October 16 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Cosmic Consciousness - Illumination (Continued)

"Illumination will come as man more and more realizes his Unity with the Whole, and as he constantly endeavors to let the Truth operate through him.  But since the Whole is at the point of the Inner Mentality, it will be here alone that he will contact It.  "Speak to Him, thou, for He hears."  Always in such degree as one has spiritual sense, he realizes universality in his own soul.  The great mystics have had that sense and have felt the possibility of an immediate communion with the Universal Spirit.  This essence has run through all theologies and has been the cause of much of their vitality.  Theology with all its weakness has been stronger in its strength than it has been weak in its weakness, because the vital elements in it have been greater than the devitalizing ones.  It would not have lived unless this were true.

The only God man knows is the God of his own Inner Life; he can know no other.  To assume that man can know a God outside himself is to assume that he can know something of which he cannot be conscious. This does not mean that man is God; it means that the only God that man knows is within, and the only life man has is from within. God is not external but is Indwelling, at the very center of man's life.  This is why Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is within and why He prayed:  "Our Father which art in Heaven."

The great mystics like Jesus have taught that as we enter into the One, the One enters into us and becomes us and is us.  They have taught the "Mystical Marriage," the union of the soul of man with the Soul of God, and the Unity of all Life.  The great mystics while sensing this Unity - the Universality of all things - have also sensed the individualization of Being and the individuality of Man as a Divine Reality.  Tagore, in seeking to explain this, says that the individual is immersed in, but not lost in, Nirvana, and he uses the illustration..."as an arrow is lost in its mark," still remaining an arrow.  The mysticism of Buddha did not teach the annihilation of the soul, but the eternality of an ever-expanding principle of the soul."

September 27 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT The MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Unity (Continued)

"In treatment there should always be a recognition of the absolute Unity of God and man:  the Oneness, Inseparability, Indivisibility, Changelessness.  God as the big circle and man as the little circle.  Man is in God and God is man, just as a drop of water is in the ocean, while the ocean is the drop of water.  This is the recognition which Jesus had when he said, "I and the Father are One."  There is a perfect Union, and to the degree that we are conscious of this Union, we incorporate this consciousness in our word; and our word has just as much power as we put into it, nor more and no less.

Within this Infinite Mind each individual exists, not as a separated but as a separate entity.  We are a point in Universal Consciousness, which is God, and God is our Life, Spirit, Mind and Intelligence.  We are not separated from Life, neither is It separated from us, but we are separate entities in It - individualized centers of God Consciousness.

We came from Life and are in Life, so we are One with Life; and we know that Instinctive Life within - which has brought us to the point of self-recognition - still knows in us the reason for all things, the purpose underlying all things; and we know that there is nothing in us of fear, doubt or confusion which can hinder the flow of Reality to the point of our recognition.  We are guided daily by Divine Intelligence into paths of peace, wherein the soul recognizes its Source and meets It in joyful union, in complete At-One-ment.

The power of Jesus is understood when we study His method of procedure.  Consider His raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Standing at the tomb, He gave thanks; this was recognition.  He next said:  "I know that thou hearest me always;" this was unification.  Then He said:  "Lazarus, come forth," this was his command.  The method is perfect and we shall do well to follow it.  This method can be used in all treatment.  First, realize that Divine Power is; then unify with It; and then speak the word as "one having authority," for the Law is "the servant of the Eternal Spirit throughout all the ages."

Jesus prayed that all might come to see the Unity of Life.  "That they may be One even as we are One," was His prayer as He neared the completion of His great work - the prayer that enabled those closest to Him to understand the Unity of Spirit, in which man clearly recognizes his Oneness with his Creator and with all Creation.  All mystics have sensed that we live in One Life:  "In Him we live and move and have our being."

The Unity of Good is a revelation of the greatest importance, for it teaches us that we are One with the Whole and One with each other.  The Fatherhood of God and the actual Brotherhood of Man will be made apparent on earth to the degree that man realizes true Unity."

September 24 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

WHAT the MYSTICS HAVE TAUGHT
Ernest Holmes

Unity

"Reason declares that that Which is Infinite cannot be divided against Itself.  The Infinite cannot be divided against Itself.  The Infinite is, therefore indivisible and consequently a Perfect unit.  "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord."  It is also "That Whose Center is everwhere and Whose Circumference is nowhere."

