being so they
+looked for the same static conditions after death as they saw before it.
+A changeless heaven appalled them with no sense of monotony, nor did a
+changeless hell do anything to shake their nerves. Their nerves were not
+easily shaken. They were a phlegmatic race, placid, unimaginative,
+reposeful.
+
+Because we of to-day are more restless it does not follow that our views
+should be truer. We only know they are truer because we are so much
+nearer the truth than they had the opportunity to come. We prove that we
+are nearer the truth by our greater command of the Father's resources.
+If our whole horizon of truth were not broadened, we could not possess
+this command.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+Changing our static conception of life to that of a dynamic will to
+unfold, we see the climax we commonly call death as only a new step in
+unfoldment. Whatever I have been, the step must be one in advance. It
+would not be in accord with creative energy that I should go backward.
+The advance may entail suffering, since it is probable that it will give
+me a heightened perception of the wrong in my methods; but there are
+conditions in which suffering signifies advance.
+
+And yet if I suffer it can only be with what I may call a curative
+suffering. It will be suffering that comes from the recognition of
+mistake; not the hopeless anguish of the damned. Having learned "how not
+to do it," I perceive "how to do it"--and go on.
+
+But the perception of "how to do it" is precisely what most of us have
+been acquiring. I venture to think that few of us will come face to face
+with death without being more or less prepared for it. Life is so
+organised that, at its worst, all but the rare exceptions make progress
+daily, through obedience to the laws of righteousness.
+
+In saying this we must count as righteousness not merely the carrying
+out of a rule of thumb laid down by man's so-called morality, or the
+technical regulations prescribed by the churches for the use of their
+adherents; we must include every response to every high call. We must
+remember that all a man does in the way of effort to be a good son, a
+good brother, a good husband, a good father, a good workman, a good
+citizen, is of the nature of slowly creeping forward. Above every other
+form of training of the self this endeavour determines a man's spiritual
+standing, and his state of worthiness. He may know some failure in each
+of these details; and yet the fact that in the main he is set--as I am
+convinced the great majority are set--toward fulfilling his
+responsibilities helps him to be ready when the time comes to put the
+material away.
+
+The great common sense of the nations brought us to this perception
+during the years when the young men of the world were going down like
+wheat before the reaping machine. For the most part, doubtless, they
+were young men in whom the ladies who attend our churches would have
+seen much to reprimand. The moral customs of their countries were
+possibly held by them lightly. The two points which constitute pretty
+nearly all of American morality they may have disregarded. And yet we
+felt that their answer to the summons, which to them at least was a
+summons to sacrifice, showed them as men who had largely worked out
+their redemption. Whatever our traditions, we were sure that those who
+were ready to do anything so great could go to the Father without fear.
+
+But war calls for no more than a summing up and distillation of the
+qualities we cultivate in peace. These men were ready because homes,
+offices, banks, shops, factories, and farms had trained them to be
+ready. So they are training all of us. Traditions help; the churches
+help; but when it comes to the directing of the life toward
+righteousness--the effort to do everything rightly--no one thing has
+the monopoly.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Going to the Father without fear! All the joy of life seems to me to
+hang on that little phrase. I used it just now of the young men who
+passed over from the battlefield; but I used it there with limitations.
+Going to the Father without fear is a privilege for every minute of the
+day. More and more knowledge of the Father is the progress for which we
+crave, since more knowledge of the Father means a fuller view of all
+that makes up the spiritual universe. Into that knowledge we are
+advancing every hour we live; into that knowledge we shall still be
+advancing at the hour when we die. The Father will still be showing us
+something new; the something new will still be showing us the Father.
+
+It will be something new, as we can receive it. He who can receive
+little will be given little; he who can receive much will be given much.
+In growth all is adjusted to capacity; it is not meant to shock, force,
+or frighten. The next step in growth being always an easy step, I can
+feel sure of moving onwards easily--"from strength to strength," in the
+words of one of the Songs for the Sons of Korah, "until unto the God of
+gods appeareth everyone of them in Zion."[33]
+
+[33] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+After all, the conquest of fear is largely a question of vitality. Those
+who have most life are most fearless. The main question is as to the
+source from which an increase of life is to be obtained.
+
+An important psychological truth was involved when our Lord made the
+declaration, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly." This, I think, was the first plain statement
+ever made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more
+dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But
+once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth
+by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as
+spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has
+evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in
+full-blooded exercise he has seen no connection.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Few of us do see a connection between strength of spirit and strength of
+limb; but it is there. I am not saying that a strong spirit cannot
+coexist with a feeble frame; but the feeble frame is a mistake. It is
+the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear.
+The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it
+a chance. Abundant life must be _life_, healthy, active, and radiant. It
+should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and
+from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and
+triumphant.
+
+This vigour and triumph we ought to work into our point of view, so
+kneading it into our subconsciousness. Strong in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is strong, fearless in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is fearless, the going from strength to strength
+becomes a matter of course to us. Urging us on in sheer joy of power,
+abundance of life becomes still more abundant through the indwelling of
+the life-principle. That mystic resistless force, which has fashioned
+already so many forms, is forever at work fashioning a higher type
+of man.
+
+Each one of us is that higher type of man potentially. Though we can
+forge but little ahead of our time and generation, it is much to know
+that the Holy Ghost of Life is our animating breath, pushing us on to
+the overcoming of all obstacles. For me as an individual it is a support
+to feel that the principle which was never yet defeated is my principle,
+and that whatever the task of to-day or to-morrow I have the ability to
+perform it well. The hesitation that may seize me, or the questioning
+which for an instant may shake my faith, is but a reminder that the
+life-principle is not only with me, but more abundantly with me in
+proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which
+crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but
+it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet
+new requirements. "From strength to strength" is its law, carrying me on
+with the impetus of its own mounting toward God.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+And the impetus of its own mounting toward God is not confined to what
+we view as the great things of life. Between great and small it makes no
+distinction. It is as eager on behalf of the man behind a counter as on
+that of him who is governing a country. The woman who has on her
+shoulders the social duties of an embassy, or the financial cares of a
+great business, has it no more at her command than she who is nursing
+her baby or reckoning her pennies to make both ends meet. It rushes to
+the help of all. Wherever there is duty or responsibility it is begging
+at the doors of our hearts to be let in, to share the work and ease
+the burden.
+
+As I get up each morning, it is there. As I plan my day while I dress
+myself, it is there. As I think with misgiving of some letter I tremble
+at receiving, or with distaste at some job I must tackle before night,
+it is there.
+
+It is there, not only with its help, but with its absolute knowledge of
+the right way for me to act. The care that worries me may be so big as
+to involve millions of other people's money, or it may be as small as
+the typing of a letter; but the right way of fulfilling either task is
+pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My
+success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure
+sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am
+painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is
+essential to the Holy Ghost of Life.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+So I, the individual, try to confront each day with the knowledge that I
+am infused with a guiding, animating principle which will not let me
+drop behind, or lose my modest reward, so long as I trust to the force
+which carries me along. By trusting to it I mean resting on it quietly,
+without worrying, without being afraid that it will fail me. "Fret not
+thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil."[34] By doing evil, I
+presume is meant making a mistake, taking the wrong course. If, however
+great the cause, I fret myself I disturb the right conditions. By
+disturbing the right conditions I choke off the flow of the
+life-principle through my energies.
+
+[34] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+At a moment when the little buffer state between Egypt and Assyria was
+afraid of being overrun by the one or the other it was frantically
+casting about to decide with which it would throw in its lot. "With
+neither," a great prophet thundered in the ears of the people. "In
+calmly resting your safety lieth; in quiet trust shall be your
+strength."[35]
+
+[35] The Book of Isaiah.
+
+My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these
+four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the
+time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not
+pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a
+few lines above, that _I tried_. Trying is as far as I have gone; but
+even trying is productive of wonderful results.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Least of all do I claim to have covered the whole ground, or to have
+discussed to its fulness any one of the points which I have raised.
+Whole regions of thought which bear on my subject--such as psychology,
+philosophy, and religion as I understand the word--I have carefully
+endeavoured to avoid. My object has been to keep as closely as possible
+to the line of personal experience, which has a value only because it is
+personal. Telling no more than what one man has endeavoured to work out,
+what I have written seeks no converts. Though, for the sake of brevity,
+it may at times seem to take a hortatory tone, it is a record and no
+more. In it the reader will doubtless find much to correct, and
+possibly to reject; and this must be as it happens. What I hope he will
+neither correct nor reject is the sincerity of the longing to find God's
+relations to the phenomena of life, and the extent to which the
+phenomena of life reflect God.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+In the end we come back to that, the eternal struggle whereby that which
+is unlike God becomes more and more like Him. In watching the process,
+and taking part in it, there is, when all is said and done, a sense of
+glorious striving and success. With each generation some veil which hid
+the Creator from the creature is torn forever aside. God, who is always
+here, is seen a little more clearly by each generation as being; here.
+God, who ever since His sun first rose and His rain first fell has been
+making Himself known to us, is by each generation a little better
+understood. God, whom we have tried to lock up in churches or banish to
+Sundays and special holy days, is breaking through all our
+prohibitions, growing more and more a force in our homes and our
+schools, in our shops and our factories, in our offices and our banks,
+in our embassies, congresses, parliaments, and seats of government. Into
+His light we advance slowly, unwillingly, driven by our pain; but
+we advance.
+
+The further we advance the more we perceive of power. The more we
+perceive of power the more we are freed from fear. The more we are freed
+from fear the more exultantly we feel our abundance of life. The more
+exultantly we feel our abundance of life the more we reject death in any
+of its forms. And the more we reject death in any of its forms the more
+we reflect that Holy Ghost of Life which urges us on from conquest to
+conquest, from strength to strength, to the fulfilling of ourselves.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CONQUEST OF FEAR ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Conquest of Fear, by Basil King
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+Title: The Conquest of Fear
+
+Author: Basil King
+
+Release Date: February, 2006  [EBook #9944]
+[This file was first posted on November 2, 2003]
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CONQUEST OF FEAR ***
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+E-text prepared by Kevin Handy, Dave Maddock, and the Project Gutenberg
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+
+THE CONQUEST OF FEAR
+
+BASIL KING
+
+WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY
+HENRY C. LINK
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+      INTRODUCTION
+
+   I. FEAR AND THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE
+
+  II. THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE AND GOD
+
+ III. GOD AND HIS SELF-EXPRESSION
+
+  IV. GOD'S SELF-EXPRESSION AND THE MIND OF TO-DAY
+
+   V. THE MIND OF TO-DAY AND THE WORLD AS IT IS
+
+  VI. THE WORLD AS IT IS AND THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR
+
+ VII. THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR AND THE FEAR OF DEATH
+
+VIII. THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+by Henry C. Link, Ph.D.
+
+_Author of_ THE REDISCOVERY OF MAN, THE RETURN TO RELIGION, etc.
+
+
+There are many books which give some help to many people. There are
+books which give a set of rules, or even one master rule, by which to
+meet the problems of life. This is not such a book. It suggests no
+simple recipe for the conquest of fear. Instead, it presents, what all
+too few of us to-day possess, a philosophy of life.
+
+Moreover, in contrast to the dominant thinking of our age, which is
+materialistic, King's philosophy is spiritual and religious. Indeed, the
+ideas in this book are so profoundly different from the commonly
+accepted ideas of our times that they will come as a shock to many
+readers. One purpose of this introduction is to prepare the reader for
+such a shock.
+
+I have said that the dominant thinking of our age is materialistic, and
+by that I mean also physical. Let me illustrate this broad statement
+with reference to the subject of fears alone. The conquest of fear has
+gone on year after year chiefly through physical means. Physical pain
+has always been one of the great sources of fear. Now ether and other
+anaesthetics have eliminated the chief pains of major operations. Older
+people can still remember their fear of the dentist, when killing a
+nerve or pulling a tooth caused excruciating pain. Now local
+anaesthetics even in minor troubles have made dentistry almost painless.
+We have not conquered these fears of pain--rather their cause has
+been removed.
+
+Twilight sleep, the artificial sleep to alleviate the pains of
+childbirth, is the perfect expression of the scientific and
+materialistic elimination of fear. By a chemical blackout of the mind, a
+dimming of the conscious self, the person is enabled to escape the
+necessity of facing and conquering fear through his own resources.
+
+I am not condemning the physical alleviation of pain or the progress of
+physical science. I am only describing a trend, and that is the growing
+emphasis on the elimination of fears by science rather than on their
+conquest by the individual.
+
+Illness has always been a great source of fear, and still is. The dread
+of cancer is one of the terrifying fears of our time and fortunes are
+spent in cancer research and education. THE CONQUEST OF FEAR was written
+as a result of the author's threatened total blindness. He faced a fact
+for which there seemed no physical remedy--hence his great need for a
+spiritual conquest of this great fear.
+
+And yet, year by year, physical science has been eliminating or
+reducing the dangers of sickness. Vaccines for the prevention of the
+dread disease, small-pox, are now a matter of course. Vaccines and
+specifics against the deadly tetanus, against typhoid fever, diphtheria,
+syphilis, and other fearful diseases have become commonplace. The fear
+of pneumonia has been almost eliminated through the discoveries of the
+miraculous sulpha drugs. Science has done wonders toward the elimination
+of such fears. A man need hardly conquer the fear of any particular
+sickness--there is left for his conquest chiefly the fear of dying.
+
+In addition to physical disease, our civilization has now developed
+mental ailments of all kinds. These include a large category of fears
+called phobias--claustrophobia, agoraphobia, photophobia, altaphobia,
+phonophobia, etc.
+
+Three fields or professions, other than religion and philosophy, have
+sought to deal with these fears, the psychiatric, the psychoanalytic,
+and the psychological. The medical psychiatric profession has naturally
+emphasized physical remedies beginning with sedatives and bromides to
+induce artificial relaxation and ending up with lobectomy or the
+complete cutting off of the frontal lobes of the brain, the centers of
+man's highest thought processes. Between these two extremes are the
+shock treatments in which an injection of insulin or metrazol into the
+blood stream causes the person to fall into a sort of epileptic fit
+during which he loses consciousness. Through a series of such shock
+treatments some of the higher nerve centers or nerve pathways are
+destroyed. By this process a person's fears may also be eliminated and
+he may be permanently or temporarily cured. In short, the person does
+not conquer the fears in his mind; the psychiatrist or neurologist, by
+physically destroying a part of the person's brain, destroys also
+the fears.
+
+How strongly this physical approach has taken hold of people was made
+plain to me through an article of mine on how to conquer fears. The
+emphasis in this article was on how people could overcome their fears
+and worries through their own efforts. To illustrate the opposite
+extreme, I mentioned the brain operations and shock treatments by which
+psychiatry now often deals with fears. Among the many people who wrote
+to me as a result of this article, _the majority inquired where they
+could obtain such an operation_! To such extremes have many people gone
+in their desire to eliminate fear by physical means rather than conquer
+it through their own spiritual powers.
+
+The psychoanalyst deals with a person's phobias through what seems like
+an intellectual or rational process. According to psychoanalysis,
+phobias or fears are due to some buried or subconscious complex. By
+daily or frequent talks with a psychoanalyst for a period of six months
+or a year, a person's subconscious disturbance _may_ be brought to
+light, and if so, the fear is supposed automatically to disappear. Even
+if true, this process is a highly materialistic one, at least in the
+sense that only people who can spend thousands of dollars can afford
+such treatments.
+
+The psychologist, as well as some psychiatrists who have studied normal
+psychology, regard many fears as normal experiences which the individual
+can cope with largely through his own resources and with very little
+help in the way of visits or treatment. The trouble arises in the case
+of those people who have no personal resources to draw on. Their lives
+are so lacking in spiritual power, or so full of intellectual scepticism
+and distrust, that they cannot help themselves. They have no religious
+convictions or certainties by which to obtain leverage in their
+struggles. They have no firm philosophy of life on which they or those
+who would help them can lay hold. They are putty in the hands of the
+fears and forces that beset them from without.
+
+The psychologist and the psychiatrist both find it difficult to do much
+to help such a person. And yet, this is the kind of person our
+civilization and education tends increasingly to produce. By the
+physical elimination of the causes of fear we have gradually undermined
+man's inner resources for the conquest of fear.
+
+This materialistic trend has received a new impetus from the fields of
+political science, economics, and sociology. A dozen years ago economic
+disaster threatened to stampede the nation. Millions who had lost their
+jobs began to fear penury and want. Millions who still had jobs feared
+that they would lose them. Other millions began to fear the loss of
+their money and possessions. Rich and poor, becoming afraid that the
+country was going to pieces, rushed to the banks to withdraw their
+savings and brought on the nation-wide bank closings. Those were days
+when everyone knew paralyzing fears.
+
+History will record the fact that these fears were met, not by conquest,
+not by drawing on the moral resources and inner fortitude of the
+American citizen, but by a collection of wholesale materialistic
+schemes. These schemes included such devices as inflating the dollar,
+raising prices, expanding the government debt, paying farmers not to
+produce crops, government housing projects, and many others. The fears
+of unemployment and poverty in old age were to be eliminated wholesale
+through a planned economy, a new social order. By an elaborate system of
+book-keeping called Social Security, a whole nation was to win freedom
+from want and freedom from fear.
+
+But while we were building our smug little house of Social Security, the
+whole world was crashing around us. Instead of achieving local security
+we find ourselves now in the midst of world-wide insecurity. Far from
+having eliminated the economic causes of fear, we now find these causes
+multiplied many times. To the fear of losing our money is now added the
+fear of losing our sons. To the fear of losing our jobs is added the
+fear of losing our lives. To the fear of depression and inflation is
+added the fear of losing the very freedoms for which the war is
+being fought.
+
+At last we see, or are on the point of seeing, that materialism breeds
+worse fears than it cures; that economics and sociology create more
+social problems than they solve; that science makes it possible to
+destroy wealth and lives much faster than it can build them. It took
+years of science to achieve the airplane and to eliminate people's fear
+of flying. Now, suddenly, the airplane has become the greatest source of
+destruction and of fear on the globe. Cities which were decades in the
+building are blasted out of being in a night. Millions of people must
+regulate their lives in fear of these dread visitors.
+
+This is the background against which the conquest of fear presents its
+philosophy of courage and of hope. It is a philosophy diametrically
+opposed to the dominant beliefs and practices of our materialistic age.
+One hesitates to use the words spiritual and moral because they have
+become catch words. Nevertheless, King's philosophy is a spiritual and a
+moral one, and the reader will gain from it a clearer concept of what
+these words really mean.
+
+When I remember my reactions to the first portion of this book, I can
+readily picture the impatience and even scorn of many intellectuals and
+pseudo-intellectuals. Because of its emphasis on the religious nature of
+the universe and on the spiritual power of the individual, it may seem
+to them naïve. Because of its consistent condemnation of Mammon, of
+materialism and the economic-sociological interpretation of life, it may
+seem to them old-fashioned. Actually, the book is highly sophisticated
+and is more novel to-day than the day it was written because since that
+time we have strayed twenty years further from the truth.
+
+One day I was having luncheon with a man who, during the course of the
+conversation, remarked: "I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your
+latest book,--" As almost any writer would, I pricked up my ears
+expectantly.
+
+"Yes," he went on, "I got a great deal out of your recent book, but the
+book which helped me more than any I have ever read is a book called THE
+CONQUEST OF FEAR, by Basil King. Do you happen to know it?"
+
+"Know it!" I exclaimed. "I not only know it, I am just on the point of
+writing an introduction to a new edition of the book. Would you mind
+telling me how it helped you?"
+
+He thereupon related how, at a certain period of his life, he had left
+an excellent position to take a new one which seemed more promising. It
+soon developed that the difficulties of this position were such as to
+make his success seem almost hopeless. He became obsessed with the idea
+that the people with whom he had to deal were "out to get him." His
+fears of the job and of his associates grew to the point where a nervous
+breakdown seemed inevitable.
+
+One day his daughter told him that she needed a book in her school work
+which he remembered having packed in a box that had been stored in the
+attic and not yet opened. When he opened the box, the first book which
+he picked up was THE CONQUEST OF FEAR. It was evidently one of those
+books which had somehow come into the possession of his family, but
+which he had never read.
+
+This time, however, he sat down in the attic and began to read it.
+During the course of the next year or so he read it carefully not once
+but four or five times. "It marked the turning point in my life," he
+told me. "It enabled me to conquer the fears which were threatening to
+ruin me at the time, and it gave me a philosophy which has stood me in
+good stead ever since."
+
+A philosophy which marked the turning point in his life and which has
+stood him in good stead ever since! THE CONQUEST OF FEAR offers
+such a philosophy not only to individuals suffering from fears peculiar
+to them, but to a world of individuals suffering, or about to suffer,
+from the collapse of world-wide materialism. In this day of chaos and
+uncertainty, here is the modern version of the parable of the man who
+built his house upon a rock instead of on the sand: "and the rain
+descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
+house; and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock."
+
+H. C. L.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+FEAR AND THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+When I say that during most of my conscious life I have been a prey to
+fears I take it for granted that I am expressing the case of the
+majority of people. I cannot remember the time when a dread of one kind
+or another was not in the air. In childhood it was the fear of going to
+bed, of that mysterious time when regular life was still going on
+downstairs, while I was buried alive under sheets and blankets. Later it
+was the fear of school, the first contact of the tender little soul with
+life's crudeness. Later still there was the experience which all of us
+know of waking in the morning with a feeling of dismay at what we have
+to do on getting up; the obvious duties in which perhaps we have grown
+stale; the things we have neglected; those in which we have made
+mistakes; those as to which we have wilfully done wrong; those which
+weary or bore or annoy or discourage us. Sometimes there are more
+serious things still: bereavements, or frightfully adverse conditions,
+or hardships we never expected brought on us by someone else.
+
+It is unnecessary to catalogue these situations, since we all at times
+in our lives have to face them daily. Fear dogs one of us in one way and
+another in another, but everyone in some way.
+
+Look at the people you run up against in the course of a few hours.
+Everyone is living or working in fear. The mother is afraid for her
+children. The father is afraid for his business. The clerk is afraid for
+his job. The worker is afraid of his boss or his competitor. There is
+hardly a man who is not afraid that some other man will do him a bad
+turn. There is hardly a woman who is not afraid that things she craves
+may be denied her, or that what she loves may be snatched away. There is
+not a home or an office or a factory or a school or a church in which
+some hang-dog apprehension is not eating at the hearts of the men,
+women, and children who go in and out. I am ready to guess that all the
+miseries wrought by sin and sickness put together would not equal those
+we bring on ourselves by the means which perhaps we do least to
+counteract. We are not sick all the time; we are not sinning all the
+time; but all the time all of us--or practically all of us--are afraid
+of someone or something. If, therefore, one has the feeblest
+contribution to make to the defeat of such a foe it becomes difficult to
+withhold it.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+But even with a view to conquering fear I should not presume to offer to
+others ideas worked out purely for myself had I not been so invited. I
+do not affirm that I have conquered fear, but only that in self-defence
+I have been obliged to do something in that direction. I take it for
+granted that what goes in that direction will go all the way if pursued
+with perseverance and good will. Having thus made some simple
+experiments--chiefly mental--with what to me are effective results, I
+can hardly refuse to tell what they have been when others are so good as
+to ask me.
+
+And in making this attempt I must write from my own experience. No other
+method would be worth while. The mere exposition of a thesis would have
+little or no value. It is a case in which nothing can be helpful to
+others which has not been demonstrated for oneself, even though the
+demonstration be but partial.
+
+In writing from my own experience I must ask the reader's pardon if I
+seem egoistic or autobiographical. Without taking oneself too smugly or
+too seriously one finds it the only way of reproducing the thing that
+has happened in one's own life and which one actually knows.
+
+And when I speak above of ideas worked out purely for myself I do not,
+of course, mean that these ideas are original with me. All I have done
+has been to put ideas through the mill of my own mind, co-ordinating
+them to suit my own needs. The ideas themselves come from many sources.
+Some of these sources are, so deep in the past that I could no longer
+trace them; some are so recent that I know the day and hour when they
+revealed themselves, like brooks in the way. It would be possible to say
+to the reader, "I owe this to such and such a teaching, and that to such
+and such a man," only that references of the kind would be tedious. I
+fall back on what Emerson says: "Thought is the property of him who can
+entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain
+awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have
+learned what to do with them, they become our own. Thus all originality
+is relative." The thoughts that I shall express are my own to the extent
+that I have lived them--or tried to live them--though the wind that
+bloweth where it listeth may have brought them to my mind.
+
+Nor do I think for a moment that what I have found helpful to me must of
+necessity be helpful to everyone. It may be helpful to someone. That is
+the limit of my hope. It is simple fact that no one can greatly help
+anyone else. The utmost we can do is to throw out an idea here and there
+which another may seize, and by which he may help himself. Borrowed help
+has the awkwardness which Emerson attributes to borrowed thoughts. It is
+only when a concept has lain for a time in a man's being, germinated
+there, and sprung into active life, that it is of much use to him; but
+by that time it has become his own. The kingdom of heaven must begin
+within oneself or we shall probably not find it anywhere.
+
+These pages will contain, then, no recipe for the conquest of fear; they
+will offer, with much misgiving and diffidence, no more than the record
+of what one individual has done toward conquering it. This record is
+presented merely for what it is worth. It may be worth nothing. On the
+other hand, someone may find it worth something, and in that case all
+that the writer hopes for will be attained.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+As a matter of fact, in my own case the reaction against fear was from
+the beginning more or less instinctive. With the first exercise of the
+reasoning faculty I tried to argue against the emotion. I remember that
+as a little boy I was afraid of a certain dog that barked at me when I
+went to a certain house to which I was sent perhaps two or three times a
+week. The house had a driveway, and from the minute of passing the
+entrance my knees trembled under me. But even then, I recall, it seemed
+to me that this terror was an incongruous thing in life, that it had no
+rightful place there, and that, if the world was what my elders told me
+it was, there must be in it a law of peace and harmony which as yet I
+hadn't arrived at. I cannot say that when the dog barked this reasoning
+did more than nerve me to drag my quaking limbs up to the doorstep,
+whence my enemy, a Skye terrier, invariably took flight.
+
+During a somewhat stormy childhood and boyhood, in which there was a
+good deal of emotional stress, I never got beyond this point. Specific
+troubles were not few, and by the time I reached early manhood a habit
+of looking for them had been established. "What's it going to be now?"
+became a formula of anticipation before every new event. New events
+presented themselves most frequently as menaces. Hopes rarely loomed up
+without accompanying probabilities of disappointment. One adopted the
+plan of "expecting disappointment" as a means of cheating the "jinx." I
+am not painting my early life as any darker than most lives. It was, I
+fancy, as bright as the average life of youth.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+But, contrary to what is generally held, I venture to think that youth
+is not a specially happy period. Because young people rarely voice
+their troubles we are likely to think them serene and unafraid. That has
+not been my experience either with them or of them. While it is true
+that cares of a certain type increase with age the knowledge of how to
+deal with them increases, or ought to increase, in the same progression.
+With no practical experience to support them the young are up against
+the unknown and problematical--occupation, marriage, sexual urge, life
+in general--around which clings that terror of the dark which frightened
+them in childhood. Home training, school training, college training,
+religious training, social influences of every kind, throw the emphasis
+on dangers rather than on securities, so that the young life emerges
+into a haunted world. Some are reckless of these dangers, some grow
+hardened to them, some enjoy the tussle with them, some turn their minds
+away from them, while others, chiefly the imaginative or the
+intellectual, shrink from them with the discomfort which, as years go
+on, becomes worry, anxiety, foreboding, or any other of the many
+forms of care.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+My own life followed what I assume to be the usual course, though in
+saying this I am anxious not to give an exaggerated impression. It was
+the usual course, not an unusual one. "There's always something" came to
+be a common mental phrase, and the something was, as a rule, not
+cheering. Neither, as a rule, was it terrible. It was just
+_something_--a sense of the carking hanging over life, and now and then
+turning to a real mischance or a heartache.
+
+It strikes me as strange, on looking back, that so little attempt was
+made to combat fear by religion. In fact, as far as I know, little
+attempt was made to combat fear in any way. One's attention was not
+called to it otherwise than as a wholly inevitable state. You were born
+subject to fear as you were born subject to death, and that was an
+end of it.
+
+Brought up in an atmosphere in which religion was our main
+preoccupation, I cannot recall ever hearing it appealed to as a
+counteragent to this most persistent enemy of man. In dealing with your
+daily dreads you simply counted God out. Either He had nothing to do
+with them or He brought them upon you. In any case His intervention on
+your behalf was not supposed to be in this world, and to look for
+rewards from Him here and now was considered a form of impiety. You were
+to be willing to serve God for naught; after which unexpected favours
+might be accorded you, but you were to hope for nothing as a right. I do
+not say that this is what I was taught; it was what I understood; but to
+the best of my memory it was the general understanding round about me.
+In my fight against fear, in as far as I made one, God was for many
+years of no help to me, or of no help of which I was aware. I shall
+return to the point later in telling how I came to "discover God" for
+myself, but not quite the same God, or not quite the same concept of
+God, which my youthful mind had supposed to be the only one.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+At the same time it was to a small detail in my religious training--or
+to be more exact in the explanation of the Bible given me as a boy--that
+I harked back when it became plain to me that either I must conquer fear
+or fear must conquer me. Having fallen into my mind like a seed, it lay
+for well on to thirty years with no sign of germination, till that
+"need," of which I shall have more to say presently, called it
+into life.
+
+Let me state in a few words how the need made itself pressing.
+
+It was, as life goes, a tolerably dark hour. I was on the borderland
+between young manhood and early middle age. For some years I had been
+losing my sight, on top of which came one of those troubles with the
+thyroid gland which medical science still finds obscure. For reasons
+which I need not go into I was spending an autumn at Versailles in
+France, unoccupied and alone.
+
+If you know Versailles you know that it combines all that civilisation
+has to offer of beauty, magnificence, and mournfulness. A day's visit
+from Paris will give you an inkling of this, but only an inkling. To get
+it all you must live there, to be interpenetrated by its glory of decay.
+It is always the autumn of the spirit at Versailles, even in summer,
+even in spring; but in the autumn of the year the autumnal emotion of
+the soul is poignant beyond expression. Sad gardens stretch into sad
+parks; sad parks into storied and haunting forests. Long avenues lead to
+forgotten châteaux mellowing into ruin. Ghostly white statues astonish
+you far in the depths of woods where the wild things are now the most
+frequent visitors. A Temple of Love--pillared, Corinthian, lovely--lost
+in a glade to which lovers have probably not come in a hundred
+years--will remind you that there were once happy people where now the
+friendliest sound is that of the wood-chopper's axe or the horn of some
+far-away hunt. All the old tales of passion, ambition, feud, hatred,
+violence, lust, and intrigue are softened here to an aching sense of
+pity. At night you will hear the castle clock, which is said never once
+to have failed to strike the hour since Louis the Fourteenth put it in
+its place, tolling away your life as it has tolled away epochs.
+
+Amid these surroundings a man ill, lonely, threatened with blindness,
+can easily feel what I may call the spiritual challenge of the ages. He
+must either be strong and rule; or he must be weak and go down. He must
+get the dominion over circumstance, or circumstance must get the
+dominion over him. To be merely knocked about by fate and submit to it,
+even in the case of seemingly inevitable physical infirmity, began to
+strike me as unworthy of a man.
+
+It is one thing, however, to feel the impulse to get up and do
+something, and another to see what you can get up and do. For a time the
+spectre of fear had me in its power. The physical facts couldn't be
+denied, and beyond the physical facts I could discern nothing. It was
+conceivable that one might react against a mental condition; but to
+react against a mysterious malady coupled with possibly approaching
+blindness was hardly to be thought of. When one added one's incapacity
+to work and earn a living, with all that that implies, it seemed as if
+it would take the faith that moves mountains to throw off the weight
+oppressing me. It is true that to move mountains you only need faith as
+a grain of mustard seed, but as far as one can judge not many of us have
+that much.
+
+It was then that my mind went back all of a sudden to the kernel planted
+so many years before, in my island home, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If
+I become prolix over this it is only that I want to show how often it
+happens to parents, teachers, and others who deal with children, to
+throw out a thought which after lying dormant for years will become a
+factor in the life. Had it not been for the few words spoken then I
+should not, as far as I can see, now have such mastery over self as I
+have since attained--not very much--but I should not be writing
+these lines.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+My boyhood was placed in the times when Darwin's "Origin of Species" and
+"Descent of Man" had thrown the scientific and religious worlds into
+convulsion. The struggle between the old ideas and the new calls for no
+more than a reference here; but the teacher to whom I owe most was one
+who, while valuing the old, saw only an enrichment in the new,
+explaining the Bible in that spirit. So it happened that he spoke one
+day of the extraordinary ingenuity of the life-principle, which somehow
+came to the earth, in adapting itself to perpetually new conditions.
+
+Nothing defeated it. For millions of years it was threatened by climatic
+changes, by the lack of food, by the ferocity of fellow-creatures. Heat,
+cold, flood, drought, earthquake, and volcanic eruption were forever
+against it. Struggling from stage to stage upward from the slime a new
+danger was always to it a new incentive to finding a new resource.
+
+Pursued through the water it sought the land. Pursued on the land it
+sought the air. Pursued in the air it developed fleetness of wing, and
+in fleetness of wing a capacity for soaring, circling, balancing,
+dipping, and swinging on itself of which the grace must not blind us to
+the marvellous power of invention.
+
+In other words, the impulses leading to the origin of species proclaim a
+resourcefulness on the part of what we call life which we have every
+reason to think inexhaustible. Whatever the Fount of Being from which
+the life-principle first came into the waters of our earth there is no
+question but that with it came a conquest-principle as well. Had it been
+possible to exterminate the life-principle it would never have gone
+further than the age which saw the extinction of the great reptiles. The
+great reptiles went, but the life-principle stayed on, with the ability
+to assume, within our limited observation, all the forms between the
+bacillus and the elephant, while as to what lies beyond our observation
+the possibilities are infinite.
+
+Long before it works up to man we see this amazing force stemming an
+uncountable number of attacks, and meeting ruinous conditions with
+daring contrivances. For one kind of danger it develops a shell, for
+another a sting, for another a poison, for another a protective
+colouration. To breathe in the sea it puts forth gills, and makes lungs
+for itself when stranded on the land. In glacial cold it finds the means
+of growing fur; when heat and cold assail it by turns it packs itself
+with feathers; when climates become temperate it produces hair. For the
+creature which keeps to the water it webs the foot; for that which takes
+to the trees it makes the toes prehensile; for the one which learns to
+stand erect and run along the ground it flattens the sole, making it
+steady and supporting. To resist, to survive, to win through, is the end
+to which the life-principle sets itself with such singleness of aim as
+to unfold a wealth of potentiality astounding to us in looking backward.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+This was the idea which came back to me that autumn at Versailles, and
+from which in the course of time I drew my conclusions.
+
+Briefly, those conclusions were to the effect that as individuals we
+need difficulties to overcome, and that fear is a stimulus to overcoming
+them. Otherwise expressed, fear loses much of its fearfulness when we
+see it as the summons to putting forth new energies. Unless we were
+conscious of the energies such a call would not reach us. The creatures
+preceding man could have felt no misgiving, since they lacked the
+imagination essential to a dread. Such fear as they were equal to must
+have seized them in paroxysms of terror when calamities threatened to
+overwhelm them. If they made good their escape no trace of the fear
+remained behind, the brain having little or no power of retention. We
+may take it for granted that the pterodactyl and the trachodon had none
+of the foreboding based on experience which destroys the peace of man.
+
+Fear, as we understand it, was in itself a signal of advance. It could
+only have begun with the exercise of reason. Arrived at the rudiments of
+memory the creature must have been able to perceive, however dimly, that
+the thing which had happened might happen again. Adding the first
+stirrings of imagination he must have constructed possible events in
+which the danger would come from the same causes as before. With the
+faculties to remember, to reason, and to imagine all at work we reach
+the first stages of man.
+
+Man was born into fear in that he was born into a world of which most of
+the energies were set against him. He was a lone thing fighting his own
+battle. The instinct for association which made the mammals different
+from other animals didn't help him much, since association did not bring
+mutual help as a matter of course, and never has done so. A man could
+count on no one but himself. Not only were prodigious natural forces
+always menacing him with destruction; not only was the beast his enemy
+and he the enemy of the beast; but his hand was against his fellow-man
+and his fellow-man's hand against him. This mutual hostility followed
+men in their first groupings into communities, and only to a degree have
+we lived it down in the twentieth century.
+
+Perhaps this conviction that a man's strength lay in standing
+single-handed against circumstance was the first small discovery I made
+in my own fight with fear. Looking back on the developments which had
+brought man into the world I saw a marvellous power of getting round
+difficulties when you couldn't cut through them. Just as a river which
+cannot flow over a rock can glide about its feet and turn it into a
+picturesque promontory, so I recognised in myself an inborn human
+faculty for "sidestepping" that which blocked my way, when I couldn't
+break it down.
+
+I left Versailles with just that much to the good--a perception that the
+ages had bequeathed me a store of abilities which I was allowing to lie
+latent. Moving into Paris, to more cheerful surroundings, I took up
+again the writing of the book I had abandoned more than a year
+previously. After long seclusion I began to see a few people, finding
+them responsive and welcoming. My object in stating these unimportant
+details is merely to show that in proportion as I ceased to show fear
+the life-principle hastened to my aid. Little by little I came to the
+belief that the world about me was a system of co-operative
+friendliness, and that it was my part to use it in that way.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+To use it in that way was not easy. I was so accustomed to the thought
+of Nature as a complex of self-seeking cruelties, the strong preying on
+the weak, and the weak defenceless, that the mere idea of its containing
+a ruling co-operative principle seemed at times far-fetched. To the
+common opinion of the day, my own included, the conception of a
+universe that would come to a man's aid the minute a man came to his own
+was too much like a fairy tale. It may indeed be a fairy tale. All I
+know is that in my own case it is the way in which it seems to have
+worked. I think I have caught a glimpse of a constructive use for that
+which I had previously thought of as only destructive and terrible.
+
+This is what I mean. The life-principle having, through unknown millions
+of years, developed the conquest-principle by meeting difficulties and
+overcoming them, the difficulties had a value. To man, especially, the
+menace of Nature, the ferocity of the beast, and the enmity of his
+fellow-man furnished the incentive to his upward climb. Had all been
+easy he would have stayed where he was. He would never have called
+mental powers to his physical aid, nor appealed to spiritual faculties
+when the mental fell short of his requirements. Spurred on by a
+necessity which grew more urgent in proportion as the life-principle
+widened its scope, the conquest-principle became an impulse which would
+brook no denying. Man grew by it; but the fact remains that he would not
+have grown had there been nothing for him to struggle with.
+
+To me it seems basic to the getting rid of fear to know that our trials,
+of whatever nature, are not motiveless. In our present stage of
+development we could hardly do without them. So often looking like mere
+ugly excrescences on life they are in reality the branches by which we
+catch on and climb. They are not obstacles to happiness for the reason
+that the only satisfying happiness we are equal to as yet is that of
+wrestling with the difficult and overcoming it. Every call of duty has
+its place in this ideal; every irksome job, every wearisome
+responsibility. The fact that we are not always aware of it in no way
+annuls the other fact that it is so. Boredom, monotony, drudgery,
+bereavement, loneliness, all the clamour of unsatisfied ambitions and
+aching sensibilities, have their share in this divine yearning of the
+spirit to grasp what as yet is beyond its reach. All of that hacking of
+the man to fit the job rather than the shaping of the job to fit the
+man, which is, I imagine, the source of most of the discontent on earth,
+has its place here, as well as the hundreds of things we shouldn't do if
+we were not compelled to. Whatever summons us to conflict summons us to
+life, and life, as we learn from a glance at the past, never shirks the
+challenge.
+
+It never shirks the challenge, and, what is more, it never fails to find
+the expedient by which the new demand is to be satisfied. To the
+conquest of fear that plank must be foundational. As far as we can learn
+there never was an emergency yet which the life-principle was not
+equipped to meet. When all existing methods had been used up it invented
+new ones; when seemingly at the end of its new resources it was only
+beginning to go on again.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+The deduction I make is this, that a law which was operative on such a
+scale before man had come into the world at all must be still more
+effective now that we can help to carry it out. The life-principle is
+not less ingenious than it ever was, while the conquest-principle must
+have widely expanded. It is an axiom in all progress that the more we
+conquer the more easily we conquer. We form a habit of conquering as
+insistent as any other habit. Victory becomes, to some degree, a state
+of mind. Knowing ourselves superior to the anxieties, troubles, and
+worries which obsess us, we _are_ superior. It is a question of attitude
+in confronting them. It is more mental than it is material. To be in
+harmony with the life-principle and the conquest-principle is to be in
+harmony with power; and to be in harmony with power is to be strong as a
+matter of course.
+
+The individual is thus at liberty to say: "The force which never failed
+before is not likely to fail in my case. The fertility of resource which
+circumvented every kind of obstacle to make me what I am--a vertebrate,
+breathing, walking, thinking entity, capable of some creative
+expression of my own--will probably not fall short now that I have
+immediate use for it. Of what I get from the past, prehistoric and
+historic, perhaps the most subtle distillation is the fact that so far
+is the life-principle from balking at need, need is essential to its
+activity. Where there is no need it seems to be quiescent; where there
+is something to be met, contended with, and overcome, it is furiously
+'on the job.' That life-principle is my principle. It is the seed from
+which I spring. It is my blood, my breath, my brain. I cannot cut myself
+off from it; it cannot cut itself off from me. Having formed the
+mastodon to meet one set of needs and the butterfly to meet another, it
+will form, something to meet mine, even if something altogether new. The
+new--or what seems new to me--is apparently the medium in which it is
+most at home. It repeats itself never--not in two rosebuds, not in two
+snowflakes. Who am I that I should be overlooked by it, or miss being
+made the expression of its infinite energies?"
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+What this reasoning did for me from the start was to give me a new
+attitude toward the multifold activity we call life. I saw it as
+containing a principle that would work with me if I could work with it.
+My working with it was the main point, since _it_ was working with me
+always. Exactly what that principle was I could not at the time have
+said; I merely recognised it as being there.
+
+The method of working with it was simple in idea, however difficult in
+practice. It was a question of my own orientation. I had to get mentally
+into harmony with the people and conditions I found about me. I was not
+to distrust them; still less was I to run away from them. I was to make
+a parable of my childish experience with the Skye terrier, assuming that
+life was organised to do me good. I remembered how many times the Bible
+begins some bit of pleading or injunction with the words, "Fear not."
+Other similar appeals came back to me. "Say to them that are of a
+fearful heart, Be strong I fear not."[1] "Quit yourselves like men; be
+strong."[2] "O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be unto thee! Be
+strong, yea, be Strong."[3] When, at some occasional test, dismay or
+self-pity took hold of me I formed a habit of saying to myself, in our
+expressive American idiom: "This is your special stunt. It's up to you
+to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly,
+and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and Coming to
+your aid."
+
+[1] The Book of Isaiah.
+
+[2] First Book of Samuel.
+
+[3] Book of Daniel.
+
+Which is just what I did find. To an amazing degree people were
+friendly, while conditions became easier. Fear diminished because I had
+fewer things to be afraid of. Having fewer things to be afraid of my
+mind was clearer for work. Work becoming not only more of a resource but
+more remunerative as well, all life grew brighter. Fear was not
+overcome; I had only made a more or less hesitating stand against it;
+but even from doing that I got positive results.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE AND GOD
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It is obvious that one could not dwell much on the power of the
+life-principle without coming sooner or later to the thought of God. As
+already hinted, I did not come to it at once because my conception of
+God made Him of so little use to me.
+
+And yet, in popular phraseology, I had "served" God all my life. That
+is, brought up in an atmosphere in which the Church was a divinely
+instituted system for utilising God, I served the system, without
+getting much beyond the surface plane of what were technically known as
+"services." When trial came such services offered me an anodyne, but
+not a cure.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+The first suggestion, that my concept of God might not be sufficient to
+my needs came out of a conversation in New York. It was with a lady whom
+I met but that once, within a year or two after my experience at
+Versailles. I have forgotten how we chanced on the subject, but I
+remember that she asked me these questions:
+
+"When you think of God _how_ do you think of Him? How do you picture
+Him? What does He seem like?"
+
+Trying to reply I recognised a certain naivete, a certain childishness,
+in my words even as I uttered them. In my thoughts I saw God as three
+supernal men, seated on three supernal thrones, enshrined in some vague
+celestial portion of space which I denominated Heaven. Between Him and
+me there was an incalculable distance which He could bridge but I could
+not. Always He had me at the disadvantage that He saw what I did, heard
+what I said, read what I thought, punishing me for everything amiss,
+while I could reach Him only by the uncertain telephony of what I
+understood as prayer. Even then my telephone worked imperfectly. Either
+the help I implored wasn't good for me, or my voice couldn't soar to
+His throne.
+
+The lady smiled, but said nothing. The smile was significant. It made me
+feel that a God who was no more than what I had described could hardly
+be the Universal Father, and set me to thinking on my own account.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I wish it were possible to speak of God without the implication of
+dealing with religion. By this I mean that I am anxious to keep religion
+out of this whole subject of the conquest of fear. The minute you touch
+on religion, as commonly understood, you reach the sectarian. The minute
+you reach the sectarian you start enmities. The minute you start
+enmities you get mental discords. And the minute you get mental
+discords no stand against fear is possible.
+
+But I mean a little more than this. Man, as at present developed, has
+shown that he hardly knows what to do with religion, or where to put it
+in his life. This is especially true of the Caucasian, the least
+spiritually intelligent of all the great types of our race.
+Fundamentally the white man is hostile to religion. He attacks it as a
+bull a red cloak, goring it, stamping on it, tearing it to shreds. With
+the Caucasian as he is this fury is instinctive. Recognising religion as
+the foe of the materialistic ideal he has made his own he does his best
+to render it ineffective.
+
+Of this we need no better illustration than the state of what we
+conventionally know as Christendom. Christendom as we see it is a purely
+Caucasian phase of man's struggle upward, with Caucasian merits and
+Caucasian defects. Nowhere is its defectiveness more visible than in
+what the Caucasian has made of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It was
+probably a misfortune for the world that almost from the beginning that
+teaching passed into Caucasian guardianship. I see in the New Testament
+no indication on the part of Our Lord and the Apostles of wishing to
+separate themselves from Semitic co-operation. The former taught daily
+in the Temple; the latter, as they went about the world, made the
+synagogue the base of all their missions. The responsibility for the
+breach is not under discussion here. It is enough to note that it took
+place, and that Caucasian materialism was thus deprived of a
+counteragent in Hebrew spiritual wisdom. Had this corrective maintained
+its place it is possible that religion might now be a pervasive element
+in the Caucasian's life instead of being pigeon-holed.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The Caucasian pigeon-holes God. Otherwise expressed, he keeps God in a
+specially labelled compartment of life, to be brought out for occasional
+use, and put back when the need is over. It is difficult to mention God
+to a Caucasian reader without inducing an artificial frame of mind. As
+there are people who put on for strangers and guests an affected,
+unnatural politeness different from their usual breezy spontaneity, so
+the Caucasian assumes at the thought of God a mental habit which can
+only be described as sanctimonious. God is not natural to the Caucasian;
+the Caucasian is not natural with God. The mere concept takes him into
+regions in which he feels uneasy. He may call his uneasiness reserve or
+reverence, or by some other dignified name; but at bottom it is neither
+more nor less than uneasiness. To minimise this distress he relegates
+God to special days, to special hours, to services and ceremonials. He
+can thus wear and bear his uncomfortable cloak of gravity for special
+times, after which he can be himself again. To appeal to God otherwise
+than according to the tacitly accepted protocol is to the average
+Caucasian either annoying or in bad form.
+
+I should like, then, to dissociate the thought of God from the
+artificial, sanctimonious, preternaturally solemn connotations which
+the Name is certain to bring up. I want to speak of Him with the same
+kind of ease as of the life-principle. I repeat, that I never found Him
+of much use in allaying fear till I released Him from the Caucasian
+pigeon-hole to see Him, as it were, in the open. Once in the open I got
+rid, to some degree, of the Caucasian limitations of thinking along the
+lines of sect, just as in the infinitude of the air you can forget for a
+minute houses with rooms and walls. The discovery--that is, discovery
+for myself--that God is Universal, which is not so obvious as it sounds,
+was, I think, the first great step I made in finding that within that
+Universal fear should be impossible.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+About the same time I chanced on a passage written by Joseph Joubert, an
+eighteenth-century French Catholic, not so well known to the modern
+reader as he ought to be, which impressed me deeply.
+
+"L'âme ne peut se mouvoir, s'éveiller, ouvrir les yeux, sans santir
+Dieu. On sent Dieu avec l'âme comme on sent l'air avec le corps.
+Oseraije le dire? On connaît Dieu facilement pourvu qu'on ne se
+contraigne pas à le definir--The soul cannot move, wake, or open the
+eyes without perceiving God. We perceive God through the soul as we feel
+air on the body. Dare I say it? We can know God easily so long as we do
+not feel it necessary to define Him."
+
+I began to see that, like most Caucasian Christians, I had been laying
+too much stress on the definition. The Trinity had, so to speak, come
+between me and the Godhead. I had, unconsciously, attached more
+importance to God's being Three than to His being God. Seeing Him as
+Three I instinctively saw Him as Three Persons. Seeing Him as Three
+Persons I did not reflect that the word Person as applied to God must be
+used in a sense wholly different from that in which we employ it with
+regard to men. To get into what I call the open I had to bring myself to
+understand that we cannot enclose the Infinite in a shape, or three
+shapes, resembling in any way the being with digestive organs, arms, and
+legs, which worked its way up from slime.
+
+That is, in order to "dwell in the secret place of the Most High,"[4]
+where one is immune from fear, I was obliged to give up the habit of
+embodying God in any form. I had to confess that what is meant by the
+Three Persons in One God I did not know. Furthermore, I saw no necessity
+for thinking that I knew, since such knowledge must transcend all scope
+of the human mind. The formula, if you must have a formula, is one
+thing; but the turning it into a statute of limitations and applying it
+to the Illimitable is another.
+
+[4] The Book of Psalms.
+
+To make my position clearer, and to avoid the subject of religion, let
+me add that, inferring from the Bible that there is a Father, a Son, and
+a Holy Ghost, I did not feel it imperative on my part to go beyond this
+use of terms. Merely to abstain from definition was like a load taken
+off my mind. How the Son was begotten of the Father, or the Holy Ghost
+proceeded from them both, or what eternal mysteries were symbolised in
+this purely human phraseology, were, it seemed to me, matters with which
+I need not concern myself, seeing that they passed all my comprehension.
+Not the Trinity should come first to powers so limited as mine--but God.
+
+It dawned on me, too, that God need not necessarily be to me what He is
+to others, nor to others what He is to me. Of the Infinite the finite
+mind can only catch a finite glimpse. I see what I can see; another sees
+what he can see. The visions may be different, and yet each vision may
+be true. Just as two painters painting the same landscape will give
+dissimilar views of it, so two minds contemplating God will take of Him
+only what each is fitted to receive. Water poured into differently
+coloured glasses will take on the colour of the cup which it fills, even
+though it be the self-same water in them all. If I find God for myself I
+shall probably not behold in Him exactly what anyone else in the whole
+world or in all time has ever beheld in Him before.
+
+I saw, too, that from a certain point of view the stand of the agnostic
+is a right one. We cannot know God in the sense of knowing His being or
+His "Personality," any more than we can know the essence of the
+life-principle. Just as we know the life-principle only from what it
+does, so we know God only from such manifestations of Himself as reach
+our observation. Everything else is inference. Because we see something
+of His goodness we infer that He is good; because we experience
+something of His love we infer that He is loving; because we behold
+something of His power we infer that He is almighty. It is first of all
+a matter of drawing our conclusions, and then of making those
+conclusions the food of the inner spiritual man whose life is
+independent of the mortal heart and brain. But a sense in which God is
+"unknowable" to us has to be admitted.
+
+I make this statement now in order not to be misunderstood when later I
+may say that God must be this or that. Though I shall do so for the
+sake of brevity it will always be in the sense that, if God is what we
+have inferred from His manifestations, He must be this or that. In other
+words, having to some degree worked my own way out of fear I must tell
+how I came to feel that I know the Unknowable, doing it with the inexact
+phraseology which is all I find to hand.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Reaching the conclusions noted above I was relieved of the pressure of
+traditions and instructions. Traditions and instructions helped me in
+that they built the ship in which I was to put to sea. The discoveries
+had to be my own. The God of whom I had heard at my mother's knee, as
+the phrase goes, had always been shadowy to me; the God who was served
+by "services" had always seemed remote. A God who should be "_my_ God,"
+as the psalmists say so often, must, I felt, be found by me myself,
+through living, searching, suffering, and struggling onward a step or
+two at a time. "That's pretty near free-thinking, isn't it?" a
+clergyman, to whom I tried to explain myself, once said to me. "No," I
+replied; "but it _is_ pretty near thinking _free_."
+
+To think freely about God became a first necessity; to think simply a
+second one. The Universal Father had been almost lost to me behind veil
+after veil of complexities. The approaches to Him seemed to have been
+made so roundabout, requiring so many intermediaries. Long before I had
+dared to think of what I may call emancipation, the "scheme of
+salvation," as it was termed, had struck me as an excessively
+complicated system of machinery, considering the millions upon millions
+who had need of it. In theory you were told, according to St. Paul, to
+"come boldly before the throne of the heavenly grace," but in practice
+you were expected to do it timidly.
+
+You were expected to do it timidly because the pigeon-holed Caucasian
+God was represented--unconsciously perhaps--as difficult, ungenial,
+easily offended. He measured your blindness and weakness by the
+standard of His own knowledge and almightiness. A puritan God, extremely
+preoccupied with morals as some people saw them, He was lenient,
+apparently, to the narrow-minded, the bitter of tongue, and the
+intolerant in heart. He was not generous. He was merciful only when you
+paid for His mercy in advance. To a not inconsiderable degree He was the
+hard Caucasian business man, of whom He was the reflection, only
+glorified and crowned.
+
+It will be evident, of course, that I am not speaking of "the Father" of
+the New Testament, nor of the official teaching of any church or
+theology. To the rank and file of Caucasians "the Father" of the New
+Testament is very little known, while the official teaching of churches
+and theologies is so hard to explain that not much of it gets over to
+the masses of those willing to subscribe to it. I refer only to the
+impression on the mind of the man in the street; and to the man in the
+street God, as he understands Him, is neither a very friendly nor a very
+comprehensible element in life. Instead of mitigating fear He adds to
+it, not in the Biblical sense of "fearing God," but in that of sheer
+animal distrust.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+While turning these things over in my mind I got some help from two of
+the words most currently in Christian use. I had long known that the
+English equivalents of the Latin equivalents of the terms the New
+Testament writers used gave but a distorted idea of the original sense;
+but I had let that knowledge lie fallow.
+
+The first of these words was Repentance. In these syllables there is
+almost no hint of the idea which fell from the evangelistic pen, while
+the word has been soaked in emotional and sentimental associations it
+was never intended to be mixed with. The _Metanoia_; which painted a
+sober, reflective turning of the mind, had been so overcharged with the
+dramatic that sober, reflective people could hardly use the expression
+any more. Repentance had come to have so strong a gloss of the
+hysterical as to be almost discredited by men of common sense. It was a
+relief, therefore, to remember that it implied no more than a turning to
+God by a process of thought; and that a process of thought would
+find Him.
+
+The other word was Salvation. Here again our term of Latin derivation
+gives no more than the faintest impression of the beauty beyond beauty
+in that which the sacred writer used. _Soteria_--a Safe Return! That is
+all. Nothing complicated; nothing high-strung; nothing casuistical. Only
+a--Safe Return! Yet all human experience can be read into the little
+phrase, with all human liberty to wander--and come back. True, one son
+may never leave the Father's home, so that all that it contains is his;
+but there is no restraint on the other son from getting his knowledge as
+he will, even to the extent of becoming a prodigal. The essential is in
+the Safe Return, the _Soteria_, when the harlots and the husks have been
+tried and found wanting.
+
+I do not exaggerate when I say that the simplicity of these conceptions
+was so refreshing as almost to give me a new life. One could say to God,
+with the psalmist, "Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me
+from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of
+deliverance"--and mean it. One could conceive of it as possible to turn
+toward Him--and reach, the objective. The way was open; the access was
+free; the progress as rapid as thought could make it. One could think of
+oneself as _knowing God_, and be aware of no forcing of the note.
+
+"We can know God easily so long as we do not feel it necessary to define
+Him." Once having grasped this truth I began to see how natural knowing
+God became. The difficulty of the forced, of the artificial, of the mere
+assent to what other people say, of which the Caucasian to his credit is
+always impatient, seemed by degrees to melt away from me. No longer
+defining God I no longer tried to know Him in senses obviously
+impossible. I ceased trying to _imagine_ Him. Seeing Him as infinite,
+eternal, changeless, formless because transcending form, and
+indescribable because transcending words and thoughts, I could give
+myself up to finding Him in the ways in which He would naturally be
+revealed to me.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+These, of course, were in His qualities and His works.
+
+Let me speak of the latter first.
+
+I think light was the medium through which I at once felt myself to be
+seeing God. By this I mean nothing pantheistic--not that the light was
+God--but God's first and most evident great sign. Then there was the
+restful darkness. There were the moon and the stars, "the hosts of
+heaven," as the Hebrews aptly called them, becoming more and more
+amazing as an expression of God the more we learn how to read them. Then
+there were the elements, the purifying wind, the fruitful rain, the
+exhilaration of snow-storms, the action and reaction from heat and cold.