All of It is present at any and every point within Itself.  It is not approaching a point nor receding from it, but is always at the point.  The whole of God is present at any and every point within God.  It was to this Indwelling Spirit that Jesus prayed, for God is within man as well as throughout all creation.  It is "That thread of the All-Sustaining beauty which runs through all and doth all unite."  His lines have gone out into all places."  "There is no place where God is not."

This concept enabled Job to say, "In my flesh shall I see God." All life is bound together by One common Law of Love, and Love is the Self-Givingness of Spirit.  It was the realization of this One Presence which illumined the saints and sages of the past.  "I and the Father are One."  "The Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."  We must come to sense this marvelous Presence, for this is the secret of successful metaphysical work:  God in all and through all.

All manifestation of Life is from an invisible to a visible plane, through a silent, effortless process of spiritual realization.  WE MUST UNIFY IN OUR OWN MENTALITIES WITH PURE SPIRIT.  To each of us, individually, God or Spirit is the Supreme Personality of the Universe - the Supreme Personality of that which we, ourselves, are.  It is only as the relationship of the individual to the Deity becomes enlarged that one has a consciousness of Power."

September 9 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM The TEACHINGS of JESUS
Ernest Holmes

The New Birth (John 3:3-9)

""Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."  Jesus is referring to the heavenly birth, which means being born into the knowledge of Truth.  He refers to this as being born of water and Spirit.

The symbol of water is used to express the idea of a complete immersion in Spirit.  As water flows in and around, so we are immersed in an everlasting Spirit which flows around, in and through us.  To be immersed in water symbolizes our recognition that we are surrounded by pure Spirit.  It is the outward sign of an inner conviction.  But water alone cannot make us completely clean or whole.  We must be born of the Spirit, for "that which is born of the spirit is Spirit."

Man partakes of the Divine nature and the Divine nature is man.  The recognition of this is being born of the Spirit.  But we cannot be born of the spirit unless we do the will of the Spirit and the will of the Spirit is goodness, peace, mercy, justice and truth.  It is conscious union with God.

The new birth comes not by observation nor by loud proclamation, but through an inner sense of reality.  We cannot tell where this comes from, if we look to outward things, as it proceeds from the innermost parts of our own being.

Heaven (John 3:13)

"And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he hath came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven."  Here is another of those hidden meanings which places Jesus among the great mystics.  He says that no man can go to heaven unless he came from heaven, and that he can neither go to, nor come from, heaven unless he is already there!

This is in line with the idea that the Truth knows neither yesterday, today nor tomorrow.  It knows sequence but not time.  Only that can return to heaven which was born in heaven, and since heaven is not a place, but a state of consciousness, the return must be a recognition that heaven is already within.  The son of man, who is also the son of God, is already in heaven and knows it not.

The Son of Man (John 3:14)

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so Jesus tells us must the son of man also be lifted up.  By looking on and believing in this son, we are saved.  Jesus could not have been referring to his own personality, for he knew that this would soon be taken from the sight of humanity.  We must look for a deeper meaning.

We must be lifted up, that is we must realize our Divine nature and relationship to the Truth of God.  This relationship is one of complete unity.  The cross represents the tree of life and may also be thought of as the tree of unity.

When Moses lifted up the serpent, those who looked upon it were healed.  This understanding produced a consciousness of unity, which had healing power.  The Life Principle is either looked up on as material or spiritual.  When looked upon as material, it casts us from the Garden of Eden - the garden of the soul.  The Life Principle viewed only as matter is death, but viewed as life and unity, It becomes life everlasting.  Moses elevated the Life Principle and Jesus did the same.  The son of man must be lifted up, even as Moses lifted up the Life Principle, symbolized by the serpent.

We are reminded here of another symbol, one used in the Old Testament, that of the serpent which cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden.  The serpent meant the outer rim of spiritual existence - the Life Principle viewed from an isolated and materialistic basis.  The worship of material existence, apart from God, cast Adam and Eve from the Garden of Perfection.  The attempt to live in effects, apart from True Cause, always does this.

The story of the Fall, taken literally, would be ridiculous to the point of absurdity; hence it is necessary to look for a deeper meaning.  The writer was trying to teach a Cosmic lesson ... the lesson of right and wrong.  The Garden of Eden typifies life in its pure essence.  Adam means man in general, generic man.  Man exists in pure Life and has all of Its agencies at his command.  This si the meaning of his being told to till the soil and enjoy the fruits of his labor. 