+Then there was beauty: first, the beauty of the earth, of mountains, of
+seas, and all waters, of meadows, grainfields, orchards, gardens, and
+all growing things; then, the beauty of sound, from the soughing of the
+wind in the pines to the song of the hermit-thrush. There was the beauty
+wrought by man, music, painting, literature, and all art. There were the
+myriad forms of life. There were kindness and friendship and family
+affection and fun--but the time would fail me! God being the summing up
+of all good things, since all good things proceed from Him, must be seen
+by me in all good things it I am to see Him at all.
+
+I had heard from childhood of a world in which God was seen, and of
+another world, this world, in which He was not seen. I came to the
+conclusion that there was no such fantastic, unnatural division in what
+we call creation--that there was only one world--the world in which God
+is seen. "The soul cannot move, wake, or open the eyes without
+perceiving God." It is a question of physical vision, with spiritual
+comprehension.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Seeing God breaking through all that I had previously thought of as
+barriers, it was easy to begin to think of Him as Universal. I say begin
+to think, because God's Infinitude had been only a word to me hitherto,
+not a quality realised and felt. I do not presume to say that to any
+adequate degree I feel and realise it now; but the habit of looking on
+every good thing as a sign of His activity cannot but bring Him close
+to me.
+
+That is my chief point with regard to the Infinite--that it must be
+_here_. As I used to think of infinity I saw it stretching to boundless
+reaches away from me; but only from the point of view of present Good
+being present God did the value of the Infinite come to lie in its
+nearness rather than in its power of filling unimaginable space. On my
+part it was inverse mental action, seeking God where I was capable of
+finding Him, and not in regions I could never range.
+
+But having grasped the fact that the Universal, wherever else it was,
+must be with me the purely abstract became a living influence. I felt
+this the more when to the concept of Infinitude I added that of
+Intelligence. I use the much-worked word intelligence because there is
+no other; but when one thinks for a second of what must be the
+understanding of an Infinite Mind, intelligence as a descriptive term
+becomes absurdly inadequate.
+
+This was the next fact which, if I may so express myself, I made my
+own--that not only the Universal is ever with me, but that it is ever
+with me with ever-active concern. There was a time when it was hard for
+me to believe that a Mind busied with the immensities of the universe
+could come down to such trivial affairs as mine. Important as I might be
+to myself I could hardly be otherwise than lost amid the billions of
+forms of life which had come into existence through the ages. To the
+Three in One, on the Great White Throne, in the far-away Heaven, I must
+be a negligible thing, except when I forced myself on the divine
+attention. Even then it was hardly conceivable that, with whole solar
+systems to regulate, I could claim more than a passing glance from the
+all-seeing eye.
+
+But to an Infinite Mind bathing me round and round I must be as much the
+object of regard as any solar system. To such a Mind nothing is small,
+no one thing farther from its scope than another. God could have no
+_difficulty_ in attending to me, seeing that from the nature of His
+mental activity, to put it in that way, He could not lose sight of me
+nor let me go. When an object is immersed in water it gives no extra
+trouble to the water to close round it. It can't help doing it. The
+object may be as small as a grain of dust or as big as a warship; to the
+water it is all the same. Immersed in the Infinite Mind, closed round by
+it, it was giving God no extra trouble to think of me, of my work, my
+desires, the objects with which I was living, since by the nature of His
+Being He could do nothing else.
+
+Having established it with myself that Universal Presence was also
+Universal Thought I had made another step toward the elimination of
+fear. I took still another when I added the truth of Universal Love.
+
+I need hardly say that this progression was not of necessity in a
+strictly consecutive order, nor did it come by a process of reasoning
+out from point to point. I was simply the man in the street dealing with
+great ideas of which he had heard ever since he had been able to hear
+anything, but trying at last to see what they meant to him. My position
+might have been described in the words used by William James in one of
+his _Letters_ to indicate his own. "The Divine, for my _active_ life, is
+limited to abstract concepts, which, as ideals, interest and determine
+me, but do so but faintly, in comparison with what a feeling of God
+might effect, if I had one. It is largely a question of intensity, but
+differences of intensity may make the whole centre of one's energy
+shift." I did have a "feeling of God" however vague; but I had more of
+the feeling of a Church. I could dimly discern the Way, without going
+on to the Truth and the Life which give the Way its value. It will be
+evident then that if my "discoveries" along these lines were discoveries
+in the obvious, it was in that obvious to which we mortals so often
+remain blind.
+
+During many years the expression, the love of God, was to me like a
+winter sunshine, bright without yielding warmth. I liked the words; I
+knew they expressed a truth; but between me and the truth there was the
+same kind of distance which I felt to lie between myself and God. "It is
+largely a question of intensity," to repeat what has just been quoted
+from William James, "but differences of intensity may make the whole
+centre of one's energy shift." My conception of the love of God lacked
+just that quality--intensity.
+
+It came, to some degree, with the realisation that the Universal Thought
+must be with _me_. A non-loving Universal Thought was too monstrous a
+concept to entertain. The God who "broke through" my many
+misunderstandings with so much good and beauty could have only one
+predominating motive. The coming of my spiritual being to this planet
+might be a mystery wrapped in darkness, and yet I could not but believe
+that the Universal Father was behind that coming and that I was His son.
+I could rest my case there. The love of God, after having long been like
+a doctrinal tenet for which one had to strive, became reasonable,
+natural, something to be understood. Finding that love in so many places
+in which I had seen mere physical phenomena, and in so many lovely
+things I had never placed to its credit, I began to feel that life could
+be infused and transformed by it, in proportion as my own perception
+grew. So, little by little, the centre of energy shifted, as one came to
+understand what the Sons of Korah meant when they sang, "God is our
+refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore _will we
+not fear_ though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
+carried into, the midst of the sea."[5] With Universal Thought
+concentrated in love upon oneself fear must be forced backward.
+
+[5] The Book of Psalms.
+
+And especially when you add to that the concept of Almighty Power. This
+fourth and last of the great attributes is the one with which I, as an
+individual, have found it most difficult to clothe the Infinite. I mean
+that it is the one for which it is hardest for me to develop what
+William James calls "a feeling," an inner realisation. I lay no stress
+upon this. It is a question of growth. The Presence, the Thought, the
+Love have become to me what I may be permitted to call tremulously
+vivid. In proportion as they are vivid I get the "feeling" of
+Almightiness exercised on my behalf; in proportion as they are tremulous
+the Almightiness may remain in my consciousness, but it seems exercised
+on my behalf but slightly.
+
+In other words, the Infinitude of Thought and Love are, to some extent,
+apprehended by my inner self, while the Infinitude of Power is as yet to
+me rather an intellectual abstraction. What my inner self may be I am
+not prepared to say, but I know that it is there, as everyone else
+knows that it is in him. "Strengthened with might by the Spirit in the
+inner man,"[6] is what St. Paul says, and I suppose most of us recognise
+the fact that our inner self is stronger or weaker in proportion as it
+is more nourished or less nourished by our sense of the Being of God. It
+is largely a question of intensity. If I interpret William James aright
+he means by "a feeling" an intellectual concept after it has passed
+beyond the preliminary keeping of the brain, and become the possession
+of that inner man which is the vital self. To this vital self the sense
+of Almighty Power really used for me is still, to a great degree,
+outside my range.
+
+[6] Epistle to the Ephesians.
+
+I make the confession not because it is of interest, but because it
+illustrates a main deduction which I should now like to draw. It is to
+the effect that God is with us _to be utilised_. His Power, His Love,
+His Thought, His Presence, must be at our disposal, like other great
+forces, such as sunshine and wind and rain. We can use them or not, as
+we please. That we could use them to their full potentiality is, of
+course, not to be thought of; but we can use them in proportion to our
+ability. If I, the individual, still lack many things; if I am still a
+prey to lingering fears; it is probably because I have not yet rooted
+out a stubborn disbelief in His Power. If I succeed in this I shall
+doubtless be able to seize more of His bounty. It is not a question of
+His giving, but of my capacity to take.
+
+The contrary, I venture to think, is the point of view of most of us. We
+consider God somewhat as we do a wealthy man whom we know to be a miser,
+forming the shrewd surmise that we shall not get much out of him. The
+God who fails to protect us from fear fails, I believe, because we see
+Him first of all as a niggard God. He is a niggard not merely with
+regard to money but all the good things for which He has given us a
+desire, with no intention of allowing that desire to be gratified. Once
+more, He is the hard Caucasian business man, whom His subordinates serve
+because they don't see what else to do, but whom they rarely love.
+
+We shall not, in my judgment, overcome fear till we see Him as He surely
+must be, generous beyond all our conceptions of generosity. Years,
+experience, many trials, and some knowledge of the world, have convinced
+me that we have no lawful or harmless cravings for which, _as far as God
+is concerned_, there is not abundant satisfaction. I am convinced that
+absolute confidence in God's overflowing liberality of every sort is
+essential to the conquest of fear. If we don't profit by that liberality
+the fault is not His but our own. I am tempted to think that the belief
+of so many generations of nominal Christians in a God whose power was
+chiefly shown in repressions, denials, and capricious disappointments is
+responsible, in so small measure, for our present world-distress.
+
+In my own case it was a matter of re-education. To find God for myself I
+had to be willing to let some of my old cherished ideas go. They may
+have been true of God as He reveals Himself to others; they are not true
+of Him as He makes Himself known to me. The Way that leads _me_ to the
+Truth and the Life is undoubtedly the Way I must follow.
+
+Doing that I have found so much, mentally, emotionally, materially,
+which I never had before, that I cannot but look for more as my
+absorbing power increases. The process is akin to that of the
+unshrivelling of the inner man, as a bud will unfold when the sunshine
+becomes strong enough. The transformation must be in thought. There must
+be first the _Metanoia_, the change of mind, the new set of concepts;
+and then the _Soteria_, the Safe Return, to the high, sane ideal of a
+co-operative Universe, with a loving, lavish Universal Heart behind it.
+
+"To the chief Musician for the Sons of Korah:
+
+"'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
+Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and though the
+mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.... Come, behold the
+works of the Lord.... He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the
+earth; he breaketh the bow, he cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth
+the chariot in the fire.... _Be still then, and know that I am
+God,'"_[7]
+
+[7] Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+GOD AND HIS SELF-EXPRESSION
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+It will be clear from what I have said already that I see no fundamental
+conquest of fear that is not based in God. There may be knacks by which
+fear can be nipped and expedients by which it may be outwitted, but its
+extermination can be brought about, it seems to me, only in one way.
+According to our capacity and our individual needs we must know God; and
+knowing God is not as difficult as the Caucasian mind is apt to think.
+It stands to reason that if knowing God, in the senses in which it is
+possible to know Him, is so essential to mankind it could not be
+difficult. The making it difficult is part of the dust the Caucasian
+throws in his own eyes.
+
+We know God through His Self-Expression, and His Self-Expression is
+round about us in every form. Except through His Self-Expression there
+is no way of our knowing Him. No speculation or theory will teach us to
+know Him. It must be His own revelation of Himself, or nothing.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Such little knowledge of Him as has come to me came much more freely
+when I began to look for that revelation not alone in solemn mysteries,
+or through the mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient scriptures,
+but in the sights and sounds and happenings of every day. Here I must
+ask not to be misunderstood. The solemn mysteries have their place, but
+it is one of climax. The mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient
+scriptures is of unreckonable value, after I have done something for
+myself. By this I do not mean that all cannot work together
+simultaneously, but rather that it is useless for the soul to strike
+only at the more advanced, having ignored the elementary.
+
+As I write I look out on a street full of the touches of spring. The
+rain-washed grass is of bright new green. The elms are in tenderest
+leaf, the hawthorn bursting into flower. Here and there a yellow clump
+of forsythia is like a spot of sunshine. Tulips are opening their
+variegated cups, and daffodils line the walls. Dogs are capering about,
+a collie, a setter, a Boston terrier. Birds are carrying straws or bits
+of string to weave into their nests--or singing--or flying--or perching
+on boughs. Children are playing--boys on bicycles eagerly racing
+nowhere--little girls with arms round each others' waists, prattling
+after their kind. Overhead is a sky of that peculiar blue for which the
+Chinese have a word which means "the blue of the sky after rain," a hue
+which only these masters in colour have, to my knowledge,
+specially observed.
+
+How can I help seeing so much beauty and sweetness as the manifestation
+of God? How could He show Himself to me more smilingly? How can I talk
+of not seeing God when I see _this_? True, it may be no more than the
+tip of the fringe of the hem of the robe in which His Being is arrayed;
+but at least it must be that. True, also, that beautiful as these things
+appear to physical eyes they must be still more beautiful to spiritual
+eyes--the eyes of those who have passed on, for instance--to say nothing
+of the delight which God must have in them Himself. But even with my
+imperfect mortal vision they are rapturously good, a veritable glimpse
+of the Divine.
+
+This is what I mean by the elementary--the common, primary thing, the
+thing I look at every day and hardly ever accredit to its source. I am
+not speaking pantheistically here, any more than when I spoke of light.
+These things are not God, or part of God. They are expressions of God.
+If I speak of seeing God in them I mean that in them, as well as in many
+other simple things, we see Him as nearly as is possible to such
+comprehension as ours. "No human eye," writes St. John, "has ever seen
+God: the only Son, who is in the Father's bosom--He has made Him
+known."[8] He made Him known in His own Person; but He appealed also to
+the everyday sights and sounds, the lily of the field, the blowing wind,
+the sparrow falling, the children at their mothers' knees, for the
+evidence to declare Him. As expressions of Him they may be
+misinterpreted by the error in my physical senses, or distorted by my
+limitations of spiritual perception; but even then they bring Him near
+to me in the kind of radiance which I can catch.
+
+[8] Most of the quotations from the New Testament are taken from a
+recent translation, "The New Testament in Modern Speech," by R.F.
+Weymouth and E. Hampden-Cook.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+In order to banish fear I think it necessary to train the thought to
+seeing God as expressing Himself in all the good and pleasant and
+enjoyable things that come to us. This means forming a habit. It means
+saying to oneself daily, hourly, "This is God," "That is God," of
+incidents, persons, and things we have rarely thought of in that
+relation. To do this is not as easy as it would be if our race-mind
+worked that way; but unfortunately it does not. In general we take our
+good things for granted, complaining that they are not better. The
+things we lack are more vivid to us, as a rule, than those we have
+acquired. Having hung, as it were, a cloud about ourselves we disregard
+the uncountable ways in which God persists in shining through, in spite
+of our efforts to shut Him out.
+
+To try to enumerate the uncountable would be folly. You cannot reckon
+the good which comes to every one of us through such channels as family,
+home, friendship, income, business, amusements, studies, holidays,
+journeys, sports, books, pictures, music, and the other hardly noticed
+pleasures of any single day. We are used to them. To ascribe them
+specially to God would seem to us far-fetched. That is, theoretically we
+may ascribe them to God, but practically we dissociate Him from them.
+Few of us, I think, ever pause to remember that through them He is
+making Himself known to us before doing it in any other way.
+
+And yet, it seems to me, this is the beginning of our recognition of the
+Divine. I have little hesitation in saying that this is what parents
+should teach children before they teach them to lisp prayers. The
+prayers have hardly any meaning to the baby-mind, and not much more than
+a sentimental influence on the later life, if they have as much as that.
+But any child, from the very budding of the intelligence, could grasp
+the idea of a great, loving Super-Father, who was making Himself visible
+through gifts and care. If he prayed to Him later he would know to whom
+he was praying. As it is, the later prayers are neglected, or definitely
+given up, oftener than not, because this is precisely what the child
+does _not_ know. He does not know it because he was never taught it; and
+he was never taught it because his parents have probably not been aware
+of it themselves.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I myself was never taught it. Notwithstanding all for which I am truly
+grateful, I regret most deeply that so many years of my life went by
+before I was led to the fact. I am willing to believe that the lack of
+understanding was my own fault, but a lack of understanding there was. I
+got the impression that God, so far from making Himself known to me, was
+hiding away from me, and that I must have faith to believe in One of
+whom I had no more than hearsay evidence. If I could do this violence to
+such measure of reason as I possessed I could count on a reward in some
+other world than this, though on little or nothing here.
+
+Faith I saw as of the nature of a _tour de force_. You took it as you
+took a leap. It was spiritually acrobatic. You didn't understand but you
+_believed_. The less you understood the more credit your belief became
+to you. The more hidden and difficult and mysterious and unintelligible
+God made Himself the greater your merit in having faith in spite of
+everything. I am far from saying that this is the common understanding
+of Christians, or from holding others responsible for my misconceptions.
+I speak of these misconceptions only because they were mine, and it was
+I who had to work away from them.
+
+For this reason, too, I speak of my reaching the idea of a God who had
+been visibly smiling at me all my life while I had never seen Him, as a
+"discovery." To me it _was_ a discovery; and it came at a moment when I
+sorely needed something of the kind.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+It was perhaps three or four years after the turning-point at
+Versailles. The intervening time had been one of what I may call
+spiritual ups and downs. It had not all been straight progress by any
+means. I had got hold of what for me was a great idea, round which other
+great ideas grouped themselves; but I grasped them waveringly or
+intermittently. Nevertheless, during seasons in Boston, Nice, Cannes,
+Munich, London, and Berlin, life on the whole went hopefully. The malady
+I have already mentioned tended to grow better rather than worse; the
+advancing blindness became definitely arrested. I worked easily,
+happily, successfully. Returning to the New England city which had
+become my adopted home, I bought a house and settled down to American
+life once more.
+
+I mention these facts only because they help me to make myself clearer.
+For all at once my affairs, like the chariots of Pharaoh in crossing the
+Red Sea, began to drive heavily. Trust in an all-conquering
+life-principle which had meant much to me for a time no longer seemed
+effective. Difficulties massed themselves. Business misunderstandings
+sprang up. Friendships on which I had counted suddenly grew cold. Worse
+than all, the working impulse gave out. There were two whole years in
+which I slaved at producing little more than what had to be thrown away.
+My active life had apparently come to another deadening full stop.
+
+I reached the decision that there was but one thing to do--give up the
+pretence at working, sell the house to which I had grown attached, and
+resume once more the life of aimless, but at that time inexpensive,
+European wandering. There came a day when I actually offered my
+house for sale.
+
+And yet that day proved to be another turning-point. On the very morning
+when I had put my house in the market the chain of small events which we
+commonly call accidents brought me into touch with a man I had never
+seen before. During a first meeting, as well as in several that
+followed, he made certain matters clear to me which changed my course
+not only then but ever since. These explanations came under three
+distinct headings, to each of which I should like to give a
+little space.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Of these the one I put first is probably familiar to most of my readers,
+but to me, I confess, it was new.
+
+God among His other functions must be a tireless activity working
+towards an end. Everything He calls into being works toward that end, I
+myself with the rest. I am not a purposeless bit of jetsam flung out on
+the ocean of time to be tossed about helplessly. God couldn't so will an
+existence. It would not be in keeping with His economy to have any
+entity wasted. As Our Lord puts it, the sparrow cannot fall without Him;
+without Him the lilies are not decked; the knowledge possessed by His
+infinite intelligence is so minute that the very hairs of the head are
+numbered. My life, my work, myself--all are as much a necessary part of
+His design as the thread the weaver weaves into the pattern in a carpet.
+
+In other words, I am not a free agent. I am His agent. Not only am I
+responsible to him, but He is responsible for me. His responsibility for
+me will be seen as soon as I give up being responsible for myself.
+
+It was upon this last point that I seized with most avidity. I was tired
+of trying to steer a course for myself, with no compass to go by. I was
+tired of incessantly travelling along roads which seemed to lead to
+nothing but blind-ends. To change the figure to one I used not
+infrequently at that time, my life seemed pitchforked, first in one way
+and then in another, no way bringing me anywhere. It had no even tenor.
+It was a series of seismic pulls and jerks.
+
+But in the light of what my new friend told me I saw I had been too
+busily engaged in directing my life for myself. I was like a child who
+hopes to make a smoothly working machine go still more smoothly by
+prodding it. I couldn't leave it alone. It had not occurred to me that
+the course of that life was God's own business, and that if I could
+follow the psalmist's advice and "commit my way unto him he would bring
+it to pass." It had seemed to me that nothing would be brought to pass
+unless I worried and fretted over it myself, whereas the same wise old
+psalmist says, in words which our generation would do well to lay to
+heart, _"fret not thyself_ else shall thou be moved to do evil."
+
+"Trust in the Lord and do good," he goes on; "so shalt thou dwell in
+the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the
+Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
+
+This was nothing new; it was only new to me. To feel that I could give
+up being responsible for results and devote myself to my work was in
+itself a relief. If I tried to "trust in the Lord and do good"--by which
+I suppose is meant doing my duty to the best of my small ability--He
+would look after the rest. My position was somewhat that of a trusted
+subordinate given a free hand, but having over him a supreme authority
+taking charge of all consequences. I was not working on what our modern
+idiom neatly summarises as "my own." _I was His agent_.
+
+Thus it might be said to be to His interest to see that as His agent I
+was sheltered, clothed, fed, and in every way kept in such condition as
+to be up to the highest standard of His work. This provision would
+naturally include those dependent on me, and without whose well-being I
+could not have peace of mind. I need worry about them no more than about
+myself. They, too, were His agents. In certain conditions He might
+provide for them through me, or in certain conditions He might provide
+for me through them; but in all conditions He would provide for all
+of us.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+The second point was this: those with whom I had had misunderstandings
+were equally His agents. They might not be more aware of the fact than
+I; but this in no way disqualified them as His trusted subordinates
+given a free hand. Their work with me and mine with them, whatever its
+nature, wrought one of the infinite number of blends going to make up
+the vast complexity of His design.
+
+It was, therefore, out of the range of possibility that under Him there
+could be opposition or contradiction between one of His agents and
+another. It would be inconsistent with His being that one man's
+advantage should be brought about at another man's cost. Where that was
+apparently the case it was due to both sides taking the authority into
+their own hands, and neither sufficiently recognising Him. If His
+trusted subordinates in being given a free hand played Him false, they
+naturally played each other false, and played false to themselves first
+of all. Where one was afraid of another and strove to outwit him there
+was treachery against the supreme command.
+
+Again there was nothing new in this; but to me it was a new point of
+view with regard to those with whom and for whom I worked. For the first
+time I saw their true relation to me, as mine to them, and something of
+the principle of brotherhood. Up to this time brotherhood had been a
+charming, sentimental word to me, and not much more. Children of one
+Father, yes; but discordant children, with no restraint that I could see
+on their natural cut-throat enmities.
+
+But here was a truth which made all other men my necessary helpmates,
+and me the necessary helpmate of all other men. I couldn't do without
+them; they couldn't do without me. Hostility between us was as out of
+place as between men pulling together on the rope which is to save all
+their lives. If peril could bring about unity God could bring it about
+even more effectively. God was the great positive, the solvent in which
+irritation and unfriendliness must necessarily melt away.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+The third point, involving my obvious first step, was to put suspicion
+out of my own mind. I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working
+with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I.
+It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His
+Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could
+effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with
+God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or
+had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view
+being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order.
+Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were
+many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.
+
+This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we
+should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what
+is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all
+the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting
+one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect
+my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on
+myself--a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves--I am
+not to _fret myself_, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am
+not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents.
+God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He
+expresses Himself through them; we all. I as well as they, they as well
+as I, are partakers of His Sonship; and the Son--His Expression--is
+always "in the Father's bosom," [9] in His love and care.
+
+[9] St. John
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Having grasped this idea the new orientation was not difficult. There
+was in it too much solace to allow of its being difficult. If I state
+the results it is once more not because I consider them important to
+anyone but myself, but only because they became the starting-point of a
+new advance in the conquest of fear.
+
+Within forty-eight hours, with no action on my part except the
+_Metanoia_, the change in my point of view, all misunderstandings had
+been cleared away. The other side had taken the entire initiative, I
+making no advance whatever toward them. A telegram expressing their
+hearty good will was followed by an interview, after which I was at work
+again. I have not only worked easily ever since but with such fecundity
+that one plan is always formed before I have its predecessor off my
+hands. This says nothing of the quality of my work, which, humble as it
+may be, is simply the best I know how to do. I refer only to its
+abundance. I have found that in "working together with God," I am less
+involved in conflicts of wills than I was before, and that the words of
+Amos are literally fulfilled to me, "that the plowman shall overtake the
+reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed." I say it
+without knocking on wood, and with no fear lest my "good luck" will be
+withdrawn, that from that time to this I have had plenty of work which I
+have accomplished happily, and have never lacked a market for my
+modest wares.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+From all of which I have drawn one main inference--the imperative
+urgency of Trust.
+
+I had hitherto thought of trust as a gritting of the teeth and a
+stiffening of the nerves to believe and endure, no matter what
+compulsion one put upon oneself. Gradually, in the light of the
+experience sketched above, I came to see it as simply the knowledge that
+the supreme command rules everything to everyone's advantage. The more
+we can rest mentally, keep ourselves at peace, _be still and know that
+it is God_,[10] the single and sole Director, the more our interests will
+be safe. This, I take it, is the kind of trust for which the great
+pioneers of truth plead so persistently in both the Old and New
+Testaments.
+
+[10] The Book of Psalms.
+
+Trust, then, is not a force we wrest from ourselves against reason,
+against the grain. To be trust at all it must be loving and spontaneous.
+It cannot be loving and spontaneous unless there is a natural impulse
+behind it. And there can be no natural impulse behind it unless we have
+something in our own experience which corroborates the mere hearsay
+testimony that there is a Power worth trusting to. Job's "Though He slay
+me yet will I trust in Him," could only have been wrung from a heart
+which had proved the Divine Good Will a thousand times and knew what it
+was doing. Some experience of our own we _must_ have. It is an absolute
+necessity. Desperate hope in another man's God may do something for us,
+but it cannot do much. A small thing which I have proved for myself is a
+better foundation for trust than a Bible learnt parrot-like by rote and
+not put to the practical test. Once I have found out for myself that to
+rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him is the surest way to
+security and peace I have the more willing confidence in doing it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+GOD'S SELF-EXPRESSION AND THE MIND OF TO-DAY
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+To the mind of to-day trust would be easier were it not for the terror
+lest God's plans involve us in fearful things from which we shrink. We
+have heard so much of the trials He sends; of the gifts of Tantalus He
+keeps forever in our sight but just beyond our reach; of the blessings
+He actually bestows upon us only to snatch them away when we have come
+to love them most--we have heard so much of this that we are often
+afraid of His will as the greatest among the evils of which we stand
+in dread.
+
+In many cases this is the root of our fear. We cannot trust without
+misgiving to the love of God. What is there then that we can trust to?
+We can't trust to ourselves; still less can we trust to our fellow-men.
+Those whom we love and in whom we have confidence being as weak as
+ourselves, if not weaker than we, establish our spirits not at all. If,
+therefore, we mentally poison the well of Universal Good-intent at its
+very source what have we to depend on?
+
+I have already referred to the God of repressions and denials, and now
+must speak a little more freely of this travesty on "the Father," as
+expressed to us in Jesus Christ. Of all the obstacles to the rooting out
+of fear the lingering belief in such a distortion of Divine Love is to
+my mind the most deeply based.
+
+I often think it a proof of the vital truth in the message of Jesus
+Christ that it persists in holding the heart in spite of the ugly thing
+which, from so many points of view, the Caucasian has managed to make of
+it. Nowhere is the cruelty of Caucasian misinterpretation more evident
+than in the meanings given to the glorious phrase, "the Will of God." I
+do not exaggerate when I say that in most Caucasian minds the Will of
+God is a bitter, ruthless force, to which we can only drug ourselves
+into submission. It is always ready to thwart us, to stab us in the
+back, or to strike us where our affections are tenderest. We hold our
+blessings only on the tenure of its caprice. Our pleasures are but the
+stolen moments we can snatch from its inattention.
+
+As an example I quote some stanzas from a hymn frequently sung where
+English-speaking people worship, and more or less expressive of the
+whole Caucasian attitude toward "God's Will."
+
+My God, my Father, while I stray
+Far from my home on life's rough way,
+Oh, teach me from my heart to say,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+Though dark my path and sad my lot,
+Let me be still, and murmur not,
+Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+What though in lonely grief I sigh
+For friends beloved no longer nigh,
+Submissive still would I reply,
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+If thou shouldst call me to resign
+What most I prize, it ne'er was mine;
+I only yield thee what is thine;
+    Thy Will be done.
+
+These lines, typical of a whole class of sentimental hymnology, are
+important only in as far as they are widely known and express a more or
+less standardised point of view. The implication they contain is that
+all deprivation is brought upon us by the Will of God, and that our
+wisest course is to beat ourselves down before that which we cannot
+modify. Beneath the car of this Juggernaut we must flout our judgments
+and crush our affections. As He knows so well where to hit us we must
+stifle our moans when He does so. As He knows so well what will ring our
+hearts we must be content to let Him give so that He can the more
+poignantly take away. The highest exercise of our own free will is to
+"be still and murmur not"--to admit that we need the chastisement--to
+crouch beneath the blows which we tell ourselves are delivered in love,
+even though it is hard to see where the love comes in.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+I know nothing more tragic than those efforts on the part of
+heart-broken people, coming within the experience of all of us, to make
+themselves feel that this terrible "Will of God" must be right, no
+matter how much it seems wrong.
+
+A young man with a wife and family to support is struck down by a
+lingering illness which makes him a burden. All his Job's comforters
+tell him that God has brought the affliction upon him, and that to bow
+to the "Inscrutable Will" must be his first act of piety.
+
+A young mother is rejoicing in her baby when its little life is suddenly
+snuffed out. She must school herself to say, quite irrespective of the
+spirit of renunciation which inspires the words, "The Lord gave and the
+Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord."
+
+A woman is left a widow to earn a living for herself, and bring up her
+children fatherless. She must assume that the Lord had some good purpose
+in leaving her thus bereft and must drill herself into waiting on a
+Will so impossible to comprehend.
+
+Storms sink ships, drowning passengers and crew; lightning sets fire to
+houses and strikes human beings dead; earthquakes swallow up whole
+districts destroying industry and human life; tidal waves sweep inland
+carrying away towns; and our legal phraseology can think of no better
+explanation of such calamity than to ascribe it to "the act of God."
+
+It is needless to multiply these instances. Our own knowledge supplies
+them by the score. Our personal lives are full of them. God's Will,
+God's Love, God's Mercy, become strangely ironic forces, grim beyond any
+open enmity. They remind us of the "love," the "pity," the "mercy," in
+which the orthodox sent the heretic to the hangman or the stake,
+destroying the body to save the soul.
+
+It is a far cry from this appalling vision of "the Father" to the
+psalmist's "Delight thou in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires
+of thine heart." How could anyone delight in the Caucasian God, as the
+majority of Caucasians conceive of Him? As a matter of fact, how many
+Caucasians themselves, however devout, however orthodox, attempt to
+delight, or pretend to delight, in the God to whom on occasions they bow
+down? Delight is a strong word, and a lovely one; but used of the
+Caucasian and his Deity it is not without its elements of humour.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+Naturally enough! It is impossible for any human being to delight in a
+God whose first impulse in "doing us good" is so often to ravage our
+prosperity and affections. So long as we believe in Him fear will rule
+our lives. It is because the Caucasian believes in Him that he lives in
+fear and dies in fear. To attempt to eliminate fear and retain this
+concept of God is vain.
+
+Understanding this the average Caucasian has made little or no effort to
+eliminate fear. He would rather live and die in fear than change this
+concept of God. It is dear to him. He finds it useful. To its shoulders
+he can shift the ills of which he is unwilling himself to accept the
+responsibility. Where God is a puzzle life is a puzzle; and where life
+is a puzzle the Caucasian gets his chance for making the materialistic
+ideal the only one that seems practical. In a world which was to any
+noticeable degree freed from the spectre of fear most of our existing
+systems of government, religion, business, law, and national and
+international politics, would have to be remodelled. There would be
+little or no use for them. Built on fear and run by fear, fear is as
+essential to their existence as coal to our industries. A society that
+had escaped from fear would escape from their control.
+
+In this present spring of 1921 we are having an exhibition of fear on a
+scale so colossal that the heart of man is dazed by it. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of some other government. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of its own people. There is not a people
+which is not afraid of its own government. There is not a country in
+which one group is not afraid of some other group. All is rivalry,
+enmity, suspicion, confusion, and distrust, "while men's hearts are
+fainting for fear, and for anxious expectation of what is coming on the
+world." All statesmen, all ministers, all ambassadors, all politicians,
+all bankers, all business men, all professional men, all journalists,
+all farmers, all laborers, all workers in the arts, all men and women of
+all kinds--with the exception of one here and there who has reached the
+understanding of the love which casteth out fear--live and work in fear,
+and in mistrust of their colleagues. From the supreme councils of the
+Allies down to the crooks and conspirators in dives and joints everyone
+is afraid of being double-crossed. There is so much double-crossing
+everywhere that we have been obliged to invent this name for the
+operation. England is afraid of being double-crossed by Germany, France
+by England, Italy by France, the United States by Europe, and Japan by
+the United States, while within these general limitations minor
+double-crossing interests seethe like bacteria in a drop of poisoned
+blood. The nations are infected with fear because they elect to believe
+in a God of fear, and the Caucasians more than others because they have
+chosen to see a God of fear in Him who was put before them as a God
+of Love.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+I see no way out of all this except as one of us after another reaches
+the _Metanoia_, the new point of view as regards God. Other ways have
+been sought, and have been found no more than blind alleys. Much
+reference is made nowadays to the disillusionment of those who hoped
+that the war would lead to social and spiritual renovation; but any such
+hope was doomed in advance, so long as the Caucasian concept of God was
+unchanged. When you cannot trust God you cannot trust anything; and when
+you cannot trust anything you get the condition of the world as it is
+to-day. And that you _cannot_ trust a God whose "love" will paralyse the
+hand by which you have to earn a living, or snatch your baby from your
+breast--to say nothing of a thousand ingenious forms of torture
+inflicted just because "He sees that it is best for you," after having
+led you to see otherwise--that you cannot trust a God like that must be
+more or less self-evident. If you are part of His Self-Expression He
+cannot practise futilities through your experience and personality. He
+must be kind with a common-sense kindness, loving with a common-sense
+love. Whatever explanation of our sufferings and failures there may be
+we must not shuffle them off on God. "Let us hold God to be true," St.
+Paul writes, "though every man should prove false."[11] Let us hold that
+God would not hurt us, however much we may wilfully hurt each other or
+ourselves.
+
+[11] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I should not lay so much emphasis on this if so much emphasis were not
+laid on it in the other direction. God has so persistently, and for so
+many generations, been held up to us as a God who tries and torments and
+punishes that we can hardly see Him as anything else. Torture comes, in
+the minds of many of us, to be not only His main function but His only
+function. "I am all right," is the unspoken thought in many a heart, "so
+long as I am not overtaken by the Will of God. When that calamity falls
+on me my poor little human happiness will be wrecked like a skiff in a
+cyclone." This is not an exaggeration. It is the secret mental attitude
+of perhaps ninety percent of those Caucasians who believe in a God of
+any kind. Their root-conviction is that if God would only let them alone
+they would get along well enough; but as a terrible avenging spirit,
+like the Fury or the Nemesis of the ancients, he is always tracking them
+down. The aversion from God so noticeable in the mind of to-day is, I
+venture to think, chiefly inspired by the instinct to get away from, or
+to hide from, the pursuit of this Avenger.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+And in a measure this impulse to flight can be understood. I can
+understand that common-sense men should be cold toward the Caucasian
+God, and that they should even renounce and denounce him. I will go so
+far as to say that I can more easily understand the atheist than I can
+many of my own friends who pathetically try to love and adore their
+capricious un-Christlike Deity. To my certain knowledge many of them are
+doing it against their own natural and better instincts, because they
+dare not forsake the tradition in which they have been dyed. "I try to
+love God and I can't," has been said to me many a time by conscientious
+people who felt that the fault must lie in themselves. There was no
+fault in themselves. If their God could have been loved they would have
+loved him.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+I come here to a point of no small importance to the conquest of fear,
+the courage to release oneself from the tether of tradition. Few people
+have it, in the sense of rejecting old theories because of having worked
+out to new spiritual knowledge. When it comes to the eternal verities
+many of us are cowardly; nearly all of us are timid. The immense
+majority of us prefer a God at second or third hand. We will accept what
+somebody else has learned, rather than incur the trouble or the
+responsibility of learning anything for ourselves. We take our knowledge
+of God as we take our doses of medicine, from a prescription which one
+man has written down, and another has "put up," and still another
+administers. By the time this traditional, handed-on knowledge of God
+has reached ourselves it is diluted by all kinds of outside opinions and
+personalities. It is not strange that when we have swallowed the dose it
+does little to effect a cure. I do not deny that a second or third hand
+knowledge of God may do something. I only deny that it can do much. To
+support my denial I need only point to what the world has become in a
+second and third hand Christendom. The illustration is enough.
+
+It should be plain, I think, that no one will ever be released from fear
+by clinging to the teachings which have inspired fear. We are fearless
+in proportion as we grow independent enough to know for ourselves. I
+cannot but stress this point to some extent, for the reason that I
+myself suffered so long from inability to let the traditional go. It
+seemed to me to have a sanctity just because it was traditional. The
+fact that other people had accepted certain ideas had weight in making
+me feel that I should accept them too. To go off on a line of my own
+seemed dangerous. I might make mistakes. I might go far wrong. Safety
+was spelled by hanging with the crowd.
+
+It was the chance remark of an old acquaintance which dislodged me from
+this position. In the lobby of a hotel we had met by chance, after not
+having seen each other for a good many years. The conversation, having
+touched on one theme and another, drifted to subjects akin to that which
+I am now discussing. I ventured to disclose some of my own "seeking God,
+if perhaps I could grope for Him and find Him."[12]
+
+[12] Acts of the Apostles.
+
+My friend straightened himself and squared his shoulders. "I stand
+exactly where I did thirty years ago."
+
+There was a pride in the statement with regard to which my first feeling
+was a pang of envy. A rapid calculation told me that thirty years ago he
+had been about twenty; and the superiority of a man who at twenty had
+attained to so much spiritual insight that he had not needed to learn
+anything more in the interim was evident. I was two or three days
+turning this incident over in my mind before the exclamation came to me,
+"How terrible!" To have lived through the thirty years of the richest
+experience the ordinary man ever knows and still have remained on
+precisely the same spot as to spiritual things struck me then as a
+woeful confession.
+
+I beg to say here that I am not talking of external and official
+religious connections. I am trying to avoid the subject of external and
+official religion altogether. I am speaking not of religion but of God.
+To my mind the two have no more than the relation of the words of a song
+and the music of its setting. You may use them together or you may
+consider them apart. I am considering them apart, and confining myself
+wholly to the words of the song. What is known as church-affiliation,
+the music of the setting, I am not concerned with. My only topic is the
+way in which the meaning of the words gets over to the average inner
+man, and the effect upon him mentally.
+
+I revert, therefore, to the statement that to make the kind of spiritual
+progress which will overcome fear it will be often necessary to let go
+the thing we have outlived. Often the thing we have outlived will be
+something dear to us, because there was once a time when it served our
+turn. But our turn to-day may need something different from the turn of
+yesterday, and the refusal to follow new light simply because it is new
+leads in the end to mental paralysis. I was once asked to sign a
+petition to the mayor of a city praying that, on the ground of its
+novelty, electric lighting might be excluded from the street in which I
+lived. Exactly this same reluctance often keeps us from making changes
+of another sort, even when we feel that the light which hitherto was
+enough for us has been outgrown and outclassed.
+
+The danger of the lone quest leading a man astray can be easily
+exaggerated. It is not as if God were difficult to find. "The soul
+cannot move, wake, or open the eyes, without perceiving God." "For this
+commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee,
+neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go up for us to heaven and bring it down unto us that we may hear
+it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us that we may hear it
+and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy
+heart."[13] No motion toward the Universal can miss the Universal. I
+cannot escape from the Ever-Present; the Ever-Present cannot escape from
+me. Intellectually I may make mistakes in deduction, but spiritually I
+cannot but find God. The little I learn of God for myself is to me
+worth more than all the second and third hand knowledge I can gather
+from the saints.
+
+[13] The Book of Deuteronomy.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+It is the more necessary to dwell on this for the reason that whatever
+_Metanoia_, or new orientation, is to be brought about must be on the
+part of individuals. There is no hope for large numbers acting together,
+or for any kind of group-impulse. Group-impulse among Caucasians is
+nearly always frightened, conservative, reactionary, or derisive of the
+forward step. There is hardly an exception to this in the whole history
+of Caucasian ideas.
+
+Otherwise it would be a pleasant dream to imagine what might now be
+happening on the great international stage. Let us suppose that the
+leaders of the so-called Christian countries were all convinced of the
+three main lines of God's direction I have already tried to sketch. Let
+us think of such men as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Sforza, President
+Harding, and the heads of government in Belgium, Russia, Germany, and
+all other countries affected by the present war of moves and
+counter-moves--let us think of them as agreed on the principles:
+
+1. That each knows himself and his country as an agent in the hand of
+God, directed surely toward a good end;
+
+2. That each knows each of his colleagues and his country as equally an
+agent in the hand of God, directed surely toward a similar good end;
+
+3. That each knows that between God's agents there can be neither
+conflicting interests nor clash of wills, and that suspicion and
+counter-suspicion must be out of place, since under God's direction no
+double-crossing is possible.
+
+The picture is almost comic in its incongruity with what actually is.
+The mere thought of these protagonists of the century working in harmony
+to one great purpose, without distrust of each other's motives, and with
+no necessity for anyone's dodging political foul play, summons the smile
+of irony. Mutual trust was never so much a suggestion to laugh down.
+The mere hint that it might be possible would make one a target for the
+wit of the experienced.
+
+In what we call the practical world of to-day there is no appeal from
+the God of Fear but _to_ the God of Fear. The great mass of Caucasians
+will not have it otherwise. And it requires no prophetic vision to
+foresee the results of the efforts to bring about international harmony
+while all are obeying the decrees of the Goddess of Discord. Nearly
+three years after the signing of the armistice the world is in a more
+hopeless situation than it was when at war. Up to the present each new
+move only makes matters worse. There are those who believe that our
+phase of civilisation is staggering into the abyss and that nothing, as
+far as can now be descried, will save it from the deluge.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Possibly! Fear tends always to produce the thing it is afraid of. I
+mention this dark outlook only for the reason that even if the
+cataclysm were to come the individual can escape from it.
+
+Cataclysms are not new in the history of our race. The rise and fall of
+civilisations may be called mankind's lessons in "how not to do it." Of
+these lessons there are no such records as those which we find in the
+Old Testament; and in these records it is unfailingly pointed out that
+whatever the calamity which overtakes the world at large the individual
+has, if he chooses, a way of safety. The innocent are not overwhelmed
+with the guilty, except when the innocent deliberately shut their eyes
+to the opening toward the _Soteria_--the Safe Return. But that,
+unhappily, the innocent do so shut their eyes is one of the commonest
+facts in life.
+
+Back in that twilight of history of which the later tale could be told
+only by some symbol, some legendary hieroglyph, there was already an
+"Ark" by which the faithful few could be saved from the "Flood." The
+symbol became permanent. The Ark of the Covenant--the sign of a great
+spiritual understanding--remained as a token to man that in God he had
+a sure refuge. It was laid up in his Holy of Holies, a mystic,
+consecrated pledge, till the ruthless Caucasian came and rifled it.
+
+But no rifling could deprive mankind of its significance. That endures.
+To bring it home to the desolate and oppressed was a large part of the
+mission of psalmists and prophets. The Ark of the Covenant--of the Great
+Understanding--meant as much to those who sought God in the ancient
+world as the Cross does to Christendom. It meant that whatever the
+collapse, national or general, through siege or sack or famine, those
+who would escape could escape by the simple process of mentally taking
+refuge in God. The Ark of God would bear them safely when all material
+help failed.
+
+Among the themes which run through the Old Testament this is of
+paramount importance. It is impossible to do more than refer to the many
+times the spiritually minded were implored to seek this protection. It
+was needful to implore them since they found the assurance so difficult
+to believe. No matter how often it was proved to them they still
+doubted it. Saved by this method once they would reject it when it came
+to danger the second time. Saved the second time they rejected it the
+third. "Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
+thee, because he trusteth in thee," is the declaration of Jeremiah, who
+perhaps more than any other was a prophet of disaster. Similar
+statements are scattered through the Old Testament by the score, by the
+hundred. It was a point on which leaders, seers, and teachers insisted
+with a passionate insistence. They knew. They had tested the truth for
+themselves. Disaster was a common feature in their history. During the
+three thousand years and more which their experiences cover these
+Israelites had seen more than one invasion sweep across their land, more
+than one civilisation come and go. All that Belgium knew in the Great
+War they knew time and time again. Between Egypt and Assyria, the France
+and Germany of that special epoch, theirs was a kind of buffer state
+over which every new anguish rolled. "Let it roll," was the cry of
+their prophets. "The Lord will fight for you. Stand still and see what
+he will do. His arm is not shortened neither his strength diminished. It
+is of the Lord to save whether by many or by few. Trust in the Lord and
+be doing good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be
+fed. Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou hast wrought for them that
+trust in thee before the sons of men. I said in my haste, I am cut off!
+Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried
+unto thee. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye
+that hope in the Lord."[14]
+
+[14] Various Old Testament Sources.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+In many ways this is the burden of the more ancient Scriptures--the
+protection which surrounds those who know that protection is God. It was
+a gospel that had to be preached with tears and beseechings from one
+generation to another. No generation accepted it. The belief in
+material power was always too dense. It is still too dense. In the Ark
+of the Great Understanding the Caucasian has practically never seen more
+than a symbol that has gone out of date. Lost materially in the Tiber
+mud it was, for him, lost forever. But not so. Its significance remains
+as vital to mankind as when, veiled and venerated, it stood between
+the cherubim.
+
+The time may be close at hand when we shall need this assurance as we
+need nothing else. However optimistic we try to keep ourselves, no
+thinking man or woman can be free, at this crisis in world-history, from
+deep foreboding. For the memory to go back ten years is, even for us in
+the New World, like returning to a Golden Age; while for the Old World
+mere recollection must be poignant.
+
+The possibility that all countries in both hemispheres may find
+themselves in some such agony as that of the Russia of to-day is not too
+extravagant to be entertained. This is not saying that they are likely
+so to find themselves; it means only that in the world as it is the
+safest is not very safe. My point is that whether catastrophe
+overwhelms us or not, he who chooses not to fear can be free from fear.
+There is a refuge for him, a defence, a safeguard which no material
+attack can break down. "He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
+High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the
+Lord, He is my refuge--my fortress--my God. In Him will I trust."[15]
+There is this Ark for me, this Ark of the Great Understanding, and I can
+retire into it. I can also have this further assurance: "Because thou
+hast made the Lord which is my refuge--even the Most High--thy
+habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague
+come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to
+keep thee in all thy ways."[16]
+
+[15] The Book of Psalms.
+
+[16] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+This is the eternal agreement, but an agreement of which we find it
+difficult to accept the terms. To the material alone we are in the habit
+of ascribing power. Though we repeat a thousand times in the course of
+a year, "For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," we do not
+believe it. To few of us is it more than a sonorous phrase.
+
+I remember the impression of this which one received at the great
+thanksgiving for peace in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some twenty
+years ago. The Boer War had ended in an English victory, and while the
+thanksgiving was not precisely for this, it did express the relief of an
+anxious nation that peace was again restored. It was what is generally
+known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer
+to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors,
+ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens
+filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of
+that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral choirs guard
+the secret.
+
+But the detail I remember best was the way in which the repetition of
+the Lord's Prayer rolled from the lips of the assembly like the sound
+of the surging of the sea. It was the emotional effect of a strongly
+emotional moment. One felt tense. It was hard to restrain tears. As far
+as crowd-sympathy has any spiritual value it was there. The Caucasian
+God was taken out of His pigeon-hole and publicly recognised.
+
+Then He was put back.
+
+I take this service merely as an instance of what happens in all the
+so-called Christian capitals in moments of national stress. Outwardly it
+happens less in the United States than it does elsewhere, for the reason
+that this country has no one representative spiritual expression; but it
+does happen here in diffused and general effect. As a Christian nation
+we ascribe in common with other Christian nations the kingdom, the
+power, and the glory to God--on occasions. We do it with the pious
+gesture and the sonorous phrase. Then we forget it. The habit of
+material trust is too strong for us. Kings, queens, presidents, princes,
+prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives
+of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause;
+but there is always what we flippantly know as a "joker" in the
+lip-recitation. "Kingdom, power, and glory," we can hear ourselves
+saying in a heart-aside, "lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God
+is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world for us to give
+Him more than the consideration of an act of courtesy."
+
+Practically that is all we ever get from group-impulse--an act of
+courtesy. I repeat and repeat again that whatever is done toward the
+conquest of fear must be done by the individual. _I_ must do what I can
+to conquer fear in myself, regardless of the attitude or opinions of men
+in general.
+
+To men in general the appeal to spiritual force to bring to naught
+material force is little short of fanatical. It has never been otherwise
+as yet; it will probably not be otherwise for long generations to come.
+Meanwhile it is much for the individual to know that he can act on his
+own initiative, and that when it comes to making God his refuge he can
+go into that refuge alone. He needs no nation, or government, or
+society, or companions before him or behind him. He needs neither leader
+nor guide nor friend. In the fortress of God he is free to enter merely
+as himself, and there know that he is safe amid a world in agony.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+This is not theory; it is not doctrine; it is not opinion. It is what
+the great pioneers of truth have first deduced from what they understood
+to be the essential beneficence of God, and then proved by actual
+demonstration. Anyone else can demonstrate it who chooses to make the
+experiment. My own weakness is such that I have made the experiment but
+partially; but partial experiment convinces me beyond all further
+questioning that the witness of the great pioneers is true.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+Nor is this conviction to be classed as idealism, or ecclesiasticism, or
+mysticism, or anything else to which we can put a tag. It is not
+sectarian; it is not peculiarly Christian. It is the general possession
+of mankind. True, it is easier for the Christian than for any other to
+enter on this heritage, since his spiritual descent is more directly
+from the pioneers of truth who first discovered God to be His children's
+safety; but the Universal is the Universal, the property of all.
+Discovery gives no one an exclusive hold on it. Anyone with a
+consciousness of Almighty, Ever-Present Intelligence must have some
+degree of access to it, though his access may not be to the fullest or
+the easiest. It is not possible that the Universal Father should be the
+special property of the Christian or of anyone else. The Christian view
+of the Father is undoubtedly the truest; but every view is true in
+proportion to its grasp of truth. No one will deny that the Buddhist,
+the Mahometan, the Confucianist, have their grasp of truth. Even the
+primitive idolater has some faint gleam of it, distorted though it may
+have become. Very well, then; the faintest gleam of such knowledge will
+not go without its recompense.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Exclusiveness is too much our Caucasian habit of mind. It is linked with
+our instinct for ownership. Because through Jesus Christ we have a
+clearer view of a greater segment of the Universal, if I may so express
+myself, than the Buddhist can have through Buddha or the Mahometan
+through Mahomet, our tendency is to think that we know the whole of the
+Universal, and have it to give away. Any other view of the Universal is
+to us so false as to merit not merely condemnation but extirpation.
+Extirpation has been the watchword with which Caucasian Christianity has
+gone about the world. We have taken toward other views of truth no such
+sympathetic stand as St. Paul to that which he found in Greece, and
+which is worth recalling:
+
+"Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably
+religious. For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I
+found also an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. The
+Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing it, revere, Him I now
+proclaim to you. God who made the universe and everything in it--He
+being Lord of heaven and earth--does not dwell in sanctuaries built by
+men. Nor is He administered to by human hands as though He needed
+anything--but He Himself gives to all men life and breath and all
+things. He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race,
+for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked for them
+an appointed span of life, and the boundaries of their homes; that they
+might seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him. Yes,
+though He is not far from any one of us. For it is in closest union with
+Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the
+poets in repute among yourselves have said, 'For we are also His
+offspring.'"[17]
+
+[17] Acts of the Apostles.
+
+To the conquest of fear this splendid universalism is another
+essential. God being "not far from any one of us" cannot be far from me.
+He who gives to all men life and breath and all things will not possibly
+deny me the things I require most urgently. Our whole civilisation may
+go to pieces; the job by which I earn a living may cease to be a job;
+the money I have invested may become of no more value than Russian
+bonds; the children whom I hoped I had provided for may have to face
+life empty-handed; all my accustomed landmarks may be removed, and my
+social moorings swept away; nevertheless, the Universal cannot fail me.
+"Although the figtree shall not blossom nor fruit be in the vines;
+though the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields yield no meat;
+though the flocks be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the
+stalls; yet I will rejoice in God, I will joy in the God of my
+salvation." It is safe to say that this confidence on the part of
+Habakkuk was not due to mere grim forcing of the will. It was the fruit
+of experience, of knowledge, of demonstration. In spite of the dangers
+national and personal he saw threatening, his certainty of God must
+have been spontaneous.
+
+Anyone, in any country, in any epoch, and of any creed or no creed, who
+has shared this experience shares also this assurance. To the Christian
+it comes easiest; but that it does not come easy even to the Christian
+is a matter of common observation. It can only come easily when some
+demonstration has been made for oneself, after which there is no more
+disputing it.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+Nor is it a question of morals or morality.
+
+I must venture here on delicate ground and say what I should hesitate to
+say were the contrary not so strongly underscored. I mean that God, from
+what we understand to be His nature, could not accord us His protection
+by weighing the good and the evil in our conduct, and giving or
+withholding help according to our worthiness. The Universal is too great
+to be measured and doled in that way. Nothing but our own pinchbeck
+ideas could ascribe to Him this pettiness. As it is the kind of sliding
+scale we ourselves adopt, we limit the Divine Generosity by our own
+limitations.
+
+Not so was the understanding of Jesus Christ. That we should be kind to
+the so-called evil as we are to the so-called good was a point on which
+He dwelt in the Sermon on the Mount. To discriminate between them when
+it comes to the possibility of conferring benefits is in His opinion
+small. "You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
+and hate thine enemy.' But I command you all, Love your enemies, and
+pray for your persecutors; that so you may become true sons of your
+Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the wicked as well as
+on the good, and sends rain upon those who do right and those who do
+wrong."[18]
+
+[18] St. Matthew.
+
+In other words, we are not to feel ourselves turned out of our
+"habitation" in God by a sense of our moral lapses. Moral lapses are to
+be regretted, of course; but they do not vitiate our status as the Sons
+of God. It is possible that no one believes they do; but much of the
+loose statement current among those who lay emphasis on morals would
+give that impression. There is a whole vernacular in vogue in which
+souls are "lost" or "saved" according to the degree to which they
+conform or do not conform to other people's views as to what they ought
+to do. Much of our pietism is to the effect that God is at the bestowal
+not merely of a sect, but of some section of a sect, and cannot be found
+through any other source.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+This brings me to the distinction between morals and righteousness,
+which is one for the mind of to-day to keep as clearly as possible
+before it. I have said that the refuge in God is not a question of
+morals; but it is one of righteousness. Between righteousness and morals
+the difference is important.
+
+Morals stand for a code of observances; righteousness for a direction of
+the life.
+
+Morals represent just what the word implies, the customs of an age, a
+country, or a phase in civilisation. They have no absolute standard. The
+morals of one century are not those of another. The morals of one race
+are not those of another even in the same century. In many respects the
+morals of the Oriental differ radically from those of the Occidental,
+age-long usage being behind each. It is as hard to convince either that
+his are the inferior as it would be to make him think so of his
+mother-tongue. I once asked a cultivated Chinaman, a graduate of one of
+the great American universities and a Christian of the third generation,
+in what main respect he thought China superior to the United States. "In
+morals," he replied, promptly; but even as a Christian educated in
+America his theory of morals was different from ours.
+
+Among ourselves in the United States the essence of morals is by no
+means a subject of unanimous agreement. You might say that a standard of
+morals is entirely a matter of opinion. There are millions of people who
+think it immoral to play cards, to go to the theatre, to dance, or to
+drink wine. There are millions of other people who hold all these acts
+to be consistent with the highest moral conduct.
+
+Moreover, wherever the emphasis is thrown on morals as distinct from
+righteousness there is a tendency to put the weight on two or three
+points in which nations or individuals excel, and to ignore the rest.
+For example, not to go outside ourselves, the American people may be
+fairly said to exemplify two of the great virtues: On the whole they
+are, first, sober; secondly, continent. As a result we accentuate morals
+in these respects, but not in any others.
+
+For instance, the current expression, "an immoral man," is almost
+certain to apply only under the two headings cited above, and probably
+only under one. All other morals and immoralities go by the board. We
+should not class a dishonest man as an immoral man, nor an untruthful
+man, nor a profane, or spiteful, or ungenial, or bad-tempered, man. Our
+notion of morals hardly ever rises above the average custom of the
+community in which we happen to live. Except in the rarest instances we
+never pause to reflect as to whether the customs of that community are
+or are not well founded. The consequence is that our cities, villages,
+countrysides, and social groupings are filled with men and women moral
+enough as far as the custom of the country goes, but quite noticeably
+unrighteous.
+
+It is also a fact that where you find one or two virtues singled out for
+observance and the rest obscured there you find, too, throngs of
+outwardly "moral" people with corroded hearts. Villages, churches, and
+all the quieter communities are notorious for this, the peculiarity
+having formed for a hundred and fifty years the stock-in-trade of
+novelists. Sobriety and continence being more or less in evidence the
+assumption is that all the requirements have been fulfilled. The
+community is "moral" notwithstanding the back-bitings, heart-burnings,
+slanders, cheatings, envies, hatreds, and bitternesses that may permeate
+it through and through. As I write, the cramped, venomous, unlovely life
+of the American small town is the favourite theme of our authors and
+readers of fiction. Since a number of the works now on the market have
+met with national approval one must assume that the pictures they paint
+are accurate. The conditions are appalling, but, according to the custom
+of the country, they are "moral." The shadow of insobriety and
+incontinence doesn't touch the characters who move across these pages,
+and yet the level of the life is pictured as debased, and habits
+as hideous.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+With morals in this accepted American sense righteousness has little to
+do. The two are different in origin. Morals imply the compulsion of men,
+and are never more binding than the customs of men render them. They are
+thus imposed from without, while righteousness springs from within. The
+essence of righteousness lies in the turning of the individual
+toward God.
+
+I think it safe to say that righteousness is expressed more accurately
+in attitude than in conduct. It is expressed in conduct, of course; but
+conduct may fail while the attitude can remain constant. It is worthy of
+remark that some of the great examples of righteousness cited in the
+Bible were conspicuously sinners. That is to say, they were men of
+strong human impulses against which they were not always sufficiently on
+guard, but who turned towards God in spite of everything. In the long
+line spanning the centuries between Noah and Abraham and Peter and
+Paul--from the almost prehistoric out into the light of day--not one is
+put before us except in his weakness as well as in his strength. Some of
+them commit gross sins; but apparently even gross sins do not debar them
+from their privileges in God's love. This principle was expressed in the
+words of Samuel: "Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness; yet turn
+not aside from following the Lord.... For the Lord will not forsake his
+people for his great name's sake." That the Universal who has all the
+blessings of creation to bestow should deprive me of anything just
+because in my folly or weakness I have committed sins is not consistent
+with "his great name's sake." It would not be causing His sun to rise on
+the wicked as well as on the good nor sending rain on those who do right
+and those who do wrong. I am too small for His immensity to crush with
+its punishments, but not too small to be the object of His entire love.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+I hope it is plain that I say this not to make little of doing wrong but
+to put the love and fulness of God in the dominating place. I must make
+it clear to myself that He does not shut me out of His heart because I
+am guilty of sins. I may shut myself out of His heart, unless I direct
+my mind rightly; but He is always there, unchanged, unchangeable, the
+ever-loving, ever-welcoming Father. Whatever I have done I can return to
+Him with the knowledge that He will take me back. Far from sure of
+myself, I can always be sure of Him.
+
+There are those who would warn me against saying this through fear lest
+it should be interpreted as, "Don't be afraid to sin so long as you keep
+mentally close to God." I prefer to run that risk. The dread figure of
+"an angry God" has been so worked to terrorise men that large numbers of
+us have been terrorised. But experience shows us every day that being
+terrorised never produces the results at which it aims. It does not win
+us; it drives us away.
+
+Much of the alienation from God in the mind of to-day is due to
+rebellion on the part of our sense of justice. We are sinners, of
+course; but not such sinners as to merit the revenge which an outraged
+deity is described as planning against us. That the All-loving and
+All-mighty should smite us in our dearest aims or our sweetest
+affections just because we have not conformed to the lop-sided morality
+of men is revolting to our instincts. We are repulsed by the God of Fear
+when we are drawn, comforted, strengthened, and changed by Him who is
+never anything toward us but "the Father."
+
+I have no hesitation, therefore, in throwing the emphasis in what I
+have to say on the fact that He is "a place to hide me in"--the Ark of
+the Great Understanding--always open to my approach--into which,
+whatever I have done, I can go boldly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE MIND OF TO-DAY AND THE WORLD AS IT IS
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Much of what I have written will seem inconsistent with the fact that in
+the world as it is there are undeniable and inevitable hardships. True!
+I do not escape them more than any other man, the relative relief from
+fear saving me from only some of them.
+
+I have not meant to say that even with one's refuge in God there is
+nothing left to struggle with. My point is that whatever there may be to
+struggle with there is nothing to be afraid of. Freedom from struggle
+would profit us not at all. On the contrary, it would render us
+nerveless, flabby, flaccid, and inert.
+
+But fear, as a rule, being connected with our struggles, it is
+important, I think, to be as clear as we can concerning the purport of
+those struggles, and their source. We have already seen that fear is
+diminished in proportion as we understand that our trials are not
+motiveless, and perhaps this is the point at which to consider briefly
+what the motives are.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Struggle we may define as the act of wrestling with trial, so as to come
+out of it victoriously. It is a constant element in every human life.
+Furthermore, I am inclined to think that, taking trial as an average,
+the amount which enters into one life differs little from that which
+enters into another.
+
+There was a time when I did not think so. Some lives struck me as
+singled out for trouble; others were left comparatively immune from it.
+One would have said that destinies had been mapped with a strange
+disregard for justice. Those who didn't deserve it suffered; those whom
+suffering might have purified went scot free. Some were rich, others
+were poor; some had high positions, others humble ones; some had the
+respect of the world from the day they were born, others crept along
+from birth to death in restriction and obscurity. The contrasts were so
+cruel that they scorched the eyes of the soul.
+
+This is true, of course; and I am not saying that in the testing to
+which everyone is subjected all have an equal share of the opportunities
+for triumphing. I am speaking for the moment only of the degree to which
+the testing comes. As to that, I am inclined to feel that there is
+little to choose between one life and another, since each of us seems to
+be tried for all that he can bear.
+
+One is impressed with that in one's reading of biography. Only the lives
+of what we may call the favoured few get into print, and of those few it
+is chiefly the external events that are given us. Glimpses of the inner
+experience may be obtained from time to time, but they are rarely more
+than glimpses. Of what the man or the woman has endured in the secret
+fastnesses of the inner life practically nothing can be told. And yet
+even with the little that finds its way into words how much there is of
+desperate fighting. To this there is never an exception. The great
+statesman, the great poet, the great priest, the great scientist, the
+great explorer, the great painter, the great novelist--not one but
+suffers as anyone suffers, and of not one would the reader, as a rule,
+put himself in the place.
+
+I bring up this fact because we so often feel that the other man has an
+easier task than ourselves. The very thing I lack is that with which he
+is blessed. I see him smiling and debonair at the minute when I am in a
+ferment. While I hardly know how to make both ends meet he is building a
+big house or buying a new motor-car. While I am burying hope or love he
+is in the full enjoyment of all that makes for happiness and prosperity.
+
+We are always prone to contrast our darker minutes with our friends'
+brighter ones. We forget, or perhaps we never know, that they do the
+same with us. At times we are as much the object of their envy as they
+ever are of ours.
+
+I say this not on the principle that misery loves company, but in order
+to do away with the heathen suspicion lingering in many minds that God
+singles _me_ out for trial, heaping benefits on others who deserve them
+no more than I do.
+
+God singles no one out for trial. When trials come they spring, as
+nearly as I can observe, from one or all of the three following sources.
+There are:
+
+A. The trials which come from a world of matter;
+
+B. The trials which come from a world of men;
+
+C. The trials we bring on ourselves.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+A. The minute we speak of matter we speak of a medium which the mind of
+to-day is just beginning to understand. The mind of other days did not
+understand it at all. Few phases of modern advance seem to me more
+significant of a closer approach to the understanding of spiritual
+things than that which has been made along these lines.
+
+To all the generations before our own matter was a sheer and positive
+density. Its hardness, solidity, and actuality could not be gainsaid.
+Earth was earth; iron was iron; wood was wood. Blood was blood; flesh
+was flesh; bone was bone. A man was a material being attached to a
+material planet, as a sponge is attached to the bottom of the sea. All
+that he touched and ate and wore and used was of the same material
+Absolute. As to the spiritual there could be a question; as to the
+material there could be none. The speculation of occasional
+philosophers, that matter might not after all be more than a mental
+phenomenon, was invariably hooted down. "I know that matter is matter by
+standing on it," are in substance the words attributed to even so
+spiritually-minded a man as the great Dr. Johnson. On this point, as
+perhaps on some others, he may be taken as a spokesman for the Caucasian
+portion of our race.
+
+And now comes modern physical science reducing matter to a tenuousness
+only one remove from the purely spiritual, if it is as much as that.
+Gone is the mass of the mountains, the stoniness of rocks, the hard
+solidity of iron. The human body, as someone puts it, is no more than a
+few pails of water and a handful of ash. Ash and water are alike
+dissipated into gases, and gases into elements more subtle still.
+Keeping strictly to the material modern science has reached the confines
+of materiality. Where it will lead us next no man knows.
+
+But the inference is not unfair that the world of matter is to a
+considerable degree, and perhaps altogether, a world of man's own
+creation. That is to say, while God is doing one thing with it, the
+human mind understands another. For the human point of view to develop
+and develop and develop till it becomes identical with God's is perhaps
+the whole purpose of existence.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+To me personally it was no small help in overcoming fear when I saw the
+purpose of existence as expressed in the single word, Growth. That, at
+least, is a legitimate inference to draw from the history of life on
+this planet. Assuming that the universe contains an intelligible design
+of any sort, and that life on this planet is part of it, a vast
+development going on eternally toward complete understanding of Infinite
+Right and Happiness would give us some explanation of the mystery of our
+being here. Beginning, for reasons at which we can only guess, far away
+from that understanding, we are forever approaching it, with forever the
+joy of something new to master or to learn. New perceptions, new
+comprehensions, new insights gained, new victories, even little
+victories, won, constitute, I think, our treasures laid up in that
+heaven where neither moth nor wear-and-tear destroys, and where thieves
+do not break in and steal. Where this treasure is, there, naturally
+enough, our hearts will be also. Looking back over the ages since the
+life-principle first glided into our planet waters--how it did so is as
+yet part of our unsolved mystery--what we chiefly see is a great
+surging of the living thing upward and upward toward that Highest
+Universal to which we give the name of God.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+That is a point which we do not sufficiently seize--that God is not
+revealed to us by one avenue of truth alone, but by all the avenues of
+truth working together. With our tendency to keep the Universal in a
+special compartment of life we see Him as making Himself known through a
+line of teachers culminating in a Church or a complex of churches; and
+we rarely think of Him as making Himself known in any other way. To
+change the figure, He trickles to us like a brook instead of bathing us
+round and round like light or air.
+
+But all good things must express the Universal; and all discovery of
+truth, whether by religion, science, philosophy, or imaginative art,
+must be discovery in God. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the
+Mount are discoveries in God, but so are the advances in knowledge made
+by Plato, Aristotle, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Edison. He shows Himself
+through Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and St. Paul, but also through Homer,
+Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Beethoven, Darwin, George Eliot, William
+James, and Henry Irving. I take the names at random as illustrating
+different branches of endeavour, and if I use only great ones it is not
+that the lesser are excluded. No one department of human effort is
+specially His, or is His special expression. The Church cannot be so
+more than the stage, or music more than philosophy. His Holy Spirit can
+be no more outpoured on the bishop or the elder for his work than on the
+inventor or the scientist for his work. I say so not to minimise the
+outpouring on the bishop or the elder, but to magnify that on everyone
+working for progress. This, I take it, is what St. John means when he
+says, "God does not give the Spirit with limitations." He who always
+gives all to all His children cannot give more.
+
+When our Lord restores sight to a blind man, or Peter and John cause a
+lame man to walk, we see manifestations of God; but we see equal
+manifestations of God when one man gives us the telephone, another the
+motor-car, and another wireless telegraphy. Whatever declares His power
+declares Him; and whatever declares Him is a means by which we press
+upward to the perception of His loving almightiness. The advance may be
+irregular but it is advance; and all advance is advance toward Him.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+That is to say, we are rising above a conception of life in which matter
+is our master; and yet we are rising above it slowly. This is my chief
+point here, because by understanding it we see why we still suffer from
+material afflictions. We have overcome some of them, but only some of
+them. It is a question of racial development. As we glance backward we
+see how much of the way we have covered; as we look round on our
+present conditions we see how much there is still to be achieved.
+
+To diminish fear we should have it, I think, clearly before us that the
+human race has done as yet only part of its work, and put us in
+possession of only part of the resources which will one day belong to
+us. If we could compare ourselves with our ancestors in the days, let us
+say, of Christopher Columbus or William the Conqueror we should seem in
+relation to them like children of a higher phase of creation. If we
+could compare ourselves with our descendants of five hundred or a
+thousand years hence we should probably be amazed at our present
+futility and grossness. Our ancestors in the Middle Ages could do
+certain great things, as we, too, can do certain great things; but in
+general access to the Universal Storehouse which is God we have made
+progress in ways unknown to them, as our children will make such
+progress after us.
+
+But we have made only the progress we have made. We have its advantages,
+but there are advantages to which we have not yet attained. We might
+liken ourselves to people who have reached the fourth or fifth step of a
+stairway in which there are twenty or thirty. We have climbed to a
+certain height, but we are far from having reached the plane to which we
+are ascending.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+It is worth noting this for the reason that we are so likely to think of
+ourselves as the climax to which the ages have worked up, and after
+which there is no beyond. We are the final word, or as the French
+express it, the last cry, _le dernier cri_. All that can be felt we have
+felt, all that can be known we have experienced. For the most part this
+stand is taken by the intellectuals in all modern countries. In us of
+to-day, of this very hour, the wave of Eternity has broken, throwing
+nothing at our feet but froth. The literature of the past ten years is
+soaked in the pessimism of those who regret that this should be all that
+the travail of Time could produce for us.
+
+In view of this moan from so many of the writers who have the public
+ear, especially in Europe, it is the more important to keep before us
+the fact that we are children of a race but partially developed at best.
+Compared with what will one day be within human scope our actual reach
+is only a little beyond impotence. I say this not merely at a venture,
+but on the strength of what has happened in the past. We are not a
+people which has accomplished much, but one on the way to
+accomplishment. The achievements of which we can boast are relatively
+like those of a child of five who boasts that he can count. Our whole
+world-condition shows us to be racially incompetent, and able to produce
+no more than incompetent leaders. That is our present high-water mark,
+and with our high-water mark we must learn to be satisfied.
+
+Escaping from matter we are still within the grasp of matter, and shall
+probably so continue for generations to come. Our struggles must
+therefore be largely with matter, till little by little we achieve its
+domination. In proportion as the individual does so now he reaps the
+reward of his victory; and in proportion as he reaps that reward fear is
+overcome. Our primary fear being fear of matter, much is gained by
+grasping the fact which modern science for the past ten or fifteen years
+has been carefully putting before us--vainly as far as most of us are
+concerned--that what we call matter is a force subject to the control of
+mind, while the directing of mind rests wholly with ourselves. Since we
+have controlled matter to make it in so many ways a hostile force, it
+ought to be within our power to turn it in our favour.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Which is, I suppose, the trend we are following, even if we follow it
+unconsciously. For the turning of the matter in our favour we have
+fortunately some notable examples. Our race has produced one perfectly
+normal man to whom all of us sub-normals can look as the type of what we
+are one day to become.
+
+I think it a pity that so much of our thought of Him makes Him an
+exception to human possibilities. In speaking of Him as the Son of God
+we fancy Him as being in another category from ourselves. We forget that
+we, too, are sons of God--"heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ."[19] It
+is true that He realised that Sonship to a degree which we do not; but
+it is also true that we ourselves realise it to some degree. In the
+detail of the mastery of matter to which we shall attain it is fair, I
+think, to take Him as our standard.
+
+[19] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+Taking Him as our standard we shall work out, I venture to think, to the
+following points of progress.
+
+a. The control of matter in furnishing ourselves with food and drink, by
+means more direct than at present employed, as He turned water into wine
+and fed the multitudes with the loaves and fishes.
+
+b. The control of matter by putting away from ourselves, by methods more
+sure and less roundabout than those of to-day, sickness, blindness,
+infirmity, and deformity.
+
+c. The control of matter by regulating our atmospheric conditions as He
+stilled the tempest.
+
+d. The control of matter by restoring to this phase of existence those
+who have passed out of it before their time, or who can ill be spared
+from it, as He "raised" three young people from "the dead" and Peter and
+Paul followed His example.
+
+e. The control of matter in putting it off and on at will, as He in His
+death and resurrection.
+
+f. The control of matter in passing altogether out of it, as He in what
+we call His Ascension into Heaven.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+It will be observed that I take as historic records the statements of
+the Bible. This I do in face of the efforts of many of the clergy in a
+number of the churches to make me see in the Old Testament chiefly a
+collection of myths, and in the New a series of compilations by
+irresponsible hands, of doubtful date and authority, leaving, in the
+case of our Lord, only a substratum which can be relied on as
+biographical.
+
+As an instance of what I mean I quote the following: A few weeks ago I
+happened to mention to the distinguished head of one of the most
+important theological schools of one of the largest denominations in the
+country, our Lord's turning the water into wine. "I've no idea that He
+ever did anything of the kind," were the words with which he dismissed
+the subject, which I did not take up again. I am not arguing here
+against his point of view. I merely state that I do not share it, and
+for these two main reasons:
+
+First, because the so-called Higher Criticism on which it is based is a
+purely evanescent phase of man's learning, likely to be rejected
+to-morrow by those who accept it to-day, as has been the case with other
+such phases;
+
+Secondly, because I feel sure that, with the mastery of matter to which
+we have already attained, the future development of our race will
+justify these seeming "miracles," and make them as natural and
+commonplace as telegraphy and telephony.
+
+I speak only for myself when I say that the more I can feel round me the
+atmosphere of omnipotence the less I am aware of fear. It is a matter of
+course that the one should exclude the other. The sense of being myself,
+in a measure, the inheritor of omnipotence, as an heir of God and a
+co-heir with Christ, becomes, therefore, one to cultivate. This I can do
+only in proportion as I see that my Standard and Example cultivated it
+before me. In my capacity as a son of God I take as applying to myself
+the words reported by St. John: "In most solemn truth I tell you that
+the Son can do nothing of Himself--He can only do what He sees the
+Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does in like manner."
+
+While sayings like these, of which there are many in the New Testament,
+apply doubtless, in the first place, to Him who best exemplifies the
+Sonship of God, they must apply, in the second place, I suppose, to all
+who exemplify that Sonship to any degree whatever. Man is the Son of
+God; and it is worth noting that He who is specially termed the Son of
+God is also specially termed the Son of Man. "Dear friends," St. John
+writes, elsewhere, "we are now God's children, but what we are to be in
+the future has not been fully revealed to us." I take it, therefore, as
+no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a
+co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness
+exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is
+placed in my hands.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+This last, of course, is very little. Even that little I use doubtfully,
+timidly, tremblingly. That is the utmost reach to which present
+race-development and personal development have brought me. With regard
+to the opportunities all round me I am as if I stood beside an airship
+in which I could fly if I knew how to work its engines, which I do not.
+Other conveniences besides airships would be of no good at all to me if
+someone more skilful than I didn't come to my aid. There is probably no
+person living of whom the same is not true. Large portions of
+omnipotence are placed within hands which are too busy grasping other
+things to seize all that they could hold.
+
+I remember the encouragement it was to me when I understood that to hold
+anything at all was so much to the good as a starting-point. I had been
+in the habit of dwelling on the much I had missed rather than on the
+little I had apprehended. But the little I had apprehended was, after
+all, my real possession, and one I could increase. It is like the few
+dollars a man has in a savings bank. That at least is his,
+notwithstanding the millions he might have possessed if he had only
+known how to acquire them. There are many instances of a few dollars in
+the savings bank becoming the seedling of millions before the span of a
+man's life is passed.
+
+To be glad of what we can do while knowing it is only a portion of what
+will one day be done is to me a helpful point of view. "There may be
+truth in all this," is the observation of a young lady who has scanned
+what I have written, "and yet I don't believe that we shall ever conquer
+fear." That, it seems to me, is to tie chains and iron weights about
+one's feet when starting on a race. If we are to keep in the race at
+all, to say nothing of winning it, the spirit must be free. One must add
+the courage which springs from a partial knowledge of the truth to the
+patience one gets from the understanding that as yet our knowledge of
+the truth is but partial.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+I often think that if the churches could come to this last admission it
+would be a help to themselves and to all of us. As already hinted I am
+anxious to keep away from the subject of churches through a natural
+dread of bitterness; but this much I feel at liberty to say, saying it
+as I do in deep respect for the bodies which have kept alive the glimmer
+of Divine Light in a world which would have blown it out. In a
+partially developed race the churches can have no more than a partially
+developed grasp of truth. A partially developed grasp of truth is
+much--it is pricelessly much--but it is not a knowledge of the whole
+truth. Not being a knowledge of the whole truth it should be humble,
+tolerant, and eager to expand.
+
+The weakness of the ecclesiastical system strikes me as lying in the
+assumption, or practical assumption, on the part of each sect that _it_
+is the sole repository of truth, and of all the truth. There is no sect
+which does not claim more than all mankind can claim. Moreover, there is
+no sect which does not make its claims exclusively, asserting not only
+that these claims are right, but that all other claims are wrong. To the
+best of my knowledge, the sect has not yet risen which would make more
+than shadowy concessions to any other sect.
+
+True, it must not be forgotten that no sect bases its teaching on what
+it has worked out for itself, but on the revelation made to it in Jesus
+Christ. Every sect would admit that its own view of truth might have
+been partial were it not for the fact that in Jesus Christ it has
+everything. Where the theories of men might be inadequate His immense
+knowledge comes in as supplementary.
+
+This might be so had He Himself undertaken to give more than a partial
+view of truth. But He says expressly that He does not. He gives what His
+hearers might be assumed to be able to assimilate; but that is all. "I
+have much more to say to you, but you are unable at present to bear the
+burden of it."[20] It being an axiom in teaching to give the pupil only
+what he can receive, this is the utmost that our Lord attempts.
+
+[20] St. John.
+
+He goes on, however, to add these words, which are significant: "But
+when He has come--the Spirit of Truth--He will guide you into all the
+truth."[21] No doubt that process is even now going on, and will continue
+to go on in proportion as our race develops. We are being guided into
+all the truth, through all kinds of channels, spiritual, literary,
+scientific, philosophical. The naïve supposition that this promise was
+kept on the Day of Pentecost, when a sudden access of knowledge
+committed all truth to the apostles and through them to the Church
+forevermore, is contradicted by the facts. The apostles had no such
+knowledge and made no claims to its possession. The Church has never had
+it, either. "All truth" covers much more ground than do questions of
+ecclesiastical forms of government or of the nature of the sacraments.
+"All truth" must go as far as the Universal goes, leaving nothing
+outside its range. "All truth" must surely be such self-evident truth as
+to admit of no further dissensions.
+
+[21] St. John.
+
+Taking truth as a circle, the symbol of perfection, we may assume that
+our Lord disclosed a view of a very large arc in its circumference. But
+of the arc which He disclosed no one group of His followers has as yet
+perceived the whole. At the same time it is probable that each group has
+perceived some arc of that arc, and an arc perceived by no other group.
+"All truth" being too large for any one group to grasp, the Baptist sees
+his segment, the Catholic his, the Methodist his, the Anglican his, the
+Congregationalist his, until the vision of Christ is made up. I name
+only the groups with which we are commonly most familiar, though we
+might go through the hundreds of Christian sects and agree that each has
+its angle from which it sees what is visible from no other. Though there
+is likely to be error in all such perceptions a considerable portion of
+truth must be there, or the sect in question would not survive. It is
+safe to say that no sect comes into existence, thrives, and endures,
+unless it is to supply that which has been missed elsewhere.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+What place is there then for intersectarian or ecclesiastical arrogance?
+
+The question is far from foreign to my subject. Fear is what arrogance
+feeds upon; fear is what arrogance produces; and arrogance is the
+special immorality of churches. To my mind the churches are almost
+precluded from combating fear, for the reason that arrogance is to so
+marked a degree their outstanding vice.
+
+The Catholic is arrogant toward the Protestant; the Protestant is
+arrogant toward the Catholic; the Anglican is arrogant to him whom he
+calls a Dissenter in England, and merely "unchurches" in America; the
+Unitarian is arrogant to those whom he thinks less intellectual than
+himself; those who believe in the Trinity are arrogant toward the
+Unitarian. All other Christian bodies have their own shades of
+arrogance, entirely permitted by their codes, like scorn of the weak to
+the knights of Arthur's court. An active, recognised, and mutual
+arrogance all round is the reason why it is so rare to see any two or
+three or half a dozen Christian sects work for any cause in harmony.
+Arrogance begets fear as surely and prolifically as certain of the
+rodents beget offspring.
+
+Much has been written during the past fifty years on the beautiful theme
+of the reunion of Christendom. Rarely does any great synod or
+convention or council meet without some scheme or some aspiration toward
+this end. Every now and then a programme is put forth, now by this body,
+now by that, with yearning and good intentions. And in every such
+programme the same grim humour is to be read behind the brotherly
+invitation. "We can all unite--if others will think as we do." Is it any
+wonder that nothing ever comes of these efforts? And yet, I am
+persuaded, a day will dawn when something will.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+"When he has come--the Spirit of Truth--he will guide you into all the
+truth." That will be in the course of our race-development. As step is
+added to step, as milestone is passed after milestone, as we see more
+clearly what counts and what doesn't count, as we outgrow childishness,
+as we come more nearly to what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the
+stature of full-grown men in Christ,"[22] we shall do many things that
+now seem impossible. Among them I think we shall view intersectarian
+arrogance as a mark of enfeebled intelligence. There will come an era of
+ecclesiastical climbing down. We shall see more distinctly our own
+segment of the arc which our Lord has revealed, and because of that we
+shall know that another man sees what we have missed. The Methodist will
+then acknowledge that he has much to learn from the Catholic; the
+Catholic will know the same of the Baptist; the Anglican of the
+Presbyterian; the Unitarian of the Anglican; and a co-operative universe
+be reflected in a co-operative Church. Each will lose something of his
+present cocksureness and exclusiveness. God will be seen as too big for
+any sect, while all the sects together will sink out of sight in God.
+
+[22] Epistle to the Ephesians.
+
+In the meantime we are only working toward that end, but toward it we
+are working. Every man who believes in a church is doing something to
+bring that end about when he gives a kindly thought to any other church.
+I say this the more sincerely owing to the fact that I myself am
+naturally bigoted, and such kindly thought does not come to me easily.
+There are sects I dislike so much that my eyes jump from the very
+paragraphs in the newspapers which mention them. And yet when I curb
+myself, when I force myself to read them, when I force myself to read
+them sympathetically and with a good wish in my heart, my mental
+atmosphere grows wider and I am in a stronger, surer, steadier, and more
+fearless world.
+
+Much criticism has been levelled at the Church within the past few
+years; but it should be remembered that the Church no more than
+government, no more than business, no more than education, can be ahead
+of the only partially developed race of which she is one of the
+expressions. She is not yet out of the world of matter, though she is
+emerging. In proportion as her concepts, hopes, and aims remain material
+she will be as incompetent as any other body with the same handicaps and
+limitations. In proportion as she learns to "overthrow arrogant
+reckonings and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the
+knowledge of God,"[23] she will become the leader of the world, and our
+great deliverer from fear.
+
+[23] Second Epistle to the Corinthians.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+B. Of the trials brought upon us by a world of men perhaps our chief
+resentment springs from their unreasonableness. They are not necessary;
+they might be avoided; at their worst they could be tempered. For this
+reason, too, they take us by surprise. Those who bring them on us seem
+captious, thoughtless, cruel. When they could so easily offer us a
+helping hand they obstruct us for the mere sport of doing so. People
+toward whom we have never had an unkindly thought will often go out of
+their way to do us a bad turn.
+
+I shall not enlarge on this, since most of us are in a position to
+enlarge on it for ourselves. There is scarcely an individual for whom
+the way, hard enough at any time, has not been made harder by the barbed
+wire entanglements which other people throw across his path. Almost
+anything we plan we plan in the teeth of someone's opposition; almost
+anything with which we try to associate ourselves is fraught with
+discords and irritations that often inspire disgust. The worlds in which
+co-operation is essential, from that of governmental politics to that of
+offices and homes, are centres of animosities and suspicions, and
+therefore breeding-grounds of fear.
+
+I suppose most grown-up people can recall the wounded amazement with
+which they first found themselves attacked by someone to whom they were
+not conscious of ever having given cause. Some are sensitive to this
+sort of thing; some grow callous to it; some are indifferent; and some
+are said to enjoy it. In the main I think we are sensitive and remain
+sensitive. I have been told by a relative of one of the three or four
+greatest living writers of English that the unfavourable comment of a
+child would affect him so that he would be depressed for hours.
+Statesmen and politicians, I understand, suffer far more deeply in the
+inner self than the outer self ever gives a sign of. The fact that our
+own weakness or folly or recklessness or wrong-doing lays us open to a
+blow is not much consolation when it falls.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+For myself all this became more tolerable when I had fully grasped the
+fact that we are still to a considerable degree a race of savages. From
+savages one cannot expect too much, not even from oneself. We have
+advanced beyond the stage at which one naturally attacked a stranger
+simply because he was a stranger, but we have not advanced very far. The
+instinct to do one another harm is still strong in us. We do one another
+harm when it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to do one another
+good. Just as the Ashanti hiding in the bush will hurl his assegai at a
+passer-by for no other reason than that he is passing, so our love of
+doing harm will spit itself out on people just because we know
+their names.
+
+Personally I find myself often doing it. I could on the spur of the
+moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed
+to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse
+that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or
+their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do
+on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity
+to hurl my assegai as I see them pass. One does it instinctively,
+viciously, because like other semi-savages one is undeveloped mentally,
+and it is to be expected.
+
+By expecting it from others half our resentment is forestalled. Knowing
+that from a race such as ours we shall not get anything else we learn to
+take it philosophically. If I hurl my assegai at another, another hurls
+his assegai at me, and in a measure we are quits. Even if, trying to
+rise above my inborn savagery, I withhold my assegai, it is no sign that
+another will withhold his, and I may be wounded even in the effort to do
+my best. Very well; that, too, is to be expected and must be
+taken manfully.
+
+The learning to take it manfully is what as individuals we get out of
+it. For the most part we are soft at heart, soft, I mean, not in the
+sense of being tender, but in that of being flabby.
+
+On myself this was borne in less than a year ago. I had for some months
+been working hard at a picture-play which when put before the public was
+largely misunderstood. While some of the papers praised it others
+criticised it severely, but whether they praised or blamed I was seen as
+"teaching a lesson," a presumption from which I shrink. It is not that
+there is any harm in teaching a lesson if a man is qualified, but I no
+longer consider myself qualified. Sharing ideas is one thing, and the
+highest pleasure of the reason; but the assumption that because you
+suggest an idea you seek to convert is quite another thing. If I failed
+to make it plain that in this present book I was merely offering ideas
+for inspection, and in the hope of getting others in return, I should
+put it in the fire.
+
+My picture-play once handed over to the public I experienced an intense
+reaction of depression. To figure through the country, wherever there
+are screens, as "teaching a lesson" seemed more than I could bear. It
+_was_ more than I could bear, till it flashed on me that I couldn't bear
+it merely because I was inwardly flabby. I was not taking the experience
+manfully. I was not standing up to it, nor getting from it that
+toughening of the inner fibre which it had to yield. As usual in my
+case, owing to an acquaintance with the Bible imparted to me in
+childhood, a suggestion from the Bible was that which righted me again
+toward cheerfulness. It came, as such things always do, without any
+seeking, or other operation beyond that of the subconscious self.
+
+_Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ._[24]
+
+[24] St Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy.
+
+It was exactly what I needed to do--to endure hardness--to take it--to
+bear it--to be more of a man for it. Moreover, the idea was a new
+suggestion. I had not understood before that to the conquest of fear the
+hardening of the inner man is an auxiliary. My object had been to ward
+off fear so that it shouldn't touch me; but to let it strike and rebound
+because it could make no impact was an enlarging of the principle.
+Viewing the experience as a strengthening process enabled me not only to
+go through it but to do so with serenity.
+
+This, I imagine, is the main thing we are to get out of the struggle
+brought on us through living in a world of men such as men are to-day.
+It is a pity they are not better, but being no better than they are we
+can get that much from the fact--the inner hardening. When, justly or
+unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the
+knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so
+often I am without moral muscle, can be a perceptible support.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+C. Of the two main trials we bring on ourselves I suppose it would be
+only right to put sickness first.
+
+Under sickness I include everything that makes for age, decay, and the
+conditions commonly classed as "breaking up." It is becoming more and
+more recognised, I think, that physical collapse has generally behind it
+a mental cause, or a long series of mental causes too subtle for
+tabulation.
+
+I shall not dwell on this, for the reason that during the past fifty
+years so much has been written on the subject. A number of movements for
+human betterment have kept the whole idea in the forefront of the public
+mind. It is an idea only partially accepted as yet, arousing as much
+opposition among the conservative as hope on the part of the
+progressive. Since, however, science and religion are both, in their
+different ways, working on it together, some principle which can no
+longer be questioned is likely to be worked out within the next few
+generations.
+
+All I shall attempt to do now is to re-state what seems to me the
+fact--stated by others with knowledge and authority--that God, rightly
+understood, is the cure of disease and not the cause of it. There is
+something repugnant in the thought of Universal Intelligence
+propagating harmful bacteria, and selecting the crises at which we shall
+succumb to their effects. The belief that God sends sickness upon us
+amounts to neither less nor more than that. The bacilli which we try to
+destroy He uses His almighty power to cultivate, so that even our
+efforts to protect ourselves become defiances of His Will.
+
+Surely the following incident, which gives our Lord's attitude toward
+disease, affords a reasonable basis for our own.
+
+"Once He was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues where a
+woman was present who for eighteen years had been a confirmed invalid;
+she was bent double, and was unable to lift herself to her full height.
+But Jesus saw her, and calling to her, He said to her, 'Woman, you are
+free from your weakness.' And He put His hands on her, and she
+immediately stood upright and began to give glory to God. Then the
+Warden of the Synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured her on the
+Sabbath day, said to the crowd, 'There are six days in the week on
+which people ought to work. On those days therefore come and get
+yourselves cured, and not on the Sabbath day.' But the Lord's reply to
+him was, 'Hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his
+bullock or his ass from the stall and lead him to water? And this woman,
+daughter of Abraham as she is, _whom Satan had bound_ for no less than
+eighteen years, was she not to be loosed from this chain because it is
+the Sabbath day?' When He had said this all His opponents were ashamed,
+while the whole multitude was delighted at the many glorious things
+continually done by Him."[25]
+
+[25] St. Luke.
+
+It was not God, in His opinion, who had afflicted this woman; it was
+Satan, the personification of all evil. But in order that such
+references should not be misunderstood He had said of Satan, only a
+short time before, "I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven."[26]
+
+[26] St. Luke.
+
+Heaven, I take it, is creation as its Creator sees it. "God saw
+everything that he had made, and behold it was very good."[27] And from
+this creation, with the rapidity of the quickest thing we know anything
+about, a flash of lightning, our Lord saw the personification of evil
+blotted out. What thought had formed thought could destroy. The spectre
+which misunderstanding of God had raised in a life in which everything
+was _very good_ became nothing at the instant when God was understood.
+
+[27] The Book of Genesis.
+
+The occasion of His speaking the words I have quoted is worth noting as
+bearing on the subject.
+
+A little earlier He had sent out seventy of His disciples to be the
+heralds of the Kingdom. "Cure the sick in that town, and tell them the
+Kingdom of God is now at your door."[28] By this time the seventy had
+returned, exclaiming joyfully, "Master, even the demons submit to us
+when we utter your name."[29] It was apparently the use of this word
+_demons_ which called forth from Him that explanation, "I beheld Satan
+as lightning fall from heaven." In other words, Satan is the creation of
+wrong thought; the demons are the creations of wrong thought. Where the
+Universal Good is all there can be no place for evil or evil spirits.
+Banish the concept and you banish the thing. The action is as quick as
+thought, and thought is as quick as lightning. "I have given you power,"
+He goes on to add, "to tread serpents and scorpions underfoot, and to
+trample on all the power of the Enemy; and in no case shall anything do
+you harm."[30]
+
+[28] St. Luke.
+
+[29] St. Luke.
+
+[30] St. Luke.
+
+This was no special gift bestowed on them and only on them. God has
+never, as far as we can see, dealt in special and temporary gifts. He
+helps us to see those we possess already. What our Lord seems anxious to
+make clear is the power over evil with which the human being is always
+endowed. It is probably to be one of our great future discoveries that
+in no case shall anything do us harm. As yet we scarcely believe it.
+Only an individual here and there sees that freedom and domination must
+belong to us. But, if I read the signs of the times aright, the rest of
+us are slowly coming to the same conclusion. We are less scornful of
+spiritual power than we were even a few years ago. The cocksure
+scientific which in its time was not a whit less arrogant than the
+cocksure ecclesiastical is giving place to a consciousness that man is
+the master of many things of which he was once supposed to be the slave.
+In proportion as the wiser among us are able to corroborate that which
+we simpler ones feel by a sixth or seventh sense, a long step will be
+taken toward the immunity from suffering which our Lord knew to be
+ideally our inheritance.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+Sickness, age, decay, with all the horrors with which we invest our exit
+from this phase of existence, I take to be a misreading of God's
+intentions. We shall learn to read better by and by, and have already
+begun to do so. To this beginning I attribute the improvement which in
+one way or another has taken place in our general health--an
+improvement in which science and religion have worked together, often
+without perceiving the association--and in the prolonging of youth which
+in countries like the British Empire and the United States is, within
+thirty or forty years, to be noted easily.
+
+Misreading of God's intentions I might compare to that misreading of his
+parent's intentions which goes on in the mind of every child of six or
+seven. He sees the happenings in the household, but sees them in a light
+of his own. Years afterwards, when their real significance comes to him,
+he smiles at his childish distortions of the obvious.
+
+In comparison with what St. Paul calls "mature manhood, the stature of
+full-grown men in Christ," our present rating might be that of a child
+of this age. It is no higher. Misreading is all that we are equal to,
+but it is something to be able to misread. It is a step on the way to
+reading correctly. Though our impulse to learn works feebly it works
+restlessly; and a day will surely come when we shall be able to
+interpret God aright.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+Next to sickness I should place poverty as the second of the two great
+trials we bring upon ourselves.
+
+Under poverty I class all sense of restriction, limitation, and material
+helplessness. As the subject will be taken up more in detail elsewhere I
+wish for the minute to say no more than this: that, in an existence of
+which Growth seems to be the purpose, God could not intend that any of
+us should be without full power of expansion.
+
+What we are worth to him we must be worth as individuals; and what we
+are worth as individuals must depend on the peculiar combination of
+qualities which goes to make up each one of us. _I_, poor creature that
+I sometimes seem to others and always to myself, am so composed that God
+never before had anything exactly like me in the whole round of His
+creation. My value lies in a special blend of potentialities. Of the
+billions and trillions of human beings who have passed across this
+planet not one could ever have done what I can do, or have filled my
+place toward God and His designs.
+
+Among the billions and trillions I may seem trivial--to men. I may even
+seem trivial to myself. To such numbers as these I can add so little
+when I come, and take away so little from them when I go, that I am not
+worth counting. Quite so--to all human reckoning. But my value is not my
+value to men; it is not even my value to myself; it is my value to God.
+He alone knows my use, and the peculiar beauty I bring to the ages in
+making my contribution. It is no presumptuous thing to say that He could
+no more spare me than any other father of a normal and loving family
+could spare one of the children of his flesh and blood.
+
+Now, my value to God is my first reckoning. We commonly make it the
+last, if we ever make it at all; but it is the first and the ruling one.
+
+What I am to my family, my country, myself, is all secondary. They
+determine only the secondary results. The first results come from my
+first relationship, and my first relationship is to God. As the child of
+my parents, as a citizen of my country, as a denizen of this planet, my
+place is a temporary one. As the son of God I am from everlasting to
+everlasting, a splendid being with the universe as my home.
+
+Now this, it seems to me, is my point of departure for the estimate of
+my possible resources. I cannot expect less of the good things of the
+universe than God would naturally bestow on His son. To expect less is
+to get less, since it is to dwarf my own power of receiving. If I close
+the opening through which abundance flows it cannot be strange if I shut
+abundance out.
+
+And that is precisely what we find throughout the human race, millions
+upon millions of lives tightly shut against His generosity. The most
+generous treatment for which the majority of us look is man's. The only
+standard by which the majority of us appraise our work is man's. You
+have a job; you get your twenty or thirty or fifty or a hundred dollars
+a week for it; and by those dollars you judge your earning capacity and
+allow it to be judged. You hardly ever pause to remember that there is
+an estimate of earning capacity which measures industry and good will
+and integrity and devotion, and puts them above all tricks of trade _and
+rewards them_--rewards them, I mean, not merely in mystical blessings in
+eons far off, possibly the highest blessings we shall ever know, but
+rewards them in a way that will satisfy you now.
+
+"He satisfieth the empty soul," writes the psalmist, in one of the
+sublimest lyrics ever penned, "and filleth the hungry soul with
+goodness."
+
+"Yes, of course," says the Caucasian. "When you have crushed out all
+your present cravings and forgotten them, He will give you joys of which
+now you have no conception."
+
+But are not my present cravings those which count for me? and do they
+not make up precisely that character which renders me unique? True, my
+longings now may have to the longings I shall one day entertain only the
+relation of your little boy's craving for an alphabetic picture-book to
+the course in philosophy he will take when he is twenty-five; but so
+long as the picture-book is the thing he can appreciate you give it to
+him. Is not this common sense? And can we expect the Father of us all to
+act in other than common-sense ways?
+
+It is because we do so expect--because we do so almost universally--that
+we have blocked the channels of His blessings. The world is crowded with
+men and women working their fingers to the bone, and even so just
+squeaking along betwixt life and death and dragging their children after
+them. They are the great problem of mankind; they rend the heart with
+pity. They rend the heart with pity all the more for the reason that
+there is no sense in their poverty. There is no need of it. God never
+willed it, and what God never willed can go out of life with the speed
+of Satan out of Heaven. We have only to fulfil certain conditions,
+certain conditions quite _easy_ to fulfil, to find the stores of the
+Universal laid as a matter of course at the feet of the sons of God.
+
+"Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts," are the striking words
+of the prophet Malachi, "if I will not open you the windows of heaven
+and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to
+receive it.... And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a
+delightsome land,"
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+But it is the old story: we do not believe it. It is too good to be
+true, so we put it away from us. In a world where the material is so
+pressing we use only material measures, and bow only to material force.
+
+So be it! That is apparently as far as our race-development takes us. It
+takes us into suffering, but not out of it. Individuals have come into
+it and worked their way out again; but most of us can go no faster than
+the crowd. In that case we must suffer. In a terrible crisis in his
+history, and after many sins, David was able to write these words: "I
+sought the Lord ... and He delivered me out of all my fears." It is the
+royal avenue, and it is open to anyone. And yet if we do not take it, it
+still does not follow that all is lost.
+
+Of the world as it is the outstanding fact is the necessity for
+struggle. Struggle may conceivably enter into every other world. There
+is something in us which requires it, which craves for it. A static
+heaven in which all is won and there is nothing forevermore but to enjoy
+has never made much appeal to us. If eternal life means eternal growth
+we shall always have something with which to strive, since growth means
+overcoming.
+
+While sorry, then, that we have not released ourselves to a greater
+degree than we have, we may take heart of grace from what we have
+achieved. We must simply struggle on. Struggle will continue to make and
+shape us. Whether our problems spring from a world of matter, from a
+world of men, or from ourselves, their solving brings us a fuller grasp
+of truth. The progress may be slow but it is progress. Hardship by
+hardship, task by task, failure by failure, conquest by conquest, we
+pull ourselves up a little higher in the scale. Some day we shall see in
+the Universal all that we have been looking for, and be delivered out of
+all our fears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE WORLD AS IT IS AND THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+Of all fears the most dogging and haunting are those connected with
+money. Everyone knows them, even the rich. For many years I was their
+victim, and will now try to tell how I got rid of them so effectively
+that I may call it entirely.
+
+Having a good many responsibilities I lived in terror of not being able
+to keep pace with their demands. The dread was like a malign invisible
+presence, never leaving me. With much in the way of travel, friendship,
+and variety of experience, which I could have enjoyed, the evil thing
+was forever at my side. "This is all very well," it would whisper in
+moments of pleasure, "but it will be over in an hour or two, and then
+you'll be alone with me as before."
+
+I can recall minutes when the delight in landscape, or art, or social
+intercourse, became alien to me, something to be thrust away. Once in
+driving through rich, lush, storied Warwickshire on the way to
+Stratford-on-Avon--once in a great Parisian restaurant where the
+refinement, brilliancy, and luxury of the world seemed crushed into
+epitome--once at a stupendous performance of _Götterdämmerung_ at
+Munich--once while standing on the shores of a lovely New Hampshire lake
+looking up at a mountain round which, as Emerson says, the Spirit of
+Mystery hovers and broods--but these are only remembered high points of
+a constant dread of not being able to meet my needs and undertakings.
+There used to be an hour in the very early morning--"the coward hour
+before the dawn," it is called by a poet-friend of my own--when I was in
+the habit of waking, only to hear the sleepless thing saying, as my
+senses struggled back into play, "My God, can you be sleeping
+peacefully, with possible ruin just ahead of you?" After that further
+sleep would become impossible for an hour or two, such wakings
+occurring, in periods of stress, as often as two and three times a week.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+It was the spiritually minded man whom I have already quoted as giving
+me the three great points as to God's direction who first helped me to
+see that, on the part of anyone working hard and trying on the whole to
+do right, the fear of being left without means amounts in effect to
+denial of God. Thinking this over for myself during the course of some
+years, this fear has come to seem to me of the nature of blasphemy. It
+is like the "Curse God and die," of the wife of Job. I shall not
+hesitate to speak strongly on the subject, because so few are speaking
+on it strongly--while the urgency is pressing.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+I have already said that it does not seem reasonable that the Father
+should put us into His universe to expand, and then deny us the power
+of expanding. The power of expanding is not wrapped up in money, but in
+the world as it is the independence of the one of the other is not very
+great. "One of the hardest things I ever had to do," a mother said to
+me, not long ago, "was to tell my little girl that her father and I
+could not afford to send her to college." That is what I mean. To most
+of us "expanding" and "affording" amount to the same thing.
+
+True, there are natures which transcend the limitations of "affording,"
+and by innate strength do what others resign themselves to not doing.
+For instance, there are men and women who "put themselves" through
+college, doing similar things which bring out the best in their
+characters. These are the exceptions; and they are the exceptions
+precisely for the reason that, whether they know it or not, they are
+nearer than their fellows to the divine working principle. It is not
+necessary for us to be conscious of that principle in order to get much
+of its result, though consciousness enables us to get more of it. The
+strong are strong because of harmony with God, at least to some extent.
+They may misuse their strength, as we can misuse anything; but the mere
+fact of possessing it shows a certain degree of touch with the
+Universal. But I am speaking chiefly of the weak, of those who think
+first of all in terms of restriction rather than in those of privilege
+to come and go and be and do.
+
+I repeat that though this privilege is not dependent on money, money
+expresses it to the average mind.
+
+And what is money after all? It is only a counter for what we call
+goods. Goods is the word with which, according to our Anglo-Saxon genius
+for the right phrase, we sum up the good things with which the Father
+blesses His children. The root connection between good, goods, and God
+is worth everyone's attention, A hundred dollars is simply a standard of
+measurement for so much of God's good things. A thousand dollars
+represents so much more; a million dollars so much more again. But it is
+important to note that this is not God's standard of measurement; it is
+man's, and adopted only for man's convenience.
+
+As for God's standard of measurement it is inconceivable that the
+Universal Father should give to one of His children far more of His
+"goods" than he can use, while denying to another that which he is in
+absolute need of. The Universal Father could surely not do otherwise
+than bless all alike. With His command of resources He must bless all
+alike, not by depriving anyone, but by enriching everyone. If everyone
+does not enjoy plenty it must be because of the bringing in of some
+principle of distribution which could never have been His.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+The right and the wrong principles of distribution are indirectly placed
+before us by our Lord in one of the most beautiful passages which ever
+fell from human lips. Familiar as it is, I venture to quote it at
+length, for the reason that the modern translation makes some of the
+points clearer than they are in the King James version which most of us
+know best.
+
+"No man can be the bondservant of two masters; for either he will
+dislike one and like the other, or he will attach himself to one and
+think slightingly of the other. You cannot be the bondservants both of
+God and of gold. For this reason I charge you not to be over-anxious
+about your lives, inquiring what you are to eat or what you are to
+drink, nor yet about your bodies, inquiring what clothes you are to put
+on. Is not the life more precious than its food, and the body than its
+clothing? Look at the birds which fly in the air; they do not sow or
+reap or store up in barns, but your Heavenly Father feeds them; are you
+not of much greater value than they? Which of you by being over-anxious
+can add a single foot to his height? And why be anxious about clothing?
+Learn a lesson of the wild lilies. Watch their growth. They neither toil
+nor spin, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his
+magnificence could array himself like one of these. And yet if God so
+clothes the wild herbage which to-day flourishes and to-morrow is cast
+into the oven, is it not much more certain that he will clothe you, you
+men of little faith? Do not even begin to be anxious, therefore, saying,
+'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
+For all these are questions that Gentiles are always asking; but your
+Heavenly Father knows that you need these things--all of them. But make
+His Kingdom and righteousness your chief aim, and then these things
+shall be given you in addition. Do not be over-anxious, therefore, about
+to-morrow, for to-morrow will bring its own cares. Enough for each day
+are its own troubles."
+
+In this passage there are two points, each of which may merit a few
+words as a means of eliminating fear.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+The first point is the reference to what we are to make our "chief
+aim"--the Kingdom of God and righteousness.
+
+I feel sure we generally miss the force of these words through our
+Caucasian sanctimoniousness. We can think of God's Kingdom and
+righteousness only in the light of the pietistic. The minute they are
+mentioned we strike what I have already called our artificial pose, our
+funereal frame of mind. I am not flippant when I say that in the mind of
+the Caucasian the first step toward seeking the Kingdom of God and
+righteousness is in pulling a long face. We can hardly think of
+righteousness except as dressed in our Sunday clothes, and looking and
+feeling wobegone. To most of us the seeking of righteousness suggests at
+once an increase in attending church services, or going to
+prayer-meetings, or making missionary efforts--excellent practices in
+themselves--according to the form of pietism we are most familiar with.
+Those of us who have no form of pietism feel cut off from making the
+attempt at all.
+
+Oh, to be simple!--to be natural!--to be spontaneous!--to be free from
+the concept of a God shut up within the four walls of a building and
+whose chief interests are the sermon and the number of parishioners!
+The Kingdom of God is the Universal Kingdom, including everyone and
+everything--all interests, all commerce, all government, all invention,
+all art, all amusement, all the staid pursuits of the old and all the
+ardour of the young, all sport, all laughter, all that makes for
+gladness. It is the Kingdom of the bird and the flower and the horse and
+the motor-car and the motion-picture house and the office and the
+theatre and the ballroom and the school and the college and everything
+else that man has evolved for himself. He has evolved these things
+wrongly because nine times out of ten he has seen them as outside God's
+Kingdom, instead as being God's own undertakings because they are ours.
+All that we have to do to seek His Kingdom is to do what we are doing
+every day, with energy and fun, but to do it knowing we are His agents
+and co-workers. As a matter of fact, most of us are, to some extent,
+doing that already, getting food, shelter, clothing, and all other
+necessary things as our reward. What we do not get is relief from fear,
+because we do not understand that fear above all things is what He
+would take away from us.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+The second point is a curious one, and all the more emphatic for being
+curious. Our Lord invents a false god. He names the false god of fear,
+who was never named before. Mammon is the word which the modern
+translator gives as gold. As Mammon it is translated in the Authorised
+Version, whence we get the familiar phrase, "Ye cannot serve God
+and Mammon."
+
+But Mammon was never the name of an idol or other form of false deity.
+The word, which is Syriac, means money. Our Lord, apparently, made it
+the name of a false god in order to set before us, and make vivid to us,
+a false principle.
+
+That false principle is in the belief that the material essentials for
+living and expanding are dependent on man's economic laws.
+
+This is a point of vast importance to the individual who desires to
+strike out beyond the crowd, not only getting what he needs, but
+ridding himself of fear.
+
+The law of supply and demand is the most practical which the human race
+in its present stage has been able to evolve. That it is not an ideal
+law is obvious. There are ways in which it works, and ways in which it
+does not. When the Christians began to act for themselves they
+established a community of goods, such as had obtained among the little
+band who gathered round our Lord. Almost at once it was given up,
+presumably as being too advanced for the existing world of men. I
+suppose we might say the same of the various systems of Socialism and
+Communism urged on us at the present day. However good they may be, we
+are not ready to put them into practice. That, I judge--without
+positively knowing--is the reason why certain great Christian bodies
+oppose both. These bodies, I assume, are not hostile to equal
+distribution in itself, but only to equal distribution before men are
+developed to a stage at which it would be wise.
+
+But my point is independent of all men's theories, and rests simply on
+the fact that, whatever the law of man, God is not bound by it.
+
+If we can believe the Old and New Testaments--which, of course, some of
+us do not--He has shown on many, many occasions that He is far from
+being bound by it. Time after time He comes to the individual's relief
+according to His own law. We reject these occurrences as mythical on the
+ground that the laws of supply and demand--and some other laws as law is
+understood by us--do not support them; and yet it is in the power of the
+individual to test the truth for himself.
+
+That is one of the burdens of both Testaments. The individual is
+implored to see the only real system for the distribution of "goods" as
+God's. It is not expressed in that way, but that is what it comes to.
+God owns and disposes of everything. He has not put us into His Universe
+and left us to fend for ourselves. He follows us. He cares for us. Not
+one is forgotten or overlooked by Him. It is personal watching and
+brooding and defence. He is our Father, not merely for the purpose of
+hearing us sing hymns, and forgiving our sins when we stop committing
+them, but for all our aims and objects. Nothing that concerns us is so
+small but that His Infinite Intelligence follows it; no need of ours is
+so large but that His All-Ownership can meet it. "Do not two sparrows
+sell for a half-penny?" is our Lord's illustration on this point, "yet
+not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's leave. But
+as for you," He reasons, in order that we may understand the
+infinitesimal nature of God's care, "the very hairs on your heads are
+all numbered. Away then with fear!"[31]
+
+[31] St Matthew.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+Away then with fear, because our first and over-ruling and
+all-determining relationship is to Him.
+
+In eliminating money-fears from my own life that was the fact which
+helped me most. I had not only to seize it intellectually, but to get
+what William James calls the "feeling" of it, the apprehension of it in
+my subconsciousness. It was like acquiring a new instinct. The
+_Metanoia_, the re-directing of my thought, was a thorough and
+basic change.
+
+It meant getting up in the morning with a new conception as to why I was
+working and for whom. I had taken it for granted hitherto that I was
+working for such and such a firm, for as much money as they would pay
+me. As much money as they would pay me was the limit of my expectation.
+Beyond the law of supply and demand I had no vision; and whenever the
+demand fell short fear was the result.
+
+The change in my base was in seeing that working for such and such a
+firm, for as much money as they would pay me, was merely incidental. It
+was secondary. It was not what determined my position. It was not what
+determined my reward. It was a small way of looking at a situation which
+was big. It was a small way of looking at a situation which was big,
+merely to confine my objective to such selling and buying as goes on in
+the planet called the Earth. I was working for the Master of the
+Universe, who had all the resources of the universe with which to pay me
+for what I was worth _to Him_.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+It is this last fact, as I have hinted already, which fixes my true
+value. To the firm for which I am working I am worth so many dollars and
+cents, and if for any reason I am unable to do their work they will get
+someone else who can. I am not essential to them in any way, however
+essential they may be to me. It is my part to "keep my job," since if I
+don't I may find it hard to get another. If I do get another it will be
+on the same principle, of being paid what I can be made to work for, and
+not a penny more.
+
+But in working for the Master of the Universe I am working for One to
+whom I am essential. My "job" could not be "swung" by anyone else, since
+everyone else is essential to the swinging of his own. I am not "taken
+on" to do what anyone else could do as well; I am positively needed for
+this thing and for no other thing.
+
+The nature of "this thing" for which I am needed may be seen in the
+obvious duties of my situation--as regards my family, my employers, and
+my surroundings, which sum up my responsibilities toward men in general.
+No explanation of myself can be independent of men in general, since my
+work is for them in its final aim. If I forget them I forget God, God
+expressing Himself to me through men in general, as through my family
+and my employers in particular.
+
+Incidentally, then, I work for men, but essentially and consciously I
+work for God, and look to God for my recompense.
+
+Now God is the most generous of all paymasters. It is natural enough
+that He should be so. He who delights in the grace of a bird or the
+colour of a flower must delight in a man in proportion to a man's higher
+place in the creative scale. As our Lord points out, that is no more
+than common sense. And, delighting in us as He does, God could not
+possibly stint us in what we earn from Him. Merely to suppose so is to
+dishonour Him. A large part of His joy must be in our joy.
+
+The simplest way in which I can express it is that in consciously trying
+to work with God, not man, as our employer, things happen to us which,
+to the best of our foresight, would not have happened otherwise. Often
+they seem accidental, and possibly we ascribe them to accident till the
+coincidences become too numerous to explain by coincidence and nothing
+more. It constantly happens to myself, for instance, to find the whole
+solution of some tangled financial problem hanging on the chance turning
+of my steps to someone's office, and the chance turning of the
+conversation to some specific observation. Chance is the explanation
+which comes to me first, till I reflect on the finespun chain which
+brought me to that particular spot and those particular words. Leading
+is what I see then; and seeing it once I am more confident of being led
+the next time. The next time, therefore, I am the less afraid, having
+the definite experience to support me.
+
+There are millions of men and women to whom life brings no more than the
+monotony of a treadmill round, year in and year out, with a cramping of
+mind, spirit, and ambition, who might have been free had they measured
+themselves by God's standards and not by men's. It is simply the taking
+of a point of view, and adjusting the life to it. In doing one's work
+primarily for God, the fear of undue restriction is put, sooner or
+later, out of the question. He pays me and He pays me well. He pays me
+and He will not fail to pay me. He pays me not merely for the rule of
+thumb task which is all that men recognise, but for everything else I
+bring to my job in the way of industry, good intention, and
+cheerfulness. If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as St Paul says, we
+may depend upon it that He loveth a cheerful worker; and where we can
+cleave the way to His love there we find His endless generosity.
+
+In my own case this generosity has most frequently been shown in
+opening doors for me where I saw nothing but blank walls. He has made
+favourable things happen. It may be said that they would have happened
+anyhow; but when they have happened on my looking to Him, and have not
+happened when I did not look to Him, it is only fair to draw the
+conclusion that He was behind the event.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+It may also be urged that if there was really a God who delighted in us
+He would make favourable things happen to us whether we looked to Him or
+not. So He does. Every life, even among those who never think of Him, is
+full of such occurrences. Every individual gets some measure of supply
+for his necessities, and in many instances a liberal one. God's sun
+rises on the wicked as well as on the good, and His rain falls on those
+who do right and those who do wrong.
+
+At the same time there is a force generated by working consciously with
+Him which we have to go without when we disregard Him. It is not, I
+suppose, that He refuses to co-operate with us, but that it is out of
+our power to co-operate with Him. If His is the only right way to our
+success and prosperity, and we are, to any extent, taking the wrong, it
+stands to reason that to that extent we must fail.
+
+It is doubtless for this reason that our Lord emphasises seeking His
+righteousness as well as His Kingdom. His Kingdom might be roughly
+defined as His power; righteousness as the right way of doing anything.
+But you never obtain power by going the wrong way to work; whereas by
+working in the right way you get your result. The conclusion is obvious.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+It is often objected to the point of view I have been trying to express
+that so much weight is thrown on material blessing. God gives spiritual
+rewards, it is contended, not material ones. To expect the material from
+Him is to make Him gross, and to become gross ourselves.
+
+And yet those who put forth this objection are doing their utmost to
+secure material comforts, and to make material provision for the future.
+Are they doing it independently of God? Are they working in a medium
+into which God cannot enter? Is it argued for a single minute that
+"goods" are not God's good things, and that money is not their token?
+True, the love of money is the root of all evil. Of course--when you
+separate money from God, as Caucasians mostly do; not when you take
+money as one of the material symbols for God's love toward his sons.
+
+As a matter of fact, we dig a gulf between the material and the
+spiritual which does not exist. We have seen that modern physical
+science is showing us how near to spirit matter comes, while it is
+highly probable that further research will diminish even the slight
+existing difference between them. Matter may really be considered as our
+sensuous misreading of the spiritual. That is to say, God sees one
+thing; our senses see another. In the wild lily cited by our Lord our
+senses see a thing exquisite in form and colour; and yet, relatively
+speaking, it is no more than a distortion of what God beholds and
+delights in. It is a commonplace fact that, even within the limitations
+of the senses, our sense-faculties perceive few things, if anything,
+quite accurately. Matter may therefore be considered as our wrong view
+of what God sees rightly. Both for Him and for us the object is there;
+but it is there with higher qualities than we can appreciate or
+understand.
+
+The situation is not unknown among ourselves. A picture by a great
+master hangs on a wall. Two men look at it--the one with an expert
+knowledge of painting, the other with none. The untrained eye will
+translate into daubs of colour and meaningless forms what the skilled
+understanding will perceive as a masterly setting forth of beauty. So
+the good things--the "goods"--with which God blesses us, as well as the
+money which is their symbol, may be taken as having to God a meaning
+which they do not possess for us, but not as being outside the sphere
+of His interest and control.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+It is the tendency to puts "goods" and money outside the sphere of His
+interest and control which has impelled us--and perhaps the Caucasian
+especially--to have one God for the spiritual and another for the
+material. We try to serve God and Mammon to an extent far beyond
+anything we are generally aware of. It is not merely the individual who
+is doing it; it is part of our collective, social, and national life.
+Our civilisation is more or less based on the principle.
+
+It is a mistake to suppose that a formal belief in One Almighty,
+All-knowing, All-loving God has, to the immense majority of us, ever
+been more than an ideal. It is a mistake to suppose that because the
+false god is no longer erected before us in silver or stone he is no
+longer served. The world has never outgrown idolatry, the so-called
+Christian world no more than any other. "Dear children," are the words
+with which St. John closes one of his epistles, "guard yourselves from
+idols." He at least did not think that the idol had been forsaken
+because the use of his name was given up.
+
+We may define as a god any force to which we ascribe a supreme and
+controlling power in our lives. It is of little consequence whether or
+not we give it name and personality, so long as that force rules us. So
+long, too, as it wields a power which the One God does not, so long as
+we make the false god greater than the true, and more influential.
+
+This is no mere figure of speech; it is fact. We have never guarded
+ourselves from idols. We have never done more toward recognising the
+Father than the putting Him in the pantheon with our other gods. Even
+though we have inscribed the whole pantheon with His name, the other
+gods have been in it.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+I have said that our whole collective life is based on the principle of
+one God for the soul and another for the body; and so it is. In what we
+call our temporal life God gets only a formal recognition, while Mammon
+is the referee. Beyond the controlling power of money we have no vision,
+and we see no laws. The sphere of material productivity being one in
+which, according to our foregone conclusion, God does not operate, we
+have to make the controlling power of money our only practical standard.
+It has its laws--chiefly the laws of supply and demand--within whose
+working we human beings are caught like flies in spider-webs. Though we
+struggle, and know we are struggling, we take it for granted that there
+is nothing to do but struggle, and struggle vainly. We take it for
+granted that we are born into a vast industrial spider-web, whence there
+is no possibility of getting out, and in which we can only churn our
+spirits rebelliously. In proportion as God is a God of love, Mammon is a
+god of torture; but such is our supineness of spiritual energy that we
+go on serving Mammon.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+But I am writing only for the individual. I am trying to suggest to him
+that however much his race, his nation, his society, may serve Mammon,
+he is free to renounce the idol and escape the idol's laws. Escaping the
+idol's laws he comes within the realm of God's laws; and coming within
+the realm of God's laws he reaches the region of plenty.
+
+He may be the poorest and most ill-paid labourer; but God will recognise
+his industry not in proportion to its technical skill, but according to
+the spiritual excellence which goes into it. Technical skill depends
+largely on the right man finding the right job; but as our world is
+organised at present the right man, more often than not, is put into the
+wrong job and has to do his best with it. God sees and estimates that
+best; and as surely as He makes His sun to rise and His rain to fall
+will give it its just compensation.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+Our industrial questions are primarily spiritual. That is why they can
+never be settled on a purely economic basis, and why every attempt to
+settle them on a purely economic basis leads to conditions more confused
+than those from which we have emerged. The so-called purely economic
+basis is the basis where only Mammon's laws are considered, and God's
+are held to be impractical.
+
+Quite so! But even then the individual is free. Working with God he is
+always master of the situation as it affects _him_.
+
+The problem of Capital and Labour, for example, has, in one form or
+another, been before the world for thousands of years. The more acute it
+becomes the further we are from a solution, and were never so far from a
+solution as we are to-day. Poverty, again, is the canker at the heart of
+both Church and State, and has been so in every stage of our
+civilisation. In 1921 it is no more under control than it was in the
+days of Charlemagne or Attila or Xerxes. Charitable efforts to relieve
+it have proved as effective as tickling with a feather to cure disease.
+Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices,
+resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to
+both wages and prices alike--these things perplex the most clear-sighted
+among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping
+up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of
+industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all man's
+efforts for the common good, and the uselessness of our energies. These
+difficulties, with many kindred ones, are the working of the laws of
+Mammon. The case is simple. We shall never be free from the difficulties
+till we are free from the laws. The bondservants of Mammon will go on
+from misery to misery, till the will which opposes God is broken down.
+There is no other way. The colossal disintegration of the world now
+taking place before our eyes may be the beginning of this end.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+But I return to the point I have emphasised already, the only point to
+this book. The individual can act on his own account. He does not have
+to wait till the race as a whole gives up the service of Mammon, or even
+the nation to which he belongs. He can set _himself_ free, and enjoy the
+benefits of freedom.
+
+There must be many to whom, as to myself, the kingdom of heaven will
+really be at hand when they are delivered from the snares and
+entanglements of man's economic systems. Caught in those systems,
+imprisoned in them, more hopelessly enmeshed the more they struggle to
+save themselves, the suggestion that a change in point of view will take
+us out of them will seem to some of us too amazing to be true.
+
+Nothing will prove it true but a man's own experience. Mine will
+convince nobody; no other man's can convince me. Demonstration must be
+personal before we can make anything our own. But the fact remains, as
+sure as the surest thing we know anything about, that the law of Mammon
+does not work, while the law of God does work, and will work for anyone
+who calls it to his aid.
+
+No one who has ever seen the early morning trains into any great city
+vomiting forth their hundreds of thousands of men and women, trudging
+more or less dispiritedly to uncongenial jobs, can have felt anything
+but pity for so many lives squeezed into the smallest possible
+limitations. Admitting cheerfulness, admitting a measure of content, and
+a larger measure of acceptance of what can't be helped, there still
+remains over these hordes the shadow of a cloud from which they know
+they never will escape. Clerks, factory hands, tradesmen, working men
+and women of every stamp and occupation, they bow to the fact that they
+will always work hard at tasks which are rarely their own choice, that
+they will always work for little money, that they will always be denied
+their desires for expansion; that as it was with their fathers and
+mothers before them, so it will be with them, and so it will be with
+their children after them.
+
+With the supineness of our race most of them force themselves to be
+satisfied with what comes. But here and there is a rebel. Here and there
+is a man or a woman who feels that joyless work, and small pay, and
+little or nothing to look forward to, are cruel elements in life, not
+fair, not just, on the part of God or man. But what can they do? They
+are in man's economic machine. The machine turns round and they turn
+with it. They can do nothing else but turn with it. They see no prospect
+except of turning with it till they die.
+
+It is out of such men and women that our modern world breeds
+revolutionists, that exalted and yet dangerous band who seek redress
+from the laws of Mammon by appealing _to_ the laws of Mammon, so making
+confusion worse confounded.
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+A revolution indeed is needed; but a revolution in point of view.
+
+Political revolution, for the sake of righting governmental abuses,
+has been known to produce beneficent results.
+
+Material revolution, the attack of the poor on the rich to take away
+their possessions, has never achieved anything. Many a time it has been
+tried, and many a time it has failed. Being part of the system of Mammon
+it could do nothing else than fail. The evils which Mammon has wrought
+Mammon will never remedy. There may be instances in history of economic
+cures for economic ills; but I think they are few. In general such cures
+are of the nature of our "settlements" of strikes. They settle to-day
+what is again unsettled to-morrow, leaving the work to be done all over
+again, and so on into a far future.
+
+The revolution in point of view has these great advantages:
+
+First, it contains within it the seeds of success, since it is
+revolution toward God, the owner of the Earth and the fulness thereof;
+Next, it takes place within the individual himself, doing no one
+else any harm;
+
+Lastly, it does not run counter to man's economic laws; it only uses and
+transcends them. It directs and corrects them. Working along their lines
+it stimulates their fruit. Letting the inner man out of the economic
+trap it sets him in a world in which first, and last, and before
+everything else, he is God's servant in God's pay. God's pay being sure,
+and paid in the way we need it, we no longer have money-fear to be
+afraid of. Money-fear being set aside we can the more easily give
+ourselves to the knowledge that "the Kingdom of God does not consist of
+eating and drinking, but of right conduct, peace, and joy, through the
+Holy Spirit; and whoever in this way devotedly serves Christ, God takes
+pleasure in him, and men commend him highly."[32]
+
+[32] Epistle to the Romans.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+And lest what I have said should seem fanciful or chimerical let me add
+that I am not saying these things merely on my own responsibility. To
+my certain knowledge there are hundreds of thousands--some millions--of
+people throughout the world who at this very minute are living according
+to this principle, and proving that it works in practical effect.
+
+Neither am I speaking theoretically, as I have tried to make plain. To a
+degree that convinces myself I have made the demonstration. Where my
+life was like a dark and crooked lane in which I might easily be lost,
+it has now become as an easy and open highway; where money-fear was the
+very air I breathed, it is now no more than a nebulous shred on a far
+horizon. Money-fear comes occasionally; but only as the memory of pain
+to a wound which you know to be healed. It comes; but, like Satan out of
+Heaven, I can cast it from me with a thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE FALSE GOD OF FEAR AND THE FEAR OF DEATH
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+The fear of death was greatly diminished for me on grasping the
+principle of everlasting Growth.
+
+This principle we gather from whatever we know of life. Our observation
+of life is, of course, limited to this planet; but as far as it goes it
+shows us a persistent and perpetual system of development. We have only
+to let our imaginations go back to the first feeble stirrings of life in
+the ooze of the primeval seas, contrasting that with what it became in
+Plato, Sophocles, St. Peter, St. Paul, Raphael, Shakespeare, and Darwin,
+to see how high the climb upward has reached. Jesus of Nazareth I put on
+a plane to which we have not yet attained, though in sight as the great
+objective.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+That the same law operates in the individual life is a matter of
+everyone's experience. Such knowledge as each man has of himself is that
+of a growing entity. Each year, each day, expands him a little further,
+with increased fulness of character. At thirty he is more than he was at
+twenty; at fifty more than he was at thirty; at eighty more than he was
+at fifty. Nothing but a perverted mortal point of view stands in the way
+of further expansion still.
+
+The perverted mortal point of view is one of the impulses we have to
+struggle with. The mortal tendency, which means the deadly tendency,
+always seeks to kill whatever has the principle of life. This tendency
+is in every one of us; but in some of us more than in others.
+
+You can see it at work in the morbid mind, in the mind that is easily
+depressed, and in the mind that easily closes.
+
+Perhaps it is in this last that it becomes our most pernicious enemy.
+The closing mind is found in all our ranks; the closed mind is the
+deadwood of all our professions. It is not only deadwood; it is
+death-in-life, the foe of the developing life-principle, the enemy of
+the Holy Ghost.
+
+That the dead mind should be found among people who have had few
+intellectual advantages is not surprising. On them it is forced from
+without, by sheer pressure of circumstance. Where it is most painful is
+precisely where it does most harm, among the classes we call
+professional. There, too, it seems commonest. Lawyers, doctors,
+clergymen, teachers, writers, politicians, business men with dead minds
+choke all the highways of life. To the extent that they have influence
+they are obstacles to progress; but sooner or later the time comes when
+they no longer have influence. Life shelves them on the plea that they
+are old; but that is not the reason. They are shelved because they have
+killed their minds, becoming living dead men.
+
+As a matter of fact, one of the most valuable of our social and
+national assets is the old man who has kept his mind open. Found all too
+rarely, he is never shelved, for the reason that life cannot do without
+him. Having the habit of expansion he continues to expand, keeping
+abreast of youth and even a little in advance of it. The exception
+rather than the rule, there is no reason why he should not be the
+racial type.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+He is not the racial type because so many of us begin to die almost as
+soon as we have begun to live. Our very fear of the death-principle
+admits it into our consciousness. Admitted into our consciousness it
+starts its work of killing us. It wrinkles the face, it turns the hair
+grey, it enfeebles the limbs, it stupefies the brain. One of its most
+deadly weapons is fatigue, or the simulation of fatigue. The tired
+business man, who rules American life, is oftener than not a dead
+business man. If he looked ahead he would see what we idiomatically know
+as his "finish." He is not only dying but he infuses death into
+manners, literature, and art, since he so largely sets the standard
+which becomes the rule.
+
+War on the death-principle should be, it seems to me, one of the aims to
+which the individual gives his strength; and once more he can do it on
+his own account.
+
+In the first place, he can watch himself, that he does not mentally
+begin to grow old. To begin mentally to grow old is to begin mentally to
+die. He must think of himself as an expanding being, not as a
+contracting one. He must keep in sympathetic touch with the new, damning
+the know-it-all frame of mind. He must keep in sympathetic touch with
+youth, knowing that youth is the next generation in advance. The secrets
+of one generation are not those of another; but if he who possesses the
+earlier masters also the later he is that much the richer and wiser. The
+gulf which separates parents and children is one which the parents must
+cross. They can work onward, while the children cannot work backward. Up
+to a certain point the older teach the younger; beyond a certain point
+the younger teach the older. He who would go on living and not begin to
+die must be willing to be taught, reaping the harvest of both youth
+and age.
+
+In the second place, he who would live must not kill anyone else. The
+deadly tendency in ourselves is forever at work on those about us,
+chiefly on those we love. We watch, tabulate, and recount their symptoms
+of decay. Making notes of them for ourselves we discourse of them to
+others. "He begins to look old," is a commonplace. The response will
+probably emphasise the fact. By response to response we spin round a
+friend the age-web which lengthens into the death-web. In our expressive
+American vernacular we speak of "wishing" conditions on others, an
+instinctive folk-recognition of the force of mentality. We do it in a
+sinister sense more often than by way of helpfulness. We "wish" by
+thinking, by talking, by creating an atmosphere, by forcing things into
+the general consciousness. Old age and decay, bad enough in themselves,
+we intensify by our habits of mind. Death, which in any case awaits our
+friends, we woo to them by anticipations of demise. It is not
+ill-intentioned. It comes out of a subconsciousness in which death and
+not life is the base.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+For most of us the fear of death is a subconscious rather than an active
+fear. It becomes active for those who through illness, or in some other
+way, see a sentence of death hanging over them; but during the greater
+part of the life-span we are able to beat it off.
+
+As to the life-span itself there is reason to suppose that it is meant
+to be more regular than man allows it to become. There may easily be an
+"appointed time" to which we do not suffer ourselves, or each other, to
+attain. Those strange, inequalities by which one human being is left to
+pass over the century mark, another is cut off just when he is most
+needed, while a third does no more than touch this plane for an hour or
+two, may be the results of our misreadings of God's Will, and not the
+decrees of that Will itself.
+
+We are here on ground which may be termed that of speculation; and yet
+speculation is not quite the right word. I dare to think that we have
+reached a stage of our development at which we are entitled to make with
+regard to death certain inferences which were hardly possible before our
+time. We may make them timidly, with all hesitation and reserve, aware
+that we cannot propound them as facts; and yet we may make them. The
+human mind is no longer where it was a hundred years ago, still less
+where it was five hundred years ago. Though we make little progress we
+make some. We are not always marking time on the same spot of ignorance
+and helplessness. What is mystery for one age is not of necessity
+mystery for another. Even when mysteries remain, they do not of
+necessity remain without some hint of a dawn which may broaden into day.
+Many of our most precious illuminations have come in just this way; a
+faint light--which slowly, feebly, through centuries perhaps, waxes
+till it becomes a radiance.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+I talked some time ago to an orthodox Christian lady whose brother had
+recently died, and who was speaking of death.
+
+"The one mystery," she called it, "on which no single ray of light has
+been vouchsafed in all the ages man has been on earth."
+
+I did not agree with her, but knowing her to be an orthodox Christian
+lady I did not venture to express my opinion.
+
+But hers is the position which many, perhaps most, of us take. "No one
+has ever come back," we say, "to tell us what his experience has been,"
+and we drop the subject there. Not only do we drop the subject there,
+but we resent it if everyone else does not drop the subject there. "God
+has hidden it from us," we declare, "and what He has hidden from us it
+is presumption for us to pry into." It is useless to urge the fact that
+this way of reasoning would have kept us still in the Stone Age; we are
+not to be reached by argument.
+
+Let me say at once that I am not taking up the question of the psychic,
+or entering into it at all. I shall keep myself to the two points of
+view which have helped me, as an individual, to overcome, to some
+degree, the fear of death, considering them in reverse order from that
+in which I have mentioned them. Those two points of view are:
+
+A. That, according to God's Will, we come into this phase of being for
+an "appointed time" which we do not always reach;
+
+B. That we pass out of this phase of being as we came into it, for
+Growth.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+A. The question of an appointed time seems important chiefly to the
+right understanding of God's love. Between us and the understanding of
+that love bereavement is often a great obstacle. Oftener still it is a
+great puzzle. I do not have to catalogue the conditions in which the
+taking away of men, women, and children, sorely needed here if for no
+other purpose than to love, has moved us to deep perplexity, or to
+something like a doubt of God. We have probably all known cases where
+such tragedy has driven sufferers to renounce God altogether, and to
+curse Him. Some of us who have been smitten may have come near to doing
+this ourselves, or may have done it.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+I have already spoken of the Caucasian's habit of shuffling off on God
+those ills for which he will not face the responsibility himself, and I
+am inclined to think that this is one of them. In my own experience the
+explanation of "God's Will" made to the mother of a little family left
+fatherless, or to the parents of a dead baby, or to a young man with a
+young wife in her coffin, has always been revolting. I have made it; I
+have tried, on the faith of others, to think it must be so. I have long
+since ceased to think it, and feel happier for not crediting the
+Universal Father with any such futile tricks.
+
+I should not go so far as to say that we human beings have misapplied
+the laws of life in such a way as to kill those who are dear to us;
+rather, I think, we have never learned those laws except in their merest
+rudiments. We are not yet prepared to do more than bungle the good
+things offered us on earth, and more or less misuse them. We misuse them
+ourselves; we teach others to misuse them; we create systems of which
+the pressure is so terrible that under it the weak can do nothing but
+die. We give them no chance. We squeeze the life out of them. And then
+we say piously, "The blessed Will of God!"
+
+As an illustration of what I mean let me cite the two following cases
+among people I have known:
+
+A young lady belonging to a family of means was found to be suffering
+from incipient tuberculosis. The doctors ordered her to Saranac. To
+Saranac she went, with two nurses. Within eighteen months she was home
+again, quite restored to health. This was as it should have been.
+
+At the same time I knew a car-conductor, married some six or seven
+years, and the father of three children. He, too, was found to be
+suffering from incipient tuberculosis. He, too, was ordered to Saranac.
+But having a wife and three children to support, Saranac was out of the
+question. He went on conducting his car till his cough became
+distressing, whereupon he was "fired." A minimum allowance from his
+church kept the family from starvation, while the nearest approach to
+Saranac that could be contrived was an arrangement by which he slept
+with his head out the window. In course of time he died, and his widow
+was exhorted to submit to the Will of God.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+I cite the latter case as typical of millions and millions of deaths of
+the kind at which we stand aghast at God's extraordinary rulings. Why is
+it, we ask, that He snatches away those who are needed, leaving those
+who might be spared? As to the latter part of the question I have
+nothing to say; but when it comes to "snatching away" I feel it
+important to "absolve God" of the blame for it.
+
+In the instance I have quoted the blame for it is clear. Falling on no
+one individual, it does fall on an organisation of life which gives all
+the chances to some, denying them to others. So long as we feel unable
+to improve on this organisation we shall have these inequalities. But
+let us face honestly the consequences they bring. Let us not confuse all
+the issues of life and death as we do, by saddling the good and
+beautiful Will of God with the ills we make for ourselves.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+All untimely bereavement is, of course, not of the nature of the above
+illustration. And yet I venture to believe that in all untimely
+bereavement some similar explanation could be found. For example, in the
+intervals of writing these lines I have been reading a recent biography
+of Madame de Maintenon. In it is a chapter describing the series of
+catastrophes which fell on Louis the Fourteenth, and the French kingdom,
+within little more than a twelvemonth. His son and heir, his grandson,
+the second heir, his great-grandson, the third heir, the second heir's
+wife, and still another grandson were all carried off by smallpox. In
+the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, his wife, the aged monarch was
+counselled to submit to the awful Will of God which saw fit thus to
+smite him. What no one perceived was that by crowding round the bed of
+each sufferer in turn the survivors courted contagion.
+
+But, there again, it is not much more than a century since this fact
+became known to anyone. Easily within living memory is the discovery
+that disease is due to bacteria. Our whole system of sanitation is of
+recent development, and obtains only among the English and the Americans
+even now. In many parts of Europe and America, to say nothing of Asia
+and Africa, people still live as in the Middle Ages, and infant
+mortality is appalling. Those of us who pay most attention to sanitary
+laws live unhealthily, diminishing our powers to resist attack. I
+mention these facts, not as making a list of them, but to indicate the
+many causes through which we bring bereavement on ourselves, when the
+Will of God would naturally make for survival and happiness.
+
+It must never be forgotten that in this phase of our existence we never
+carry out that Will except to a remote degree. We only struggle towards
+doing it. When great sorrows come it is because in the struggle we have
+not been successful. Either we ourselves have failed; or the failure of
+others affects us indirectly. While God's Will may be for our happiness,
+we can attain to neither the happiness nor the Will--as yet.
+
+Nevertheless, we would not have it otherwise. In our more thoughtless or
+more agonised minutes we are likely to cry out for a life in which the
+conditions ensuring our happiness could not so easily miscarry; but that
+would mean a static life, and a static life, above all things, we will
+not endure. As already seen, we ask for difficulties to conquer,
+successes to achieve. To contend is our instinct, not to be passive
+and enjoy.
+
+Difficulties to conquer can only exist side by side with the possibility
+of not conquering them. The victory which is merely a walk-over is
+scarcely a victory. Achievement counts only when something has been
+overcome. Even then the overcoming of one thing merely spurs us on to
+overcome another. To rest on our laurels is doom. For a race which has
+the infinite as its goal the word must be on and on. The static heaven
+of bearing palms and playing harps and bliss, which the naïve
+interpretation of our fathers drew from the imagery of the Apocalypse,
+has long since made us rebellious. Something to strive for we demand,
+even at the risk of bereavement.
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+It is at once the disadvantage and the glory of our own generation that
+it is only on the fourth or fifth step of the stairway by which we are
+climbing. But at least it is heir to the conquests which go to its stage
+of advance. Untimely bereavement is less common to-day than it was a
+few centuries ago; it is more common to-day than it will be a few
+centuries hence. Such storms of affliction as in 1712 swept over the
+house of Louis Quatorze occur less frequently now. But they still occur.
+We have not got beyond them. They are only bound to occur less and less
+frequently, till they become no more than matters of scarcely
+credible record.
+
+In the meanwhile it may be a comfort to others, as it is to me, to be
+able to "absolve God" from the charge of capricious and intolerable
+thwarting of our love. To me, at least, the blow is easier to bear when
+I know that His beloved hand didn't strike it. I cannot understand being
+tortured out of sheer love, while patience with what leaves me with my
+whole life maimed is only the patience of the vanquished.
+
+On the other hand, I can bear with my mistakes, I can bear with the
+mistakes of others, I can bear with the failures which are the fruit of
+our lack of race-development, so long as I know that God is on my side.
+The affliction which would be too poignant as coming directly from Him
+is half soothed already when I know that He is soothing it. I may have
+lost what He gave; but far from snatching it from me He would have had
+me keep it. Of all my comforts that assurance is the first.
+
+In addition, I have the satisfaction--a meagre satisfaction you may call
+it, but a satisfaction all the same--of knowing that by the ploughing
+and harrowing of my heart a step is taken toward that future in which
+hearts shall be less harrowed and ploughed. "It must never happen
+again." That is what we keep saying with regard to the Great War. Well,
+it may happen again. We have as yet no trustworthy pledge to the
+contrary. But of this we may be sure, that it will not happen again very
+often. It is less likely to happen again for the very reason that it has
+happened. If the Great War does not prove to be the last war it is the
+more probable that the next war will. I mean that we do learn our
+lessons, though we learn them only as feeble-minded children learn
+theirs. Agony by agony, something is gained, and my personal agony
+counts with the rest. The fact may give me no more than the faintest
+consolation, and possibly none at all; and still in the long, slow
+stages of our upward climb my agony counts, whether its counting
+consoles me or not.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+The inference that we come into the life of this planet for an
+"appointed time" we draw from what we see of God's system of order. All
+other things do so, as far as we observe. The plant springs, to grow and
+bloom, to bear fruit and seed, and so renew itself. Fish, bird, and
+animal have their appointed round varying only in detail from that of
+the plant. Man's appointed round would seem to vary only in detail from
+that of the animal, except that he himself interferes with it.
+
+To the best of my knowledge the plant, from the blade of grass to the
+oak or the orchid, always fulfils its life-span, unless some act or
+accident cripples or destroys it. I mean that we never see God bringing
+the shoot above the soil just to nip it before it unfolds. We never see
+Him bring the bud to the eve of blossoming just to wither it. Having
+given it its mission He supplies it with rain, sun, and sustenance to
+bring that mission to its end. True, the plant has enemies, like
+everything else, enemies which it may not escape. But generally
+speaking, it does escape them, and lives to finish its task.
+
+So, too, with the more active living thing. It, too, has its enemies.
+It, too, may not escape them. But assuming that it does, God allows it,
+to the best of our observation, to work out its full development. The
+only "bereavement" he brings to the lion, the thrush, or the elephant,
+or any other creature capable of grief is, apparently, from those
+hostile sources of which the hostility is more or less gratuitous. A man
+shoots a lion, or the lion kills an antelope; but they do so through
+misreading of God's Will, not through fulfilling it.
+
+For the lower ranks of creation misread that Will in their way as much
+as the higher in theirs. All ferocity must be misinterpretation of the
+divine law of harmony and mutual help. Internecine destruction probably
+has a meaning we can only guess at. Guessing at it we are at liberty to
+surmise that what God sees as loving contention for excellence, each
+gaining by the other's gain, we understand as bitter strife, and
+consumption of the flesh and blood. The rivalry we can best appreciate
+is that of brutality; the chief benefit the stronger creature seeks from
+the weaker is in killing and eating him. Why this should be part of our
+struggle I do not know; but part of our struggle it seems to be--from
+the humblest organism up to man--the mistaking of God's Will before
+learning to understand it.
+
+And lest I should seem to assume too much, in saying this, let me add
+that our progress out of this state of preying on each other has long
+been foreseen by the pioneers of truth. The vision is at least as
+ancient as Isaiah, when he descried from afar the accomplished rule of
+the Son of David:
+
+"With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity
+for the meek of the earth.... And righteousness shall be the girdle of
+his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall
+dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and
+the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child
+shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones
+shall lie down together.... And the sucking child shall play on the hole
+of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
+They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; _for the earth
+shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord_, as the waters cover
+the seas."
+
+
+
+XII
+
+
+If I am correct in thinking that our passage across the life of this
+planet is meant to last for an "appointed time," I presume that that
+time would be measured by experience rather than by years. There exists
+what we vaguely call the round of life. We are born; we grow; we know
+family interests; we learn; we work; we love; we marry; we beget
+children; we train them to take our places; we pass beyond. There are
+variations on this routine, some of us having more, some of us having
+less; but in general it may be taken as typical. It is our mission, as
+the plants and the lower living things have theirs.
+
+It seems reasonable, then, to think that each baby born is meant by the
+Father's Will to reap this experience before it proceeds to further
+experience. It must be a stage in its growth or it would not come into
+it. When it is balked of it something is amiss. The child who dies in
+infancy has lost something. The lad or the girl whom our organised life
+drives from this plane before reaching fruition has lost something. The
+parent whom our conditions force onward before he has brought his task
+to a stage at which he can peacefully lay it down has lost something. I
+am not saying that God does not control resources by which that loss can
+be abundantly made up, but only that the loss would seem to be there.
+It is loss for the one who departs as well as for those who
+remain behind.
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+
+That is what I gather from the instances in the Old and New Testament in
+which those who had gone on before their time were called back again.
+There are six of these instances in all: one in the Old Testament, and
+five in the New. Of four of them we are expressly told that those
+restored were young; of the other two nothing is said as to age, but one
+at least was probably young, while the other was greatly needed.
+
+The child called back by Elisha was still a little boy. The daughter of
+Jairus was still a little girl. The son of the widow of Nain was a young
+man, as was also Eutychus raised by St. Paul. Though we are not told the
+age of Lazarus we judge that he was at most no more than in man's
+maturity. Dorcas of Lydda may have been of any age, but, judging by the
+circumstances, she had not completed her task.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+
+My point is this, that if these things happened, they seem to bear out
+my suggestion that our own inducement of premature death cuts us off
+from fulfilling our appointed time and getting our appointed experience.
+Only on some such ground can we believe that any would be permitted
+to return.
+
+Should this be so we would be in a position to assume that all who go
+over ahead of time would be allowed to come back, if we had sufficient
+spiritual power to recall them. But that power is of the rarest. Our
+Lord, apparently, was in control of it only at times, and on at least
+one occasion, that of the raising of Lazarus, its exercise was not what
+we should call easy. But that He believed it to be at human command to
+some extent is clear from the fact that its use became one of His four
+basic principles. "Raise the dead," was the second of the commands with
+which He sent out his first seventy disciples.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+
+I dwell on the subject only because of its bearing on the love of God.
+If it becomes plain to us that by the understanding of God's Will we
+gain a richer experience, with less fear of being cut off before our
+work is done, that Will makes a stronger appeal for being understood.
+That we have not understood it earlier, that we have not particularly
+cared to understand it, is due, I think, to our assumption of its
+capriciousness. It has been so underscored as inscrutable--the word
+generally applied to it--that the man in the street has felt mystified
+by it from the start. Being mystified he has settled down to think as
+little about it as he could.
+
+But a great force striving with man to put common sense into his methods
+is worth comprehending. It does not compel us to common-sense methods
+for the reason that we value only that which we work out for ourselves.
+We work nothing out but through suffering. We learn nothing, we take no
+forward step, except as we are whipped to it by anguish. That is why
+there is so much mourning in the world. God does not cause it; we bring
+it on ourselves; but each time we bring it on ourselves we creep one
+tiny step nearer that race-conclusion which is now coming to us about
+war, and will one day come to us about death, that "It must never
+happen again."
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+
+In other words, death will be abolished by race-unanimity not to submit
+to it. We shall have travelled far in this direction when the average
+mind begins to perceive that God did not send death into His creation,
+but that we ourselves developed it. Having developed it ourselves we
+must get rid of it ourselves, and already some of that work has been
+done. "For seeing that death came through man," are the words of St.
+Paul, "through man comes also the resurrection of the dead." When he
+speaks of "Jesus Christ who hath abolished death," his words are
+stronger still. "He has put an end to death and has brought Life and
+Immortality to light by the Good News, of which I have been appointed a
+preacher, apostle, and teacher."
+
+This Life and Immortality are not to be relegated to other ages and
+worlds; they are for us to work out now.
+
+The degree to which we work them out depends on our own efforts. Death
+will be our doom for many generations to come, because so few of us have
+the energy to strive against it. Release can come only when the race at
+large is willing to cast the evil thing off. One would suppose that we
+would be willing now; but we are far from being willing. We shall go on
+forcing our dear ones to die before their time, falling sick ourselves,
+enduring agonies, and rotting in graves, till we have suffered to the
+point at which we cry out that we have had enough. There will be a day
+when in presence of the useless thing we shall say, with something
+amounting to one accord, "It must stop." That day will be the beginning
+of the end of the age-long curse to which we still submit ourselves. In
+the language of St. Paul, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death,"
+leaving us with the belief that, when we have progressed to the
+overthrow of other forces opposed to us, we shall go on to the overthrow
+of this one--and that it will be overthrown.
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+
+From one kind of fear this reasoning has almost entirely delivered
+me--that of being taken away in the midst of my responsibilities, and
+before my work is done. I am not so audacious as to say that it may not
+happen; but only that, reasoning as I do, I am no longer a prey to
+apprehensions on the point. They used to come to me, not like the
+money-fear, an abiding visitant, but in spells of intense dread.
+
+I suppose that most men with families, and much unfinished business,
+know this dread, and have suffered from it. You think of the home you
+have built up, and of what it would be without you. You think of your
+wife, grappling with a kind of difficulty to which she is unaccustomed.
+You think of your children who turn to you as their central point, and
+who would be left without your guidance. You think of other duties you
+have undertaken, and wonder who will carry them through. You seem to be
+so essential to everyone and everything; and yet, you have been told, it
+may be the Will of God to remove you from them, and either let your
+plans collapse, or put their execution on the shoulders of someone else.
+
+I am not so presumptuous as to say that for me this may not happen. I
+only say that I do not think it will. I do not think so because,
+according to my judgment, He having helped me to go as far as I have
+gone, will help me to finish my task before giving me another one.
+
+My task, I think, He must estimate as I do. That is, my duties to others
+being not wholly of my choosing, but having come to me according to what
+I may call His weighing and measuring, I take them to be the duties He
+would have me perform. If so, He would naturally have me perform them
+till I come to the place where I can reasonably lay them down.
+
+Therefore, I dismiss the fear of untimely separation from my appointed
+work. Such a separation may come; but if it does, it will probably come
+by some such means as I have briefly tried to sketch; my own mistakes;
+the mistakes of others; the effect of race-pressure. In any case, my
+personal resistance, it seems to me, is made the stouter by feeling that
+my tasks are His tasks, and so that so long as I am needful to their
+accomplishment, I remain. If I go, it will be because He has the
+succession of events so planned as to reduce collapse, failure, or
+suffering to a minimum.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+
+B. The thought that the minute after death will only be another little
+step in Growth, to be followed by another and then another, as we are
+used to growing here, greatly diminishes one's shrinking at the change.
+
+It is entirely a modern thought. The past, even of a few centuries ago,
+never entertained it. It is doubtful if it was mentally prepared to
+entertain it, or evolve the idea.
+
+This is not to depreciate our fathers' mental powers. Different
+generations have different gifts. One age works along one line, another
+along another. The past had a certain revelation of truth; but the
+revelation of truth did not end with the past. Our ancestors received as
+much as they could take. What, it seems, they were unable to take was
+anything which made death less horrible. We may say, in fact, that they
+didn't want it. They liked having death made horrible. Many people like
+it still. The mitigation of that horror they condemn, resent, and often
+ascribe to the devil.
+
+And yet there is a tendency to see light through this gloom, and to seek
+views of death more in the line of common sense than those which have
+come down to us. It is not a strong tendency, but it exists. It exists
+in the face of opposition on the part of those religious conservatives
+who think conservatism and orthodoxy the same thing; and it runs the
+gauntlet of the sneers and jeers of the materially minded who make
+common cause with the old guard of the churches; but it exists. It
+exists, and goes forward, becoming a factor in the thought-life of
+our time.
+
+It is not yet two hundred years since the plea was put forth on behalf
+of mankind that, in the administration of divine justice, no one suffers
+less than he deserves, but also that no one suffers more.
+
+The hostility to this seemingly harmless teaching was of the most
+intense. There is hostility to it still, but mild as compared with that
+felt by our great-great-grandfathers. That no one should suffer less
+than he deserves went without saying; but that no one should suffer more
+was declared a black heresy. As there are those who declare it a black
+heresy to-day, it may be worth while, in the interests of the conquest
+of fear, to say a word as to the relation of God and punishment.
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+
+To my mind it is chiefly verbal.
+
+It is permissible to say that there is no such thing as punishment;
+there are only wrong results. It depends upon your way of putting it.
+The wrong method produces wrong results in proportion as it is wrong.
+Wrong results mean wrong conditions; and wrong conditions mean
+suffering. You may call this the law of God, but it is the law of
+anything. It is not positive law, it is negative. As a matter of fact,
+God does not need to put forth a law on the point since everything
+works that way.
+
+What we call sin is simply a wrong method. It may be a wrong method
+meant to produce wrong; or it may be a wrong method in the hope of
+producing right. In any case it brings its consequence in pain.
+
+That consequence may be corrected in this phase of our being, or it may
+be carried over into the next. Carried over into the next the
+individual, according to our ancestral teaching, comes under the
+sentence in which our fathers delighted as "damnation." Not only did
+damnation involve the most fiendish torture the Almighty could invent,
+but the torture was inflicted, without an instant of relief, throughout
+the eons of eternity.
+
+I recall a sermon to which I listened as a boy of nine. It was on a
+summer's evening, when the windows of the church were open. A moth
+fluttered about a light. The church stood at the foot of a mountain. The
+preacher was trying to explain to us the eternal duration of God's
+punishment. "Think of that moth," he said, "carrying away one grain of
+sand from that mountain, and going off for a million years, after which
+it would return and take away another grain. And think of it keeping
+this up, one grain every million years, till the whole mountain was
+removed. Well, that would be only a moment as compared with the time you
+would be in hell."
+
+On the generations comforted and fortified by this sort of teaching I
+have no comment to make; but we of another generation should surely not
+be reproved for moving away from it. We move away from it in the
+direction of common sense, since common sense must be an attribute of
+the Universal Father as it is of the wiser among mankind.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+
+I revert, then, to my statement that God's relation to punishment is
+chiefly verbal. His "wrath against sin" is a way of "putting it." If you
+can best express the suffering which springs from wrong methods as
+"God's wrath" you are at liberty so to express yourself; but we should
+not lose sight of the fact that the wrong methods produce the suffering,
+and not an outburst of fury on the part of One who is put before us
+as Love.
+
+The fact that the Hebrew writers often used a vivid form of warning and
+invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew
+writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he
+required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying
+this I am not dodging the issue; I am stating a fact which rules in all
+historical interpretation. To make the phraseology of two thousand years
+before Christ the literal expression of the thought of two thousand
+years after Him is to be archaic beyond reason. Having grasped a
+principle, we phrase it in the language of our time.
+
+The language of our time makes, on the whole, for restraint, sobriety,
+and exactitude of statement. Few of our habits modify themselves more
+constantly and more rapidly than our forms of speech. Not only does each
+generation find something special to itself, but each year and each
+season. To me it seems that much of our misunderstanding of God springs
+from the effort to fix on Him forevermore the peculiarities we infer
+from the idiom of five thousand years ago. Only to a degree does that
+idiom convey to us what is conveyed to those who heard it as a living
+tongue; and of that degree much is lost when it percolates through
+translation. To cling to words when all we need is to know principles,
+clothing them in our own way, seems to me not only absurd in fact but
+lamentable in result. I venture to think that more people have been
+alienated from God by a pious but misapplied verbal use than were ever
+estranged from Him by sin.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+
+Our ancient Hebrew predecessors understood God in their own way. We
+understand Him in the same way, but with the clarification wrought by
+the intervening years of progress. In other words, they bequeath us a
+treasure which we are free to enrich with our own discoveries.
+
+Among our own discoveries is a clearer comprehension of pain as
+resulting from wrong methods, and of God's detachment from pain. More
+and more, punishment becomes a concept we reject. Even in our penal
+institutions, which have been for so many centuries a barbarous token of
+our incompetence, we begin to substitute for punishment something more
+nearly akin to cure. If we find mere vengeance unworthy of ourselves we
+must find it unworthy of the Universal Father. If we concede to the
+criminal the right to a further chance we concede it to ourselves. If we
+recognise the fact that the sinner on earth may redeem himself, working
+from error towards righteousness, the same principle should rule in the
+whole range of existence. There is nothing about the earth-life to make
+it the only phase of effort and probation. Effort and probation are
+probably conditions of eternity. They will be in our next experience as
+they have been in this, leading us on from strength to strength.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+
+One main difference between the mind of the past and the modern mind is
+that the mind of the past tended to be static, while the mind of to-day
+is more and more attuned to a dynamic universe. Civilisation before the
+nineteenth century was accustomed to long periods with relatively little
+change. Most people spent their entire lives in the same town or the
+same countryside. In the class in which they were born they lived and
+died, with little thought of getting out of it. This being so they
+looked for the same static conditions after death as they saw before it.
+A changeless heaven appalled them with no sense of monotony, nor did a
+changeless hell do anything to shake their nerves. Their nerves were not
+easily shaken. They were a phlegmatic race, placid, unimaginative,
+reposeful.
+
+Because we of to-day are more restless it does not follow that our views
+should be truer. We only know they are truer because we are so much
+nearer the truth than they had the opportunity to come. We prove that we
+are nearer the truth by our greater command of the Father's resources.
+If our whole horizon of truth were not broadened, we could not possess
+this command.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+
+Changing our static conception of life to that of a dynamic will to
+unfold, we see the climax we commonly call death as only a new step in
+unfoldment. Whatever I have been, the step must be one in advance. It
+would not be in accord with creative energy that I should go backward.
+The advance may entail suffering, since it is probable that it will give
+me a heightened perception of the wrong in my methods; but there are
+conditions in which suffering signifies advance.
+
+And yet if I suffer it can only be with what I may call a curative
+suffering. It will be suffering that comes from the recognition of
+mistake; not the hopeless anguish of the damned. Having learned "how not
+to do it," I perceive "how to do it"--and go on.
+
+But the perception of "how to do it" is precisely what most of us have
+been acquiring. I venture to think that few of us will come face to face
+with death without being more or less prepared for it. Life is so
+organised that, at its worst, all but the rare exceptions make progress
+daily, through obedience to the laws of righteousness.
+
+In saying this we must count as righteousness not merely the carrying
+out of a rule of thumb laid down by man's so-called morality, or the
+technical regulations prescribed by the churches for the use of their
+adherents; we must include every response to every high call. We must
+remember that all a man does in the way of effort to be a good son, a
+good brother, a good husband, a good father, a good workman, a good
+citizen, is of the nature of slowly creeping forward. Above every other
+form of training of the self this endeavour determines a man's spiritual
+standing, and his state of worthiness. He may know some failure in each
+of these details; and yet the fact that in the main he is set--as I am
+convinced the great majority are set--toward fulfilling his
+responsibilities helps him to be ready when the time comes to put the
+material away.
+
+The great common sense of the nations brought us to this perception
+during the years when the young men of the world were going down like
+wheat before the reaping machine. For the most part, doubtless, they
+were young men in whom the ladies who attend our churches would have
+seen much to reprimand. The moral customs of their countries were
+possibly held by them lightly. The two points which constitute pretty
+nearly all of American morality they may have disregarded. And yet we
+felt that their answer to the summons, which to them at least was a
+summons to sacrifice, showed them as men who had largely worked out
+their redemption. Whatever our traditions, we were sure that those who
+were ready to do anything so great could go to the Father without fear.
+
+But war calls for no more than a summing up and distillation of the
+qualities we cultivate in peace. These men were ready because homes,
+offices, banks, shops, factories, and farms had trained them to be
+ready. So they are training all of us. Traditions help; the churches
+help; but when it comes to the directing of the life toward
+righteousness--the effort to do everything rightly--no one thing has
+the monopoly.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+
+Going to the Father without fear! All the joy of life seems to me to
+hang on that little phrase. I used it just now of the young men who
+passed over from the battlefield; but I used it there with limitations.
+Going to the Father without fear is a privilege for every minute of the
+day. More and more knowledge of the Father is the progress for which we
+crave, since more knowledge of the Father means a fuller view of all
+that makes up the spiritual universe. Into that knowledge we are
+advancing every hour we live; into that knowledge we shall still be
+advancing at the hour when we die. The Father will still be showing us
+something new; the something new will still be showing us the Father.
+
+It will be something new, as we can receive it. He who can receive
+little will be given little; he who can receive much will be given much.
+In growth all is adjusted to capacity; it is not meant to shock, force,
+or frighten. The next step in growth being always an easy step, I can
+feel sure of moving onwards easily--"from strength to strength," in the
+words of one of the Songs for the Sons of Korah, "until unto the God of
+gods appeareth everyone of them in Zion."[33]
+
+[33] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE
+
+
+
+I
+
+
+After all, the conquest of fear is largely a question of vitality. Those
+who have most life are most fearless. The main question is as to the
+source from which an increase of life is to be obtained.
+
+An important psychological truth was involved when our Lord made the
+declaration, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly." This, I think, was the first plain statement
+ever made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more
+dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But
+once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth
+by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as
+spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has
+evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in
+full-blooded exercise he has seen no connection.
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+Few of us do see a connection between strength of spirit and strength of
+limb; but it is there. I am not saying that a strong spirit cannot
+coexist with a feeble frame; but the feeble frame is a mistake. It is
+the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear.
+The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it
+a chance. Abundant life must be _life_, healthy, active, and radiant. It
+should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and
+from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and
+triumphant.
+
+This vigour and triumph we ought to work into our point of view, so
+kneading it into our subconsciousness. Strong in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is strong, fearless in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is fearless, the going from strength to strength
+becomes a matter of course to us. Urging us on in sheer joy of power,
+abundance of life becomes still more abundant through the indwelling of
+the life-principle. That mystic resistless force, which has fashioned
+already so many forms, is forever at work fashioning a higher type
+of man.
+
+Each one of us is that higher type of man potentially. Though we can
+forge but little ahead of our time and generation, it is much to know
+that the Holy Ghost of Life is our animating breath, pushing us on to
+the overcoming of all obstacles. For me as an individual it is a support
+to feel that the principle which was never yet defeated is my principle,
+and that whatever the task of to-day or to-morrow I have the ability to
+perform it well. The hesitation that may seize me, or the questioning
+which for an instant may shake my faith, is but a reminder that the
+life-principle is not only with me, but more abundantly with me in
+proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which
+crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but
+it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet
+new requirements. "From strength to strength" is its law, carrying me on
+with the impetus of its own mounting toward God.
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+And the impetus of its own mounting toward God is not confined to what
+we view as the great things of life. Between great and small it makes no
+distinction. It is as eager on behalf of the man behind a counter as on
+that of him who is governing a country. The woman who has on her
+shoulders the social duties of an embassy, or the financial cares of a
+great business, has it no more at her command than she who is nursing
+her baby or reckoning her pennies to make both ends meet. It rushes to
+the help of all. Wherever there is duty or responsibility it is begging
+at the doors of our hearts to be let in, to share the work and ease
+the burden.
+
+As I get up each morning, it is there. As I plan my day while I dress
+myself, it is there. As I think with misgiving of some letter I tremble
+at receiving, or with distaste at some job I must tackle before night,
+it is there.
+
+It is there, not only with its help, but with its absolute knowledge of
+the right way for me to act. The care that worries me may be so big as
+to involve millions of other people's money, or it may be as small as
+the typing of a letter; but the right way of fulfilling either task is
+pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My
+success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure
+sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am
+painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is
+essential to the Holy Ghost of Life.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+So I, the individual, try to confront each day with the knowledge that I
+am infused with a guiding, animating principle which will not let me
+drop behind, or lose my modest reward, so long as I trust to the force
+which carries me along. By trusting to it I mean resting on it quietly,
+without worrying, without being afraid that it will fail me. "Fret not
+thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil."[34] By doing evil, I
+presume is meant making a mistake, taking the wrong course. If, however
+great the cause, I fret myself I disturb the right conditions. By
+disturbing the right conditions I choke off the flow of the
+life-principle through my energies.
+
+[34] The Book of Psalms.
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+At a moment when the little buffer state between Egypt and Assyria was
+afraid of being overrun by the one or the other it was frantically
+casting about to decide with which it would throw in its lot. "With
+neither," a great prophet thundered in the ears of the people. "In
+calmly resting your safety lieth; in quiet trust shall be your
+strength."[35]
+
+[35] The Book of Isaiah.
+
+My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these
+four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the
+time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not
+pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a
+few lines above, that _I tried_. Trying is as far as I have gone; but
+even trying is productive of wonderful results.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+Least of all do I claim to have covered the whole ground, or to have
+discussed to its fulness any one of the points which I have raised.
+Whole regions of thought which bear on my subject--such as psychology,
+philosophy, and religion as I understand the word--I have carefully
+endeavoured to avoid. My object has been to keep as closely as possible
+to the line of personal experience, which has a value only because it is
+personal. Telling no more than what one man has endeavoured to work out,
+what I have written seeks no converts. Though, for the sake of brevity,
+it may at times seem to take a hortatory tone, it is a record and no
+more. In it the reader will doubtless find much to correct, and
+possibly to reject; and this must be as it happens. What I hope he will
+neither correct nor reject is the sincerity of the longing to find God's
+relations to the phenomena of life, and the extent to which the
+phenomena of life reflect God.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+In the end we come back to that, the eternal struggle whereby that which
+is unlike God becomes more and more like Him. In watching the process,
+and taking part in it, there is, when all is said and done, a sense of
+glorious striving and success. With each generation some veil which hid
+the Creator from the creature is torn forever aside. God, who is always
+here, is seen a little more clearly by each generation as being; here.
+God, who ever since His sun first rose and His rain first fell has been
+making Himself known to us, is by each generation a little better
+understood. God, whom we have tried to lock up in churches or banish to
+Sundays and special holy days, is breaking through all our
+prohibitions, growing more and more a force in our homes and our
+schools, in our shops and our factories, in our offices and our banks,
+in our embassies, congresses, parliaments, and seats of government. Into
+His light we advance slowly, unwillingly, driven by our pain; but
+we advance.
+
+The further we advance the more we perceive of power. The more we
+perceive of power the more we are freed from fear. The more we are freed
+from fear the more exultantly we feel our abundance of life. The more
+exultantly we feel our abundance of life the more we reject death in any
+of its forms. And the more we reject death in any of its forms the more
+we reflect that Holy Ghost of Life which urges us on from conquest to
+conquest, from strength to strength, to the fulfilling of ourselves.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, THE CONQUEST OF FEAR ***
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+Title: The Conquest of Fear
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+Author: Basil King
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+<br />
+<br />
+<hr />
+<h1>The Conquest Of Fear</h1>
+
+<h2>Basil King</h2>
+
+<h3>With A New Introduction By<br />
+Henry C. Link</h3>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Contents</h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li><a href="#intro">Introduction</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+<ol type="upper-roman">
+<li><a href="#1">Fear And The Life-Principle</a></li>
+<li><a href="#2">The Life-Principle And God</a></li>
+<li><a href="#3">God And His Self-Expression</a></li>
+<li><a href="#4">God'S Self-Expression And The Mind Of To-Day</a></li>
+<li><a href="#5">The Mind Of To-Day And The World As It Is</a></li>
+<li><a href="#6">The World As It Is And The False God Of Fear</a></li>
+<li><a href="#7">The False God Of Fear And The Fear Of Death</a></li>
+<li><a href="#8">The Fear Of Death And Abundance Of Life</a></li>
+</ol>
+
+
+<a name="intro"></a>
+<h2>Introduction</h2>
+
+<p align="center">by Henry C. Link, Ph.D.<br />
+<i>Author of</i> The Rediscovery Of Man, The Return To Religion, etc.</p>
+
+<p>There are many books which give some help to many people. There are
+books which give a set of rules, or even one master rule, by which to
+meet the problems of life. This is not such a book. It suggests no
+simple recipe for the conquest of fear. Instead, it presents, what all
+too few of us to-day possess, a philosophy of life.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, in contrast to the dominant thinking of our age, which is
+materialistic, King's philosophy is spiritual and religious. Indeed, the
+ideas in this book are so profoundly different from the commonly
+accepted ideas of our times that they will come as a shock to many
+readers. One purpose of this introduction is to prepare the reader for
+such a shock.</p>
+
+<p>I have said that the dominant thinking of our age is materialistic, and
+by that I mean also physical. Let me illustrate this broad statement
+with reference to the subject of fears alone. The conquest of fear has
+gone on year after year chiefly through physical means. Physical pain
+has always been one of the great sources of fear. Now ether and other
+anaesthetics have eliminated the chief pains of major operations. Older
+people can still remember their fear of the dentist, when killing a
+nerve or pulling a tooth caused excruciating pain. Now local
+anaesthetics even in minor troubles have made dentistry almost painless.
+We have not conquered these fears of pain&mdash;rather their cause has
+been removed.</p>
+
+<p>Twilight sleep, the artificial sleep to alleviate the pains of
+childbirth, is the perfect expression of the scientific and
+materialistic elimination of fear. By a chemical blackout of the mind, a
+dimming of the conscious self, the person is enabled to escape the
+necessity of facing and conquering fear through his own resources.</p>
+
+<p>I am not condemning the physical alleviation of pain or the progress of
+physical science. I am only describing a trend, and that is the growing
+emphasis on the elimination of fears by science rather than on their
+conquest by the individual.</p>
+
+<p>Illness has always been a great source of fear, and still is. The dread
+of cancer is one of the terrifying fears of our time and fortunes are
+spent in cancer research and education. <b>The Conquest of Fear</b> was written
+as a result of the author's threatened total blindness. He faced a fact
+for which there seemed no physical remedy&mdash;hence his great need for a
+spiritual conquest of this great fear.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, year by year, physical science has been eliminating or
+reducing the dangers of sickness. Vaccines for the prevention of the
+dread disease, small-pox, are now a matter of course. Vaccines and
+specifics against the deadly tetanus, against typhoid fever, diphtheria,
+syphilis, and other fearful diseases have become commonplace. The fear
+of pneumonia has been almost eliminated through the discoveries of the
+miraculous sulpha drugs. Science has done wonders toward the elimination
+of such fears. A man need hardly conquer the fear of any particular
+sickness&mdash;there is left for his conquest chiefly the fear of dying.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to physical disease, our civilization has now developed
+mental ailments of all kinds. These include a large category of fears
+called phobias&mdash;claustrophobia, agoraphobia, photophobia, altaphobia,
+phonophobia, etc.</p>
+
+<p>Three fields or professions, other than religion and philosophy, have
+sought to deal with these fears, the psychiatric, the psychoanalytic,
+and the psychological. The medical psychiatric profession has naturally
+emphasized physical remedies beginning with sedatives and bromides to
+induce artificial relaxation and ending up with lobectomy or the
+complete cutting off of the frontal lobes of the brain, the centers of
+man's highest thought processes. Between these two extremes are the
+shock treatments in which an injection of insulin or metrazol into the
+blood stream causes the person to fall into a sort of epileptic fit
+during which he loses consciousness. Through a series of such shock
+treatments some of the higher nerve centers or nerve pathways are
+destroyed. By this process a person's fears may also be eliminated and
+he may be permanently or temporarily cured. In short, the person does
+not conquer the fears in his mind; the psychiatrist or neurologist, by
+physically destroying a part of the person's brain, destroys also
+the fears.</p>
+
+<p>How strongly this physical approach has taken hold of people was made
+plain to me through an article of mine on how to conquer fears. The
+emphasis in this article was on how people could overcome their fears
+and worries through their own efforts. To illustrate the opposite
+extreme, I mentioned the brain operations and shock treatments by which
+psychiatry now often deals with fears. Among the many people who wrote
+to me as a result of this article, <i>the majority inquired where they
+could obtain such an operation</i>! To such extremes have many people gone
+in their desire to eliminate fear by physical means rather than conquer
+it through their own spiritual powers.</p>
+
+<p>The psychoanalyst deals with a person's phobias through what seems like
+an intellectual or rational process. According to psychoanalysis,
+phobias or fears are due to some buried or subconscious complex. By
+daily or frequent talks with a psychoanalyst for a period of six months
+or a year, a person's subconscious disturbance <i>may</i> be brought to
+light, and if so, the fear is supposed automatically to disappear. Even
+if true, this process is a highly materialistic one, at least in the
+sense that only people who can spend thousands of dollars can afford
+such treatments.</p>
+
+<p>The psychologist, as well as some psychiatrists who have studied normal
+psychology, regard many fears as normal experiences which the individual
+can cope with largely through his own resources and with very little
+help in the way of visits or treatment. The trouble arises in the case
+of those people who have no personal resources to draw on. Their lives
+are so lacking in spiritual power, or so full of intellectual scepticism
+and distrust, that they cannot help themselves. They have no religious
+convictions or certainties by which to obtain leverage in their
+struggles. They have no firm philosophy of life on which they or those
+who would help them can lay hold. They are putty in the hands of the
+fears and forces that beset them from without.</p>
+
+<p>The psychologist and the psychiatrist both find it difficult to do much
+to help such a person. And yet, this is the kind of person our
+civilization and education tends increasingly to produce. By the
+physical elimination of the causes of fear we have gradually undermined
+man's inner resources for the conquest of fear.</p>
+
+<p>This materialistic trend has received a new impetus from the fields of
+political science, economics, and sociology. A dozen years ago economic
+disaster threatened to stampede the nation. Millions who had lost their
+jobs began to fear penury and want. Millions who still had jobs feared
+that they would lose them. Other millions began to fear the loss of
+their money and possessions. Rich and poor, becoming afraid that the
+country was going to pieces, rushed to the banks to withdraw their
+savings and brought on the nation-wide bank closings. Those were days
+when everyone knew paralyzing fears.</p>
+
+<p>History will record the fact that these fears were met, not by conquest,
+not by drawing on the moral resources and inner fortitude of the
+American citizen, but by a collection of wholesale materialistic
+schemes. These schemes included such devices as inflating the dollar,
+raising prices, expanding the government debt, paying farmers not to
+produce crops, government housing projects, and many others. The fears
+of unemployment and poverty in old age were to be eliminated wholesale
+through a planned economy, a new social order. By an elaborate system of
+book-keeping called Social Security, a whole nation was to win freedom
+from want and freedom from fear.</p>
+
+<p>But while we were building our smug little house of Social Security, the
+whole world was crashing around us. Instead of achieving local security
+we find ourselves now in the midst of world-wide insecurity. Far from
+having eliminated the economic causes of fear, we now find these causes
+multiplied many times. To the fear of losing our money is now added the
+fear of losing our sons. To the fear of losing our jobs is added the
+fear of losing our lives. To the fear of depression and inflation is
+added the fear of losing the very freedoms for which the war is
+being fought.</p>
+
+<p>At last we see, or are on the point of seeing, that materialism breeds
+worse fears than it cures; that economics and sociology create more
+social problems than they solve; that science makes it possible to
+destroy wealth and lives much faster than it can build them. It took
+years of science to achieve the airplane and to eliminate people's fear
+of flying. Now, suddenly, the airplane has become the greatest source of
+destruction and of fear on the globe. Cities which were decades in the
+building are blasted out of being in a night. Millions of people must
+regulate their lives in fear of these dread visitors.</p>
+
+<p>This is the background against which the conquest of fear presents its
+philosophy of courage and of hope. It is a philosophy diametrically
+opposed to the dominant beliefs and practices of our materialistic age.
+One hesitates to use the words spiritual and moral because they have
+become catch words. Nevertheless, King's philosophy is a spiritual and a
+moral one, and the reader will gain from it a clearer concept of what
+these words really mean.</p>
+
+<p>When I remember my reactions to the first portion of this book, I can
+readily picture the impatience and even scorn of many intellectuals and
+pseudo-intellectuals. Because of its emphasis on the religious nature of
+the universe and on the spiritual power of the individual, it may seem
+to them na&iuml;ve. Because of its consistent condemnation of Mammon, of
+materialism and the economic-sociological interpretation of life, it may
+seem to them old-fashioned. Actually, the book is highly sophisticated
+and is more novel to-day than the day it was written because since that
+time we have strayed twenty years further from the truth.</p>
+
+<p>One day I was having luncheon with a man who, during the course of the
+conversation, remarked: &quot;I want to tell you how much I enjoyed your
+latest book,&mdash;&quot; As almost any writer would, I pricked up my ears
+expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes,&quot; he went on, &quot;I got a great deal out of your recent book, but the
+book which helped me more than any I have ever read is a book called <b>The
+Conquest of Fear</b>, by Basil King. Do you happen to know it?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Know it!&quot; I exclaimed. &quot;I not only know it, I am just on the point of
+writing an introduction to a new edition of the book. Would you mind
+telling me how it helped you?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>He thereupon related how, at a certain period of his life, he had left
+an excellent position to take a new one which seemed more promising. It
+soon developed that the difficulties of this position were such as to
+make his success seem almost hopeless. He became obsessed with the idea
+that the people with whom he had to deal were &quot;out to get him.&quot; His
+fears of the job and of his associates grew to the point where a nervous
+breakdown seemed inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>One day his daughter told him that she needed a book in her school work
+which he remembered having packed in a box that had been stored in the
+attic and not yet opened. When he opened the box, the first book which
+he picked up was <b>The Conquest of Fear</b>. It was evidently one of those
+books which had somehow come into the possession of his family, but
+which he had never read.</p>
+
+<p>This time, however, he sat down in the attic and began to read it.
+During the course of the next year or so he read it carefully not once
+but four or five times. &quot;It marked the turning point in my life,&quot; he
+told me. &quot;It enabled me to conquer the fears which were threatening to
+ruin me at the time, and it gave me a philosophy which has stood me in
+good stead ever since.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A philosophy which marked the turning point in his life and which has
+stood him in good stead ever since! <b>The Conquest of Fear</b> offers
+such a philosophy not only to individuals suffering from fears peculiar
+to them, but to a world of individuals suffering, or about to suffer,
+from the collapse of world-wide materialism. In this day of chaos and
+uncertainty, here is the modern version of the parable of the man who
+built his house upon a rock instead of on the sand: &quot;and the rain
+descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that
+house; and it fell not for it was founded upon a rock.&quot;</p>
+
+<p align="right">H. C. L.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="1"></a>
+<h2>Chapter I</h2>
+
+<h3>Fear And The Life-Principle</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>When I say that during most of my conscious life I have been a prey to
+fears I take it for granted that I am expressing the case of the
+majority of people. I cannot remember the time when a dread of one kind
+or another was not in the air. In childhood it was the fear of going to
+bed, of that mysterious time when regular life was still going on
+downstairs, while I was buried alive under sheets and blankets. Later it
+was the fear of school, the first contact of the tender little soul with
+life's crudeness. Later still there was the experience which all of us
+know of waking in the morning with a feeling of dismay at what we have
+to do on getting up; the obvious duties in which perhaps we have grown
+stale; the things we have neglected; those in which we have made
+mistakes; those as to which we have wilfully done wrong; those which
+weary or bore or annoy or discourage us. Sometimes there are more
+serious things still: bereavements, or frightfully adverse conditions,
+or hardships we never expected brought on us by someone else.</p>
+
+<p>It is unnecessary to catalogue these situations, since we all at times
+in our lives have to face them daily. Fear dogs one of us in one way and
+another in another, but everyone in some way.</p>
+
+<p>Look at the people you run up against in the course of a few hours.
+Everyone is living or working in fear. The mother is afraid for her
+children. The father is afraid for his business. The clerk is afraid for
+his job. The worker is afraid of his boss or his competitor. There is
+hardly a man who is not afraid that some other man will do him a bad
+turn. There is hardly a woman who is not afraid that things she craves
+may be denied her, or that what she loves may be snatched away. There is
+not a home or an office or a factory or a school or a church in which
+some hang-dog apprehension is not eating at the hearts of the men,
+women, and children who go in and out. I am ready to guess that all the
+miseries wrought by sin and sickness put together would not equal those
+we bring on ourselves by the means which perhaps we do least to
+counteract. We are not sick all the time; we are not sinning all the
+time; but all the time all of us&mdash;or practically all of us&mdash;are afraid
+of someone or something. If, therefore, one has the feeblest
+contribution to make to the defeat of such a foe it becomes difficult to
+withhold it.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>But even with a view to conquering fear I should not presume to offer to
+others ideas worked out purely for myself had I not been so invited. I
+do not affirm that I have conquered fear, but only that in self-defence
+I have been obliged to do something in that direction. I take it for
+granted that what goes in that direction will go all the way if pursued
+with perseverance and good will. Having thus made some simple
+experiments&mdash;chiefly mental&mdash;with what to me are effective results, I
+can hardly refuse to tell what they have been when others are so good as
+to ask me.</p>
+
+<p>And in making this attempt I must write from my own experience. No other
+method would be worth while. The mere exposition of a thesis would have
+little or no value. It is a case in which nothing can be helpful to
+others which has not been demonstrated for oneself, even though the
+demonstration be but partial.</p>
+
+<p>In writing from my own experience I must ask the reader's pardon if I
+seem egoistic or autobiographical. Without taking oneself too smugly or
+too seriously one finds it the only way of reproducing the thing that
+has happened in one's own life and which one actually knows.</p>
+
+<p>And when I speak above of ideas worked out purely for myself I do not,
+of course, mean that these ideas are original with me. All I have done
+has been to put ideas through the mill of my own mind, co-ordinating
+them to suit my own needs. The ideas themselves come from many sources.
+Some of these sources are, so deep in the past that I could no longer
+trace them; some are so recent that I know the day and hour when they
+revealed themselves, like brooks in the way. It would be possible to say
+to the reader, &quot;I owe this to such and such a teaching, and that to such
+and such a man,&quot; only that references of the kind would be tedious. I
+fall back on what Emerson says: &quot;Thought is the property of him who can
+entertain it; and of him who can adequately place it. A certain
+awkwardness marks the use of borrowed thoughts; but, as soon as we have
+learned what to do with them, they become our own. Thus all originality
+is relative.&quot; The thoughts that I shall express are my own to the extent
+that I have lived them&mdash;or tried to live them&mdash;though the wind that
+bloweth where it listeth may have brought them to my mind.</p>
+
+<p>Nor do I think for a moment that what I have found helpful to me must of
+necessity be helpful to everyone. It may be helpful to someone. That is
+the limit of my hope. It is simple fact that no one can greatly help
+anyone else. The utmost we can do is to throw out an idea here and there
+which another may seize, and by which he may help himself. Borrowed help
+has the awkwardness which Emerson attributes to borrowed thoughts. It is
+only when a concept has lain for a time in a man's being, germinated
+there, and sprung into active life, that it is of much use to him; but
+by that time it has become his own. The kingdom of heaven must begin
+within oneself or we shall probably not find it anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>These pages will contain, then, no recipe for the conquest of fear; they
+will offer, with much misgiving and diffidence, no more than the record
+of what one individual has done toward conquering it. This record is
+presented merely for what it is worth. It may be worth nothing. On the
+other hand, someone may find it worth something, and in that case all
+that the writer hopes for will be attained.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, in my own case the reaction against fear was from
+the beginning more or less instinctive. With the first exercise of the
+reasoning faculty I tried to argue against the emotion. I remember that
+as a little boy I was afraid of a certain dog that barked at me when I
+went to a certain house to which I was sent perhaps two or three times a
+week. The house had a driveway, and from the minute of passing the
+entrance my knees trembled under me. But even then, I recall, it seemed
+to me that this terror was an incongruous thing in life, that it had no
+rightful place there, and that, if the world was what my elders told me
+it was, there must be in it a law of peace and harmony which as yet I
+hadn't arrived at. I cannot say that when the dog barked this reasoning
+did more than nerve me to drag my quaking limbs up to the doorstep,
+whence my enemy, a Skye terrier, invariably took flight.</p>
+
+<p>During a somewhat stormy childhood and boyhood, in which there was a
+good deal of emotional stress, I never got beyond this point. Specific
+troubles were not few, and by the time I reached early manhood a habit
+of looking for them had been established. &quot;What's it going to be now?&quot;
+became a formula of anticipation before every new event. New events
+presented themselves most frequently as menaces. Hopes rarely loomed up
+without accompanying probabilities of disappointment. One adopted the
+plan of &quot;expecting disappointment&quot; as a means of cheating the &quot;jinx.&quot; I
+am not painting my early life as any darker than most lives. It was, I
+fancy, as bright as the average life of youth.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>But, contrary to what is generally held, I venture to think that youth
+is not a specially happy period. Because young people rarely voice
+their troubles we are likely to think them serene and unafraid. That has
+not been my experience either with them or of them. While it is true
+that cares of a certain type increase with age the knowledge of how to
+deal with them increases, or ought to increase, in the same progression.
+With no practical experience to support them the young are up against
+the unknown and problematical&mdash;occupation, marriage, sexual urge, life
+in general&mdash;around which clings that terror of the dark which frightened
+them in childhood. Home training, school training, college training,
+religious training, social influences of every kind, throw the emphasis
+on dangers rather than on securities, so that the young life emerges
+into a haunted world. Some are reckless of these dangers, some grow
+hardened to them, some enjoy the tussle with them, some turn their minds
+away from them, while others, chiefly the imaginative or the
+intellectual, shrink from them with the discomfort which, as years go
+on, becomes worry, anxiety, foreboding, or any other of the many
+forms of care.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>My own life followed what I assume to be the usual course, though in
+saying this I am anxious not to give an exaggerated impression. It was
+the usual course, not an unusual one. &quot;There's always something&quot; came to
+be a common mental phrase, and the something was, as a rule, not
+cheering. Neither, as a rule, was it terrible. It was just
+<i>something</i>&mdash;a sense of the carking hanging over life, and now and then
+turning to a real mischance or a heartache.</p>
+
+<p>It strikes me as strange, on looking back, that so little attempt was
+made to combat fear by religion. In fact, as far as I know, little
+attempt was made to combat fear in any way. One's attention was not
+called to it otherwise than as a wholly inevitable state. You were born
+subject to fear as you were born subject to death, and that was an
+end of it.</p>
+
+<p>Brought up in an atmosphere in which religion was our main
+preoccupation, I cannot recall ever hearing it appealed to as a
+counteragent to this most persistent enemy of man. In dealing with your
+daily dreads you simply counted God out. Either He had nothing to do
+with them or He brought them upon you. In any case His intervention on
+your behalf was not supposed to be in this world, and to look for
+rewards from Him here and now was considered a form of impiety. You were
+to be willing to serve God for naught; after which unexpected favours
+might be accorded you, but you were to hope for nothing as a right. I do
+not say that this is what I was taught; it was what I understood; but to
+the best of my memory it was the general understanding round about me.
+In my fight against fear, in as far as I made one, God was for many
+years of no help to me, or of no help of which I was aware. I shall
+return to the point later in telling how I came to &quot;discover God&quot; for
+myself, but not quite the same God, or not quite the same concept of
+God, which my youthful mind had supposed to be the only one.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>At the same time it was to a small detail in my religious training&mdash;or
+to be more exact in the explanation of the Bible given me as a boy&mdash;that
+I harked back when it became plain to me that either I must conquer fear
+or fear must conquer me. Having fallen into my mind like a seed, it lay
+for well on to thirty years with no sign of germination, till that
+&quot;need,&quot; of which I shall have more to say presently, called it
+into life.</p>
+
+<p>Let me state in a few words how the need made itself pressing.</p>
+
+<p>It was, as life goes, a tolerably dark hour. I was on the borderland
+between young manhood and early middle age. For some years I had been
+losing my sight, on top of which came one of those troubles with the
+thyroid gland which medical science still finds obscure. For reasons
+which I need not go into I was spending an autumn at Versailles in
+France, unoccupied and alone.</p>
+
+<p>If you know Versailles you know that it combines all that civilisation
+has to offer of beauty, magnificence, and mournfulness. A day's visit
+from Paris will give you an inkling of this, but only an inkling. To get
+it all you must live there, to be interpenetrated by its glory of decay.
+It is always the autumn of the spirit at Versailles, even in summer,
+even in spring; but in the autumn of the year the autumnal emotion of
+the soul is poignant beyond expression. Sad gardens stretch into sad
+parks; sad parks into storied and haunting forests. Long avenues lead to
+forgotten ch&acirc;teaux mellowing into ruin. Ghostly white statues astonish
+you far in the depths of woods where the wild things are now the most
+frequent visitors. A Temple of Love&mdash;pillared, Corinthian, lovely&mdash;lost
+in a glade to which lovers have probably not come in a hundred
+years&mdash;will remind you that there were once happy people where now the
+friendliest sound is that of the wood-chopper's axe or the horn of some
+far-away hunt. All the old tales of passion, ambition, feud, hatred,
+violence, lust, and intrigue are softened here to an aching sense of
+pity. At night you will hear the castle clock, which is said never once
+to have failed to strike the hour since Louis the Fourteenth put it in
+its place, tolling away your life as it has tolled away epochs.</p>
+
+<p>Amid these surroundings a man ill, lonely, threatened with blindness,
+can easily feel what I may call the spiritual challenge of the ages. He
+must either be strong and rule; or he must be weak and go down. He must
+get the dominion over circumstance, or circumstance must get the
+dominion over him. To be merely knocked about by fate and submit to it,
+even in the case of seemingly inevitable physical infirmity, began to
+strike me as unworthy of a man.</p>
+
+<p>It is one thing, however, to feel the impulse to get up and do
+something, and another to see what you can get up and do. For a time the
+spectre of fear had me in its power. The physical facts couldn't be
+denied, and beyond the physical facts I could discern nothing. It was
+conceivable that one might react against a mental condition; but to
+react against a mysterious malady coupled with possibly approaching
+blindness was hardly to be thought of. When one added one's incapacity
+to work and earn a living, with all that that implies, it seemed as if
+it would take the faith that moves mountains to throw off the weight
+oppressing me. It is true that to move mountains you only need faith as
+a grain of mustard seed, but as far as one can judge not many of us have
+that much.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that my mind went back all of a sudden to the kernel planted
+so many years before, in my island home, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. If
+I become prolix over this it is only that I want to show how often it
+happens to parents, teachers, and others who deal with children, to
+throw out a thought which after lying dormant for years will become a
+factor in the life. Had it not been for the few words spoken then I
+should not, as far as I can see, now have such mastery over self as I
+have since attained&mdash;not very much&mdash;but I should not be writing
+these lines.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>My boyhood was placed in the times when Darwin's &quot;Origin of Species&quot; and
+&quot;Descent of Man&quot; had thrown the scientific and religious worlds into
+convulsion. The struggle between the old ideas and the new calls for no
+more than a reference here; but the teacher to whom I owe most was one
+who, while valuing the old, saw only an enrichment in the new,
+explaining the Bible in that spirit. So it happened that he spoke one
+day of the extraordinary ingenuity of the life-principle, which somehow
+came to the earth, in adapting itself to perpetually new conditions.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing defeated it. For millions of years it was threatened by climatic
+changes, by the lack of food, by the ferocity of fellow-creatures. Heat,
+cold, flood, drought, earthquake, and volcanic eruption were forever
+against it. Struggling from stage to stage upward from the slime a new
+danger was always to it a new incentive to finding a new resource.</p>
+
+<p>Pursued through the water it sought the land. Pursued on the land it
+sought the air. Pursued in the air it developed fleetness of wing, and
+in fleetness of wing a capacity for soaring, circling, balancing,
+dipping, and swinging on itself of which the grace must not blind us to
+the marvellous power of invention.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the impulses leading to the origin of species proclaim a
+resourcefulness on the part of what we call life which we have every
+reason to think inexhaustible. Whatever the Fount of Being from which
+the life-principle first came into the waters of our earth there is no
+question but that with it came a conquest-principle as well. Had it been
+possible to exterminate the life-principle it would never have gone
+further than the age which saw the extinction of the great reptiles. The
+great reptiles went, but the life-principle stayed on, with the ability
+to assume, within our limited observation, all the forms between the
+bacillus and the elephant, while as to what lies beyond our observation
+the possibilities are infinite.</p>
+
+<p>Long before it works up to man we see this amazing force stemming an
+uncountable number of attacks, and meeting ruinous conditions with
+daring contrivances. For one kind of danger it develops a shell, for
+another a sting, for another a poison, for another a protective
+colouration. To breathe in the sea it puts forth gills, and makes lungs
+for itself when stranded on the land. In glacial cold it finds the means
+of growing fur; when heat and cold assail it by turns it packs itself
+with feathers; when climates become temperate it produces hair. For the
+creature which keeps to the water it webs the foot; for that which takes
+to the trees it makes the toes prehensile; for the one which learns to
+stand erect and run along the ground it flattens the sole, making it
+steady and supporting. To resist, to survive, to win through, is the end
+to which the life-principle sets itself with such singleness of aim as
+to unfold a wealth of potentiality astounding to us in looking backward.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>This was the idea which came back to me that autumn at Versailles, and
+from which in the course of time I drew my conclusions.</p>
+
+<p>Briefly, those conclusions were to the effect that as individuals we
+need difficulties to overcome, and that fear is a stimulus to overcoming
+them. Otherwise expressed, fear loses much of its fearfulness when we
+see it as the summons to putting forth new energies. Unless we were
+conscious of the energies such a call would not reach us. The creatures
+preceding man could have felt no misgiving, since they lacked the
+imagination essential to a dread. Such fear as they were equal to must
+have seized them in paroxysms of terror when calamities threatened to
+overwhelm them. If they made good their escape no trace of the fear
+remained behind, the brain having little or no power of retention. We
+may take it for granted that the pterodactyl and the trachodon had none
+of the foreboding based on experience which destroys the peace of man.</p>
+
+<p>Fear, as we understand it, was in itself a signal of advance. It could
+only have begun with the exercise of reason. Arrived at the rudiments of
+memory the creature must have been able to perceive, however dimly, that
+the thing which had happened might happen again. Adding the first
+stirrings of imagination he must have constructed possible events in
+which the danger would come from the same causes as before. With the
+faculties to remember, to reason, and to imagine all at work we reach
+the first stages of man.</p>
+
+<p>Man was born into fear in that he was born into a world of which most of
+the energies were set against him. He was a lone thing fighting his own
+battle. The instinct for association which made the mammals different
+from other animals didn't help him much, since association did not bring
+mutual help as a matter of course, and never has done so. A man could
+count on no one but himself. Not only were prodigious natural forces
+always menacing him with destruction; not only was the beast his enemy
+and he the enemy of the beast; but his hand was against his fellow-man
+and his fellow-man's hand against him. This mutual hostility followed
+men in their first groupings into communities, and only to a degree have
+we lived it down in the twentieth century.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps this conviction that a man's strength lay in standing
+single-handed against circumstance was the first small discovery I made
+in my own fight with fear. Looking back on the developments which had
+brought man into the world I saw a marvellous power of getting round
+difficulties when you couldn't cut through them. Just as a river which
+cannot flow over a rock can glide about its feet and turn it into a
+picturesque promontory, so I recognised in myself an inborn human
+faculty for &quot;sidestepping&quot; that which blocked my way, when I couldn't
+break it down.</p>
+
+<p>I left Versailles with just that much to the good&mdash;a perception that the
+ages had bequeathed me a store of abilities which I was allowing to lie
+latent. Moving into Paris, to more cheerful surroundings, I took up
+again the writing of the book I had abandoned more than a year
+previously. After long seclusion I began to see a few people, finding
+them responsive and welcoming. My object in stating these unimportant
+details is merely to show that in proportion as I ceased to show fear
+the life-principle hastened to my aid. Little by little I came to the
+belief that the world about me was a system of co-operative
+friendliness, and that it was my part to use it in that way.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>To use it in that way was not easy. I was so accustomed to the thought
+of Nature as a complex of self-seeking cruelties, the strong preying on
+the weak, and the weak defenceless, that the mere idea of its containing
+a ruling co-operative principle seemed at times far-fetched. To the
+common opinion of the day, my own included, the conception of a
+universe that would come to a man's aid the minute a man came to his own
+was too much like a fairy tale. It may indeed be a fairy tale. All I
+know is that in my own case it is the way in which it seems to have
+worked. I think I have caught a glimpse of a constructive use for that
+which I had previously thought of as only destructive and terrible.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I mean. The life-principle having, through unknown millions
+of years, developed the conquest-principle by meeting difficulties and
+overcoming them, the difficulties had a value. To man, especially, the
+menace of Nature, the ferocity of the beast, and the enmity of his
+fellow-man furnished the incentive to his upward climb. Had all been
+easy he would have stayed where he was. He would never have called
+mental powers to his physical aid, nor appealed to spiritual faculties
+when the mental fell short of his requirements. Spurred on by a
+necessity which grew more urgent in proportion as the life-principle
+widened its scope, the conquest-principle became an impulse which would
+brook no denying. Man grew by it; but the fact remains that he would not
+have grown had there been nothing for him to struggle with.</p>
+
+<p>To me it seems basic to the getting rid of fear to know that our trials,
+of whatever nature, are not motiveless. In our present stage of
+development we could hardly do without them. So often looking like mere
+ugly excrescences on life they are in reality the branches by which we
+catch on and climb. They are not obstacles to happiness for the reason
+that the only satisfying happiness we are equal to as yet is that of
+wrestling with the difficult and overcoming it. Every call of duty has
+its place in this ideal; every irksome job, every wearisome
+responsibility. The fact that we are not always aware of it in no way
+annuls the other fact that it is so. Boredom, monotony, drudgery,
+bereavement, loneliness, all the clamour of unsatisfied ambitions and
+aching sensibilities, have their share in this divine yearning of the
+spirit to grasp what as yet is beyond its reach. All of that hacking of
+the man to fit the job rather than the shaping of the job to fit the
+man, which is, I imagine, the source of most of the discontent on earth,
+has its place here, as well as the hundreds of things we shouldn't do if
+we were not compelled to. Whatever summons us to conflict summons us to
+life, and life, as we learn from a glance at the past, never shirks the
+challenge.</p>
+
+<p>It never shirks the challenge, and, what is more, it never fails to find
+the expedient by which the new demand is to be satisfied. To the
+conquest of fear that plank must be foundational. As far as we can learn
+there never was an emergency yet which the life-principle was not
+equipped to meet. When all existing methods had been used up it invented
+new ones; when seemingly at the end of its new resources it was only
+beginning to go on again.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>The deduction I make is this, that a law which was operative on such a
+scale before man had come into the world at all must be still more
+effective now that we can help to carry it out. The life-principle is
+not less ingenious than it ever was, while the conquest-principle must
+have widely expanded. It is an axiom in all progress that the more we
+conquer the more easily we conquer. We form a habit of conquering as
+insistent as any other habit. Victory becomes, to some degree, a state
+of mind. Knowing ourselves superior to the anxieties, troubles, and
+worries which obsess us, we <i>are</i> superior. It is a question of attitude
+in confronting them. It is more mental than it is material. To be in
+harmony with the life-principle and the conquest-principle is to be in
+harmony with power; and to be in harmony with power is to be strong as a
+matter of course.</p>
+
+<p>The individual is thus at liberty to say: &quot;The force which never failed
+before is not likely to fail in my case. The fertility of resource which
+circumvented every kind of obstacle to make me what I am&mdash;a vertebrate,
+breathing, walking, thinking entity, capable of some creative
+expression of my own&mdash;will probably not fall short now that I have
+immediate use for it. Of what I get from the past, prehistoric and
+historic, perhaps the most subtle distillation is the fact that so far
+is the life-principle from balking at need, need is essential to its
+activity. Where there is no need it seems to be quiescent; where there
+is something to be met, contended with, and overcome, it is furiously
+'on the job.' That life-principle is my principle. It is the seed from
+which I spring. It is my blood, my breath, my brain. I cannot cut myself
+off from it; it cannot cut itself off from me. Having formed the
+mastodon to meet one set of needs and the butterfly to meet another, it
+will form, something to meet mine, even if something altogether new. The
+new&mdash;or what seems new to me&mdash;is apparently the medium in which it is
+most at home. It repeats itself never&mdash;not in two rosebuds, not in two
+snowflakes. Who am I that I should be overlooked by it, or miss being
+made the expression of its infinite energies?&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+
+<p>What this reasoning did for me from the start was to give me a new
+attitude toward the multifold activity we call life. I saw it as
+containing a principle that would work with me if I could work with it.
+My working with it was the main point, since <i>it</i> was working with me
+always. Exactly what that principle was I could not at the time have
+said; I merely recognised it as being there.</p>
+
+<p>The method of working with it was simple in idea, however difficult in
+practice. It was a question of my own orientation. I had to get mentally
+into harmony with the people and conditions I found about me. I was not
+to distrust them; still less was I to run away from them. I was to make
+a parable of my childish experience with the Skye terrier, assuming that
+life was organised to do me good. I remembered how many times the Bible
+begins some bit of pleading or injunction with the words, &quot;Fear not.&quot;
+Other similar appeals came back to me. &quot;Say to them that are of a
+fearful heart, Be strong I fear not.&quot;<a href="#fn1"><sup>1</sup></a> &quot;Quit yourselves like men; be
+strong.&quot;<a href="#fn2"><sup>2</sup></a> &quot;O man greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be unto thee! Be
+strong, yea, be Strong.&quot;<a href="#fn3"><sup>3</sup></a> When, at some occasional test, dismay or
+self-pity took hold of me I formed a habit of saying to myself, in our
+expressive American idiom: &quot;This is your special stunt. It's up to you
+to do this thing just as if you had all the facilities. Go at it boldly,
+and you'll find unexpected forces closing round you and Coming to
+your aid.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Which is just what I did find. To an amazing degree people were
+friendly, while conditions became easier. Fear diminished because I had
+fewer things to be afraid of. Having fewer things to be afraid of my
+mind was clearer for work. Work becoming not only more of a resource but
+more remunerative as well, all life grew brighter. Fear was not
+overcome; I had only made a more or less hesitating stand against it;
+but even from doing that I got positive results.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="2"></a>
+<h2>Chapter II</h2>
+
+<h3>The Life-Principle And God</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is obvious that one could not dwell much on the power of the
+life-principle without coming sooner or later to the thought of God. As
+already hinted, I did not come to it at once because my conception of
+God made Him of so little use to me.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, in popular phraseology, I had &quot;served&quot; God all my life. That
+is, brought up in an atmosphere in which the Church was a divinely
+instituted system for utilising God, I served the system, without
+getting much beyond the surface plane of what were technically known as
+&quot;services.&quot; When trial came such services offered me an anodyne, but
+not a cure.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first suggestion, that my concept of God might not be sufficient to
+my needs came out of a conversation in New York. It was with a lady whom
+I met but that once, within a year or two after my experience at
+Versailles. I have forgotten how we chanced on the subject, but I
+remember that she asked me these questions:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;When you think of God <i>how</i> do you think of Him? How do you picture
+Him? What does He seem like?&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Trying to reply I recognised a certain naivete, a certain childishness,
+in my words even as I uttered them. In my thoughts I saw God as three
+supernal men, seated on three supernal thrones, enshrined in some vague
+celestial portion of space which I denominated Heaven. Between Him and
+me there was an incalculable distance which He could bridge but I could
+not. Always He had me at the disadvantage that He saw what I did, heard
+what I said, read what I thought, punishing me for everything amiss,
+while I could reach Him only by the uncertain telephony of what I
+understood as prayer. Even then my telephone worked imperfectly. Either
+the help I implored wasn't good for me, or my voice couldn't soar to
+His throne.</p>
+
+<p>The lady smiled, but said nothing. The smile was significant. It made me
+feel that a God who was no more than what I had described could hardly
+be the Universal Father, and set me to thinking on my own account.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>I wish it were possible to speak of God without the implication of
+dealing with religion. By this I mean that I am anxious to keep religion
+out of this whole subject of the conquest of fear. The minute you touch
+on religion, as commonly understood, you reach the sectarian. The minute
+you reach the sectarian you start enmities. The minute you start
+enmities you get mental discords. And the minute you get mental
+discords no stand against fear is possible.</p>
+
+<p>But I mean a little more than this. Man, as at present developed, has
+shown that he hardly knows what to do with religion, or where to put it
+in his life. This is especially true of the Caucasian, the least
+spiritually intelligent of all the great types of our race.
+Fundamentally the white man is hostile to religion. He attacks it as a
+bull a red cloak, goring it, stamping on it, tearing it to shreds. With
+the Caucasian as he is this fury is instinctive. Recognising religion as
+the foe of the materialistic ideal he has made his own he does his best
+to render it ineffective.</p>
+
+<p>Of this we need no better illustration than the state of what we
+conventionally know as Christendom. Christendom as we see it is a purely
+Caucasian phase of man's struggle upward, with Caucasian merits and
+Caucasian defects. Nowhere is its defectiveness more visible than in
+what the Caucasian has made of the teaching of Jesus Christ. It was
+probably a misfortune for the world that almost from the beginning that
+teaching passed into Caucasian guardianship. I see in the New Testament
+no indication on the part of Our Lord and the Apostles of wishing to
+separate themselves from Semitic co-operation. The former taught daily
+in the Temple; the latter, as they went about the world, made the
+synagogue the base of all their missions. The responsibility for the
+breach is not under discussion here. It is enough to note that it took
+place, and that Caucasian materialism was thus deprived of a
+counteragent in Hebrew spiritual wisdom. Had this corrective maintained
+its place it is possible that religion might now be a pervasive element
+in the Caucasian's life instead of being pigeon-holed.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>The Caucasian pigeon-holes God. Otherwise expressed, he keeps God in a
+specially labelled compartment of life, to be brought out for occasional
+use, and put back when the need is over. It is difficult to mention God
+to a Caucasian reader without inducing an artificial frame of mind. As
+there are people who put on for strangers and guests an affected,
+unnatural politeness different from their usual breezy spontaneity, so
+the Caucasian assumes at the thought of God a mental habit which can
+only be described as sanctimonious. God is not natural to the Caucasian;
+the Caucasian is not natural with God. The mere concept takes him into
+regions in which he feels uneasy. He may call his uneasiness reserve or
+reverence, or by some other dignified name; but at bottom it is neither
+more nor less than uneasiness. To minimise this distress he relegates
+God to special days, to special hours, to services and ceremonials. He
+can thus wear and bear his uncomfortable cloak of gravity for special
+times, after which he can be himself again. To appeal to God otherwise
+than according to the tacitly accepted protocol is to the average
+Caucasian either annoying or in bad form.</p>
+
+<p>I should like, then, to dissociate the thought of God from the
+artificial, sanctimonious, preternaturally solemn connotations which
+the Name is certain to bring up. I want to speak of Him with the same
+kind of ease as of the life-principle. I repeat, that I never found Him
+of much use in allaying fear till I released Him from the Caucasian
+pigeon-hole to see Him, as it were, in the open. Once in the open I got
+rid, to some degree, of the Caucasian limitations of thinking along the
+lines of sect, just as in the infinitude of the air you can forget for a
+minute houses with rooms and walls. The discovery&mdash;that is, discovery
+for myself&mdash;that God is Universal, which is not so obvious as it sounds,
+was, I think, the first great step I made in finding that within that
+Universal fear should be impossible.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+<p>About the same time I chanced on a passage written by Joseph Joubert, an
+eighteenth-century French Catholic, not so well known to the modern
+reader as he ought to be, which impressed me deeply.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;L'&acirc;me ne peut se mouvoir, s'&eacute;veiller, ouvrir les yeux, sans santir
+Dieu. On sent Dieu avec l'&acirc;me comme on sent l'air avec le corps.
+Oseraije le dire? On conna&icirc;t Dieu facilement pourvu qu'on ne se
+contraigne pas &agrave; le definir&mdash;The soul cannot move, wake, or open the
+eyes without perceiving God. We perceive God through the soul as we feel
+air on the body. Dare I say it? We can know God easily so long as we do
+not feel it necessary to define Him.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I began to see that, like most Caucasian Christians, I had been laying
+too much stress on the definition. The Trinity had, so to speak, come
+between me and the Godhead. I had, unconsciously, attached more
+importance to God's being Three than to His being God. Seeing Him as
+Three I instinctively saw Him as Three Persons. Seeing Him as Three
+Persons I did not reflect that the word Person as applied to God must be
+used in a sense wholly different from that in which we employ it with
+regard to men. To get into what I call the open I had to bring myself to
+understand that we cannot enclose the Infinite in a shape, or three
+shapes, resembling in any way the being with digestive organs, arms, and
+legs, which worked its way up from slime.</p>
+
+<p>That is, in order to &quot;dwell in the secret place of the Most High,&quot;<a href="#fn4"><sup>4</sup></a>
+where one is immune from fear, I was obliged to give up the habit of
+embodying God in any form. I had to confess that what is meant by the
+Three Persons in One God I did not know. Furthermore, I saw no necessity
+for thinking that I knew, since such knowledge must transcend all scope
+of the human mind. The formula, if you must have a formula, is one
+thing; but the turning it into a statute of limitations and applying it
+to the Illimitable is another.</p>
+
+<p>To make my position clearer, and to avoid the subject of religion, let
+me add that, inferring from the Bible that there is a Father, a Son, and
+a Holy Ghost, I did not feel it imperative on my part to go beyond this
+use of terms. Merely to abstain from definition was like a load taken
+off my mind. How the Son was begotten of the Father, or the Holy Ghost
+proceeded from them both, or what eternal mysteries were symbolised in
+this purely human phraseology, were, it seemed to me, matters with which
+I need not concern myself, seeing that they passed all my comprehension.
+Not the Trinity should come first to powers so limited as mine&mdash;but God.</p>
+
+<p>It dawned on me, too, that God need not necessarily be to me what He is
+to others, nor to others what He is to me. Of the Infinite the finite
+mind can only catch a finite glimpse. I see what I can see; another sees
+what he can see. The visions may be different, and yet each vision may
+be true. Just as two painters painting the same landscape will give
+dissimilar views of it, so two minds contemplating God will take of Him
+only what each is fitted to receive. Water poured into differently
+coloured glasses will take on the colour of the cup which it fills, even
+though it be the self-same water in them all. If I find God for myself I
+shall probably not behold in Him exactly what anyone else in the whole
+world or in all time has ever beheld in Him before.</p>
+
+<p>I saw, too, that from a certain point of view the stand of the agnostic
+is a right one. We cannot know God in the sense of knowing His being or
+His &quot;Personality,&quot; any more than we can know the essence of the
+life-principle. Just as we know the life-principle only from what it
+does, so we know God only from such manifestations of Himself as reach
+our observation. Everything else is inference. Because we see something
+of His goodness we infer that He is good; because we experience
+something of His love we infer that He is loving; because we behold
+something of His power we infer that He is almighty. It is first of all
+a matter of drawing our conclusions, and then of making those
+conclusions the food of the inner spiritual man whose life is
+independent of the mortal heart and brain. But a sense in which God is
+&quot;unknowable&quot; to us has to be admitted.</p>
+
+<p>I make this statement now in order not to be misunderstood when later I
+may say that God must be this or that. Though I shall do so for the
+sake of brevity it will always be in the sense that, if God is what we
+have inferred from His manifestations, He must be this or that. In other
+words, having to some degree worked my own way out of fear I must tell
+how I came to feel that I know the Unknowable, doing it with the inexact
+phraseology which is all I find to hand.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>Reaching the conclusions noted above I was relieved of the pressure of
+traditions and instructions. Traditions and instructions helped me in
+that they built the ship in which I was to put to sea. The discoveries
+had to be my own. The God of whom I had heard at my mother's knee, as
+the phrase goes, had always been shadowy to me; the God who was served
+by &quot;services&quot; had always seemed remote. A God who should be &quot;<i>my</i> God,&quot;
+as the psalmists say so often, must, I felt, be found by me myself,
+through living, searching, suffering, and struggling onward a step or
+two at a time. &quot;That's pretty near free-thinking, isn't it?&quot; a
+clergyman, to whom I tried to explain myself, once said to me. &quot;No,&quot; I
+replied; &quot;but it <i>is</i> pretty near thinking <i>free</i>.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>To think freely about God became a first necessity; to think simply a
+second one. The Universal Father had been almost lost to me behind veil
+after veil of complexities. The approaches to Him seemed to have been
+made so roundabout, requiring so many intermediaries. Long before I had
+dared to think of what I may call emancipation, the &quot;scheme of
+salvation,&quot; as it was termed, had struck me as an excessively
+complicated system of machinery, considering the millions upon millions
+who had need of it. In theory you were told, according to St. Paul, to
+&quot;come boldly before the throne of the heavenly grace,&quot; but in practice
+you were expected to do it timidly.</p>
+
+<p>You were expected to do it timidly because the pigeon-holed Caucasian
+God was represented&mdash;unconsciously perhaps&mdash;as difficult, ungenial,
+easily offended. He measured your blindness and weakness by the
+standard of His own knowledge and almightiness. A puritan God, extremely
+preoccupied with morals as some people saw them, He was lenient,
+apparently, to the narrow-minded, the bitter of tongue, and the
+intolerant in heart. He was not generous. He was merciful only when you
+paid for His mercy in advance. To a not inconsiderable degree He was the
+hard Caucasian business man, of whom He was the reflection, only
+glorified and crowned.</p>
+
+<p>It will be evident, of course, that I am not speaking of &quot;the Father&quot; of
+the New Testament, nor of the official teaching of any church or
+theology. To the rank and file of Caucasians &quot;the Father&quot; of the New
+Testament is very little known, while the official teaching of churches
+and theologies is so hard to explain that not much of it gets over to
+the masses of those willing to subscribe to it. I refer only to the
+impression on the mind of the man in the street; and to the man in the
+street God, as he understands Him, is neither a very friendly nor a very
+comprehensible element in life. Instead of mitigating fear He adds to
+it, not in the Biblical sense of &quot;fearing God,&quot; but in that of sheer
+animal distrust.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>While turning these things over in my mind I got some help from two of
+the words most currently in Christian use. I had long known that the
+English equivalents of the Latin equivalents of the terms the New
+Testament writers used gave but a distorted idea of the original sense;
+but I had let that knowledge lie fallow.</p>
+
+<p>The first of these words was Repentance. In these syllables there is
+almost no hint of the idea which fell from the evangelistic pen, while
+the word has been soaked in emotional and sentimental associations it
+was never intended to be mixed with. The <i>Metanoia</i>; which painted a
+sober, reflective turning of the mind, had been so overcharged with the
+dramatic that sober, reflective people could hardly use the expression
+any more. Repentance had come to have so strong a gloss of the
+hysterical as to be almost discredited by men of common sense. It was a
+relief, therefore, to remember that it implied no more than a turning to
+God by a process of thought; and that a process of thought would
+find Him.</p>
+
+<p>The other word was Salvation. Here again our term of Latin derivation
+gives no more than the faintest impression of the beauty beyond beauty
+in that which the sacred writer used. <i>Soteria</i>&mdash;a Safe Return! That is
+all. Nothing complicated; nothing high-strung; nothing casuistical. Only
+a&mdash;Safe Return! Yet all human experience can be read into the little
+phrase, with all human liberty to wander&mdash;and come back. True, one son
+may never leave the Father's home, so that all that it contains is his;
+but there is no restraint on the other son from getting his knowledge as
+he will, even to the extent of becoming a prodigal. The essential is in
+the Safe Return, the <i>Soteria</i>, when the harlots and the husks have been
+tried and found wanting.</p>
+
+<p>I do not exaggerate when I say that the simplicity of these conceptions
+was so refreshing as almost to give me a new life. One could say to God,
+with the psalmist, &quot;Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me
+from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of
+deliverance&quot;&mdash;and mean it. One could conceive of it as possible to turn
+toward Him&mdash;and reach, the objective. The way was open; the access was
+free; the progress as rapid as thought could make it. One could think of
+oneself as <i>knowing God</i>, and be aware of no forcing of the note.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;We can know God easily so long as we do not feel it necessary to define
+Him.&quot; Once having grasped this truth I began to see how natural knowing
+God became. The difficulty of the forced, of the artificial, of the mere
+assent to what other people say, of which the Caucasian to his credit is
+always impatient, seemed by degrees to melt away from me. No longer
+defining God I no longer tried to know Him in senses obviously
+impossible. I ceased trying to <i>imagine</i> Him. Seeing Him as infinite,
+eternal, changeless, formless because transcending form, and
+indescribable because transcending words and thoughts, I could give
+myself up to finding Him in the ways in which He would naturally be
+revealed to me.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>These, of course, were in His qualities and His works.</p>
+
+<p>Let me speak of the latter first.</p>
+
+<p>I think light was the medium through which I at once felt myself to be
+seeing God. By this I mean nothing pantheistic&mdash;not that the light was
+God&mdash;but God's first and most evident great sign. Then there was the
+restful darkness. There were the moon and the stars, &quot;the hosts of
+heaven,&quot; as the Hebrews aptly called them, becoming more and more
+amazing as an expression of God the more we learn how to read them. Then
+there were the elements, the purifying wind, the fruitful rain, the
+exhilaration of snow-storms, the action and reaction from heat and cold.
+Then there was beauty: first, the beauty of the earth, of mountains, of
+seas, and all waters, of meadows, grainfields, orchards, gardens, and
+all growing things; then, the beauty of sound, from the soughing of the
+wind in the pines to the song of the hermit-thrush. There was the beauty
+wrought by man, music, painting, literature, and all art. There were the
+myriad forms of life. There were kindness and friendship and family
+affection and fun&mdash;but the time would fail me! God being the summing up
+of all good things, since all good things proceed from Him, must be seen
+by me in all good things it I am to see Him at all.</p>
+
+<p>I had heard from childhood of a world in which God was seen, and of
+another world, this world, in which He was not seen. I came to the
+conclusion that there was no such fantastic, unnatural division in what
+we call creation&mdash;that there was only one world&mdash;the world in which God
+is seen. &quot;The soul cannot move, wake, or open the eyes without
+perceiving God.&quot; It is a question of physical vision, with spiritual
+comprehension.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>Seeing God breaking through all that I had previously thought of as
+barriers, it was easy to begin to think of Him as Universal. I say begin
+to think, because God's Infinitude had been only a word to me hitherto,
+not a quality realised and felt. I do not presume to say that to any
+adequate degree I feel and realise it now; but the habit of looking on
+every good thing as a sign of His activity cannot but bring Him close
+to me.</p>
+
+<p>That is my chief point with regard to the Infinite&mdash;that it must be
+<i>here</i>. As I used to think of infinity I saw it stretching to boundless
+reaches away from me; but only from the point of view of present Good
+being present God did the value of the Infinite come to lie in its
+nearness rather than in its power of filling unimaginable space. On my
+part it was inverse mental action, seeking God where I was capable of
+finding Him, and not in regions I could never range.</p>
+
+<p>But having grasped the fact that the Universal, wherever else it was,
+must be with me the purely abstract became a living influence. I felt
+this the more when to the concept of Infinitude I added that of
+Intelligence. I use the much-worked word intelligence because there is
+no other; but when one thinks for a second of what must be the
+understanding of an Infinite Mind, intelligence as a descriptive term
+becomes absurdly inadequate.</p>
+
+<p>This was the next fact which, if I may so express myself, I made my
+own&mdash;that not only the Universal is ever with me, but that it is ever
+with me with ever-active concern. There was a time when it was hard for
+me to believe that a Mind busied with the immensities of the universe
+could come down to such trivial affairs as mine. Important as I might be
+to myself I could hardly be otherwise than lost amid the billions of
+forms of life which had come into existence through the ages. To the
+Three in One, on the Great White Throne, in the far-away Heaven, I must
+be a negligible thing, except when I forced myself on the divine
+attention. Even then it was hardly conceivable that, with whole solar
+systems to regulate, I could claim more than a passing glance from the
+all-seeing eye.</p>
+
+<p>But to an Infinite Mind bathing me round and round I must be as much the
+object of regard as any solar system. To such a Mind nothing is small,
+no one thing farther from its scope than another. God could have no
+<i>difficulty</i> in attending to me, seeing that from the nature of His
+mental activity, to put it in that way, He could not lose sight of me
+nor let me go. When an object is immersed in water it gives no extra
+trouble to the water to close round it. It can't help doing it. The
+object may be as small as a grain of dust or as big as a warship; to the
+water it is all the same. Immersed in the Infinite Mind, closed round by
+it, it was giving God no extra trouble to think of me, of my work, my
+desires, the objects with which I was living, since by the nature of His
+Being He could do nothing else.</p>
+
+<p>Having established it with myself that Universal Presence was also
+Universal Thought I had made another step toward the elimination of
+fear. I took still another when I added the truth of Universal Love.</p>
+
+<p>I need hardly say that this progression was not of necessity in a
+strictly consecutive order, nor did it come by a process of reasoning
+out from point to point. I was simply the man in the street dealing with
+great ideas of which he had heard ever since he had been able to hear
+anything, but trying at last to see what they meant to him. My position
+might have been described in the words used by William James in one of
+his <i>Letters</i> to indicate his own. &quot;The Divine, for my <i>active</i> life, is
+limited to abstract concepts, which, as ideals, interest and determine
+me, but do so but faintly, in comparison with what a feeling of God
+might effect, if I had one. It is largely a question of intensity, but
+differences of intensity may make the whole centre of one's energy
+shift.&quot; I did have a &quot;feeling of God&quot; however vague; but I had more of
+the feeling of a Church. I could dimly discern the Way, without going
+on to the Truth and the Life which give the Way its value. It will be
+evident then that if my &quot;discoveries&quot; along these lines were discoveries
+in the obvious, it was in that obvious to which we mortals so often
+remain blind.</p>
+
+<p>During many years the expression, the love of God, was to me like a
+winter sunshine, bright without yielding warmth. I liked the words; I
+knew they expressed a truth; but between me and the truth there was the
+same kind of distance which I felt to lie between myself and God. &quot;It is
+largely a question of intensity,&quot; to repeat what has just been quoted
+from William James, &quot;but differences of intensity may make the whole
+centre of one's energy shift.&quot; My conception of the love of God lacked
+just that quality&mdash;intensity.</p>
+
+<p>It came, to some degree, with the realisation that the Universal Thought
+must be with <i>me</i>. A non-loving Universal Thought was too monstrous a
+concept to entertain. The God who &quot;broke through&quot; my many
+misunderstandings with so much good and beauty could have only one
+predominating motive. The coming of my spiritual being to this planet
+might be a mystery wrapped in darkness, and yet I could not but believe
+that the Universal Father was behind that coming and that I was His son.
+I could rest my case there. The love of God, after having long been like
+a doctrinal tenet for which one had to strive, became reasonable,
+natural, something to be understood. Finding that love in so many places
+in which I had seen mere physical phenomena, and in so many lovely
+things I had never placed to its credit, I began to feel that life could
+be infused and transformed by it, in proportion as my own perception
+grew. So, little by little, the centre of energy shifted, as one came to
+understand what the Sons of Korah meant when they sang, &quot;God is our
+refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore <i>will we
+not fear</i> though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be
+carried into, the midst of the sea.&quot;<a href="#fn5"><sup>5</sup></a> With Universal Thought
+concentrated in love upon oneself fear must be forced backward.</p>
+
+<p>And especially when you add to that the concept of Almighty Power. This
+fourth and last of the great attributes is the one with which I, as an
+individual, have found it most difficult to clothe the Infinite. I mean
+that it is the one for which it is hardest for me to develop what
+William James calls &quot;a feeling,&quot; an inner realisation. I lay no stress
+upon this. It is a question of growth. The Presence, the Thought, the
+Love have become to me what I may be permitted to call tremulously
+vivid. In proportion as they are vivid I get the &quot;feeling&quot; of
+Almightiness exercised on my behalf; in proportion as they are tremulous
+the Almightiness may remain in my consciousness, but it seems exercised
+on my behalf but slightly.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, the Infinitude of Thought and Love are, to some extent,
+apprehended by my inner self, while the Infinitude of Power is as yet to
+me rather an intellectual abstraction. What my inner self may be I am
+not prepared to say, but I know that it is there, as everyone else
+knows that it is in him. &quot;Strengthened with might by the Spirit in the
+inner man,&quot;<a href="#fn6"><sup>6</sup></a> is what St. Paul says, and I suppose most of us recognise
+the fact that our inner self is stronger or weaker in proportion as it
+is more nourished or less nourished by our sense of the Being of God. It
+is largely a question of intensity. If I interpret William James aright
+he means by &quot;a feeling&quot; an intellectual concept after it has passed
+beyond the preliminary keeping of the brain, and become the possession
+of that inner man which is the vital self. To this vital self the sense
+of Almighty Power really used for me is still, to a great degree,
+outside my range.</p>
+
+<p>I make the confession not because it is of interest, but because it
+illustrates a main deduction which I should now like to draw. It is to
+the effect that God is with us <i>to be utilised</i>. His Power, His Love,
+His Thought, His Presence, must be at our disposal, like other great
+forces, such as sunshine and wind and rain. We can use them or not, as
+we please. That we could use them to their full potentiality is, of
+course, not to be thought of; but we can use them in proportion to our
+ability. If I, the individual, still lack many things; if I am still a
+prey to lingering fears; it is probably because I have not yet rooted
+out a stubborn disbelief in His Power. If I succeed in this I shall
+doubtless be able to seize more of His bounty. It is not a question of
+His giving, but of my capacity to take.</p>
+
+<p>The contrary, I venture to think, is the point of view of most of us. We
+consider God somewhat as we do a wealthy man whom we know to be a miser,
+forming the shrewd surmise that we shall not get much out of him. The
+God who fails to protect us from fear fails, I believe, because we see
+Him first of all as a niggard God. He is a niggard not merely with
+regard to money but all the good things for which He has given us a
+desire, with no intention of allowing that desire to be gratified. Once
+more, He is the hard Caucasian business man, whom His subordinates serve
+because they don't see what else to do, but whom they rarely love.</p>
+
+<p>We shall not, in my judgment, overcome fear till we see Him as He surely
+must be, generous beyond all our conceptions of generosity. Years,
+experience, many trials, and some knowledge of the world, have convinced
+me that we have no lawful or harmless cravings for which, <i>as far as God
+is concerned</i>, there is not abundant satisfaction. I am convinced that
+absolute confidence in God's overflowing liberality of every sort is
+essential to the conquest of fear. If we don't profit by that liberality
+the fault is not His but our own. I am tempted to think that the belief
+of so many generations of nominal Christians in a God whose power was
+chiefly shown in repressions, denials, and capricious disappointments is
+responsible, in so small measure, for our present world-distress.</p>
+
+<p>In my own case it was a matter of re-education. To find God for myself I
+had to be willing to let some of my old cherished ideas go. They may
+have been true of God as He reveals Himself to others; they are not true
+of Him as He makes Himself known to me. The Way that leads <i>me</i> to the
+Truth and the Life is undoubtedly the Way I must follow.</p>
+
+<p>Doing that I have found so much, mentally, emotionally, materially,
+which I never had before, that I cannot but look for more as my
+absorbing power increases. The process is akin to that of the
+unshrivelling of the inner man, as a bud will unfold when the sunshine
+becomes strong enough. The transformation must be in thought. There must
+be first the <i>Metanoia</i>, the change of mind, the new set of concepts;
+and then the <i>Soteria</i>, the Safe Return, to the high, sane ideal of a
+co-operative Universe, with a loving, lavish Universal Heart behind it.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;To the chief Musician for the Sons of Korah:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
+Therefore will we not fear though the earth be removed, and though the
+mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.... Come, behold the
+works of the Lord.... He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the
+earth; he breaketh the bow, he cutteth the spear in sunder, he burneth
+the chariot in the fire.... <i>Be still then, and know that I am
+God,'&quot;</i><a href="#fn7"><sup>7</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<a name="3"></a>
+<h2>Chapter III</h2>
+
+<h3>God And His Self-Expression</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>It will be clear from what I have said already that I see no fundamental
+conquest of fear that is not based in God. There may be knacks by which
+fear can be nipped and expedients by which it may be outwitted, but its
+extermination can be brought about, it seems to me, only in one way.
+According to our capacity and our individual needs we must know God; and
+knowing God is not as difficult as the Caucasian mind is apt to think.
+It stands to reason that if knowing God, in the senses in which it is
+possible to know Him, is so essential to mankind it could not be
+difficult. The making it difficult is part of the dust the Caucasian
+throws in his own eyes.</p>
+
+<p>We know God through His Self-Expression, and His Self-Expression is
+round about us in every form. Except through His Self-Expression there
+is no way of our knowing Him. No speculation or theory will teach us to
+know Him. It must be His own revelation of Himself, or nothing.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>Such little knowledge of Him as has come to me came much more freely
+when I began to look for that revelation not alone in solemn mysteries,
+or through the mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient scriptures,
+but in the sights and sounds and happenings of every day. Here I must
+ask not to be misunderstood. The solemn mysteries have their place, but
+it is one of climax. The mediumship of prophets, apostles, and ancient
+scriptures is of unreckonable value, after I have done something for
+myself. By this I do not mean that all cannot work together
+simultaneously, but rather that it is useless for the soul to strike
+only at the more advanced, having ignored the elementary.</p>
+
+<p>As I write I look out on a street full of the touches of spring. The
+rain-washed grass is of bright new green. The elms are in tenderest
+leaf, the hawthorn bursting into flower. Here and there a yellow clump
+of forsythia is like a spot of sunshine. Tulips are opening their
+variegated cups, and daffodils line the walls. Dogs are capering about,
+a collie, a setter, a Boston terrier. Birds are carrying straws or bits
+of string to weave into their nests&mdash;or singing&mdash;or flying&mdash;or perching
+on boughs. Children are playing&mdash;boys on bicycles eagerly racing
+nowhere&mdash;little girls with arms round each others' waists, prattling
+after their kind. Overhead is a sky of that peculiar blue for which the
+Chinese have a word which means &quot;the blue of the sky after rain,&quot; a hue
+which only these masters in colour have, to my knowledge,
+specially observed.</p>
+
+<p>How can I help seeing so much beauty and sweetness as the manifestation
+of God? How could He show Himself to me more smilingly? How can I talk
+of not seeing God when I see <i>this</i>? True, it may be no more than the
+tip of the fringe of the hem of the robe in which His Being is arrayed;
+but at least it must be that. True, also, that beautiful as these things
+appear to physical eyes they must be still more beautiful to spiritual
+eyes&mdash;the eyes of those who have passed on, for instance&mdash;to say nothing
+of the delight which God must have in them Himself. But even with my
+imperfect mortal vision they are rapturously good, a veritable glimpse
+of the Divine.</p>
+
+<p>This is what I mean by the elementary&mdash;the common, primary thing, the
+thing I look at every day and hardly ever accredit to its source. I am
+not speaking pantheistically here, any more than when I spoke of light.
+These things are not God, or part of God. They are expressions of God.
+If I speak of seeing God in them I mean that in them, as well as in many
+other simple things, we see Him as nearly as is possible to such
+comprehension as ours. &quot;No human eye,&quot; writes St. John, &quot;has ever seen
+God: the only Son, who is in the Father's bosom&mdash;He has made Him
+known.&quot;<a href="#fn8"><sup>8</sup></a> He made Him known in His own Person; but He appealed also to
+the everyday sights and sounds, the lily of the field, the blowing wind,
+the sparrow falling, the children at their mothers' knees, for the
+evidence to declare Him. As expressions of Him they may be
+misinterpreted by the error in my physical senses, or distorted by my
+limitations of spiritual perception; but even then they bring Him near
+to me in the kind of radiance which I can catch.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>In order to banish fear I think it necessary to train the thought to
+seeing God as expressing Himself in all the good and pleasant and
+enjoyable things that come to us. This means forming a habit. It means
+saying to oneself daily, hourly, &quot;This is God,&quot; &quot;That is God,&quot; of
+incidents, persons, and things we have rarely thought of in that
+relation. To do this is not as easy as it would be if our race-mind
+worked that way; but unfortunately it does not. In general we take our
+good things for granted, complaining that they are not better. The
+things we lack are more vivid to us, as a rule, than those we have
+acquired. Having hung, as it were, a cloud about ourselves we disregard
+the uncountable ways in which God persists in shining through, in spite
+of our efforts to shut Him out.</p>
+
+<p>To try to enumerate the uncountable would be folly. You cannot reckon
+the good which comes to every one of us through such channels as family,
+home, friendship, income, business, amusements, studies, holidays,
+journeys, sports, books, pictures, music, and the other hardly noticed
+pleasures of any single day. We are used to them. To ascribe them
+specially to God would seem to us far-fetched. That is, theoretically we
+may ascribe them to God, but practically we dissociate Him from them.
+Few of us, I think, ever pause to remember that through them He is
+making Himself known to us before doing it in any other way.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, it seems to me, this is the beginning of our recognition of the
+Divine. I have little hesitation in saying that this is what parents
+should teach children before they teach them to lisp prayers. The
+prayers have hardly any meaning to the baby-mind, and not much more than
+a sentimental influence on the later life, if they have as much as that.
+But any child, from the very budding of the intelligence, could grasp
+the idea of a great, loving Super-Father, who was making Himself visible
+through gifts and care. If he prayed to Him later he would know to whom
+he was praying. As it is, the later prayers are neglected, or definitely
+given up, oftener than not, because this is precisely what the child
+does <i>not</i> know. He does not know it because he was never taught it; and
+he was never taught it because his parents have probably not been aware
+of it themselves.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>I myself was never taught it. Notwithstanding all for which I am truly
+grateful, I regret most deeply that so many years of my life went by
+before I was led to the fact. I am willing to believe that the lack of
+understanding was my own fault, but a lack of understanding there was. I
+got the impression that God, so far from making Himself known to me, was
+hiding away from me, and that I must have faith to believe in One of
+whom I had no more than hearsay evidence. If I could do this violence to
+such measure of reason as I possessed I could count on a reward in some
+other world than this, though on little or nothing here.</p>
+
+<p>Faith I saw as of the nature of a <i>tour de force</i>. You took it as you
+took a leap. It was spiritually acrobatic. You didn't understand but you
+<i>believed</i>. The less you understood the more credit your belief became
+to you. The more hidden and difficult and mysterious and unintelligible
+God made Himself the greater your merit in having faith in spite of
+everything. I am far from saying that this is the common understanding
+of Christians, or from holding others responsible for my misconceptions.
+I speak of these misconceptions only because they were mine, and it was
+I who had to work away from them.</p>
+
+<p>For this reason, too, I speak of my reaching the idea of a God who had
+been visibly smiling at me all my life while I had never seen Him, as a
+&quot;discovery.&quot; To me it <i>was</i> a discovery; and it came at a moment when I
+sorely needed something of the kind.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was perhaps three or four years after the turning-point at
+Versailles. The intervening time had been one of what I may call
+spiritual ups and downs. It had not all been straight progress by any
+means. I had got hold of what for me was a great idea, round which other
+great ideas grouped themselves; but I grasped them waveringly or
+intermittently. Nevertheless, during seasons in Boston, Nice, Cannes,
+Munich, London, and Berlin, life on the whole went hopefully. The malady
+I have already mentioned tended to grow better rather than worse; the
+advancing blindness became definitely arrested. I worked easily,
+happily, successfully. Returning to the New England city which had
+become my adopted home, I bought a house and settled down to American
+life once more.</p>
+
+<p>I mention these facts only because they help me to make myself clearer.
+For all at once my affairs, like the chariots of Pharaoh in crossing the
+Red Sea, began to drive heavily. Trust in an all-conquering
+life-principle which had meant much to me for a time no longer seemed
+effective. Difficulties massed themselves. Business misunderstandings
+sprang up. Friendships on which I had counted suddenly grew cold. Worse
+than all, the working impulse gave out. There were two whole years in
+which I slaved at producing little more than what had to be thrown away.
+My active life had apparently come to another deadening full stop.</p>
+
+<p>I reached the decision that there was but one thing to do&mdash;give up the
+pretence at working, sell the house to which I had grown attached, and
+resume once more the life of aimless, but at that time inexpensive,
+European wandering. There came a day when I actually offered my
+house for sale.</p>
+
+<p>And yet that day proved to be another turning-point. On the very morning
+when I had put my house in the market the chain of small events which we
+commonly call accidents brought me into touch with a man I had never
+seen before. During a first meeting, as well as in several that
+followed, he made certain matters clear to me which changed my course
+not only then but ever since. These explanations came under three
+distinct headings, to each of which I should like to give a
+little space.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of these the one I put first is probably familiar to most of my readers,
+but to me, I confess, it was new.</p>
+
+<p>God among His other functions must be a tireless activity working
+towards an end. Everything He calls into being works toward that end, I
+myself with the rest. I am not a purposeless bit of jetsam flung out on
+the ocean of time to be tossed about helplessly. God couldn't so will an
+existence. It would not be in keeping with His economy to have any
+entity wasted. As Our Lord puts it, the sparrow cannot fall without Him;
+without Him the lilies are not decked; the knowledge possessed by His
+infinite intelligence is so minute that the very hairs of the head are
+numbered. My life, my work, myself&mdash;all are as much a necessary part of
+His design as the thread the weaver weaves into the pattern in a carpet.</p>
+
+<p>In other words, I am not a free agent. I am His agent. Not only am I
+responsible to him, but He is responsible for me. His responsibility for
+me will be seen as soon as I give up being responsible for myself.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon this last point that I seized with most avidity. I was tired
+of trying to steer a course for myself, with no compass to go by. I was
+tired of incessantly travelling along roads which seemed to lead to
+nothing but blind-ends. To change the figure to one I used not
+infrequently at that time, my life seemed pitchforked, first in one way
+and then in another, no way bringing me anywhere. It had no even tenor.
+It was a series of seismic pulls and jerks.</p>
+
+<p>But in the light of what my new friend told me I saw I had been too
+busily engaged in directing my life for myself. I was like a child who
+hopes to make a smoothly working machine go still more smoothly by
+prodding it. I couldn't leave it alone. It had not occurred to me that
+the course of that life was God's own business, and that if I could
+follow the psalmist's advice and &quot;commit my way unto him he would bring
+it to pass.&quot; It had seemed to me that nothing would be brought to pass
+unless I worried and fretted over it myself, whereas the same wise old
+psalmist says, in words which our generation would do well to lay to
+heart, <i>&quot;fret not thyself</i> else shall thou be moved to do evil.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Trust in the Lord and do good,&quot; he goes on; &quot;so shalt thou dwell in
+the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. Delight thyself also in the
+Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This was nothing new; it was only new to me. To feel that I could give
+up being responsible for results and devote myself to my work was in
+itself a relief. If I tried to &quot;trust in the Lord and do good&quot;&mdash;by which
+I suppose is meant doing my duty to the best of my small ability&mdash;He
+would look after the rest. My position was somewhat that of a trusted
+subordinate given a free hand, but having over him a supreme authority
+taking charge of all consequences. I was not working on what our modern
+idiom neatly summarises as &quot;my own.&quot; <i>I was His agent</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Thus it might be said to be to His interest to see that as His agent I
+was sheltered, clothed, fed, and in every way kept in such condition as
+to be up to the highest standard of His work. This provision would
+naturally include those dependent on me, and without whose well-being I
+could not have peace of mind. I need worry about them no more than about
+myself. They, too, were His agents. In certain conditions He might
+provide for them through me, or in certain conditions He might provide
+for me through them; but in all conditions He would provide for all
+of us.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>The second point was this: those with whom I had had misunderstandings
+were equally His agents. They might not be more aware of the fact than
+I; but this in no way disqualified them as His trusted subordinates
+given a free hand. Their work with me and mine with them, whatever its
+nature, wrought one of the infinite number of blends going to make up
+the vast complexity of His design.</p>
+
+<p>It was, therefore, out of the range of possibility that under Him there
+could be opposition or contradiction between one of His agents and
+another. It would be inconsistent with His being that one man's
+advantage should be brought about at another man's cost. Where that was
+apparently the case it was due to both sides taking the authority into
+their own hands, and neither sufficiently recognising Him. If His
+trusted subordinates in being given a free hand played Him false, they
+naturally played each other false, and played false to themselves first
+of all. Where one was afraid of another and strove to outwit him there
+was treachery against the supreme command.</p>
+
+<p>Again there was nothing new in this; but to me it was a new point of
+view with regard to those with whom and for whom I worked. For the first
+time I saw their true relation to me, as mine to them, and something of
+the principle of brotherhood. Up to this time brotherhood had been a
+charming, sentimental word to me, and not much more. Children of one
+Father, yes; but discordant children, with no restraint that I could see
+on their natural cut-throat enmities.</p>
+
+<p>But here was a truth which made all other men my necessary helpmates,
+and me the necessary helpmate of all other men. I couldn't do without
+them; they couldn't do without me. Hostility between us was as out of
+place as between men pulling together on the rope which is to save all
+their lives. If peril could bring about unity God could bring it about
+even more effectively. God was the great positive, the solvent in which
+irritation and unfriendliness must necessarily melt away.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>The third point, involving my obvious first step, was to put suspicion
+out of my own mind. I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working
+with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I.
+It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His
+Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could
+effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with
+God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or
+had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view
+being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order.
+Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were
+many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.</p>
+
+<p>This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we
+should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what
+is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all
+the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting
+one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect
+my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on
+myself&mdash;a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves&mdash;I am
+not to <i>fret myself</i>, not to churn my spirit into nameless fears. I am
+not a free agent. Those with whom I am associated are not free agents.
+God is the one supreme command. He expresses Himself through me; He
+expresses Himself through them; we all. I as well as they, they as well
+as I, are partakers of His Sonship; and the Son&mdash;His Expression&mdash;is
+always &quot;in the Father's bosom,&quot;<a href="#fn9"><sup>9</sup></a> in His love and care.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>Having grasped this idea the new orientation was not difficult. There
+was in it too much solace to allow of its being difficult. If I state
+the results it is once more not because I consider them important to
+anyone but myself, but only because they became the starting-point of a
+new advance in the conquest of fear.</p>
+
+<p>Within forty-eight hours, with no action on my part except the
+<i>Metanoia</i>, the change in my point of view, all misunderstandings had
+been cleared away. The other side had taken the entire initiative, I
+making no advance whatever toward them. A telegram expressing their
+hearty good will was followed by an interview, after which I was at work
+again. I have not only worked easily ever since but with such fecundity
+that one plan is always formed before I have its predecessor off my
+hands. This says nothing of the quality of my work, which, humble as it
+may be, is simply the best I know how to do. I refer only to its
+abundance. I have found that in &quot;working together with God,&quot; I am less
+involved in conflicts of wills than I was before, and that the words of
+Amos are literally fulfilled to me, &quot;that the plowman shall overtake the
+reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth seed.&quot; I say it
+without knocking on wood, and with no fear lest my &quot;good luck&quot; will be
+withdrawn, that from that time to this I have had plenty of work which I
+have accomplished happily, and have never lacked a market for my
+modest wares.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>From all of which I have drawn one main inference&mdash;the imperative
+urgency of Trust.</p>
+
+<p>I had hitherto thought of trust as a gritting of the teeth and a
+stiffening of the nerves to believe and endure, no matter what
+compulsion one put upon oneself. Gradually, in the light of the
+experience sketched above, I came to see it as simply the knowledge that
+the supreme command rules everything to everyone's advantage. The more
+we can rest mentally, keep ourselves at peace, <i>be still and know that
+it is God</i>,<a href="#fn10"><sup>10</sup></a> the single and sole Director, the more our interests will
+be safe. This, I take it, is the kind of trust for which the great
+pioneers of truth plead so persistently in both the Old and New
+Testaments.</p>
+
+<p>Trust, then, is not a force we wrest from ourselves against reason,
+against the grain. To be trust at all it must be loving and spontaneous.
+It cannot be loving and spontaneous unless there is a natural impulse
+behind it. And there can be no natural impulse behind it unless we have
+something in our own experience which corroborates the mere hearsay
+testimony that there is a Power worth trusting to. Job's &quot;Though He slay
+me yet will I trust in Him,&quot; could only have been wrung from a heart
+which had proved the Divine Good Will a thousand times and knew what it
+was doing. Some experience of our own we <i>must</i> have. It is an absolute
+necessity. Desperate hope in another man's God may do something for us,
+but it cannot do much. A small thing which I have proved for myself is a
+better foundation for trust than a Bible learnt parrot-like by rote and
+not put to the practical test. Once I have found out for myself that to
+rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him is the surest way to
+security and peace I have the more willing confidence in doing it.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="4"></a>
+<h2>Chapter IV</h2>
+
+<h3>God'S Self-Expression And The Mind Of To-Day</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>To the mind of to-day trust would be easier were it not for the terror
+lest God's plans involve us in fearful things from which we shrink. We
+have heard so much of the trials He sends; of the gifts of Tantalus He
+keeps forever in our sight but just beyond our reach; of the blessings
+He actually bestows upon us only to snatch them away when we have come
+to love them most&mdash;we have heard so much of this that we are often
+afraid of His will as the greatest among the evils of which we stand
+in dread.</p>
+
+<p>In many cases this is the root of our fear. We cannot trust without
+misgiving to the love of God. What is there then that we can trust to?
+We can't trust to ourselves; still less can we trust to our fellow-men.
+Those whom we love and in whom we have confidence being as weak as
+ourselves, if not weaker than we, establish our spirits not at all. If,
+therefore, we mentally poison the well of Universal Good-intent at its
+very source what have we to depend on?</p>
+
+<p>I have already referred to the God of repressions and denials, and now
+must speak a little more freely of this travesty on &quot;the Father,&quot; as
+expressed to us in Jesus Christ. Of all the obstacles to the rooting out
+of fear the lingering belief in such a distortion of Divine Love is to
+my mind the most deeply based.</p>
+
+<p>I often think it a proof of the vital truth in the message of Jesus
+Christ that it persists in holding the heart in spite of the ugly thing
+which, from so many points of view, the Caucasian has managed to make of
+it. Nowhere is the cruelty of Caucasian misinterpretation more evident
+than in the meanings given to the glorious phrase, &quot;the Will of God.&quot; I
+do not exaggerate when I say that in most Caucasian minds the Will of
+God is a bitter, ruthless force, to which we can only drug ourselves
+into submission. It is always ready to thwart us, to stab us in the
+back, or to strike us where our affections are tenderest. We hold our
+blessings only on the tenure of its caprice. Our pleasures are but the
+stolen moments we can snatch from its inattention.</p>
+
+<p>As an example I quote some stanzas from a hymn frequently sung where
+English-speaking people worship, and more or less expressive of the
+whole Caucasian attitude toward &quot;God's Will.&quot;</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>My God, my Father, while I stray<br />
+Far from my home on life's rough way,<br />
+Oh, teach me from my heart to say,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy Will be done.</p>
+
+<p>Though dark my path and sad my lot,<br />
+Let me be still, and murmur not,<br />
+Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy Will be done.</p>
+
+<p>What though in lonely grief I sigh<br />
+For friends beloved no longer nigh,<br />
+Submissive still would I reply,<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy Will be done.</p>
+
+<p>If thou shouldst call me to resign<br />
+What most I prize, it ne'er was mine;<br />
+I only yield thee what is thine;<br />
+&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Thy Will be done.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>These lines, typical of a whole class of sentimental hymnology, are
+important only in as far as they are widely known and express a more or
+less standardised point of view. The implication they contain is that
+all deprivation is brought upon us by the Will of God, and that our
+wisest course is to beat ourselves down before that which we cannot
+modify. Beneath the car of this Juggernaut we must flout our judgments
+and crush our affections. As He knows so well where to hit us we must
+stifle our moans when He does so. As He knows so well what will ring our
+hearts we must be content to let Him give so that He can the more
+poignantly take away. The highest exercise of our own free will is to
+&quot;be still and murmur not&quot;&mdash;to admit that we need the chastisement&mdash;to
+crouch beneath the blows which we tell ourselves are delivered in love,
+even though it is hard to see where the love comes in.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>I know nothing more tragic than those efforts on the part of
+heart-broken people, coming within the experience of all of us, to make
+themselves feel that this terrible &quot;Will of God&quot; must be right, no
+matter how much it seems wrong.</p>
+
+<p>A young man with a wife and family to support is struck down by a
+lingering illness which makes him a burden. All his Job's comforters
+tell him that God has brought the affliction upon him, and that to bow
+to the &quot;Inscrutable Will&quot; must be his first act of piety.</p>
+
+<p>A young mother is rejoicing in her baby when its little life is suddenly
+snuffed out. She must school herself to say, quite irrespective of the
+spirit of renunciation which inspires the words, &quot;The Lord gave and the
+Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>A woman is left a widow to earn a living for herself, and bring up her
+children fatherless. She must assume that the Lord had some good purpose
+in leaving her thus bereft and must drill herself into waiting on a
+Will so impossible to comprehend.</p>
+
+<p>Storms sink ships, drowning passengers and crew; lightning sets fire to
+houses and strikes human beings dead; earthquakes swallow up whole
+districts destroying industry and human life; tidal waves sweep inland
+carrying away towns; and our legal phraseology can think of no better
+explanation of such calamity than to ascribe it to &quot;the act of God.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>It is needless to multiply these instances. Our own knowledge supplies
+them by the score. Our personal lives are full of them. God's Will,
+God's Love, God's Mercy, become strangely ironic forces, grim beyond any
+open enmity. They remind us of the &quot;love,&quot; the &quot;pity,&quot; the &quot;mercy,&quot; in
+which the orthodox sent the heretic to the hangman or the stake,
+destroying the body to save the soul.</p>
+
+<p>It is a far cry from this appalling vision of &quot;the Father&quot; to the
+psalmist's &quot;Delight thou in the Lord and he shall give thee the desires
+of thine heart.&quot; How could anyone delight in the Caucasian God, as the
+majority of Caucasians conceive of Him? As a matter of fact, how many
+Caucasians themselves, however devout, however orthodox, attempt to
+delight, or pretend to delight, in the God to whom on occasions they bow
+down? Delight is a strong word, and a lovely one; but used of the
+Caucasian and his Deity it is not without its elements of humour.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>Naturally enough! It is impossible for any human being to delight in a
+God whose first impulse in &quot;doing us good&quot; is so often to ravage our
+prosperity and affections. So long as we believe in Him fear will rule
+our lives. It is because the Caucasian believes in Him that he lives in
+fear and dies in fear. To attempt to eliminate fear and retain this
+concept of God is vain.</p>
+
+<p>Understanding this the average Caucasian has made little or no effort to
+eliminate fear. He would rather live and die in fear than change this
+concept of God. It is dear to him. He finds it useful. To its shoulders
+he can shift the ills of which he is unwilling himself to accept the
+responsibility. Where God is a puzzle life is a puzzle; and where life
+is a puzzle the Caucasian gets his chance for making the materialistic
+ideal the only one that seems practical. In a world which was to any
+noticeable degree freed from the spectre of fear most of our existing
+systems of government, religion, business, law, and national and
+international politics, would have to be remodelled. There would be
+little or no use for them. Built on fear and run by fear, fear is as
+essential to their existence as coal to our industries. A society that
+had escaped from fear would escape from their control.</p>
+
+<p>In this present spring of 1921 we are having an exhibition of fear on a
+scale so colossal that the heart of man is dazed by it. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of some other government. There is not a
+government which is not afraid of its own people. There is not a people
+which is not afraid of its own government. There is not a country in
+which one group is not afraid of some other group. All is rivalry,
+enmity, suspicion, confusion, and distrust, &quot;while men's hearts are
+fainting for fear, and for anxious expectation of what is coming on the
+world.&quot; All statesmen, all ministers, all ambassadors, all politicians,
+all bankers, all business men, all professional men, all journalists,
+all farmers, all laborers, all workers in the arts, all men and women of
+all kinds&mdash;with the exception of one here and there who has reached the
+understanding of the love which casteth out fear&mdash;live and work in fear,
+and in mistrust of their colleagues. From the supreme councils of the
+Allies down to the crooks and conspirators in dives and joints everyone
+is afraid of being double-crossed. There is so much double-crossing
+everywhere that we have been obliged to invent this name for the
+operation. England is afraid of being double-crossed by Germany, France
+by England, Italy by France, the United States by Europe, and Japan by
+the United States, while within these general limitations minor
+double-crossing interests seethe like bacteria in a drop of poisoned
+blood. The nations are infected with fear because they elect to believe
+in a God of fear, and the Caucasians more than others because they have
+chosen to see a God of fear in Him who was put before them as a God
+of Love.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>I see no way out of all this except as one of us after another reaches
+the <i>Metanoia</i>, the new point of view as regards God. Other ways have
+been sought, and have been found no more than blind alleys. Much
+reference is made nowadays to the disillusionment of those who hoped
+that the war would lead to social and spiritual renovation; but any such
+hope was doomed in advance, so long as the Caucasian concept of God was
+unchanged. When you cannot trust God you cannot trust anything; and when
+you cannot trust anything you get the condition of the world as it is
+to-day. And that you <i>cannot</i> trust a God whose &quot;love&quot; will paralyse the
+hand by which you have to earn a living, or snatch your baby from your
+breast&mdash;to say nothing of a thousand ingenious forms of torture
+inflicted just because &quot;He sees that it is best for you,&quot; after having
+led you to see otherwise&mdash;that you cannot trust a God like that must be
+more or less self-evident. If you are part of His Self-Expression He
+cannot practise futilities through your experience and personality. He
+must be kind with a common-sense kindness, loving with a common-sense
+love. Whatever explanation of our sufferings and failures there may be
+we must not shuffle them off on God. &quot;Let us hold God to be true,&quot; St.
+Paul writes, &quot;though every man should prove false.&quot;<a href="#fn11"><sup>11</sup></a> Let us hold that
+God would not hurt us, however much we may wilfully hurt each other or
+ourselves.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>I should not lay so much emphasis on this if so much emphasis were not
+laid on it in the other direction. God has so persistently, and for so
+many generations, been held up to us as a God who tries and torments and
+punishes that we can hardly see Him as anything else. Torture comes, in
+the minds of many of us, to be not only His main function but His only
+function. &quot;I am all right,&quot; is the unspoken thought in many a heart, &quot;so
+long as I am not overtaken by the Will of God. When that calamity falls
+on me my poor little human happiness will be wrecked like a skiff in a
+cyclone.&quot; This is not an exaggeration. It is the secret mental attitude
+of perhaps ninety percent of those Caucasians who believe in a God of
+any kind. Their root-conviction is that if God would only let them alone
+they would get along well enough; but as a terrible avenging spirit,
+like the Fury or the Nemesis of the ancients, he is always tracking them
+down. The aversion from God so noticeable in the mind of to-day is, I
+venture to think, chiefly inspired by the instinct to get away from, or
+to hide from, the pursuit of this Avenger.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>And in a measure this impulse to flight can be understood. I can
+understand that common-sense men should be cold toward the Caucasian
+God, and that they should even renounce and denounce him. I will go so
+far as to say that I can more easily understand the atheist than I can
+many of my own friends who pathetically try to love and adore their
+capricious un-Christlike Deity. To my certain knowledge many of them are
+doing it against their own natural and better instincts, because they
+dare not forsake the tradition in which they have been dyed. &quot;I try to
+love God and I can't,&quot; has been said to me many a time by conscientious
+people who felt that the fault must lie in themselves. There was no
+fault in themselves. If their God could have been loved they would have
+loved him.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>I come here to a point of no small importance to the conquest of fear,
+the courage to release oneself from the tether of tradition. Few people
+have it, in the sense of rejecting old theories because of having worked
+out to new spiritual knowledge. When it comes to the eternal verities
+many of us are cowardly; nearly all of us are timid. The immense
+majority of us prefer a God at second or third hand. We will accept what
+somebody else has learned, rather than incur the trouble or the
+responsibility of learning anything for ourselves. We take our knowledge
+of God as we take our doses of medicine, from a prescription which one
+man has written down, and another has &quot;put up,&quot; and still another
+administers. By the time this traditional, handed-on knowledge of God
+has reached ourselves it is diluted by all kinds of outside opinions and
+personalities. It is not strange that when we have swallowed the dose it
+does little to effect a cure. I do not deny that a second or third hand
+knowledge of God may do something. I only deny that it can do much. To
+support my denial I need only point to what the world has become in a
+second and third hand Christendom. The illustration is enough.</p>
+
+<p>It should be plain, I think, that no one will ever be released from fear
+by clinging to the teachings which have inspired fear. We are fearless
+in proportion as we grow independent enough to know for ourselves. I
+cannot but stress this point to some extent, for the reason that I
+myself suffered so long from inability to let the traditional go. It
+seemed to me to have a sanctity just because it was traditional. The
+fact that other people had accepted certain ideas had weight in making
+me feel that I should accept them too. To go off on a line of my own
+seemed dangerous. I might make mistakes. I might go far wrong. Safety
+was spelled by hanging with the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>It was the chance remark of an old acquaintance which dislodged me from
+this position. In the lobby of a hotel we had met by chance, after not
+having seen each other for a good many years. The conversation, having
+touched on one theme and another, drifted to subjects akin to that which
+I am now discussing. I ventured to disclose some of my own &quot;seeking God,
+if perhaps I could grope for Him and find Him.&quot;<a href="#fn12"><sup>12</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>My friend straightened himself and squared his shoulders. &quot;I stand
+exactly where I did thirty years ago.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>There was a pride in the statement with regard to which my first feeling
+was a pang of envy. A rapid calculation told me that thirty years ago he
+had been about twenty; and the superiority of a man who at twenty had
+attained to so much spiritual insight that he had not needed to learn
+anything more in the interim was evident. I was two or three days
+turning this incident over in my mind before the exclamation came to me,
+&quot;How terrible!&quot; To have lived through the thirty years of the richest
+experience the ordinary man ever knows and still have remained on
+precisely the same spot as to spiritual things struck me then as a
+woeful confession.</p>
+
+<p>I beg to say here that I am not talking of external and official
+religious connections. I am trying to avoid the subject of external and
+official religion altogether. I am speaking not of religion but of God.
+To my mind the two have no more than the relation of the words of a song
+and the music of its setting. You may use them together or you may
+consider them apart. I am considering them apart, and confining myself
+wholly to the words of the song. What is known as church-affiliation,
+the music of the setting, I am not concerned with. My only topic is the
+way in which the meaning of the words gets over to the average inner
+man, and the effect upon him mentally.</p>
+
+<p>I revert, therefore, to the statement that to make the kind of spiritual
+progress which will overcome fear it will be often necessary to let go
+the thing we have outlived. Often the thing we have outlived will be
+something dear to us, because there was once a time when it served our
+turn. But our turn to-day may need something different from the turn of
+yesterday, and the refusal to follow new light simply because it is new
+leads in the end to mental paralysis. I was once asked to sign a
+petition to the mayor of a city praying that, on the ground of its
+novelty, electric lighting might be excluded from the street in which I
+lived. Exactly this same reluctance often keeps us from making changes
+of another sort, even when we feel that the light which hitherto was
+enough for us has been outgrown and outclassed.</p>
+
+<p>The danger of the lone quest leading a man astray can be easily
+exaggerated. It is not as if God were difficult to find. &quot;The soul
+cannot move, wake, or open the eyes, without perceiving God.&quot; &quot;For this
+commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee,
+neither is it far off. It is not in heaven that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go up for us to heaven and bring it down unto us that we may hear
+it and do it? Neither is it beyond the sea that thou shouldest say, Who
+shall go over the sea for us and bring it unto us that we may hear it
+and do it? But the word is very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth and in thy
+heart.&quot;<a href="#fn13"><sup>13</sup></a> No motion toward the Universal can miss the Universal. I
+cannot escape from the Ever-Present; the Ever-Present cannot escape from
+me. Intellectually I may make mistakes in deduction, but spiritually I
+cannot but find God. The little I learn of God for myself is to me
+worth more than all the second and third hand knowledge I can gather
+from the saints.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is the more necessary to dwell on this for the reason that whatever
+<i>Metanoia</i>, or new orientation, is to be brought about must be on the
+part of individuals. There is no hope for large numbers acting together,
+or for any kind of group-impulse. Group-impulse among Caucasians is
+nearly always frightened, conservative, reactionary, or derisive of the
+forward step. There is hardly an exception to this in the whole history
+of Caucasian ideas.</p>
+
+<p>Otherwise it would be a pleasant dream to imagine what might now be
+happening on the great international stage. Let us suppose that the
+leaders of the so-called Christian countries were all convinced of the
+three main lines of God's direction I have already tried to sketch. Let
+us think of such men as Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Sforza, President
+Harding, and the heads of government in Belgium, Russia, Germany, and
+all other countries affected by the present war of moves and
+counter-moves&mdash;let us think of them as agreed on the principles:</p>
+
+<p>1. That each knows himself and his country as an agent in the hand of
+God, directed surely toward a good end;</p>
+
+<p>2. That each knows each of his colleagues and his country as equally an
+agent in the hand of God, directed surely toward a similar good end;</p>
+
+<p>3. That each knows that between God's agents there can be neither
+conflicting interests nor clash of wills, and that suspicion and
+counter-suspicion must be out of place, since under God's direction no
+double-crossing is possible.</p>
+
+<p>The picture is almost comic in its incongruity with what actually is.
+The mere thought of these protagonists of the century working in harmony
+to one great purpose, without distrust of each other's motives, and with
+no necessity for anyone's dodging political foul play, summons the smile
+of irony. Mutual trust was never so much a suggestion to laugh down.
+The mere hint that it might be possible would make one a target for the
+wit of the experienced.</p>
+
+<p>In what we call the practical world of to-day there is no appeal from
+the God of Fear but <i>to</i> the God of Fear. The great mass of Caucasians
+will not have it otherwise. And it requires no prophetic vision to
+foresee the results of the efforts to bring about international harmony
+while all are obeying the decrees of the Goddess of Discord. Nearly
+three years after the signing of the armistice the world is in a more
+hopeless situation than it was when at war. Up to the present each new
+move only makes matters worse. There are those who believe that our
+phase of civilisation is staggering into the abyss and that nothing, as
+far as can now be descried, will save it from the deluge.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>Possibly! Fear tends always to produce the thing it is afraid of. I
+mention this dark outlook only for the reason that even if the
+cataclysm were to come the individual can escape from it.</p>
+
+<p>Cataclysms are not new in the history of our race. The rise and fall of
+civilisations may be called mankind's lessons in &quot;how not to do it.&quot; Of
+these lessons there are no such records as those which we find in the
+Old Testament; and in these records it is unfailingly pointed out that
+whatever the calamity which overtakes the world at large the individual
+has, if he chooses, a way of safety. The innocent are not overwhelmed
+with the guilty, except when the innocent deliberately shut their eyes
+to the opening toward the <i>Soteria</i>&mdash;the Safe Return. But that,
+unhappily, the innocent do so shut their eyes is one of the commonest
+facts in life.</p>
+
+<p>Back in that twilight of history of which the later tale could be told
+only by some symbol, some legendary hieroglyph, there was already an
+&quot;Ark&quot; by which the faithful few could be saved from the &quot;Flood.&quot; The
+symbol became permanent. The Ark of the Covenant&mdash;the sign of a great
+spiritual understanding&mdash;remained as a token to man that in God he had
+a sure refuge. It was laid up in his Holy of Holies, a mystic,
+consecrated pledge, till the ruthless Caucasian came and rifled it.</p>
+
+<p>But no rifling could deprive mankind of its significance. That endures.
+To bring it home to the desolate and oppressed was a large part of the
+mission of psalmists and prophets. The Ark of the Covenant&mdash;of the Great
+Understanding&mdash;meant as much to those who sought God in the ancient
+world as the Cross does to Christendom. It meant that whatever the
+collapse, national or general, through siege or sack or famine, those
+who would escape could escape by the simple process of mentally taking
+refuge in God. The Ark of God would bear them safely when all material
+help failed.</p>
+
+<p>Among the themes which run through the Old Testament this is of
+paramount importance. It is impossible to do more than refer to the many
+times the spiritually minded were implored to seek this protection. It
+was needful to implore them since they found the assurance so difficult
+to believe. No matter how often it was proved to them they still
+doubted it. Saved by this method once they would reject it when it came
+to danger the second time. Saved the second time they rejected it the
+third. &quot;Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on
+thee, because he trusteth in thee,&quot; is the declaration of Jeremiah, who
+perhaps more than any other was a prophet of disaster. Similar
+statements are scattered through the Old Testament by the score, by the
+hundred. It was a point on which leaders, seers, and teachers insisted
+with a passionate insistence. They knew. They had tested the truth for
+themselves. Disaster was a common feature in their history. During the
+three thousand years and more which their experiences cover these
+Israelites had seen more than one invasion sweep across their land, more
+than one civilisation come and go. All that Belgium knew in the Great
+War they knew time and time again. Between Egypt and Assyria, the France
+and Germany of that special epoch, theirs was a kind of buffer state
+over which every new anguish rolled. &quot;Let it roll,&quot; was the cry of
+their prophets. &quot;The Lord will fight for you. Stand still and see what
+he will do. His arm is not shortened neither his strength diminished. It
+is of the Lord to save whether by many or by few. Trust in the Lord and
+be doing good, so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be
+fed. Oh, how great is thy goodness which thou hast wrought for them that
+trust in thee before the sons of men. I said in my haste, I am cut off!
+Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplication when I cried
+unto thee. Be of good courage and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye
+that hope in the Lord.&quot;<a href="#fn14"><sup>14</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>In many ways this is the burden of the more ancient Scriptures&mdash;the
+protection which surrounds those who know that protection is God. It was
+a gospel that had to be preached with tears and beseechings from one
+generation to another. No generation accepted it. The belief in
+material power was always too dense. It is still too dense. In the Ark
+of the Great Understanding the Caucasian has practically never seen more
+than a symbol that has gone out of date. Lost materially in the Tiber
+mud it was, for him, lost forever. But not so. Its significance remains
+as vital to mankind as when, veiled and venerated, it stood between
+the cherubim.</p>
+
+<p>The time may be close at hand when we shall need this assurance as we
+need nothing else. However optimistic we try to keep ourselves, no
+thinking man or woman can be free, at this crisis in world-history, from
+deep foreboding. For the memory to go back ten years is, even for us in
+the New World, like returning to a Golden Age; while for the Old World
+mere recollection must be poignant.</p>
+
+<p>The possibility that all countries in both hemispheres may find
+themselves in some such agony as that of the Russia of to-day is not too
+extravagant to be entertained. This is not saying that they are likely
+so to find themselves; it means only that in the world as it is the
+safest is not very safe. My point is that whether catastrophe
+overwhelms us or not, he who chooses not to fear can be free from fear.
+There is a refuge for him, a defence, a safeguard which no material
+attack can break down. &quot;He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most
+High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the
+Lord, He is my refuge&mdash;my fortress&mdash;my God. In Him will I trust.&quot;<a href="#fn15"><sup>15</sup></a>
+There is this Ark for me, this Ark of the Great Understanding, and I can
+retire into it. I can also have this further assurance: &quot;Because thou
+hast made the Lord which is my refuge&mdash;even the Most High&mdash;thy
+habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague
+come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give his angels charge over thee to
+keep thee in all thy ways.&quot;<a href="#fn16"><sup>16</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+
+<p>This is the eternal agreement, but an agreement of which we find it
+difficult to accept the terms. To the material alone we are in the habit
+of ascribing power. Though we repeat a thousand times in the course of
+a year, &quot;For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory,&quot; we do not
+believe it. To few of us is it more than a sonorous phrase.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the impression of this which one received at the great
+thanksgiving for peace in St. Paul's Cathedral in London some twenty
+years ago. The Boer War had ended in an English victory, and while the
+thanksgiving was not precisely for this, it did express the relief of an
+anxious nation that peace was again restored. It was what is generally
+known as a most impressive service. All that a great spectacle can offer
+to God it offered. King, queen, princes, princesses, ambassadors,
+ministers, clergy, admirals, generals, and a vast assembly of citizens
+filled the choir and nave with colour and life, while the music was of
+that passionless beauty of which the English cathedral choirs guard
+the secret.</p>
+
+<p>But the detail I remember best was the way in which the repetition of
+the Lord's Prayer rolled from the lips of the assembly like the sound
+of the surging of the sea. It was the emotional effect of a strongly
+emotional moment. One felt tense. It was hard to restrain tears. As far
+as crowd-sympathy has any spiritual value it was there. The Caucasian
+God was taken out of His pigeon-hole and publicly recognised.</p>
+
+<p>Then He was put back.</p>
+
+<p>I take this service merely as an instance of what happens in all the
+so-called Christian capitals in moments of national stress. Outwardly it
+happens less in the United States than it does elsewhere, for the reason
+that this country has no one representative spiritual expression; but it
+does happen here in diffused and general effect. As a Christian nation
+we ascribe in common with other Christian nations the kingdom, the
+power, and the glory to God&mdash;on occasions. We do it with the pious
+gesture and the sonorous phrase. Then we forget it. The habit of
+material trust is too strong for us. Kings, queens, presidents, princes,
+prime ministers, congresses, parliaments, and all other representatives
+of material strength, may repeat for formal use the conventional clause;
+but there is always what we flippantly know as a &quot;joker&quot; in the
+lip-recitation. &quot;Kingdom, power, and glory,&quot; we can hear ourselves
+saying in a heart-aside, &quot;lie in money, guns, commerce, and police. God
+is not sufficiently a force in the affairs of this world for us to give
+Him more than the consideration of an act of courtesy.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>Practically that is all we ever get from group-impulse&mdash;an act of
+courtesy. I repeat and repeat again that whatever is done toward the
+conquest of fear must be done by the individual. <i>I</i> must do what I can
+to conquer fear in myself, regardless of the attitude or opinions of men
+in general.</p>
+
+<p>To men in general the appeal to spiritual force to bring to naught
+material force is little short of fanatical. It has never been otherwise
+as yet; it will probably not be otherwise for long generations to come.
+Meanwhile it is much for the individual to know that he can act on his
+own initiative, and that when it comes to making God his refuge he can
+go into that refuge alone. He needs no nation, or government, or
+society, or companions before him or behind him. He needs neither leader
+nor guide nor friend. In the fortress of God he is free to enter merely
+as himself, and there know that he is safe amid a world in agony.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+
+<p>This is not theory; it is not doctrine; it is not opinion. It is what
+the great pioneers of truth have first deduced from what they understood
+to be the essential beneficence of God, and then proved by actual
+demonstration. Anyone else can demonstrate it who chooses to make the
+experiment. My own weakness is such that I have made the experiment but
+partially; but partial experiment convinces me beyond all further
+questioning that the witness of the great pioneers is true.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nor is this conviction to be classed as idealism, or ecclesiasticism, or
+mysticism, or anything else to which we can put a tag. It is not
+sectarian; it is not peculiarly Christian. It is the general possession
+of mankind. True, it is easier for the Christian than for any other to
+enter on this heritage, since his spiritual descent is more directly
+from the pioneers of truth who first discovered God to be His children's
+safety; but the Universal is the Universal, the property of all.
+Discovery gives no one an exclusive hold on it. Anyone with a
+consciousness of Almighty, Ever-Present Intelligence must have some
+degree of access to it, though his access may not be to the fullest or
+the easiest. It is not possible that the Universal Father should be the
+special property of the Christian or of anyone else. The Christian view
+of the Father is undoubtedly the truest; but every view is true in
+proportion to its grasp of truth. No one will deny that the Buddhist,
+the Mahometan, the Confucianist, have their grasp of truth. Even the
+primitive idolater has some faint gleam of it, distorted though it may
+have become. Very well, then; the faintest gleam of such knowledge will
+not go without its recompense.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIV</h3>
+
+
+<p>Exclusiveness is too much our Caucasian habit of mind. It is linked with
+our instinct for ownership. Because through Jesus Christ we have a
+clearer view of a greater segment of the Universal, if I may so express
+myself, than the Buddhist can have through Buddha or the Mahometan
+through Mahomet, our tendency is to think that we know the whole of the
+Universal, and have it to give away. Any other view of the Universal is
+to us so false as to merit not merely condemnation but extirpation.
+Extirpation has been the watchword with which Caucasian Christianity has
+gone about the world. We have taken toward other views of truth no such
+sympathetic stand as St. Paul to that which he found in Greece, and
+which is worth recalling:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Men of Athens, I perceive that you are in every respect remarkably
+religious. For as I passed along and observed the things you worship, I
+found also an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. The
+Being, therefore, whom you, without knowing it, revere, Him I now
+proclaim to you. God who made the universe and everything in it&mdash;He
+being Lord of heaven and earth&mdash;does not dwell in sanctuaries built by
+men. Nor is He administered to by human hands as though He needed
+anything&mdash;but He Himself gives to all men life and breath and all
+things. He caused to spring from one forefather people of every race,
+for them to live on the whole surface of the earth, and marked for them
+an appointed span of life, and the boundaries of their homes; that they
+might seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him. Yes,
+though He is not far from any one of us. For it is in closest union with
+Him that we live and move and have our being; as in fact some of the
+poets in repute among yourselves have said, 'For we are also His
+offspring.'&quot;<a href="#fn17"><sup>17</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>To the conquest of fear this splendid universalism is another
+essential. God being &quot;not far from any one of us&quot; cannot be far from me.
+He who gives to all men life and breath and all things will not possibly
+deny me the things I require most urgently. Our whole civilisation may
+go to pieces; the job by which I earn a living may cease to be a job;
+the money I have invested may become of no more value than Russian
+bonds; the children whom I hoped I had provided for may have to face
+life empty-handed; all my accustomed landmarks may be removed, and my
+social moorings swept away; nevertheless, the Universal cannot fail me.
+&quot;Although the figtree shall not blossom nor fruit be in the vines;
+though the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields yield no meat;
+though the flocks be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the
+stalls; yet I will rejoice in God, I will joy in the God of my
+salvation.&quot; It is safe to say that this confidence on the part of
+Habakkuk was not due to mere grim forcing of the will. It was the fruit
+of experience, of knowledge, of demonstration. In spite of the dangers
+national and personal he saw threatening, his certainty of God must
+have been spontaneous.</p>
+
+<p>Anyone, in any country, in any epoch, and of any creed or no creed, who
+has shared this experience shares also this assurance. To the Christian
+it comes easiest; but that it does not come easy even to the Christian
+is a matter of common observation. It can only come easily when some
+demonstration has been made for oneself, after which there is no more
+disputing it.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XV</h3>
+
+
+<p>Nor is it a question of morals or morality.</p>
+
+<p>I must venture here on delicate ground and say what I should hesitate to
+say were the contrary not so strongly underscored. I mean that God, from
+what we understand to be His nature, could not accord us His protection
+by weighing the good and the evil in our conduct, and giving or
+withholding help according to our worthiness. The Universal is too great
+to be measured and doled in that way. Nothing but our own pinchbeck
+ideas could ascribe to Him this pettiness. As it is the kind of sliding
+scale we ourselves adopt, we limit the Divine Generosity by our own
+limitations.</p>
+
+<p>Not so was the understanding of Jesus Christ. That we should be kind to
+the so-called evil as we are to the so-called good was a point on which
+He dwelt in the Sermon on the Mount. To discriminate between them when
+it comes to the possibility of conferring benefits is in His opinion
+small. &quot;You have heard that it was said, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor,
+and hate thine enemy.' But I command you all, Love your enemies, and
+pray for your persecutors; that so you may become true sons of your
+Father in heaven. For He causes His sun to rise on the wicked as well as
+on the good, and sends rain upon those who do right and those who do
+wrong.&quot;<a href="#fn18"><sup>18</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>In other words, we are not to feel ourselves turned out of our
+&quot;habitation&quot; in God by a sense of our moral lapses. Moral lapses are to
+be regretted, of course; but they do not vitiate our status as the Sons
+of God. It is possible that no one believes they do; but much of the
+loose statement current among those who lay emphasis on morals would
+give that impression. There is a whole vernacular in vogue in which
+souls are &quot;lost&quot; or &quot;saved&quot; according to the degree to which they
+conform or do not conform to other people's views as to what they ought
+to do. Much of our pietism is to the effect that God is at the bestowal
+not merely of a sect, but of some section of a sect, and cannot be found
+through any other source.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVI</h3>
+
+
+<p>This brings me to the distinction between morals and righteousness,
+which is one for the mind of to-day to keep as clearly as possible
+before it. I have said that the refuge in God is not a question of
+morals; but it is one of righteousness. Between righteousness and morals
+the difference is important.</p>
+
+<p>Morals stand for a code of observances; righteousness for a direction of
+the life.</p>
+
+<p>Morals represent just what the word implies, the customs of an age, a
+country, or a phase in civilisation. They have no absolute standard. The
+morals of one century are not those of another. The morals of one race
+are not those of another even in the same century. In many respects the
+morals of the Oriental differ radically from those of the Occidental,
+age-long usage being behind each. It is as hard to convince either that
+his are the inferior as it would be to make him think so of his
+mother-tongue. I once asked a cultivated Chinaman, a graduate of one of
+the great American universities and a Christian of the third generation,
+in what main respect he thought China superior to the United States. &quot;In
+morals,&quot; he replied, promptly; but even as a Christian educated in
+America his theory of morals was different from ours.</p>
+
+<p>Among ourselves in the United States the essence of morals is by no
+means a subject of unanimous agreement. You might say that a standard of
+morals is entirely a matter of opinion. There are millions of people who
+think it immoral to play cards, to go to the theatre, to dance, or to
+drink wine. There are millions of other people who hold all these acts
+to be consistent with the highest moral conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, wherever the emphasis is thrown on morals as distinct from
+righteousness there is a tendency to put the weight on two or three
+points in which nations or individuals excel, and to ignore the rest.
+For example, not to go outside ourselves, the American people may be
+fairly said to exemplify two of the great virtues: On the whole they
+are, first, sober; secondly, continent. As a result we accentuate morals
+in these respects, but not in any others.</p>
+
+<p>For instance, the current expression, &quot;an immoral man,&quot; is almost
+certain to apply only under the two headings cited above, and probably
+only under one. All other morals and immoralities go by the board. We
+should not class a dishonest man as an immoral man, nor an untruthful
+man, nor a profane, or spiteful, or ungenial, or bad-tempered, man. Our
+notion of morals hardly ever rises above the average custom of the
+community in which we happen to live. Except in the rarest instances we
+never pause to reflect as to whether the customs of that community are
+or are not well founded. The consequence is that our cities, villages,
+countrysides, and social groupings are filled with men and women moral
+enough as far as the custom of the country goes, but quite noticeably
+unrighteous.</p>
+
+<p>It is also a fact that where you find one or two virtues singled out for
+observance and the rest obscured there you find, too, throngs of
+outwardly &quot;moral&quot; people with corroded hearts. Villages, churches, and
+all the quieter communities are notorious for this, the peculiarity
+having formed for a hundred and fifty years the stock-in-trade of
+novelists. Sobriety and continence being more or less in evidence the
+assumption is that all the requirements have been fulfilled. The
+community is &quot;moral&quot; notwithstanding the back-bitings, heart-burnings,
+slanders, cheatings, envies, hatreds, and bitternesses that may permeate
+it through and through. As I write, the cramped, venomous, unlovely life
+of the American small town is the favourite theme of our authors and
+readers of fiction. Since a number of the works now on the market have
+met with national approval one must assume that the pictures they paint
+are accurate. The conditions are appalling, but, according to the custom
+of the country, they are &quot;moral.&quot; The shadow of insobriety and
+incontinence doesn't touch the characters who move across these pages,
+and yet the level of the life is pictured as debased, and habits
+as hideous.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVII</h3>
+
+
+<p>With morals in this accepted American sense righteousness has little to
+do. The two are different in origin. Morals imply the compulsion of men,
+and are never more binding than the customs of men render them. They are
+thus imposed from without, while righteousness springs from within. The
+essence of righteousness lies in the turning of the individual
+toward God.</p>
+
+<p>I think it safe to say that righteousness is expressed more accurately
+in attitude than in conduct. It is expressed in conduct, of course; but
+conduct may fail while the attitude can remain constant. It is worthy of
+remark that some of the great examples of righteousness cited in the
+Bible were conspicuously sinners. That is to say, they were men of
+strong human impulses against which they were not always sufficiently on
+guard, but who turned towards God in spite of everything. In the long
+line spanning the centuries between Noah and Abraham and Peter and
+Paul&mdash;from the almost prehistoric out into the light of day&mdash;not one is
+put before us except in his weakness as well as in his strength. Some of
+them commit gross sins; but apparently even gross sins do not debar them
+from their privileges in God's love. This principle was expressed in the
+words of Samuel: &quot;Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness; yet turn
+not aside from following the Lord.... For the Lord will not forsake his
+people for his great name's sake.&quot; That the Universal who has all the
+blessings of creation to bestow should deprive me of anything just
+because in my folly or weakness I have committed sins is not consistent
+with &quot;his great name's sake.&quot; It would not be causing His sun to rise on
+the wicked as well as on the good nor sending rain on those who do right
+and those who do wrong. I am too small for His immensity to crush with
+its punishments, but not too small to be the object of His entire love.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>I hope it is plain that I say this not to make little of doing wrong but
+to put the love and fulness of God in the dominating place. I must make
+it clear to myself that He does not shut me out of His heart because I
+am guilty of sins. I may shut myself out of His heart, unless I direct
+my mind rightly; but He is always there, unchanged, unchangeable, the
+ever-loving, ever-welcoming Father. Whatever I have done I can return to
+Him with the knowledge that He will take me back. Far from sure of
+myself, I can always be sure of Him.</p>
+
+<p>There are those who would warn me against saying this through fear lest
+it should be interpreted as, &quot;Don't be afraid to sin so long as you keep
+mentally close to God.&quot; I prefer to run that risk. The dread figure of
+&quot;an angry God&quot; has been so worked to terrorise men that large numbers of
+us have been terrorised. But experience shows us every day that being
+terrorised never produces the results at which it aims. It does not win
+us; it drives us away.</p>
+
+<p>Much of the alienation from God in the mind of to-day is due to
+rebellion on the part of our sense of justice. We are sinners, of
+course; but not such sinners as to merit the revenge which an outraged
+deity is described as planning against us. That the All-loving and
+All-mighty should smite us in our dearest aims or our sweetest
+affections just because we have not conformed to the lop-sided morality
+of men is revolting to our instincts. We are repulsed by the God of Fear
+when we are drawn, comforted, strengthened, and changed by Him who is
+never anything toward us but &quot;the Father.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I have no hesitation, therefore, in throwing the emphasis in what I
+have to say on the fact that He is &quot;a place to hide me in&quot;&mdash;the Ark of
+the Great Understanding&mdash;always open to my approach&mdash;into which,
+whatever I have done, I can go boldly.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="5"></a>
+<h2>Chapter V</h2>
+
+<h3>The Mind Of To-Day And The World As It Is</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>Much of what I have written will seem inconsistent with the fact that in
+the world as it is there are undeniable and inevitable hardships. True!
+I do not escape them more than any other man, the relative relief from
+fear saving me from only some of them.</p>
+
+<p>I have not meant to say that even with one's refuge in God there is
+nothing left to struggle with. My point is that whatever there may be to
+struggle with there is nothing to be afraid of. Freedom from struggle
+would profit us not at all. On the contrary, it would render us
+nerveless, flabby, flaccid, and inert.</p>
+
+<p>But fear, as a rule, being connected with our struggles, it is
+important, I think, to be as clear as we can concerning the purport of
+those struggles, and their source. We have already seen that fear is
+diminished in proportion as we understand that our trials are not
+motiveless, and perhaps this is the point at which to consider briefly
+what the motives are.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>Struggle we may define as the act of wrestling with trial, so as to come
+out of it victoriously. It is a constant element in every human life.
+Furthermore, I am inclined to think that, taking trial as an average,
+the amount which enters into one life differs little from that which
+enters into another.</p>
+
+<p>There was a time when I did not think so. Some lives struck me as
+singled out for trouble; others were left comparatively immune from it.
+One would have said that destinies had been mapped with a strange
+disregard for justice. Those who didn't deserve it suffered; those whom
+suffering might have purified went scot free. Some were rich, others
+were poor; some had high positions, others humble ones; some had the
+respect of the world from the day they were born, others crept along
+from birth to death in restriction and obscurity. The contrasts were so
+cruel that they scorched the eyes of the soul.</p>
+
+<p>This is true, of course; and I am not saying that in the testing to
+which everyone is subjected all have an equal share of the opportunities
+for triumphing. I am speaking for the moment only of the degree to which
+the testing comes. As to that, I am inclined to feel that there is
+little to choose between one life and another, since each of us seems to
+be tried for all that he can bear.</p>
+
+<p>One is impressed with that in one's reading of biography. Only the lives
+of what we may call the favoured few get into print, and of those few it
+is chiefly the external events that are given us. Glimpses of the inner
+experience may be obtained from time to time, but they are rarely more
+than glimpses. Of what the man or the woman has endured in the secret
+fastnesses of the inner life practically nothing can be told. And yet
+even with the little that finds its way into words how much there is of
+desperate fighting. To this there is never an exception. The great
+statesman, the great poet, the great priest, the great scientist, the
+great explorer, the great painter, the great novelist&mdash;not one but
+suffers as anyone suffers, and of not one would the reader, as a rule,
+put himself in the place.</p>
+
+<p>I bring up this fact because we so often feel that the other man has an
+easier task than ourselves. The very thing I lack is that with which he
+is blessed. I see him smiling and debonair at the minute when I am in a
+ferment. While I hardly know how to make both ends meet he is building a
+big house or buying a new motor-car. While I am burying hope or love he
+is in the full enjoyment of all that makes for happiness and prosperity.</p>
+
+<p>We are always prone to contrast our darker minutes with our friends'
+brighter ones. We forget, or perhaps we never know, that they do the
+same with us. At times we are as much the object of their envy as they
+ever are of ours.</p>
+
+<p>I say this not on the principle that misery loves company, but in order
+to do away with the heathen suspicion lingering in many minds that God
+singles <i>me</i> out for trial, heaping benefits on others who deserve them
+no more than I do.</p>
+
+<p>God singles no one out for trial. When trials come they spring, as
+nearly as I can observe, from one or all of the three following sources.
+There are:</p>
+
+<p>A. The trials which come from a world of matter;</p>
+
+<p>B. The trials which come from a world of men;</p>
+
+<p>C. The trials we bring on ourselves.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>A. The minute we speak of matter we speak of a medium which the mind of
+to-day is just beginning to understand. The mind of other days did not
+understand it at all. Few phases of modern advance seem to me more
+significant of a closer approach to the understanding of spiritual
+things than that which has been made along these lines.</p>
+
+<p>To all the generations before our own matter was a sheer and positive
+density. Its hardness, solidity, and actuality could not be gainsaid.
+Earth was earth; iron was iron; wood was wood. Blood was blood; flesh
+was flesh; bone was bone. A man was a material being attached to a
+material planet, as a sponge is attached to the bottom of the sea. All
+that he touched and ate and wore and used was of the same material
+Absolute. As to the spiritual there could be a question; as to the
+material there could be none. The speculation of occasional
+philosophers, that matter might not after all be more than a mental
+phenomenon, was invariably hooted down. &quot;I know that matter is matter by
+standing on it,&quot; are in substance the words attributed to even so
+spiritually-minded a man as the great Dr. Johnson. On this point, as
+perhaps on some others, he may be taken as a spokesman for the Caucasian
+portion of our race.</p>
+
+<p>And now comes modern physical science reducing matter to a tenuousness
+only one remove from the purely spiritual, if it is as much as that.
+Gone is the mass of the mountains, the stoniness of rocks, the hard
+solidity of iron. The human body, as someone puts it, is no more than a
+few pails of water and a handful of ash. Ash and water are alike
+dissipated into gases, and gases into elements more subtle still.
+Keeping strictly to the material modern science has reached the confines
+of materiality. Where it will lead us next no man knows.</p>
+
+<p>But the inference is not unfair that the world of matter is to a
+considerable degree, and perhaps altogether, a world of man's own
+creation. That is to say, while God is doing one thing with it, the
+human mind understands another. For the human point of view to develop
+and develop and develop till it becomes identical with God's is perhaps
+the whole purpose of existence.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>To me personally it was no small help in overcoming fear when I saw the
+purpose of existence as expressed in the single word, Growth. That, at
+least, is a legitimate inference to draw from the history of life on
+this planet. Assuming that the universe contains an intelligible design
+of any sort, and that life on this planet is part of it, a vast
+development going on eternally toward complete understanding of Infinite
+Right and Happiness would give us some explanation of the mystery of our
+being here. Beginning, for reasons at which we can only guess, far away
+from that understanding, we are forever approaching it, with forever the
+joy of something new to master or to learn. New perceptions, new
+comprehensions, new insights gained, new victories, even little
+victories, won, constitute, I think, our treasures laid up in that
+heaven where neither moth nor wear-and-tear destroys, and where thieves
+do not break in and steal. Where this treasure is, there, naturally
+enough, our hearts will be also. Looking back over the ages since the
+life-principle first glided into our planet waters&mdash;how it did so is as
+yet part of our unsolved mystery&mdash;what we chiefly see is a great
+surging of the living thing upward and upward toward that Highest
+Universal to which we give the name of God.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>That is a point which we do not sufficiently seize&mdash;that God is not
+revealed to us by one avenue of truth alone, but by all the avenues of
+truth working together. With our tendency to keep the Universal in a
+special compartment of life we see Him as making Himself known through a
+line of teachers culminating in a Church or a complex of churches; and
+we rarely think of Him as making Himself known in any other way. To
+change the figure, He trickles to us like a brook instead of bathing us
+round and round like light or air.</p>
+
+<p>But all good things must express the Universal; and all discovery of
+truth, whether by religion, science, philosophy, or imaginative art,
+must be discovery in God. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the
+Mount are discoveries in God, but so are the advances in knowledge made
+by Plato, Aristotle, Roger Bacon, and Thomas Edison. He shows Himself
+through Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, and St. Paul, but also through Homer,
+Shakespeare, Michael Angelo, Beethoven, Darwin, George Eliot, William
+James, and Henry Irving. I take the names at random as illustrating
+different branches of endeavour, and if I use only great ones it is not
+that the lesser are excluded. No one department of human effort is
+specially His, or is His special expression. The Church cannot be so
+more than the stage, or music more than philosophy. His Holy Spirit can
+be no more outpoured on the bishop or the elder for his work than on the
+inventor or the scientist for his work. I say so not to minimise the
+outpouring on the bishop or the elder, but to magnify that on everyone
+working for progress. This, I take it, is what St. John means when he
+says, &quot;God does not give the Spirit with limitations.&quot; He who always
+gives all to all His children cannot give more.</p>
+
+<p>When our Lord restores sight to a blind man, or Peter and John cause a
+lame man to walk, we see manifestations of God; but we see equal
+manifestations of God when one man gives us the telephone, another the
+motor-car, and another wireless telegraphy. Whatever declares His power
+declares Him; and whatever declares Him is a means by which we press
+upward to the perception of His loving almightiness. The advance may be
+irregular but it is advance; and all advance is advance toward Him.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>That is to say, we are rising above a conception of life in which matter
+is our master; and yet we are rising above it slowly. This is my chief
+point here, because by understanding it we see why we still suffer from
+material afflictions. We have overcome some of them, but only some of
+them. It is a question of racial development. As we glance backward we
+see how much of the way we have covered; as we look round on our
+present conditions we see how much there is still to be achieved.</p>
+
+<p>To diminish fear we should have it, I think, clearly before us that the
+human race has done as yet only part of its work, and put us in
+possession of only part of the resources which will one day belong to
+us. If we could compare ourselves with our ancestors in the days, let us
+say, of Christopher Columbus or William the Conqueror we should seem in
+relation to them like children of a higher phase of creation. If we
+could compare ourselves with our descendants of five hundred or a
+thousand years hence we should probably be amazed at our present
+futility and grossness. Our ancestors in the Middle Ages could do
+certain great things, as we, too, can do certain great things; but in
+general access to the Universal Storehouse which is God we have made
+progress in ways unknown to them, as our children will make such
+progress after us.</p>
+
+<p>But we have made only the progress we have made. We have its advantages,
+but there are advantages to which we have not yet attained. We might
+liken ourselves to people who have reached the fourth or fifth step of a
+stairway in which there are twenty or thirty. We have climbed to a
+certain height, but we are far from having reached the plane to which we
+are ascending.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is worth noting this for the reason that we are so likely to think of
+ourselves as the climax to which the ages have worked up, and after
+which there is no beyond. We are the final word, or as the French
+express it, the last cry, <i>le dernier cri</i>. All that can be felt we have
+felt, all that can be known we have experienced. For the most part this
+stand is taken by the intellectuals in all modern countries. In us of
+to-day, of this very hour, the wave of Eternity has broken, throwing
+nothing at our feet but froth. The literature of the past ten years is
+soaked in the pessimism of those who regret that this should be all that
+the travail of Time could produce for us.</p>
+
+<p>In view of this moan from so many of the writers who have the public
+ear, especially in Europe, it is the more important to keep before us
+the fact that we are children of a race but partially developed at best.
+Compared with what will one day be within human scope our actual reach
+is only a little beyond impotence. I say this not merely at a venture,
+but on the strength of what has happened in the past. We are not a
+people which has accomplished much, but one on the way to
+accomplishment. The achievements of which we can boast are relatively
+like those of a child of five who boasts that he can count. Our whole
+world-condition shows us to be racially incompetent, and able to produce
+no more than incompetent leaders. That is our present high-water mark,
+and with our high-water mark we must learn to be satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Escaping from matter we are still within the grasp of matter, and shall
+probably so continue for generations to come. Our struggles must
+therefore be largely with matter, till little by little we achieve its
+domination. In proportion as the individual does so now he reaps the
+reward of his victory; and in proportion as he reaps that reward fear is
+overcome. Our primary fear being fear of matter, much is gained by
+grasping the fact which modern science for the past ten or fifteen years
+has been carefully putting before us&mdash;vainly as far as most of us are
+concerned&mdash;that what we call matter is a force subject to the control of
+mind, while the directing of mind rests wholly with ourselves. Since we
+have controlled matter to make it in so many ways a hostile force, it
+ought to be within our power to turn it in our favour.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>Which is, I suppose, the trend we are following, even if we follow it
+unconsciously. For the turning of the matter in our favour we have
+fortunately some notable examples. Our race has produced one perfectly
+normal man to whom all of us sub-normals can look as the type of what we
+are one day to become.</p>
+
+<p>I think it a pity that so much of our thought of Him makes Him an
+exception to human possibilities. In speaking of Him as the Son of God
+we fancy Him as being in another category from ourselves. We forget that
+we, too, are sons of God&mdash;&quot;heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.&quot;<a href="#fn19"><sup>19</sup></a> It
+is true that He realised that Sonship to a degree which we do not; but
+it is also true that we ourselves realise it to some degree. In the
+detail of the mastery of matter to which we shall attain it is fair, I
+think, to take Him as our standard.</p>
+
+<p>Taking Him as our standard we shall work out, I venture to think, to the
+following points of progress.</p>
+
+<p>a. The control of matter in furnishing ourselves with food and drink, by
+means more direct than at present employed, as He turned water into wine
+and fed the multitudes with the loaves and fishes.</p>
+
+<p>b. The control of matter by putting away from ourselves, by methods more
+sure and less roundabout than those of to-day, sickness, blindness,
+infirmity, and deformity.</p>
+
+<p>c. The control of matter by regulating our atmospheric conditions as He
+stilled the tempest.</p>
+
+<p>d. The control of matter by restoring to this phase of existence those
+who have passed out of it before their time, or who can ill be spared
+from it, as He &quot;raised&quot; three young people from &quot;the dead&quot; and Peter and
+Paul followed His example.</p>
+
+<p>e. The control of matter in putting it off and on at will, as He in His
+death and resurrection.</p>
+
+<p>f. The control of matter in passing altogether out of it, as He in what
+we call His Ascension into Heaven.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>It will be observed that I take as historic records the statements of
+the Bible. This I do in face of the efforts of many of the clergy in a
+number of the churches to make me see in the Old Testament chiefly a
+collection of myths, and in the New a series of compilations by
+irresponsible hands, of doubtful date and authority, leaving, in the
+case of our Lord, only a substratum which can be relied on as
+biographical.</p>
+
+<p>As an instance of what I mean I quote the following: A few weeks ago I
+happened to mention to the distinguished head of one of the most
+important theological schools of one of the largest denominations in the
+country, our Lord's turning the water into wine. &quot;I've no idea that He
+ever did anything of the kind,&quot; were the words with which he dismissed
+the subject, which I did not take up again. I am not arguing here
+against his point of view. I merely state that I do not share it, and
+for these two main reasons:</p>
+
+<p>First, because the so-called Higher Criticism on which it is based is a
+purely evanescent phase of man's learning, likely to be rejected
+to-morrow by those who accept it to-day, as has been the case with other
+such phases;</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, because I feel sure that, with the mastery of matter to which
+we have already attained, the future development of our race will
+justify these seeming &quot;miracles,&quot; and make them as natural and
+commonplace as telegraphy and telephony.</p>
+
+<p>I speak only for myself when I say that the more I can feel round me the
+atmosphere of omnipotence the less I am aware of fear. It is a matter of
+course that the one should exclude the other. The sense of being myself,
+in a measure, the inheritor of omnipotence, as an heir of God and a
+co-heir with Christ, becomes, therefore, one to cultivate. This I can do
+only in proportion as I see that my Standard and Example cultivated it
+before me. In my capacity as a son of God I take as applying to myself
+the words reported by St. John: &quot;In most solemn truth I tell you that
+the Son can do nothing of Himself&mdash;He can only do what He sees the
+Father doing; for whatever He does, that the Son does in like manner.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>While sayings like these, of which there are many in the New Testament,
+apply doubtless, in the first place, to Him who best exemplifies the
+Sonship of God, they must apply, in the second place, I suppose, to all
+who exemplify that Sonship to any degree whatever. Man is the Son of
+God; and it is worth noting that He who is specially termed the Son of
+God is also specially termed the Son of Man. &quot;Dear friends,&quot; St. John
+writes, elsewhere, &quot;we are now God's children, but what we are to be in
+the future has not been fully revealed to us.&quot; I take it, therefore, as
+no presumption on my part to emphasise in my daily thought my place as a
+co-heir with Christ, feeling that not only is God's almightiness
+exercised on my behalf, but that as much of it as I know how to use is
+placed in my hands.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>This last, of course, is very little. Even that little I use doubtfully,
+timidly, tremblingly. That is the utmost reach to which present
+race-development and personal development have brought me. With regard
+to the opportunities all round me I am as if I stood beside an airship
+in which I could fly if I knew how to work its engines, which I do not.
+Other conveniences besides airships would be of no good at all to me if
+someone more skilful than I didn't come to my aid. There is probably no
+person living of whom the same is not true. Large portions of
+omnipotence are placed within hands which are too busy grasping other
+things to seize all that they could hold.</p>
+
+<p>I remember the encouragement it was to me when I understood that to hold
+anything at all was so much to the good as a starting-point. I had been
+in the habit of dwelling on the much I had missed rather than on the
+little I had apprehended. But the little I had apprehended was, after
+all, my real possession, and one I could increase. It is like the few
+dollars a man has in a savings bank. That at least is his,
+notwithstanding the millions he might have possessed if he had only
+known how to acquire them. There are many instances of a few dollars in
+the savings bank becoming the seedling of millions before the span of a
+man's life is passed.</p>
+
+<p>To be glad of what we can do while knowing it is only a portion of what
+will one day be done is to me a helpful point of view. &quot;There may be
+truth in all this,&quot; is the observation of a young lady who has scanned
+what I have written, &quot;and yet I don't believe that we shall ever conquer
+fear.&quot; That, it seems to me, is to tie chains and iron weights about
+one's feet when starting on a race. If we are to keep in the race at
+all, to say nothing of winning it, the spirit must be free. One must add
+the courage which springs from a partial knowledge of the truth to the
+patience one gets from the understanding that as yet our knowledge of
+the truth is but partial.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+
+<p>I often think that if the churches could come to this last admission it
+would be a help to themselves and to all of us. As already hinted I am
+anxious to keep away from the subject of churches through a natural
+dread of bitterness; but this much I feel at liberty to say, saying it
+as I do in deep respect for the bodies which have kept alive the glimmer
+of Divine Light in a world which would have blown it out. In a
+partially developed race the churches can have no more than a partially
+developed grasp of truth. A partially developed grasp of truth is
+much&mdash;it is pricelessly much&mdash;but it is not a knowledge of the whole
+truth. Not being a knowledge of the whole truth it should be humble,
+tolerant, and eager to expand.</p>
+
+<p>The weakness of the ecclesiastical system strikes me as lying in the
+assumption, or practical assumption, on the part of each sect that <i>it</i>
+is the sole repository of truth, and of all the truth. There is no sect
+which does not claim more than all mankind can claim. Moreover, there is
+no sect which does not make its claims exclusively, asserting not only
+that these claims are right, but that all other claims are wrong. To the
+best of my knowledge, the sect has not yet risen which would make more
+than shadowy concessions to any other sect.</p>
+
+<p>True, it must not be forgotten that no sect bases its teaching on what
+it has worked out for itself, but on the revelation made to it in Jesus
+Christ. Every sect would admit that its own view of truth might have
+been partial were it not for the fact that in Jesus Christ it has
+everything. Where the theories of men might be inadequate His immense
+knowledge comes in as supplementary.</p>
+
+<p>This might be so had He Himself undertaken to give more than a partial
+view of truth. But He says expressly that He does not. He gives what His
+hearers might be assumed to be able to assimilate; but that is all. &quot;I
+have much more to say to you, but you are unable at present to bear the
+burden of it.&quot;<a href="#fn20"><sup>20</sup></a> It being an axiom in teaching to give the pupil only
+what he can receive, this is the utmost that our Lord attempts.</p>
+
+<p>He goes on, however, to add these words, which are significant: &quot;But
+when He has come&mdash;the Spirit of Truth&mdash;He will guide you into all the
+truth.&quot;<a href="#fn21"><sup>21</sup></a> No doubt that process is even now going on, and will continue
+to go on in proportion as our race develops. We are being guided into
+all the truth, through all kinds of channels, spiritual, literary,
+scientific, philosophical. The na&iuml;ve supposition that this promise was
+kept on the Day of Pentecost, when a sudden access of knowledge
+committed all truth to the apostles and through them to the Church
+forevermore, is contradicted by the facts. The apostles had no such
+knowledge and made no claims to its possession. The Church has never had
+it, either. &quot;All truth&quot; covers much more ground than do questions of
+ecclesiastical forms of government or of the nature of the sacraments.
+&quot;All truth&quot; must go as far as the Universal goes, leaving nothing
+outside its range. &quot;All truth&quot; must surely be such self-evident truth as
+to admit of no further dissensions.</p>
+
+<p>Taking truth as a circle, the symbol of perfection, we may assume that
+our Lord disclosed a view of a very large arc in its circumference. But
+of the arc which He disclosed no one group of His followers has as yet
+perceived the whole. At the same time it is probable that each group has
+perceived some arc of that arc, and an arc perceived by no other group.
+&quot;All truth&quot; being too large for any one group to grasp, the Baptist sees
+his segment, the Catholic his, the Methodist his, the Anglican his, the
+Congregationalist his, until the vision of Christ is made up. I name
+only the groups with which we are commonly most familiar, though we
+might go through the hundreds of Christian sects and agree that each has
+its angle from which it sees what is visible from no other. Though there
+is likely to be error in all such perceptions a considerable portion of
+truth must be there, or the sect in question would not survive. It is
+safe to say that no sect comes into existence, thrives, and endures,
+unless it is to supply that which has been missed elsewhere.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+
+<p>What place is there then for intersectarian or ecclesiastical arrogance?</p>
+
+<p>The question is far from foreign to my subject. Fear is what arrogance
+feeds upon; fear is what arrogance produces; and arrogance is the
+special immorality of churches. To my mind the churches are almost
+precluded from combating fear, for the reason that arrogance is to so
+marked a degree their outstanding vice.</p>
+
+<p>The Catholic is arrogant toward the Protestant; the Protestant is
+arrogant toward the Catholic; the Anglican is arrogant to him whom he
+calls a Dissenter in England, and merely &quot;unchurches&quot; in America; the
+Unitarian is arrogant to those whom he thinks less intellectual than
+himself; those who believe in the Trinity are arrogant toward the
+Unitarian. All other Christian bodies have their own shades of
+arrogance, entirely permitted by their codes, like scorn of the weak to
+the knights of Arthur's court. An active, recognised, and mutual
+arrogance all round is the reason why it is so rare to see any two or
+three or half a dozen Christian sects work for any cause in harmony.
+Arrogance begets fear as surely and prolifically as certain of the
+rodents beget offspring.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been written during the past fifty years on the beautiful theme
+of the reunion of Christendom. Rarely does any great synod or
+convention or council meet without some scheme or some aspiration toward
+this end. Every now and then a programme is put forth, now by this body,
+now by that, with yearning and good intentions. And in every such
+programme the same grim humour is to be read behind the brotherly
+invitation. &quot;We can all unite&mdash;if others will think as we do.&quot; Is it any
+wonder that nothing ever comes of these efforts? And yet, I am
+persuaded, a day will dawn when something will.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>&quot;When he has come&mdash;the Spirit of Truth&mdash;he will guide you into all the
+truth.&quot; That will be in the course of our race-development. As step is
+added to step, as milestone is passed after milestone, as we see more
+clearly what counts and what doesn't count, as we outgrow childishness,
+as we come more nearly to what St. Paul calls &quot;mature manhood, the
+stature of full-grown men in Christ,&quot;<a href="#fn22"><sup>22</sup></a> we shall do many things that
+now seem impossible. Among them I think we shall view intersectarian
+arrogance as a mark of enfeebled intelligence. There will come an era of
+ecclesiastical climbing down. We shall see more distinctly our own
+segment of the arc which our Lord has revealed, and because of that we
+shall know that another man sees what we have missed. The Methodist will
+then acknowledge that he has much to learn from the Catholic; the
+Catholic will know the same of the Baptist; the Anglican of the
+Presbyterian; the Unitarian of the Anglican; and a co-operative universe
+be reflected in a co-operative Church. Each will lose something of his
+present cocksureness and exclusiveness. God will be seen as too big for
+any sect, while all the sects together will sink out of sight in God.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime we are only working toward that end, but toward it we
+are working. Every man who believes in a church is doing something to
+bring that end about when he gives a kindly thought to any other church.
+I say this the more sincerely owing to the fact that I myself am
+naturally bigoted, and such kindly thought does not come to me easily.
+There are sects I dislike so much that my eyes jump from the very
+paragraphs in the newspapers which mention them. And yet when I curb
+myself, when I force myself to read them, when I force myself to read
+them sympathetically and with a good wish in my heart, my mental
+atmosphere grows wider and I am in a stronger, surer, steadier, and more
+fearless world.</p>
+
+<p>Much criticism has been levelled at the Church within the past few
+years; but it should be remembered that the Church no more than
+government, no more than business, no more than education, can be ahead
+of the only partially developed race of which she is one of the
+expressions. She is not yet out of the world of matter, though she is
+emerging. In proportion as her concepts, hopes, and aims remain material
+she will be as incompetent as any other body with the same handicaps and
+limitations. In proportion as she learns to &quot;overthrow arrogant
+reckonings and every stronghold that towers high in defiance of the
+knowledge of God,&quot;<a href="#fn23"><sup>23</sup></a> she will become the leader of the world, and our
+great deliverer from fear.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIV</h3>
+
+
+<p>B. Of the trials brought upon us by a world of men perhaps our chief
+resentment springs from their unreasonableness. They are not necessary;
+they might be avoided; at their worst they could be tempered. For this
+reason, too, they take us by surprise. Those who bring them on us seem
+captious, thoughtless, cruel. When they could so easily offer us a
+helping hand they obstruct us for the mere sport of doing so. People
+toward whom we have never had an unkindly thought will often go out of
+their way to do us a bad turn.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not enlarge on this, since most of us are in a position to
+enlarge on it for ourselves. There is scarcely an individual for whom
+the way, hard enough at any time, has not been made harder by the barbed
+wire entanglements which other people throw across his path. Almost
+anything we plan we plan in the teeth of someone's opposition; almost
+anything with which we try to associate ourselves is fraught with
+discords and irritations that often inspire disgust. The worlds in which
+co-operation is essential, from that of governmental politics to that of
+offices and homes, are centres of animosities and suspicions, and
+therefore breeding-grounds of fear.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose most grown-up people can recall the wounded amazement with
+which they first found themselves attacked by someone to whom they were
+not conscious of ever having given cause. Some are sensitive to this
+sort of thing; some grow callous to it; some are indifferent; and some
+are said to enjoy it. In the main I think we are sensitive and remain
+sensitive. I have been told by a relative of one of the three or four
+greatest living writers of English that the unfavourable comment of a
+child would affect him so that he would be depressed for hours.
+Statesmen and politicians, I understand, suffer far more deeply in the
+inner self than the outer self ever gives a sign of. The fact that our
+own weakness or folly or recklessness or wrong-doing lays us open to a
+blow is not much consolation when it falls.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XV</h3>
+
+
+<p>For myself all this became more tolerable when I had fully grasped the
+fact that we are still to a considerable degree a race of savages. From
+savages one cannot expect too much, not even from oneself. We have
+advanced beyond the stage at which one naturally attacked a stranger
+simply because he was a stranger, but we have not advanced very far. The
+instinct to do one another harm is still strong in us. We do one another
+harm when it would be just as easy, perhaps easier, to do one another
+good. Just as the Ashanti hiding in the bush will hurl his assegai at a
+passer-by for no other reason than that he is passing, so our love of
+doing harm will spit itself out on people just because we know
+their names.</p>
+
+<p>Personally I find myself often doing it. I could on the spur of the
+moment write as many as twenty names of people of whom I am accustomed
+to speak ill without really knowing much about them. I make it an excuse
+that they are in the public eye, that I don't like their politics, or
+their social opinions, or their literary output, or the things they do
+on the stage. Anything will serve so long as it gives me the opportunity
+to hurl my assegai as I see them pass. One does it instinctively,
+viciously, because like other semi-savages one is undeveloped mentally,
+and it is to be expected.</p>
+
+<p>By expecting it from others half our resentment is forestalled. Knowing
+that from a race such as ours we shall not get anything else we learn to
+take it philosophically. If I hurl my assegai at another, another hurls
+his assegai at me, and in a measure we are quits. Even if, trying to
+rise above my inborn savagery, I withhold my assegai, it is no sign that
+another will withhold his, and I may be wounded even in the effort to do
+my best. Very well; that, too, is to be expected and must be
+taken manfully.</p>
+
+<p>The learning to take it manfully is what as individuals we get out of
+it. For the most part we are soft at heart, soft, I mean, not in the
+sense of being tender, but in that of being flabby.</p>
+
+<p>On myself this was borne in less than a year ago. I had for some months
+been working hard at a picture-play which when put before the public was
+largely misunderstood. While some of the papers praised it others
+criticised it severely, but whether they praised or blamed I was seen as
+&quot;teaching a lesson,&quot; a presumption from which I shrink. It is not that
+there is any harm in teaching a lesson if a man is qualified, but I no
+longer consider myself qualified. Sharing ideas is one thing, and the
+highest pleasure of the reason; but the assumption that because you
+suggest an idea you seek to convert is quite another thing. If I failed
+to make it plain that in this present book I was merely offering ideas
+for inspection, and in the hope of getting others in return, I should
+put it in the fire.</p>
+
+<p>My picture-play once handed over to the public I experienced an intense
+reaction of depression. To figure through the country, wherever there
+are screens, as &quot;teaching a lesson&quot; seemed more than I could bear. It
+<i>was</i> more than I could bear, till it flashed on me that I couldn't bear
+it merely because I was inwardly flabby. I was not taking the experience
+manfully. I was not standing up to it, nor getting from it that
+toughening of the inner fibre which it had to yield. As usual in my
+case, owing to an acquaintance with the Bible imparted to me in
+childhood, a suggestion from the Bible was that which righted me again
+toward cheerfulness. It came, as such things always do, without any
+seeking, or other operation beyond that of the subconscious self.</p>
+
+<p align="center"><i>Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.</i><a href="#fn24"><sup>24</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It was exactly what I needed to do&mdash;to endure hardness&mdash;to take it&mdash;to
+bear it&mdash;to be more of a man for it. Moreover, the idea was a new
+suggestion. I had not understood before that to the conquest of fear the
+hardening of the inner man is an auxiliary. My object had been to ward
+off fear so that it shouldn't touch me; but to let it strike and rebound
+because it could make no impact was an enlarging of the principle.
+Viewing the experience as a strengthening process enabled me not only to
+go through it but to do so with serenity.</p>
+
+<p>This, I imagine, is the main thing we are to get out of the struggle
+brought on us through living in a world of men such as men are to-day.
+It is a pity they are not better, but being no better than they are we
+can get that much from the fact&mdash;the inner hardening. When, justly or
+unjustly, others attack or hurt or worry or anger or annoy me, the
+knowledge that through the very trial I am toughening within, where so
+often I am without moral muscle, can be a perceptible support.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVI</h3>
+
+
+<p>C. Of the two main trials we bring on ourselves I suppose it would be
+only right to put sickness first.</p>
+
+<p>Under sickness I include everything that makes for age, decay, and the
+conditions commonly classed as &quot;breaking up.&quot; It is becoming more and
+more recognised, I think, that physical collapse has generally behind it
+a mental cause, or a long series of mental causes too subtle for
+tabulation.</p>
+
+<p>I shall not dwell on this, for the reason that during the past fifty
+years so much has been written on the subject. A number of movements for
+human betterment have kept the whole idea in the forefront of the public
+mind. It is an idea only partially accepted as yet, arousing as much
+opposition among the conservative as hope on the part of the
+progressive. Since, however, science and religion are both, in their
+different ways, working on it together, some principle which can no
+longer be questioned is likely to be worked out within the next few
+generations.</p>
+
+<p>All I shall attempt to do now is to re-state what seems to me the
+fact&mdash;stated by others with knowledge and authority&mdash;that God, rightly
+understood, is the cure of disease and not the cause of it. There is
+something repugnant in the thought of Universal Intelligence
+propagating harmful bacteria, and selecting the crises at which we shall
+succumb to their effects. The belief that God sends sickness upon us
+amounts to neither less nor more than that. The bacilli which we try to
+destroy He uses His almighty power to cultivate, so that even our
+efforts to protect ourselves become defiances of His Will.</p>
+
+<p>Surely the following incident, which gives our Lord's attitude toward
+disease, affords a reasonable basis for our own.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Once He was teaching on the Sabbath in one of the synagogues where a
+woman was present who for eighteen years had been a confirmed invalid;
+she was bent double, and was unable to lift herself to her full height.
+But Jesus saw her, and calling to her, He said to her, 'Woman, you are
+free from your weakness.' And He put His hands on her, and she
+immediately stood upright and began to give glory to God. Then the
+Warden of the Synagogue, indignant that Jesus had cured her on the
+Sabbath day, said to the crowd, 'There are six days in the week on
+which people ought to work. On those days therefore come and get
+yourselves cured, and not on the Sabbath day.' But the Lord's reply to
+him was, 'Hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath day untie his
+bullock or his ass from the stall and lead him to water? And this woman,
+daughter of Abraham as she is, <i>whom Satan had bound</i> for no less than
+eighteen years, was she not to be loosed from this chain because it is
+the Sabbath day?' When He had said this all His opponents were ashamed,
+while the whole multitude was delighted at the many glorious things
+continually done by Him.&quot;<a href="#fn25"><sup>25</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>It was not God, in His opinion, who had afflicted this woman; it was
+Satan, the personification of all evil. But in order that such
+references should not be misunderstood He had said of Satan, only a
+short time before, &quot;I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.&quot;<a href="#fn26"><sup>26</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>Heaven, I take it, is creation as its Creator sees it. &quot;God saw
+everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.&quot;<a href="#fn27"><sup>27</sup></a> And from
+this creation, with the rapidity of the quickest thing we know anything
+about, a flash of lightning, our Lord saw the personification of evil
+blotted out. What thought had formed thought could destroy. The spectre
+which misunderstanding of God had raised in a life in which everything
+was <i>very good</i> became nothing at the instant when God was understood.</p>
+
+<p>The occasion of His speaking the words I have quoted is worth noting as
+bearing on the subject.</p>
+
+<p>A little earlier He had sent out seventy of His disciples to be the
+heralds of the Kingdom. &quot;Cure the sick in that town, and tell them the
+Kingdom of God is now at your door.&quot;<a href="#fn28"><sup>28</sup></a> By this time the seventy had
+returned, exclaiming joyfully, &quot;Master, even the demons submit to us
+when we utter your name.&quot;<a href="#fn29"><sup>29</sup></a> It was apparently the use of this word
+<i>demons</i> which called forth from Him that explanation, &quot;I beheld Satan
+as lightning fall from heaven.&quot; In other words, Satan is the creation of
+wrong thought; the demons are the creations of wrong thought. Where the
+Universal Good is all there can be no place for evil or evil spirits.
+Banish the concept and you banish the thing. The action is as quick as
+thought, and thought is as quick as lightning. &quot;I have given you power,&quot;
+He goes on to add, &quot;to tread serpents and scorpions underfoot, and to
+trample on all the power of the Enemy; and in no case shall anything do
+you harm.&quot;<a href="#fn30"><sup>30</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>This was no special gift bestowed on them and only on them. God has
+never, as far as we can see, dealt in special and temporary gifts. He
+helps us to see those we possess already. What our Lord seems anxious to
+make clear is the power over evil with which the human being is always
+endowed. It is probably to be one of our great future discoveries that
+in no case shall anything do us harm. As yet we scarcely believe it.
+Only an individual here and there sees that freedom and domination must
+belong to us. But, if I read the signs of the times aright, the rest of
+us are slowly coming to the same conclusion. We are less scornful of
+spiritual power than we were even a few years ago. The cocksure
+scientific which in its time was not a whit less arrogant than the
+cocksure ecclesiastical is giving place to a consciousness that man is
+the master of many things of which he was once supposed to be the slave.
+In proportion as the wiser among us are able to corroborate that which
+we simpler ones feel by a sixth or seventh sense, a long step will be
+taken toward the immunity from suffering which our Lord knew to be
+ideally our inheritance.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVII</h3>
+
+
+<p>Sickness, age, decay, with all the horrors with which we invest our exit
+from this phase of existence, I take to be a misreading of God's
+intentions. We shall learn to read better by and by, and have already
+begun to do so. To this beginning I attribute the improvement which in
+one way or another has taken place in our general health&mdash;an
+improvement in which science and religion have worked together, often
+without perceiving the association&mdash;and in the prolonging of youth which
+in countries like the British Empire and the United States is, within
+thirty or forty years, to be noted easily.</p>
+
+<p>Misreading of God's intentions I might compare to that misreading of his
+parent's intentions which goes on in the mind of every child of six or
+seven. He sees the happenings in the household, but sees them in a light
+of his own. Years afterwards, when their real significance comes to him,
+he smiles at his childish distortions of the obvious.</p>
+
+<p>In comparison with what St. Paul calls &quot;mature manhood, the stature of
+full-grown men in Christ,&quot; our present rating might be that of a child
+of this age. It is no higher. Misreading is all that we are equal to,
+but it is something to be able to misread. It is a step on the way to
+reading correctly. Though our impulse to learn works feebly it works
+restlessly; and a day will surely come when we shall be able to
+interpret God aright.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>Next to sickness I should place poverty as the second of the two great
+trials we bring upon ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>Under poverty I class all sense of restriction, limitation, and material
+helplessness. As the subject will be taken up more in detail elsewhere I
+wish for the minute to say no more than this: that, in an existence of
+which Growth seems to be the purpose, God could not intend that any of
+us should be without full power of expansion.</p>
+
+<p>What we are worth to him we must be worth as individuals; and what we
+are worth as individuals must depend on the peculiar combination of
+qualities which goes to make up each one of us. <i>I</i>, poor creature that
+I sometimes seem to others and always to myself, am so composed that God
+never before had anything exactly like me in the whole round of His
+creation. My value lies in a special blend of potentialities. Of the
+billions and trillions of human beings who have passed across this
+planet not one could ever have done what I can do, or have filled my
+place toward God and His designs.</p>
+
+<p>Among the billions and trillions I may seem trivial&mdash;to men. I may even
+seem trivial to myself. To such numbers as these I can add so little
+when I come, and take away so little from them when I go, that I am not
+worth counting. Quite so&mdash;to all human reckoning. But my value is not my
+value to men; it is not even my value to myself; it is my value to God.
+He alone knows my use, and the peculiar beauty I bring to the ages in
+making my contribution. It is no presumptuous thing to say that He could
+no more spare me than any other father of a normal and loving family
+could spare one of the children of his flesh and blood.</p>
+
+<p>Now, my value to God is my first reckoning. We commonly make it the
+last, if we ever make it at all; but it is the first and the ruling one.</p>
+
+<p>What I am to my family, my country, myself, is all secondary. They
+determine only the secondary results. The first results come from my
+first relationship, and my first relationship is to God. As the child of
+my parents, as a citizen of my country, as a denizen of this planet, my
+place is a temporary one. As the son of God I am from everlasting to
+everlasting, a splendid being with the universe as my home.</p>
+
+<p>Now this, it seems to me, is my point of departure for the estimate of
+my possible resources. I cannot expect less of the good things of the
+universe than God would naturally bestow on His son. To expect less is
+to get less, since it is to dwarf my own power of receiving. If I close
+the opening through which abundance flows it cannot be strange if I shut
+abundance out.</p>
+
+<p>And that is precisely what we find throughout the human race, millions
+upon millions of lives tightly shut against His generosity. The most
+generous treatment for which the majority of us look is man's. The only
+standard by which the majority of us appraise our work is man's. You
+have a job; you get your twenty or thirty or fifty or a hundred dollars
+a week for it; and by those dollars you judge your earning capacity and
+allow it to be judged. You hardly ever pause to remember that there is
+an estimate of earning capacity which measures industry and good will
+and integrity and devotion, and puts them above all tricks of trade <i>and
+rewards them</i>&mdash;rewards them, I mean, not merely in mystical blessings in
+eons far off, possibly the highest blessings we shall ever know, but
+rewards them in a way that will satisfy you now.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;He satisfieth the empty soul,&quot; writes the psalmist, in one of the
+sublimest lyrics ever penned, &quot;and filleth the hungry soul with
+goodness.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Yes, of course,&quot; says the Caucasian. &quot;When you have crushed out all
+your present cravings and forgotten them, He will give you joys of which
+now you have no conception.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But are not my present cravings those which count for me? and do they
+not make up precisely that character which renders me unique? True, my
+longings now may have to the longings I shall one day entertain only the
+relation of your little boy's craving for an alphabetic picture-book to
+the course in philosophy he will take when he is twenty-five; but so
+long as the picture-book is the thing he can appreciate you give it to
+him. Is not this common sense? And can we expect the Father of us all to
+act in other than common-sense ways?</p>
+
+<p>It is because we do so expect&mdash;because we do so almost universally&mdash;that
+we have blocked the channels of His blessings. The world is crowded with
+men and women working their fingers to the bone, and even so just
+squeaking along betwixt life and death and dragging their children after
+them. They are the great problem of mankind; they rend the heart with
+pity. They rend the heart with pity all the more for the reason that
+there is no sense in their poverty. There is no need of it. God never
+willed it, and what God never willed can go out of life with the speed
+of Satan out of Heaven. We have only to fulfil certain conditions,
+certain conditions quite <i>easy</i> to fulfil, to find the stores of the
+Universal laid as a matter of course at the feet of the sons of God.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts,&quot; are the striking words
+of the prophet Malachi, &quot;if I will not open you the windows of heaven
+and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to
+receive it.... And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a
+delightsome land,&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIX</h3>
+
+
+<p>But it is the old story: we do not believe it. It is too good to be
+true, so we put it away from us. In a world where the material is so
+pressing we use only material measures, and bow only to material force.</p>
+
+<p>So be it! That is apparently as far as our race-development takes us. It
+takes us into suffering, but not out of it. Individuals have come into
+it and worked their way out again; but most of us can go no faster than
+the crowd. In that case we must suffer. In a terrible crisis in his
+history, and after many sins, David was able to write these words: &quot;I
+sought the Lord ... and He delivered me out of all my fears.&quot; It is the
+royal avenue, and it is open to anyone. And yet if we do not take it, it
+still does not follow that all is lost.</p>
+
+<p>Of the world as it is the outstanding fact is the necessity for
+struggle. Struggle may conceivably enter into every other world. There
+is something in us which requires it, which craves for it. A static
+heaven in which all is won and there is nothing forevermore but to enjoy
+has never made much appeal to us. If eternal life means eternal growth
+we shall always have something with which to strive, since growth means
+overcoming.</p>
+
+<p>While sorry, then, that we have not released ourselves to a greater
+degree than we have, we may take heart of grace from what we have
+achieved. We must simply struggle on. Struggle will continue to make and
+shape us. Whether our problems spring from a world of matter, from a
+world of men, or from ourselves, their solving brings us a fuller grasp
+of truth. The progress may be slow but it is progress. Hardship by
+hardship, task by task, failure by failure, conquest by conquest, we
+pull ourselves up a little higher in the scale. Some day we shall see in
+the Universal all that we have been looking for, and be delivered out of
+all our fears.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="6"></a>
+<h2>Chapter VI</h2>
+
+<h3>The World As It Is And The False God Of Fear</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of all fears the most dogging and haunting are those connected with
+money. Everyone knows them, even the rich. For many years I was their
+victim, and will now try to tell how I got rid of them so effectively
+that I may call it entirely.</p>
+
+<p>Having a good many responsibilities I lived in terror of not being able
+to keep pace with their demands. The dread was like a malign invisible
+presence, never leaving me. With much in the way of travel, friendship,
+and variety of experience, which I could have enjoyed, the evil thing
+was forever at my side. &quot;This is all very well,&quot; it would whisper in
+moments of pleasure, &quot;but it will be over in an hour or two, and then
+you'll be alone with me as before.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I can recall minutes when the delight in landscape, or art, or social
+intercourse, became alien to me, something to be thrust away. Once in
+driving through rich, lush, storied Warwickshire on the way to
+Stratford-on-Avon&mdash;once in a great Parisian restaurant where the
+refinement, brilliancy, and luxury of the world seemed crushed into
+epitome&mdash;once at a stupendous performance of <i>G&ouml;tterd&auml;mmerung</i> at
+Munich&mdash;once while standing on the shores of a lovely New Hampshire lake
+looking up at a mountain round which, as Emerson says, the Spirit of
+Mystery hovers and broods&mdash;but these are only remembered high points of
+a constant dread of not being able to meet my needs and undertakings.
+There used to be an hour in the very early morning&mdash;&quot;the coward hour
+before the dawn,&quot; it is called by a poet-friend of my own&mdash;when I was in
+the habit of waking, only to hear the sleepless thing saying, as my
+senses struggled back into play, &quot;My God, can you be sleeping
+peacefully, with possible ruin just ahead of you?&quot; After that further
+sleep would become impossible for an hour or two, such wakings
+occurring, in periods of stress, as often as two and three times a week.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>It was the spiritually minded man whom I have already quoted as giving
+me the three great points as to God's direction who first helped me to
+see that, on the part of anyone working hard and trying on the whole to
+do right, the fear of being left without means amounts in effect to
+denial of God. Thinking this over for myself during the course of some
+years, this fear has come to seem to me of the nature of blasphemy. It
+is like the &quot;Curse God and die,&quot; of the wife of Job. I shall not
+hesitate to speak strongly on the subject, because so few are speaking
+on it strongly&mdash;while the urgency is pressing.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have already said that it does not seem reasonable that the Father
+should put us into His universe to expand, and then deny us the power
+of expanding. The power of expanding is not wrapped up in money, but in
+the world as it is the independence of the one of the other is not very
+great. &quot;One of the hardest things I ever had to do,&quot; a mother said to
+me, not long ago, &quot;was to tell my little girl that her father and I
+could not afford to send her to college.&quot; That is what I mean. To most
+of us &quot;expanding&quot; and &quot;affording&quot; amount to the same thing.</p>
+
+<p>True, there are natures which transcend the limitations of &quot;affording,&quot;
+and by innate strength do what others resign themselves to not doing.
+For instance, there are men and women who &quot;put themselves&quot; through
+college, doing similar things which bring out the best in their
+characters. These are the exceptions; and they are the exceptions
+precisely for the reason that, whether they know it or not, they are
+nearer than their fellows to the divine working principle. It is not
+necessary for us to be conscious of that principle in order to get much
+of its result, though consciousness enables us to get more of it. The
+strong are strong because of harmony with God, at least to some extent.
+They may misuse their strength, as we can misuse anything; but the mere
+fact of possessing it shows a certain degree of touch with the
+Universal. But I am speaking chiefly of the weak, of those who think
+first of all in terms of restriction rather than in those of privilege
+to come and go and be and do.</p>
+
+<p>I repeat that though this privilege is not dependent on money, money
+expresses it to the average mind.</p>
+
+<p>And what is money after all? It is only a counter for what we call
+goods. Goods is the word with which, according to our Anglo-Saxon genius
+for the right phrase, we sum up the good things with which the Father
+blesses His children. The root connection between good, goods, and God
+is worth everyone's attention, A hundred dollars is simply a standard of
+measurement for so much of God's good things. A thousand dollars
+represents so much more; a million dollars so much more again. But it is
+important to note that this is not God's standard of measurement; it is
+man's, and adopted only for man's convenience.</p>
+
+<p>As for God's standard of measurement it is inconceivable that the
+Universal Father should give to one of His children far more of His
+&quot;goods&quot; than he can use, while denying to another that which he is in
+absolute need of. The Universal Father could surely not do otherwise
+than bless all alike. With His command of resources He must bless all
+alike, not by depriving anyone, but by enriching everyone. If everyone
+does not enjoy plenty it must be because of the bringing in of some
+principle of distribution which could never have been His.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>The right and the wrong principles of distribution are indirectly placed
+before us by our Lord in one of the most beautiful passages which ever
+fell from human lips. Familiar as it is, I venture to quote it at
+length, for the reason that the modern translation makes some of the
+points clearer than they are in the King James version which most of us
+know best.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;No man can be the bondservant of two masters; for either he will
+dislike one and like the other, or he will attach himself to one and
+think slightingly of the other. You cannot be the bondservants both of
+God and of gold. For this reason I charge you not to be over-anxious
+about your lives, inquiring what you are to eat or what you are to
+drink, nor yet about your bodies, inquiring what clothes you are to put
+on. Is not the life more precious than its food, and the body than its
+clothing? Look at the birds which fly in the air; they do not sow or
+reap or store up in barns, but your Heavenly Father feeds them; are you
+not of much greater value than they? Which of you by being over-anxious
+can add a single foot to his height? And why be anxious about clothing?
+Learn a lesson of the wild lilies. Watch their growth. They neither toil
+nor spin, and yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his
+magnificence could array himself like one of these. And yet if God so
+clothes the wild herbage which to-day flourishes and to-morrow is cast
+into the oven, is it not much more certain that he will clothe you, you
+men of little faith? Do not even begin to be anxious, therefore, saying,
+'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'
+For all these are questions that Gentiles are always asking; but your
+Heavenly Father knows that you need these things&mdash;all of them. But make
+His Kingdom and righteousness your chief aim, and then these things
+shall be given you in addition. Do not be over-anxious, therefore, about
+to-morrow, for to-morrow will bring its own cares. Enough for each day
+are its own troubles.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>In this passage there are two points, each of which may merit a few
+words as a means of eliminating fear.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>The first point is the reference to what we are to make our &quot;chief
+aim&quot;&mdash;the Kingdom of God and righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>I feel sure we generally miss the force of these words through our
+Caucasian sanctimoniousness. We can think of God's Kingdom and
+righteousness only in the light of the pietistic. The minute they are
+mentioned we strike what I have already called our artificial pose, our
+funereal frame of mind. I am not flippant when I say that in the mind of
+the Caucasian the first step toward seeking the Kingdom of God and
+righteousness is in pulling a long face. We can hardly think of
+righteousness except as dressed in our Sunday clothes, and looking and
+feeling wobegone. To most of us the seeking of righteousness suggests at
+once an increase in attending church services, or going to
+prayer-meetings, or making missionary efforts&mdash;excellent practices in
+themselves&mdash;according to the form of pietism we are most familiar with.
+Those of us who have no form of pietism feel cut off from making the
+attempt at all.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, to be simple!&mdash;to be natural!&mdash;to be spontaneous!&mdash;to be free from
+the concept of a God shut up within the four walls of a building and
+whose chief interests are the sermon and the number of parishioners!
+The Kingdom of God is the Universal Kingdom, including everyone and
+everything&mdash;all interests, all commerce, all government, all invention,
+all art, all amusement, all the staid pursuits of the old and all the
+ardour of the young, all sport, all laughter, all that makes for
+gladness. It is the Kingdom of the bird and the flower and the horse and
+the motor-car and the motion-picture house and the office and the
+theatre and the ballroom and the school and the college and everything
+else that man has evolved for himself. He has evolved these things
+wrongly because nine times out of ten he has seen them as outside God's
+Kingdom, instead as being God's own undertakings because they are ours.
+All that we have to do to seek His Kingdom is to do what we are doing
+every day, with energy and fun, but to do it knowing we are His agents
+and co-workers. As a matter of fact, most of us are, to some extent,
+doing that already, getting food, shelter, clothing, and all other
+necessary things as our reward. What we do not get is relief from fear,
+because we do not understand that fear above all things is what He
+would take away from us.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>The second point is a curious one, and all the more emphatic for being
+curious. Our Lord invents a false god. He names the false god of fear,
+who was never named before. Mammon is the word which the modern
+translator gives as gold. As Mammon it is translated in the Authorised
+Version, whence we get the familiar phrase, &quot;Ye cannot serve God
+and Mammon.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>But Mammon was never the name of an idol or other form of false deity.
+The word, which is Syriac, means money. Our Lord, apparently, made it
+the name of a false god in order to set before us, and make vivid to us,
+a false principle.</p>
+
+<p>That false principle is in the belief that the material essentials for
+living and expanding are dependent on man's economic laws.</p>
+
+<p>This is a point of vast importance to the individual who desires to
+strike out beyond the crowd, not only getting what he needs, but
+ridding himself of fear.</p>
+
+<p>The law of supply and demand is the most practical which the human race
+in its present stage has been able to evolve. That it is not an ideal
+law is obvious. There are ways in which it works, and ways in which it
+does not. When the Christians began to act for themselves they
+established a community of goods, such as had obtained among the little
+band who gathered round our Lord. Almost at once it was given up,
+presumably as being too advanced for the existing world of men. I
+suppose we might say the same of the various systems of Socialism and
+Communism urged on us at the present day. However good they may be, we
+are not ready to put them into practice. That, I judge&mdash;without
+positively knowing&mdash;is the reason why certain great Christian bodies
+oppose both. These bodies, I assume, are not hostile to equal
+distribution in itself, but only to equal distribution before men are
+developed to a stage at which it would be wise.</p>
+
+<p>But my point is independent of all men's theories, and rests simply on
+the fact that, whatever the law of man, God is not bound by it.</p>
+
+<p>If we can believe the Old and New Testaments&mdash;which, of course, some of
+us do not&mdash;He has shown on many, many occasions that He is far from
+being bound by it. Time after time He comes to the individual's relief
+according to His own law. We reject these occurrences as mythical on the
+ground that the laws of supply and demand&mdash;and some other laws as law is
+understood by us&mdash;do not support them; and yet it is in the power of the
+individual to test the truth for himself.</p>
+
+<p>That is one of the burdens of both Testaments. The individual is
+implored to see the only real system for the distribution of &quot;goods&quot; as
+God's. It is not expressed in that way, but that is what it comes to.
+God owns and disposes of everything. He has not put us into His Universe
+and left us to fend for ourselves. He follows us. He cares for us. Not
+one is forgotten or overlooked by Him. It is personal watching and
+brooding and defence. He is our Father, not merely for the purpose of
+hearing us sing hymns, and forgiving our sins when we stop committing
+them, but for all our aims and objects. Nothing that concerns us is so
+small but that His Infinite Intelligence follows it; no need of ours is
+so large but that His All-Ownership can meet it. &quot;Do not two sparrows
+sell for a half-penny?&quot; is our Lord's illustration on this point, &quot;yet
+not one of them will fall to the ground without your Father's leave. But
+as for you,&quot; He reasons, in order that we may understand the
+infinitesimal nature of God's care, &quot;the very hairs on your heads are
+all numbered. Away then with fear!&quot;<a href="#fn31"><sup>31</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+<p>Away then with fear, because our first and over-ruling and
+all-determining relationship is to Him.</p>
+
+<p>In eliminating money-fears from my own life that was the fact which
+helped me most. I had not only to seize it intellectually, but to get
+what William James calls the &quot;feeling&quot; of it, the apprehension of it in
+my subconsciousness. It was like acquiring a new instinct. The
+<i>Metanoia</i>, the re-directing of my thought, was a thorough and
+basic change.</p>
+
+<p>It meant getting up in the morning with a new conception as to why I was
+working and for whom. I had taken it for granted hitherto that I was
+working for such and such a firm, for as much money as they would pay
+me. As much money as they would pay me was the limit of my expectation.
+Beyond the law of supply and demand I had no vision; and whenever the
+demand fell short fear was the result.</p>
+
+<p>The change in my base was in seeing that working for such and such a
+firm, for as much money as they would pay me, was merely incidental. It
+was secondary. It was not what determined my position. It was not what
+determined my reward. It was a small way of looking at a situation which
+was big. It was a small way of looking at a situation which was big,
+merely to confine my objective to such selling and buying as goes on in
+the planet called the Earth. I was working for the Master of the
+Universe, who had all the resources of the universe with which to pay me
+for what I was worth <i>to Him</i>.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is this last fact, as I have hinted already, which fixes my true
+value. To the firm for which I am working I am worth so many dollars and
+cents, and if for any reason I am unable to do their work they will get
+someone else who can. I am not essential to them in any way, however
+essential they may be to me. It is my part to &quot;keep my job,&quot; since if I
+don't I may find it hard to get another. If I do get another it will be
+on the same principle, of being paid what I can be made to work for, and
+not a penny more.</p>
+
+<p>But in working for the Master of the Universe I am working for One to
+whom I am essential. My &quot;job&quot; could not be &quot;swung&quot; by anyone else, since
+everyone else is essential to the swinging of his own. I am not &quot;taken
+on&quot; to do what anyone else could do as well; I am positively needed for
+this thing and for no other thing.</p>
+
+<p>The nature of &quot;this thing&quot; for which I am needed may be seen in the
+obvious duties of my situation&mdash;as regards my family, my employers, and
+my surroundings, which sum up my responsibilities toward men in general.
+No explanation of myself can be independent of men in general, since my
+work is for them in its final aim. If I forget them I forget God, God
+expressing Himself to me through men in general, as through my family
+and my employers in particular.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally, then, I work for men, but essentially and consciously I
+work for God, and look to God for my recompense.</p>
+
+<p>Now God is the most generous of all paymasters. It is natural enough
+that He should be so. He who delights in the grace of a bird or the
+colour of a flower must delight in a man in proportion to a man's higher
+place in the creative scale. As our Lord points out, that is no more
+than common sense. And, delighting in us as He does, God could not
+possibly stint us in what we earn from Him. Merely to suppose so is to
+dishonour Him. A large part of His joy must be in our joy.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest way in which I can express it is that in consciously trying
+to work with God, not man, as our employer, things happen to us which,
+to the best of our foresight, would not have happened otherwise. Often
+they seem accidental, and possibly we ascribe them to accident till the
+coincidences become too numerous to explain by coincidence and nothing
+more. It constantly happens to myself, for instance, to find the whole
+solution of some tangled financial problem hanging on the chance turning
+of my steps to someone's office, and the chance turning of the
+conversation to some specific observation. Chance is the explanation
+which comes to me first, till I reflect on the finespun chain which
+brought me to that particular spot and those particular words. Leading
+is what I see then; and seeing it once I am more confident of being led
+the next time. The next time, therefore, I am the less afraid, having
+the definite experience to support me.</p>
+
+<p>There are millions of men and women to whom life brings no more than the
+monotony of a treadmill round, year in and year out, with a cramping of
+mind, spirit, and ambition, who might have been free had they measured
+themselves by God's standards and not by men's. It is simply the taking
+of a point of view, and adjusting the life to it. In doing one's work
+primarily for God, the fear of undue restriction is put, sooner or
+later, out of the question. He pays me and He pays me well. He pays me
+and He will not fail to pay me. He pays me not merely for the rule of
+thumb task which is all that men recognise, but for everything else I
+bring to my job in the way of industry, good intention, and
+cheerfulness. If the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as St Paul says, we
+may depend upon it that He loveth a cheerful worker; and where we can
+cleave the way to His love there we find His endless generosity.</p>
+
+<p>In my own case this generosity has most frequently been shown in
+opening doors for me where I saw nothing but blank walls. He has made
+favourable things happen. It may be said that they would have happened
+anyhow; but when they have happened on my looking to Him, and have not
+happened when I did not look to Him, it is only fair to draw the
+conclusion that He was behind the event.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>It may also be urged that if there was really a God who delighted in us
+He would make favourable things happen to us whether we looked to Him or
+not. So He does. Every life, even among those who never think of Him, is
+full of such occurrences. Every individual gets some measure of supply
+for his necessities, and in many instances a liberal one. God's sun
+rises on the wicked as well as on the good, and His rain falls on those
+who do right and those who do wrong.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time there is a force generated by working consciously with
+Him which we have to go without when we disregard Him. It is not, I
+suppose, that He refuses to co-operate with us, but that it is out of
+our power to co-operate with Him. If His is the only right way to our
+success and prosperity, and we are, to any extent, taking the wrong, it
+stands to reason that to that extent we must fail.</p>
+
+<p>It is doubtless for this reason that our Lord emphasises seeking His
+righteousness as well as His Kingdom. His Kingdom might be roughly
+defined as His power; righteousness as the right way of doing anything.
+But you never obtain power by going the wrong way to work; whereas by
+working in the right way you get your result. The conclusion is obvious.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is often objected to the point of view I have been trying to express
+that so much weight is thrown on material blessing. God gives spiritual
+rewards, it is contended, not material ones. To expect the material from
+Him is to make Him gross, and to become gross ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>And yet those who put forth this objection are doing their utmost to
+secure material comforts, and to make material provision for the future.
+Are they doing it independently of God? Are they working in a medium
+into which God cannot enter? Is it argued for a single minute that
+&quot;goods&quot; are not God's good things, and that money is not their token?
+True, the love of money is the root of all evil. Of course&mdash;when you
+separate money from God, as Caucasians mostly do; not when you take
+money as one of the material symbols for God's love toward his sons.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, we dig a gulf between the material and the
+spiritual which does not exist. We have seen that modern physical
+science is showing us how near to spirit matter comes, while it is
+highly probable that further research will diminish even the slight
+existing difference between them. Matter may really be considered as our
+sensuous misreading of the spiritual. That is to say, God sees one
+thing; our senses see another. In the wild lily cited by our Lord our
+senses see a thing exquisite in form and colour; and yet, relatively
+speaking, it is no more than a distortion of what God beholds and
+delights in. It is a commonplace fact that, even within the limitations
+of the senses, our sense-faculties perceive few things, if anything,
+quite accurately. Matter may therefore be considered as our wrong view
+of what God sees rightly. Both for Him and for us the object is there;
+but it is there with higher qualities than we can appreciate or
+understand.</p>
+
+<p>The situation is not unknown among ourselves. A picture by a great
+master hangs on a wall. Two men look at it&mdash;the one with an expert
+knowledge of painting, the other with none. The untrained eye will
+translate into daubs of colour and meaningless forms what the skilled
+understanding will perceive as a masterly setting forth of beauty. So
+the good things&mdash;the &quot;goods&quot;&mdash;with which God blesses us, as well as the
+money which is their symbol, may be taken as having to God a meaning
+which they do not possess for us, but not as being outside the sphere
+of His interest and control.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is the tendency to puts &quot;goods&quot; and money outside the sphere of His
+interest and control which has impelled us&mdash;and perhaps the Caucasian
+especially&mdash;to have one God for the spiritual and another for the
+material. We try to serve God and Mammon to an extent far beyond
+anything we are generally aware of. It is not merely the individual who
+is doing it; it is part of our collective, social, and national life.
+Our civilisation is more or less based on the principle.</p>
+
+<p>It is a mistake to suppose that a formal belief in One Almighty,
+All-knowing, All-loving God has, to the immense majority of us, ever
+been more than an ideal. It is a mistake to suppose that because the
+false god is no longer erected before us in silver or stone he is no
+longer served. The world has never outgrown idolatry, the so-called
+Christian world no more than any other. &quot;Dear children,&quot; are the words
+with which St. John closes one of his epistles, &quot;guard yourselves from
+idols.&quot; He at least did not think that the idol had been forsaken
+because the use of his name was given up.</p>
+
+<p>We may define as a god any force to which we ascribe a supreme and
+controlling power in our lives. It is of little consequence whether or
+not we give it name and personality, so long as that force rules us. So
+long, too, as it wields a power which the One God does not, so long as
+we make the false god greater than the true, and more influential.</p>
+
+<p>This is no mere figure of speech; it is fact. We have never guarded
+ourselves from idols. We have never done more toward recognising the
+Father than the putting Him in the pantheon with our other gods. Even
+though we have inscribed the whole pantheon with His name, the other
+gods have been in it.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have said that our whole collective life is based on the principle of
+one God for the soul and another for the body; and so it is. In what we
+call our temporal life God gets only a formal recognition, while Mammon
+is the referee. Beyond the controlling power of money we have no vision,
+and we see no laws. The sphere of material productivity being one in
+which, according to our foregone conclusion, God does not operate, we
+have to make the controlling power of money our only practical standard.
+It has its laws&mdash;chiefly the laws of supply and demand&mdash;within whose
+working we human beings are caught like flies in spider-webs. Though we
+struggle, and know we are struggling, we take it for granted that there
+is nothing to do but struggle, and struggle vainly. We take it for
+granted that we are born into a vast industrial spider-web, whence there
+is no possibility of getting out, and in which we can only churn our
+spirits rebelliously. In proportion as God is a God of love, Mammon is a
+god of torture; but such is our supineness of spiritual energy that we
+go on serving Mammon.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>But I am writing only for the individual. I am trying to suggest to him
+that however much his race, his nation, his society, may serve Mammon,
+he is free to renounce the idol and escape the idol's laws. Escaping the
+idol's laws he comes within the realm of God's laws; and coming within
+the realm of God's laws he reaches the region of plenty.</p>
+
+<p>He may be the poorest and most ill-paid labourer; but God will recognise
+his industry not in proportion to its technical skill, but according to
+the spiritual excellence which goes into it. Technical skill depends
+largely on the right man finding the right job; but as our world is
+organised at present the right man, more often than not, is put into the
+wrong job and has to do his best with it. God sees and estimates that
+best; and as surely as He makes His sun to rise and His rain to fall
+will give it its just compensation.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIV</h3>
+
+
+<p>Our industrial questions are primarily spiritual. That is why they can
+never be settled on a purely economic basis, and why every attempt to
+settle them on a purely economic basis leads to conditions more confused
+than those from which we have emerged. The so-called purely economic
+basis is the basis where only Mammon's laws are considered, and God's
+are held to be impractical.</p>
+
+<p>Quite so! But even then the individual is free. Working with God he is
+always master of the situation as it affects <i>him</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The problem of Capital and Labour, for example, has, in one form or
+another, been before the world for thousands of years. The more acute it
+becomes the further we are from a solution, and were never so far from a
+solution as we are to-day. Poverty, again, is the canker at the heart of
+both Church and State, and has been so in every stage of our
+civilisation. In 1921 it is no more under control than it was in the
+days of Charlemagne or Attila or Xerxes. Charitable efforts to relieve
+it have proved as effective as tickling with a feather to cure disease.
+Or again, high prices and low wages, high wages creating high prices,
+resented conditions leading to strikes, strikes bringing confusion to
+both wages and prices alike&mdash;these things perplex the most clear-sighted
+among us, compelling us to wonder as to what new troubles we are heaping
+up. Or again, taxes crippling incomes and gnawing at the heart of
+industry vex us each year with a sense of the futility of all man's
+efforts for the common good, and the uselessness of our energies. These
+difficulties, with many kindred ones, are the working of the laws of
+Mammon. The case is simple. We shall never be free from the difficulties
+till we are free from the laws. The bondservants of Mammon will go on
+from misery to misery, till the will which opposes God is broken down.
+There is no other way. The colossal disintegration of the world now
+taking place before our eyes may be the beginning of this end.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XV</h3>
+
+
+<p>But I return to the point I have emphasised already, the only point to
+this book. The individual can act on his own account. He does not have
+to wait till the race as a whole gives up the service of Mammon, or even
+the nation to which he belongs. He can set <i>himself</i> free, and enjoy the
+benefits of freedom.</p>
+
+<p>There must be many to whom, as to myself, the kingdom of heaven will
+really be at hand when they are delivered from the snares and
+entanglements of man's economic systems. Caught in those systems,
+imprisoned in them, more hopelessly enmeshed the more they struggle to
+save themselves, the suggestion that a change in point of view will take
+us out of them will seem to some of us too amazing to be true.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing will prove it true but a man's own experience. Mine will
+convince nobody; no other man's can convince me. Demonstration must be
+personal before we can make anything our own. But the fact remains, as
+sure as the surest thing we know anything about, that the law of Mammon
+does not work, while the law of God does work, and will work for anyone
+who calls it to his aid.</p>
+
+<p>No one who has ever seen the early morning trains into any great city
+vomiting forth their hundreds of thousands of men and women, trudging
+more or less dispiritedly to uncongenial jobs, can have felt anything
+but pity for so many lives squeezed into the smallest possible
+limitations. Admitting cheerfulness, admitting a measure of content, and
+a larger measure of acceptance of what can't be helped, there still
+remains over these hordes the shadow of a cloud from which they know
+they never will escape. Clerks, factory hands, tradesmen, working men
+and women of every stamp and occupation, they bow to the fact that they
+will always work hard at tasks which are rarely their own choice, that
+they will always work for little money, that they will always be denied
+their desires for expansion; that as it was with their fathers and
+mothers before them, so it will be with them, and so it will be with
+their children after them.</p>
+
+<p>With the supineness of our race most of them force themselves to be
+satisfied with what comes. But here and there is a rebel. Here and there
+is a man or a woman who feels that joyless work, and small pay, and
+little or nothing to look forward to, are cruel elements in life, not
+fair, not just, on the part of God or man. But what can they do? They
+are in man's economic machine. The machine turns round and they turn
+with it. They can do nothing else but turn with it. They see no prospect
+except of turning with it till they die.</p>
+
+<p>It is out of such men and women that our modern world breeds
+revolutionists, that exalted and yet dangerous band who seek redress
+from the laws of Mammon by appealing <i>to</i> the laws of Mammon, so making
+confusion worse confounded.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVI</h3>
+
+
+<p>A revolution indeed is needed; but a revolution in point of view.</p>
+
+<p>Political revolution, for the sake of righting governmental abuses,
+has been known to produce beneficent results.</p>
+
+<p>Material revolution, the attack of the poor on the rich to take away
+their possessions, has never achieved anything. Many a time it has been
+tried, and many a time it has failed. Being part of the system of Mammon
+it could do nothing else than fail. The evils which Mammon has wrought
+Mammon will never remedy. There may be instances in history of economic
+cures for economic ills; but I think they are few. In general such cures
+are of the nature of our &quot;settlements&quot; of strikes. They settle to-day
+what is again unsettled to-morrow, leaving the work to be done all over
+again, and so on into a far future.</p>
+
+<p>The revolution in point of view has these great advantages:</p>
+
+<p>First, it contains within it the seeds of success, since it is
+revolution toward God, the owner of the Earth and the fulness thereof;
+Next, it takes place within the individual himself, doing no one
+else any harm;</p>
+
+<p>Lastly, it does not run counter to man's economic laws; it only uses and
+transcends them. It directs and corrects them. Working along their lines
+it stimulates their fruit. Letting the inner man out of the economic
+trap it sets him in a world in which first, and last, and before
+everything else, he is God's servant in God's pay. God's pay being sure,
+and paid in the way we need it, we no longer have money-fear to be
+afraid of. Money-fear being set aside we can the more easily give
+ourselves to the knowledge that &quot;the Kingdom of God does not consist of
+eating and drinking, but of right conduct, peace, and joy, through the
+Holy Spirit; and whoever in this way devotedly serves Christ, God takes
+pleasure in him, and men commend him highly.&quot;<a href="#fn32"><sup>32</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVII</h3>
+
+
+<p>And lest what I have said should seem fanciful or chimerical let me add
+that I am not saying these things merely on my own responsibility. To
+my certain knowledge there are hundreds of thousands&mdash;some millions&mdash;of
+people throughout the world who at this very minute are living according
+to this principle, and proving that it works in practical effect.</p>
+
+<p>Neither am I speaking theoretically, as I have tried to make plain. To a
+degree that convinces myself I have made the demonstration. Where my
+life was like a dark and crooked lane in which I might easily be lost,
+it has now become as an easy and open highway; where money-fear was the
+very air I breathed, it is now no more than a nebulous shred on a far
+horizon. Money-fear comes occasionally; but only as the memory of pain
+to a wound which you know to be healed. It comes; but, like Satan out of
+Heaven, I can cast it from me with a thought.</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="7"></a>
+<h2>Chapter VII</h2>
+
+<h3>The False God Of Fear And The Fear Of Death</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>The fear of death was greatly diminished for me on grasping the
+principle of everlasting Growth.</p>
+
+<p>This principle we gather from whatever we know of life. Our observation
+of life is, of course, limited to this planet; but as far as it goes it
+shows us a persistent and perpetual system of development. We have only
+to let our imaginations go back to the first feeble stirrings of life in
+the ooze of the primeval seas, contrasting that with what it became in
+Plato, Sophocles, St. Peter, St. Paul, Raphael, Shakespeare, and Darwin,
+to see how high the climb upward has reached. Jesus of Nazareth I put on
+a plane to which we have not yet attained, though in sight as the great
+objective.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>That the same law operates in the individual life is a matter of
+everyone's experience. Such knowledge as each man has of himself is that
+of a growing entity. Each year, each day, expands him a little further,
+with increased fulness of character. At thirty he is more than he was at
+twenty; at fifty more than he was at thirty; at eighty more than he was
+at fifty. Nothing but a perverted mortal point of view stands in the way
+of further expansion still.</p>
+
+<p>The perverted mortal point of view is one of the impulses we have to
+struggle with. The mortal tendency, which means the deadly tendency,
+always seeks to kill whatever has the principle of life. This tendency
+is in every one of us; but in some of us more than in others.</p>
+
+<p>You can see it at work in the morbid mind, in the mind that is easily
+depressed, and in the mind that easily closes.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is in this last that it becomes our most pernicious enemy.
+The closing mind is found in all our ranks; the closed mind is the
+deadwood of all our professions. It is not only deadwood; it is
+death-in-life, the foe of the developing life-principle, the enemy of
+the Holy Ghost.</p>
+
+<p>That the dead mind should be found among people who have had few
+intellectual advantages is not surprising. On them it is forced from
+without, by sheer pressure of circumstance. Where it is most painful is
+precisely where it does most harm, among the classes we call
+professional. There, too, it seems commonest. Lawyers, doctors,
+clergymen, teachers, writers, politicians, business men with dead minds
+choke all the highways of life. To the extent that they have influence
+they are obstacles to progress; but sooner or later the time comes when
+they no longer have influence. Life shelves them on the plea that they
+are old; but that is not the reason. They are shelved because they have
+killed their minds, becoming living dead men.</p>
+
+<p>As a matter of fact, one of the most valuable of our social and
+national assets is the old man who has kept his mind open. Found all too
+rarely, he is never shelved, for the reason that life cannot do without
+him. Having the habit of expansion he continues to expand, keeping
+abreast of youth and even a little in advance of it. The exception
+rather than the rule, there is no reason why he should not be the
+racial type.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>He is not the racial type because so many of us begin to die almost as
+soon as we have begun to live. Our very fear of the death-principle
+admits it into our consciousness. Admitted into our consciousness it
+starts its work of killing us. It wrinkles the face, it turns the hair
+grey, it enfeebles the limbs, it stupefies the brain. One of its most
+deadly weapons is fatigue, or the simulation of fatigue. The tired
+business man, who rules American life, is oftener than not a dead
+business man. If he looked ahead he would see what we idiomatically know
+as his &quot;finish.&quot; He is not only dying but he infuses death into
+manners, literature, and art, since he so largely sets the standard
+which becomes the rule.</p>
+
+<p>War on the death-principle should be, it seems to me, one of the aims to
+which the individual gives his strength; and once more he can do it on
+his own account.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, he can watch himself, that he does not mentally
+begin to grow old. To begin mentally to grow old is to begin mentally to
+die. He must think of himself as an expanding being, not as a
+contracting one. He must keep in sympathetic touch with the new, damning
+the know-it-all frame of mind. He must keep in sympathetic touch with
+youth, knowing that youth is the next generation in advance. The secrets
+of one generation are not those of another; but if he who possesses the
+earlier masters also the later he is that much the richer and wiser. The
+gulf which separates parents and children is one which the parents must
+cross. They can work onward, while the children cannot work backward. Up
+to a certain point the older teach the younger; beyond a certain point
+the younger teach the older. He who would go on living and not begin to
+die must be willing to be taught, reaping the harvest of both youth
+and age.</p>
+
+<p>In the second place, he who would live must not kill anyone else. The
+deadly tendency in ourselves is forever at work on those about us,
+chiefly on those we love. We watch, tabulate, and recount their symptoms
+of decay. Making notes of them for ourselves we discourse of them to
+others. &quot;He begins to look old,&quot; is a commonplace. The response will
+probably emphasise the fact. By response to response we spin round a
+friend the age-web which lengthens into the death-web. In our expressive
+American vernacular we speak of &quot;wishing&quot; conditions on others, an
+instinctive folk-recognition of the force of mentality. We do it in a
+sinister sense more often than by way of helpfulness. We &quot;wish&quot; by
+thinking, by talking, by creating an atmosphere, by forcing things into
+the general consciousness. Old age and decay, bad enough in themselves,
+we intensify by our habits of mind. Death, which in any case awaits our
+friends, we woo to them by anticipations of demise. It is not
+ill-intentioned. It comes out of a subconsciousness in which death and
+not life is the base.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>For most of us the fear of death is a subconscious rather than an active
+fear. It becomes active for those who through illness, or in some other
+way, see a sentence of death hanging over them; but during the greater
+part of the life-span we are able to beat it off.</p>
+
+<p>As to the life-span itself there is reason to suppose that it is meant
+to be more regular than man allows it to become. There may easily be an
+&quot;appointed time&quot; to which we do not suffer ourselves, or each other, to
+attain. Those strange, inequalities by which one human being is left to
+pass over the century mark, another is cut off just when he is most
+needed, while a third does no more than touch this plane for an hour or
+two, may be the results of our misreadings of God's Will, and not the
+decrees of that Will itself.</p>
+
+<p>We are here on ground which may be termed that of speculation; and yet
+speculation is not quite the right word. I dare to think that we have
+reached a stage of our development at which we are entitled to make with
+regard to death certain inferences which were hardly possible before our
+time. We may make them timidly, with all hesitation and reserve, aware
+that we cannot propound them as facts; and yet we may make them. The
+human mind is no longer where it was a hundred years ago, still less
+where it was five hundred years ago. Though we make little progress we
+make some. We are not always marking time on the same spot of ignorance
+and helplessness. What is mystery for one age is not of necessity
+mystery for another. Even when mysteries remain, they do not of
+necessity remain without some hint of a dawn which may broaden into day.
+Many of our most precious illuminations have come in just this way; a
+faint light&mdash;which slowly, feebly, through centuries perhaps, waxes
+till it becomes a radiance.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>I talked some time ago to an orthodox Christian lady whose brother had
+recently died, and who was speaking of death.</p>
+
+<p>&quot;The one mystery,&quot; she called it, &quot;on which no single ray of light has
+been vouchsafed in all the ages man has been on earth.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>I did not agree with her, but knowing her to be an orthodox Christian
+lady I did not venture to express my opinion.</p>
+
+<p>But hers is the position which many, perhaps most, of us take. &quot;No one
+has ever come back,&quot; we say, &quot;to tell us what his experience has been,&quot;
+and we drop the subject there. Not only do we drop the subject there,
+but we resent it if everyone else does not drop the subject there. &quot;God
+has hidden it from us,&quot; we declare, &quot;and what He has hidden from us it
+is presumption for us to pry into.&quot; It is useless to urge the fact that
+this way of reasoning would have kept us still in the Stone Age; we are
+not to be reached by argument.</p>
+
+<p>Let me say at once that I am not taking up the question of the psychic,
+or entering into it at all. I shall keep myself to the two points of
+view which have helped me, as an individual, to overcome, to some
+degree, the fear of death, considering them in reverse order from that
+in which I have mentioned them. Those two points of view are:</p>
+
+<p>A. That, according to God's Will, we come into this phase of being for
+an &quot;appointed time&quot; which we do not always reach;</p>
+
+<p>B. That we pass out of this phase of being as we came into it, for
+Growth.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>A. The question of an appointed time seems important chiefly to the
+right understanding of God's love. Between us and the understanding of
+that love bereavement is often a great obstacle. Oftener still it is a
+great puzzle. I do not have to catalogue the conditions in which the
+taking away of men, women, and children, sorely needed here if for no
+other purpose than to love, has moved us to deep perplexity, or to
+something like a doubt of God. We have probably all known cases where
+such tragedy has driven sufferers to renounce God altogether, and to
+curse Him. Some of us who have been smitten may have come near to doing
+this ourselves, or may have done it.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>I have already spoken of the Caucasian's habit of shuffling off on God
+those ills for which he will not face the responsibility himself, and I
+am inclined to think that this is one of them. In my own experience the
+explanation of &quot;God's Will&quot; made to the mother of a little family left
+fatherless, or to the parents of a dead baby, or to a young man with a
+young wife in her coffin, has always been revolting. I have made it; I
+have tried, on the faith of others, to think it must be so. I have long
+since ceased to think it, and feel happier for not crediting the
+Universal Father with any such futile tricks.</p>
+
+<p>I should not go so far as to say that we human beings have misapplied
+the laws of life in such a way as to kill those who are dear to us;
+rather, I think, we have never learned those laws except in their merest
+rudiments. We are not yet prepared to do more than bungle the good
+things offered us on earth, and more or less misuse them. We misuse them
+ourselves; we teach others to misuse them; we create systems of which
+the pressure is so terrible that under it the weak can do nothing but
+die. We give them no chance. We squeeze the life out of them. And then
+we say piously, &quot;The blessed Will of God!&quot;</p>
+
+<p>As an illustration of what I mean let me cite the two following cases
+among people I have known:</p>
+
+<p>A young lady belonging to a family of means was found to be suffering
+from incipient tuberculosis. The doctors ordered her to Saranac. To
+Saranac she went, with two nurses. Within eighteen months she was home
+again, quite restored to health. This was as it should have been.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time I knew a car-conductor, married some six or seven
+years, and the father of three children. He, too, was found to be
+suffering from incipient tuberculosis. He, too, was ordered to Saranac.
+But having a wife and three children to support, Saranac was out of the
+question. He went on conducting his car till his cough became
+distressing, whereupon he was &quot;fired.&quot; A minimum allowance from his
+church kept the family from starvation, while the nearest approach to
+Saranac that could be contrived was an arrangement by which he slept
+with his head out the window. In course of time he died, and his widow
+was exhorted to submit to the Will of God.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>I cite the latter case as typical of millions and millions of deaths of
+the kind at which we stand aghast at God's extraordinary rulings. Why is
+it, we ask, that He snatches away those who are needed, leaving those
+who might be spared? As to the latter part of the question I have
+nothing to say; but when it comes to &quot;snatching away&quot; I feel it
+important to &quot;absolve God&quot; of the blame for it.</p>
+
+<p>In the instance I have quoted the blame for it is clear. Falling on no
+one individual, it does fall on an organisation of life which gives all
+the chances to some, denying them to others. So long as we feel unable
+to improve on this organisation we shall have these inequalities. But
+let us face honestly the consequences they bring. Let us not confuse all
+the issues of life and death as we do, by saddling the good and
+beautiful Will of God with the ills we make for ourselves.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IX</h3>
+
+
+<p>All untimely bereavement is, of course, not of the nature of the above
+illustration. And yet I venture to believe that in all untimely
+bereavement some similar explanation could be found. For example, in the
+intervals of writing these lines I have been reading a recent biography
+of Madame de Maintenon. In it is a chapter describing the series of
+catastrophes which fell on Louis the Fourteenth, and the French kingdom,
+within little more than a twelvemonth. His son and heir, his grandson,
+the second heir, his great-grandson, the third heir, the second heir's
+wife, and still another grandson were all carried off by smallpox. In
+the apartments of Madame de Maintenon, his wife, the aged monarch was
+counselled to submit to the awful Will of God which saw fit thus to
+smite him. What no one perceived was that by crowding round the bed of
+each sufferer in turn the survivors courted contagion.</p>
+
+<p>But, there again, it is not much more than a century since this fact
+became known to anyone. Easily within living memory is the discovery
+that disease is due to bacteria. Our whole system of sanitation is of
+recent development, and obtains only among the English and the Americans
+even now. In many parts of Europe and America, to say nothing of Asia
+and Africa, people still live as in the Middle Ages, and infant
+mortality is appalling. Those of us who pay most attention to sanitary
+laws live unhealthily, diminishing our powers to resist attack. I
+mention these facts, not as making a list of them, but to indicate the
+many causes through which we bring bereavement on ourselves, when the
+Will of God would naturally make for survival and happiness.</p>
+
+<p>It must never be forgotten that in this phase of our existence we never
+carry out that Will except to a remote degree. We only struggle towards
+doing it. When great sorrows come it is because in the struggle we have
+not been successful. Either we ourselves have failed; or the failure of
+others affects us indirectly. While God's Will may be for our happiness,
+we can attain to neither the happiness nor the Will&mdash;as yet.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, we would not have it otherwise. In our more thoughtless or
+more agonised minutes we are likely to cry out for a life in which the
+conditions ensuring our happiness could not so easily miscarry; but that
+would mean a static life, and a static life, above all things, we will
+not endure. As already seen, we ask for difficulties to conquer,
+successes to achieve. To contend is our instinct, not to be passive
+and enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>Difficulties to conquer can only exist side by side with the possibility
+of not conquering them. The victory which is merely a walk-over is
+scarcely a victory. Achievement counts only when something has been
+overcome. Even then the overcoming of one thing merely spurs us on to
+overcome another. To rest on our laurels is doom. For a race which has
+the infinite as its goal the word must be on and on. The static heaven
+of bearing palms and playing harps and bliss, which the na&iuml;ve
+interpretation of our fathers drew from the imagery of the Apocalypse,
+has long since made us rebellious. Something to strive for we demand,
+even at the risk of bereavement.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>X</h3>
+
+
+<p>It is at once the disadvantage and the glory of our own generation that
+it is only on the fourth or fifth step of the stairway by which we are
+climbing. But at least it is heir to the conquests which go to its stage
+of advance. Untimely bereavement is less common to-day than it was a
+few centuries ago; it is more common to-day than it will be a few
+centuries hence. Such storms of affliction as in 1712 swept over the
+house of Louis Quatorze occur less frequently now. But they still occur.
+We have not got beyond them. They are only bound to occur less and less
+frequently, till they become no more than matters of scarcely
+credible record.</p>
+
+<p>In the meanwhile it may be a comfort to others, as it is to me, to be
+able to &quot;absolve God&quot; from the charge of capricious and intolerable
+thwarting of our love. To me, at least, the blow is easier to bear when
+I know that His beloved hand didn't strike it. I cannot understand being
+tortured out of sheer love, while patience with what leaves me with my
+whole life maimed is only the patience of the vanquished.</p>
+
+<p>On the other hand, I can bear with my mistakes, I can bear with the
+mistakes of others, I can bear with the failures which are the fruit of
+our lack of race-development, so long as I know that God is on my side.
+The affliction which would be too poignant as coming directly from Him
+is half soothed already when I know that He is soothing it. I may have
+lost what He gave; but far from snatching it from me He would have had
+me keep it. Of all my comforts that assurance is the first.</p>
+
+<p>In addition, I have the satisfaction&mdash;a meagre satisfaction you may call
+it, but a satisfaction all the same&mdash;of knowing that by the ploughing
+and harrowing of my heart a step is taken toward that future in which
+hearts shall be less harrowed and ploughed. &quot;It must never happen
+again.&quot; That is what we keep saying with regard to the Great War. Well,
+it may happen again. We have as yet no trustworthy pledge to the
+contrary. But of this we may be sure, that it will not happen again very
+often. It is less likely to happen again for the very reason that it has
+happened. If the Great War does not prove to be the last war it is the
+more probable that the next war will. I mean that we do learn our
+lessons, though we learn them only as feeble-minded children learn
+theirs. Agony by agony, something is gained, and my personal agony
+counts with the rest. The fact may give me no more than the faintest
+consolation, and possibly none at all; and still in the long, slow
+stages of our upward climb my agony counts, whether its counting
+consoles me or not.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XI</h3>
+
+
+<p>The inference that we come into the life of this planet for an
+&quot;appointed time&quot; we draw from what we see of God's system of order. All
+other things do so, as far as we observe. The plant springs, to grow and
+bloom, to bear fruit and seed, and so renew itself. Fish, bird, and
+animal have their appointed round varying only in detail from that of
+the plant. Man's appointed round would seem to vary only in detail from
+that of the animal, except that he himself interferes with it.</p>
+
+<p>To the best of my knowledge the plant, from the blade of grass to the
+oak or the orchid, always fulfils its life-span, unless some act or
+accident cripples or destroys it. I mean that we never see God bringing
+the shoot above the soil just to nip it before it unfolds. We never see
+Him bring the bud to the eve of blossoming just to wither it. Having
+given it its mission He supplies it with rain, sun, and sustenance to
+bring that mission to its end. True, the plant has enemies, like
+everything else, enemies which it may not escape. But generally
+speaking, it does escape them, and lives to finish its task.</p>
+
+<p>So, too, with the more active living thing. It, too, has its enemies.
+It, too, may not escape them. But assuming that it does, God allows it,
+to the best of our observation, to work out its full development. The
+only &quot;bereavement&quot; he brings to the lion, the thrush, or the elephant,
+or any other creature capable of grief is, apparently, from those
+hostile sources of which the hostility is more or less gratuitous. A man
+shoots a lion, or the lion kills an antelope; but they do so through
+misreading of God's Will, not through fulfilling it.</p>
+
+<p>For the lower ranks of creation misread that Will in their way as much
+as the higher in theirs. All ferocity must be misinterpretation of the
+divine law of harmony and mutual help. Internecine destruction probably
+has a meaning we can only guess at. Guessing at it we are at liberty to
+surmise that what God sees as loving contention for excellence, each
+gaining by the other's gain, we understand as bitter strife, and
+consumption of the flesh and blood. The rivalry we can best appreciate
+is that of brutality; the chief benefit the stronger creature seeks from
+the weaker is in killing and eating him. Why this should be part of our
+struggle I do not know; but part of our struggle it seems to be&mdash;from
+the humblest organism up to man&mdash;the mistaking of God's Will before
+learning to understand it.</p>
+
+<p>And lest I should seem to assume too much, in saying this, let me add
+that our progress out of this state of preying on each other has long
+been foreseen by the pioneers of truth. The vision is at least as
+ancient as Isaiah, when he descried from afar the accomplished rule of
+the Son of David:</p>
+
+<p>&quot;With righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity
+for the meek of the earth.... And righteousness shall be the girdle of
+his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins. The wolf also shall
+dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and
+the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child
+shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones
+shall lie down together.... And the sucking child shall play on the hole
+of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
+They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; <i>for the earth
+shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord</i>, as the waters cover
+the seas.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XII</h3>
+
+
+<p>If I am correct in thinking that our passage across the life of this
+planet is meant to last for an &quot;appointed time,&quot; I presume that that
+time would be measured by experience rather than by years. There exists
+what we vaguely call the round of life. We are born; we grow; we know
+family interests; we learn; we work; we love; we marry; we beget
+children; we train them to take our places; we pass beyond. There are
+variations on this routine, some of us having more, some of us having
+less; but in general it may be taken as typical. It is our mission, as
+the plants and the lower living things have theirs.</p>
+
+<p>It seems reasonable, then, to think that each baby born is meant by the
+Father's Will to reap this experience before it proceeds to further
+experience. It must be a stage in its growth or it would not come into
+it. When it is balked of it something is amiss. The child who dies in
+infancy has lost something. The lad or the girl whom our organised life
+drives from this plane before reaching fruition has lost something. The
+parent whom our conditions force onward before he has brought his task
+to a stage at which he can peacefully lay it down has lost something. I
+am not saying that God does not control resources by which that loss can
+be abundantly made up, but only that the loss would seem to be there.
+It is loss for the one who departs as well as for those who
+remain behind.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>That is what I gather from the instances in the Old and New Testament in
+which those who had gone on before their time were called back again.
+There are six of these instances in all: one in the Old Testament, and
+five in the New. Of four of them we are expressly told that those
+restored were young; of the other two nothing is said as to age, but one
+at least was probably young, while the other was greatly needed.</p>
+
+<p>The child called back by Elisha was still a little boy. The daughter of
+Jairus was still a little girl. The son of the widow of Nain was a young
+man, as was also Eutychus raised by St. Paul. Though we are not told the
+age of Lazarus we judge that he was at most no more than in man's
+maturity. Dorcas of Lydda may have been of any age, but, judging by the
+circumstances, she had not completed her task.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIV</h3>
+
+
+<p>My point is this, that if these things happened, they seem to bear out
+my suggestion that our own inducement of premature death cuts us off
+from fulfilling our appointed time and getting our appointed experience.
+Only on some such ground can we believe that any would be permitted
+to return.</p>
+
+<p>Should this be so we would be in a position to assume that all who go
+over ahead of time would be allowed to come back, if we had sufficient
+spiritual power to recall them. But that power is of the rarest. Our
+Lord, apparently, was in control of it only at times, and on at least
+one occasion, that of the raising of Lazarus, its exercise was not what
+we should call easy. But that He believed it to be at human command to
+some extent is clear from the fact that its use became one of His four
+basic principles. &quot;Raise the dead,&quot; was the second of the commands with
+which He sent out his first seventy disciples.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XV</h3>
+
+
+<p>I dwell on the subject only because of its bearing on the love of God.
+If it becomes plain to us that by the understanding of God's Will we
+gain a richer experience, with less fear of being cut off before our
+work is done, that Will makes a stronger appeal for being understood.
+That we have not understood it earlier, that we have not particularly
+cared to understand it, is due, I think, to our assumption of its
+capriciousness. It has been so underscored as inscrutable&mdash;the word
+generally applied to it&mdash;that the man in the street has felt mystified
+by it from the start. Being mystified he has settled down to think as
+little about it as he could.</p>
+
+<p>But a great force striving with man to put common sense into his methods
+is worth comprehending. It does not compel us to common-sense methods
+for the reason that we value only that which we work out for ourselves.
+We work nothing out but through suffering. We learn nothing, we take no
+forward step, except as we are whipped to it by anguish. That is why
+there is so much mourning in the world. God does not cause it; we bring
+it on ourselves; but each time we bring it on ourselves we creep one
+tiny step nearer that race-conclusion which is now coming to us about
+war, and will one day come to us about death, that &quot;It must never
+happen again.&quot;</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVI</h3>
+
+
+<p>In other words, death will be abolished by race-unanimity not to submit
+to it. We shall have travelled far in this direction when the average
+mind begins to perceive that God did not send death into His creation,
+but that we ourselves developed it. Having developed it ourselves we
+must get rid of it ourselves, and already some of that work has been
+done. &quot;For seeing that death came through man,&quot; are the words of St.
+Paul, &quot;through man comes also the resurrection of the dead.&quot; When he
+speaks of &quot;Jesus Christ who hath abolished death,&quot; his words are
+stronger still. &quot;He has put an end to death and has brought Life and
+Immortality to light by the Good News, of which I have been appointed a
+preacher, apostle, and teacher.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>This Life and Immortality are not to be relegated to other ages and
+worlds; they are for us to work out now.</p>
+
+<p>The degree to which we work them out depends on our own efforts. Death
+will be our doom for many generations to come, because so few of us have
+the energy to strive against it. Release can come only when the race at
+large is willing to cast the evil thing off. One would suppose that we
+would be willing now; but we are far from being willing. We shall go on
+forcing our dear ones to die before their time, falling sick ourselves,
+enduring agonies, and rotting in graves, till we have suffered to the
+point at which we cry out that we have had enough. There will be a day
+when in presence of the useless thing we shall say, with something
+amounting to one accord, &quot;It must stop.&quot; That day will be the beginning
+of the end of the age-long curse to which we still submit ourselves. In
+the language of St. Paul, &quot;The last enemy to be destroyed is death,&quot;
+leaving us with the belief that, when we have progressed to the
+overthrow of other forces opposed to us, we shall go on to the overthrow
+of this one&mdash;and that it will be overthrown.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVII</h3>
+
+
+<p>From one kind of fear this reasoning has almost entirely delivered
+me&mdash;that of being taken away in the midst of my responsibilities, and
+before my work is done. I am not so audacious as to say that it may not
+happen; but only that, reasoning as I do, I am no longer a prey to
+apprehensions on the point. They used to come to me, not like the
+money-fear, an abiding visitant, but in spells of intense dread.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose that most men with families, and much unfinished business,
+know this dread, and have suffered from it. You think of the home you
+have built up, and of what it would be without you. You think of your
+wife, grappling with a kind of difficulty to which she is unaccustomed.
+You think of your children who turn to you as their central point, and
+who would be left without your guidance. You think of other duties you
+have undertaken, and wonder who will carry them through. You seem to be
+so essential to everyone and everything; and yet, you have been told, it
+may be the Will of God to remove you from them, and either let your
+plans collapse, or put their execution on the shoulders of someone else.</p>
+
+<p>I am not so presumptuous as to say that for me this may not happen. I
+only say that I do not think it will. I do not think so because,
+according to my judgment, He having helped me to go as far as I have
+gone, will help me to finish my task before giving me another one.</p>
+
+<p>My task, I think, He must estimate as I do. That is, my duties to others
+being not wholly of my choosing, but having come to me according to what
+I may call His weighing and measuring, I take them to be the duties He
+would have me perform. If so, He would naturally have me perform them
+till I come to the place where I can reasonably lay them down.</p>
+
+<p>Therefore, I dismiss the fear of untimely separation from my appointed
+work. Such a separation may come; but if it does, it will probably come
+by some such means as I have briefly tried to sketch; my own mistakes;
+the mistakes of others; the effect of race-pressure. In any case, my
+personal resistance, it seems to me, is made the stouter by feeling that
+my tasks are His tasks, and so that so long as I am needful to their
+accomplishment, I remain. If I go, it will be because He has the
+succession of events so planned as to reduce collapse, failure, or
+suffering to a minimum.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XVIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>B. The thought that the minute after death will only be another little
+step in Growth, to be followed by another and then another, as we are
+used to growing here, greatly diminishes one's shrinking at the change.</p>
+
+<p>It is entirely a modern thought. The past, even of a few centuries ago,
+never entertained it. It is doubtful if it was mentally prepared to
+entertain it, or evolve the idea.</p>
+
+<p>This is not to depreciate our fathers' mental powers. Different
+generations have different gifts. One age works along one line, another
+along another. The past had a certain revelation of truth; but the
+revelation of truth did not end with the past. Our ancestors received as
+much as they could take. What, it seems, they were unable to take was
+anything which made death less horrible. We may say, in fact, that they
+didn't want it. They liked having death made horrible. Many people like
+it still. The mitigation of that horror they condemn, resent, and often
+ascribe to the devil.</p>
+
+<p>And yet there is a tendency to see light through this gloom, and to seek
+views of death more in the line of common sense than those which have
+come down to us. It is not a strong tendency, but it exists. It exists
+in the face of opposition on the part of those religious conservatives
+who think conservatism and orthodoxy the same thing; and it runs the
+gauntlet of the sneers and jeers of the materially minded who make
+common cause with the old guard of the churches; but it exists. It
+exists, and goes forward, becoming a factor in the thought-life of
+our time.</p>
+
+<p>It is not yet two hundred years since the plea was put forth on behalf
+of mankind that, in the administration of divine justice, no one suffers
+less than he deserves, but also that no one suffers more.</p>
+
+<p>The hostility to this seemingly harmless teaching was of the most
+intense. There is hostility to it still, but mild as compared with that
+felt by our great-great-grandfathers. That no one should suffer less
+than he deserves went without saying; but that no one should suffer more
+was declared a black heresy. As there are those who declare it a black
+heresy to-day, it may be worth while, in the interests of the conquest
+of fear, to say a word as to the relation of God and punishment.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XIX</h3>
+
+
+<p>To my mind it is chiefly verbal.</p>
+
+<p>It is permissible to say that there is no such thing as punishment;
+there are only wrong results. It depends upon your way of putting it.
+The wrong method produces wrong results in proportion as it is wrong.
+Wrong results mean wrong conditions; and wrong conditions mean
+suffering. You may call this the law of God, but it is the law of
+anything. It is not positive law, it is negative. As a matter of fact,
+God does not need to put forth a law on the point since everything
+works that way.</p>
+
+<p>What we call sin is simply a wrong method. It may be a wrong method
+meant to produce wrong; or it may be a wrong method in the hope of
+producing right. In any case it brings its consequence in pain.</p>
+
+<p>That consequence may be corrected in this phase of our being, or it may
+be carried over into the next. Carried over into the next the
+individual, according to our ancestral teaching, comes under the
+sentence in which our fathers delighted as &quot;damnation.&quot; Not only did
+damnation involve the most fiendish torture the Almighty could invent,
+but the torture was inflicted, without an instant of relief, throughout
+the eons of eternity.</p>
+
+<p>I recall a sermon to which I listened as a boy of nine. It was on a
+summer's evening, when the windows of the church were open. A moth
+fluttered about a light. The church stood at the foot of a mountain. The
+preacher was trying to explain to us the eternal duration of God's
+punishment. &quot;Think of that moth,&quot; he said, &quot;carrying away one grain of
+sand from that mountain, and going off for a million years, after which
+it would return and take away another grain. And think of it keeping
+this up, one grain every million years, till the whole mountain was
+removed. Well, that would be only a moment as compared with the time you
+would be in hell.&quot;</p>
+
+<p>On the generations comforted and fortified by this sort of teaching I
+have no comment to make; but we of another generation should surely not
+be reproved for moving away from it. We move away from it in the
+direction of common sense, since common sense must be an attribute of
+the Universal Father as it is of the wiser among mankind.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XX</h3>
+
+
+<p>I revert, then, to my statement that God's relation to punishment is
+chiefly verbal. His &quot;wrath against sin&quot; is a way of &quot;putting it.&quot; If you
+can best express the suffering which springs from wrong methods as
+&quot;God's wrath&quot; you are at liberty so to express yourself; but we should
+not lose sight of the fact that the wrong methods produce the suffering,
+and not an outburst of fury on the part of One who is put before us
+as Love.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that the Hebrew writers often used a vivid form of warning and
+invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew
+writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he
+required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying
+this I am not dodging the issue; I am stating a fact which rules in all
+historical interpretation. To make the phraseology of two thousand years
+before Christ the literal expression of the thought of two thousand
+years after Him is to be archaic beyond reason. Having grasped a
+principle, we phrase it in the language of our time.</p>
+
+<p>The language of our time makes, on the whole, for restraint, sobriety,
+and exactitude of statement. Few of our habits modify themselves more
+constantly and more rapidly than our forms of speech. Not only does each
+generation find something special to itself, but each year and each
+season. To me it seems that much of our misunderstanding of God springs
+from the effort to fix on Him forevermore the peculiarities we infer
+from the idiom of five thousand years ago. Only to a degree does that
+idiom convey to us what is conveyed to those who heard it as a living
+tongue; and of that degree much is lost when it percolates through
+translation. To cling to words when all we need is to know principles,
+clothing them in our own way, seems to me not only absurd in fact but
+lamentable in result. I venture to think that more people have been
+alienated from God by a pious but misapplied verbal use than were ever
+estranged from Him by sin.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XXI</h3>
+
+
+<p>Our ancient Hebrew predecessors understood God in their own way. We
+understand Him in the same way, but with the clarification wrought by
+the intervening years of progress. In other words, they bequeath us a
+treasure which we are free to enrich with our own discoveries.</p>
+
+<p>Among our own discoveries is a clearer comprehension of pain as
+resulting from wrong methods, and of God's detachment from pain. More
+and more, punishment becomes a concept we reject. Even in our penal
+institutions, which have been for so many centuries a barbarous token of
+our incompetence, we begin to substitute for punishment something more
+nearly akin to cure. If we find mere vengeance unworthy of ourselves we
+must find it unworthy of the Universal Father. If we concede to the
+criminal the right to a further chance we concede it to ourselves. If we
+recognise the fact that the sinner on earth may redeem himself, working
+from error towards righteousness, the same principle should rule in the
+whole range of existence. There is nothing about the earth-life to make
+it the only phase of effort and probation. Effort and probation are
+probably conditions of eternity. They will be in our next experience as
+they have been in this, leading us on from strength to strength.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XXII</h3>
+
+
+<p>One main difference between the mind of the past and the modern mind is
+that the mind of the past tended to be static, while the mind of to-day
+is more and more attuned to a dynamic universe. Civilisation before the
+nineteenth century was accustomed to long periods with relatively little
+change. Most people spent their entire lives in the same town or the
+same countryside. In the class in which they were born they lived and
+died, with little thought of getting out of it. This being so they
+looked for the same static conditions after death as they saw before it.
+A changeless heaven appalled them with no sense of monotony, nor did a
+changeless hell do anything to shake their nerves. Their nerves were not
+easily shaken. They were a phlegmatic race, placid, unimaginative,
+reposeful.</p>
+
+<p>Because we of to-day are more restless it does not follow that our views
+should be truer. We only know they are truer because we are so much
+nearer the truth than they had the opportunity to come. We prove that we
+are nearer the truth by our greater command of the Father's resources.
+If our whole horizon of truth were not broadened, we could not possess
+this command.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XXIII</h3>
+
+
+<p>Changing our static conception of life to that of a dynamic will to
+unfold, we see the climax we commonly call death as only a new step in
+unfoldment. Whatever I have been, the step must be one in advance. It
+would not be in accord with creative energy that I should go backward.
+The advance may entail suffering, since it is probable that it will give
+me a heightened perception of the wrong in my methods; but there are
+conditions in which suffering signifies advance.</p>
+
+<p>And yet if I suffer it can only be with what I may call a curative
+suffering. It will be suffering that comes from the recognition of
+mistake; not the hopeless anguish of the damned. Having learned &quot;how not
+to do it,&quot; I perceive &quot;how to do it&quot;&mdash;and go on.</p>
+
+<p>But the perception of &quot;how to do it&quot; is precisely what most of us have
+been acquiring. I venture to think that few of us will come face to face
+with death without being more or less prepared for it. Life is so
+organised that, at its worst, all but the rare exceptions make progress
+daily, through obedience to the laws of righteousness.</p>
+
+<p>In saying this we must count as righteousness not merely the carrying
+out of a rule of thumb laid down by man's so-called morality, or the
+technical regulations prescribed by the churches for the use of their
+adherents; we must include every response to every high call. We must
+remember that all a man does in the way of effort to be a good son, a
+good brother, a good husband, a good father, a good workman, a good
+citizen, is of the nature of slowly creeping forward. Above every other
+form of training of the self this endeavour determines a man's spiritual
+standing, and his state of worthiness. He may know some failure in each
+of these details; and yet the fact that in the main he is set&mdash;as I am
+convinced the great majority are set&mdash;toward fulfilling his
+responsibilities helps him to be ready when the time comes to put the
+material away.</p>
+
+<p>The great common sense of the nations brought us to this perception
+during the years when the young men of the world were going down like
+wheat before the reaping machine. For the most part, doubtless, they
+were young men in whom the ladies who attend our churches would have
+seen much to reprimand. The moral customs of their countries were
+possibly held by them lightly. The two points which constitute pretty
+nearly all of American morality they may have disregarded. And yet we
+felt that their answer to the summons, which to them at least was a
+summons to sacrifice, showed them as men who had largely worked out
+their redemption. Whatever our traditions, we were sure that those who
+were ready to do anything so great could go to the Father without fear.</p>
+
+<p>But war calls for no more than a summing up and distillation of the
+qualities we cultivate in peace. These men were ready because homes,
+offices, banks, shops, factories, and farms had trained them to be
+ready. So they are training all of us. Traditions help; the churches
+help; but when it comes to the directing of the life toward
+righteousness&mdash;the effort to do everything rightly&mdash;no one thing has
+the monopoly.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>XXIV</h3>
+
+
+<p>Going to the Father without fear! All the joy of life seems to me to
+hang on that little phrase. I used it just now of the young men who
+passed over from the battlefield; but I used it there with limitations.
+Going to the Father without fear is a privilege for every minute of the
+day. More and more knowledge of the Father is the progress for which we
+crave, since more knowledge of the Father means a fuller view of all
+that makes up the spiritual universe. Into that knowledge we are
+advancing every hour we live; into that knowledge we shall still be
+advancing at the hour when we die. The Father will still be showing us
+something new; the something new will still be showing us the Father.</p>
+
+<p>It will be something new, as we can receive it. He who can receive
+little will be given little; he who can receive much will be given much.
+In growth all is adjusted to capacity; it is not meant to shock, force,
+or frighten. The next step in growth being always an easy step, I can
+feel sure of moving onwards easily&mdash;&quot;from strength to strength,&quot; in the
+words of one of the Songs for the Sons of Korah, &quot;until unto the God of
+gods appeareth everyone of them in Zion.&quot;<a href="#fn33"><sup>33</sup></a></p>
+
+
+
+<a name="8"></a>
+<h2>Chapter VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>The Fear Of Death And Abundance Of Life</h3>
+
+
+
+<h3>I</h3>
+
+
+<p>After all, the conquest of fear is largely a question of vitality. Those
+who have most life are most fearless. The main question is as to the
+source from which an increase of life is to be obtained.</p>
+
+<p>An important psychological truth was involved when our Lord made the
+declaration, &quot;I am come that they might have life, and that they might
+have it more abundantly.&quot; This, I think, was the first plain statement
+ever made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more
+dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But
+once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth
+by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as
+spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has
+evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in
+full-blooded exercise he has seen no connection.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>II</h3>
+
+
+<p>Few of us do see a connection between strength of spirit and strength of
+limb; but it is there. I am not saying that a strong spirit cannot
+coexist with a feeble frame; but the feeble frame is a mistake. It is
+the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear.
+The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it
+a chance. Abundant life must be <i>life</i>, healthy, active, and radiant. It
+should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and
+from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and
+triumphant.</p>
+
+<p>This vigour and triumph we ought to work into our point of view, so
+kneading it into our subconsciousness. Strong in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is strong, fearless in proportion as our
+subconsciousness is fearless, the going from strength to strength
+becomes a matter of course to us. Urging us on in sheer joy of power,
+abundance of life becomes still more abundant through the indwelling of
+the life-principle. That mystic resistless force, which has fashioned
+already so many forms, is forever at work fashioning a higher type
+of man.</p>
+
+<p>Each one of us is that higher type of man potentially. Though we can
+forge but little ahead of our time and generation, it is much to know
+that the Holy Ghost of Life is our animating breath, pushing us on to
+the overcoming of all obstacles. For me as an individual it is a support
+to feel that the principle which was never yet defeated is my principle,
+and that whatever the task of to-day or to-morrow I have the ability to
+perform it well. The hesitation that may seize me, or the questioning
+which for an instant may shake my faith, is but a reminder that the
+life-principle is not only with me, but more abundantly with me in
+proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which
+crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but
+it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet
+new requirements. &quot;From strength to strength&quot; is its law, carrying me on
+with the impetus of its own mounting toward God.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>III</h3>
+
+
+<p>And the impetus of its own mounting toward God is not confined to what
+we view as the great things of life. Between great and small it makes no
+distinction. It is as eager on behalf of the man behind a counter as on
+that of him who is governing a country. The woman who has on her
+shoulders the social duties of an embassy, or the financial cares of a
+great business, has it no more at her command than she who is nursing
+her baby or reckoning her pennies to make both ends meet. It rushes to
+the help of all. Wherever there is duty or responsibility it is begging
+at the doors of our hearts to be let in, to share the work and ease
+the burden.</p>
+
+<p>As I get up each morning, it is there. As I plan my day while I dress
+myself, it is there. As I think with misgiving of some letter I tremble
+at receiving, or with distaste at some job I must tackle before night,
+it is there.</p>
+
+<p>It is there, not only with its help, but with its absolute knowledge of
+the right way for me to act. The care that worries me may be so big as
+to involve millions of other people's money, or it may be as small as
+the typing of a letter; but the right way of fulfilling either task is
+pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My
+success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure
+sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am
+painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is
+essential to the Holy Ghost of Life.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>IV</h3>
+
+
+<p>So I, the individual, try to confront each day with the knowledge that I
+am infused with a guiding, animating principle which will not let me
+drop behind, or lose my modest reward, so long as I trust to the force
+which carries me along. By trusting to it I mean resting on it quietly,
+without worrying, without being afraid that it will fail me. &quot;Fret not
+thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil.&quot;<a href="#fn34"><sup>34</sup></a> By doing evil, I
+presume is meant making a mistake, taking the wrong course. If, however
+great the cause, I fret myself I disturb the right conditions. By
+disturbing the right conditions I choke off the flow of the
+life-principle through my energies.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>V</h3>
+
+
+<p>At a moment when the little buffer state between Egypt and Assyria was
+afraid of being overrun by the one or the other it was frantically
+casting about to decide with which it would throw in its lot. &quot;With
+neither,&quot; a great prophet thundered in the ears of the people. &quot;In
+calmly resting your safety lieth; in quiet trust shall be your
+strength.&quot;<a href="#fn35"><sup>35</sup></a></p>
+
+<p>My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these
+four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the
+time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not
+pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a
+few lines above, that <i>I tried</i>. Trying is as far as I have gone; but
+even trying is productive of wonderful results.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VI</h3>
+
+
+<p>Least of all do I claim to have covered the whole ground, or to have
+discussed to its fulness any one of the points which I have raised.
+Whole regions of thought which bear on my subject&mdash;such as psychology,
+philosophy, and religion as I understand the word&mdash;I have carefully
+endeavoured to avoid. My object has been to keep as closely as possible
+to the line of personal experience, which has a value only because it is
+personal. Telling no more than what one man has endeavoured to work out,
+what I have written seeks no converts. Though, for the sake of brevity,
+it may at times seem to take a hortatory tone, it is a record and no
+more. In it the reader will doubtless find much to correct, and
+possibly to reject; and this must be as it happens. What I hope he will
+neither correct nor reject is the sincerity of the longing to find God's
+relations to the phenomena of life, and the extent to which the
+phenomena of life reflect God.</p>
+
+
+
+<h3>VII</h3>
+
+
+<p>In the end we come back to that, the eternal struggle whereby that which
+is unlike God becomes more and more like Him. In watching the process,
+and taking part in it, there is, when all is said and done, a sense of
+glorious striving and success. With each generation some veil which hid
+the Creator from the creature is torn forever aside. God, who is always
+here, is seen a little more clearly by each generation as being; here.
+God, who ever since His sun first rose and His rain first fell has been
+making Himself known to us, is by each generation a little better
+understood. God, whom we have tried to lock up in churches or banish to
+Sundays and special holy days, is breaking through all our
+prohibitions, growing more and more a force in our homes and our
+schools, in our shops and our factories, in our offices and our banks,
+in our embassies, congresses, parliaments, and seats of government. Into
+His light we advance slowly, unwillingly, driven by our pain; but
+we advance.</p>
+
+<p>The further we advance the more we perceive of power. The more we
+perceive of power the more we are freed from fear. The more we are freed
+from fear the more exultantly we feel our abundance of life. The more
+exultantly we feel our abundance of life the more we reject death in any
+of its forms. And the more we reject death in any of its forms the more
+we reflect that Holy Ghost of Life which urges us on from conquest to
+conquest, from strength to strength, to the fulfilling of ourselves.</p>
+
+
+
+
+<h2>Footnotes</h2>
+
+<a name="fn1"></a>
+<p><sup>1</sup> The Book of Isaiah.</p>
+
+<a name="fn2"></a>
+<p><sup>2</sup> First Book of Samuel.</p>
+
+<a name="fn3"></a>
+<p><sup>3</sup> Book of Daniel.</p>
+
+<a name="fn4"></a>
+<p><sup>4</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn5"></a>
+<p><sup>5</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn6"></a>
+<p><sup>6</sup> Epistle to the Ephesians.</p>
+
+<a name="fn7"></a>
+<p><sup>7</sup> Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn8"></a>
+<p><sup>8</sup> Most of the quotations from the New Testament are taken from a
+recent translation, &quot;The New Testament in Modern Speech,&quot; by R.F.
+Weymouth and E. Hampden-Cook.</p>
+
+<a name="fn9"></a>
+<p><sup>9</sup> St. John</p>
+
+<a name="fn10"></a>
+<p><sup>10</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn11"></a>
+<p><sup>11</sup> Epistle to the Romans.</p>
+
+<a name="fn12"></a>
+<p><sup>12</sup> Acts of the Apostles.</p>
+
+<a name="fn13"></a>
+<p><sup>13</sup> The Book of Deuteronomy.</p>
+
+<a name="fn14"></a>
+<p><sup>14</sup> Various Old Testament Sources.</p>
+
+<a name="fn15"></a>
+<p><sup>15</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn16"></a>
+<p><sup>16</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn17"></a>
+<p><sup>17</sup> Acts of the Apostles.</p>
+
+<a name="fn18"></a>
+<p><sup>18</sup> St. Matthew.</p>
+
+<a name="fn19"></a>
+<p><sup>19</sup> Epistle to the Romans.</p>
+
+<a name="fn20"></a>
+<p><sup>20</sup> St. John.</p>
+
+<a name="fn21"></a>
+<p><sup>21</sup> St. John.</p>
+
+<a name="fn22"></a>
+<p><sup>22</sup> Epistle to the Ephesians.</p>
+
+<a name="fn23"></a>
+<p><sup>23</sup> Second Epistle to the Corinthians.</p>
+
+<a name="fn24"></a>
+<p><sup>24</sup> St Paul's Second Epistle to Timothy.</p>
+
+<a name="fn25"></a>
+<p><sup>25</sup> St. Luke.</p>
+
+<a name="fn26"></a>
+<p><sup>26</sup> St. Luke.</p>
+
+<a name="fn27"></a>
+<p><sup>27</sup> The Book of Genesis.</p>
+
+<a name="fn28"></a>
+<p><sup>28</sup> St. Luke.</p>
+
+<a name="fn29"></a>
+<p><sup>29</sup> St. Luke.</p>
+
+<a name="fn30"></a>
+<p><sup>30</sup> St. Luke.</p>
+
+<a name="fn31"></a>
+<p><sup>31</sup> St Matthew.</p>
+
+<a name="fn32"></a>
+<p><sup>32</sup> Epistle to the Romans.</p>
+
+<a name="fn33"></a>
+<p><sup>33</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn34"></a>
+<p><sup>34</sup> The Book of Psalms.</p>
+
+<a name="fn35"></a>
+<p><sup>35</sup> The Book of Isaiah.</p>
+<br />
+<hr />
+<pre>
+
+
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+</pre>
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