The Tree of Life is our real being, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil means the possibility of dual choice - that is, we can choose even that which is not for our best good.  Man is warned not to eat of the fruit of this tree, for it  is destructive.

Eve, the woman in the case, was made from a rib of Adam.  this story suggests the dual nature of man as a psychological being.  The woman is made from the man.  She must have been in him else she could not have been made out of him, and the story clearly states that she was taken from his being.

Adam and Eve are potential in all of us.  The serpent represents the Life Principle, viewed from a material basis, which beguiles us in this way:  he says that evil is as real as good; that the devil has equal power with God; that negation equals positive goodness, and that the Universe is dual in Its Nature.  From the acceptance of this argument, we experience both good and evil.  And should we come full-orbed into individuality, without having learned the lesson of unity, we should live forever in a state of bondage.  This is the meaning of God saying, "He shall become as one of us and live forever."  The eternal Mind does not wish us to live forever in bondage, and this is what would happen unless we first learn the lesson of right and wrong.

And so that part of us which can be fooled eats of the fruit of dual experience and in so doing reveals its own nakedness.  The native state of man is one of purity, peace and perfection and it is only when we compare these with impurity, distress and imperfection, that we are revealed as naked.  Emerson tells us that virtue does not know it is virtuous.  It is only when virtue tastes of impurities that it becomes naked and must hide from itself.

The Voice of God, "walking in the garden in the cool of the day," means the introspective and meditative part of us, which in its moments of pure intuition and reason, sees the illusion of a life apart from God or Good.  Error is ever a coward before Truth, and cannot hide itself from Reality, which sees through everything, encompasses all and penetrates even the prison walls of the mind with Its clear effulgence.

The conversation between God and Adam and Eve, in the Garden of Eden, represents the arguments that go on in our own minds, when we try to  realize the truth.  These arguments are familiar to all.  The expulsion from the Garden is a necessary and logical outcome of tasting of dual experience.  If we believe in both good and evil, we must experience both.

But, lest we should become discouraged, we remember that Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness and those who looked upon it were healed.  The serpent means the Life Principle.  Viewed from a material basis alone, it casts us from a perfect state.  Lifted up, that is, viewed from a true meaning of the Unity of God, it heals.  Here is the choice again, only stated in different words.  The difference is not in the thing itself, but in the way we look at it.

The son of man is every man who ever lived or ever will live.  Our life is from Spirit, not from matter.  This viewpoint is the truth and truth alone makes free.  We come into everlasting life as we elevate this inner principle to a sense of the unity of man with God.  Each must lift himself to the cross of the tree of Life, thus unifying himself with Reality.  The concept is glorious and the reward certain.  The revelation of the self to the self - this is the great lesson of lessons."

September 3 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

OTHER TEACHINGS from the NEW TESTAMENT
Ernest Holmes

The Unity of Life (Eph. 4:1-7)

"The unity of the Spirit is kept through the bonds of peace.  Other than peace suggests confusion and separation.  The Spirit is a perfect unit and we harmonize with this unity when we maintain a state of peace in our minds.

"There is one body and one Spirit."  The entire creation is this body - the Body of God, who is One Spirit.  Within this one Body are all bodies; that is, within the one creation - which is the product of the One Spirit - are all bodies.

We have learned that all material forms come form one ultimate substance.  Any special body is some manifestation of this original stuff.  The original substance takes many forms; multiplicity, or many, within unity, or the One.

"One Lord, one faith, one baptism."  One Lord, who is the indwelling Christ, generic man or the universal Son.  There is but one faith, for faith is an affirmative mental attitude toward the universe; and one baptism, which is the realization that we are in the One Spirit.

"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."  It would be impossible to make a clearer statement of Truth:  One Life behind all that lives!  One, One, One...never two.  The unity of all life.  To learn this is to know a secret of the ages.

Here is a mystical saying:  God is in all, through all, and above all, which means that we partake of the One Life...It is all of us...but we are not all of this Life.  No man can exhaust the Divine Nature, but all live by, in, and through It.  It is in us but also around us - It is what we are but infinitely more than we are!  We shall ever ascend into a greater expression of this One, but we can never completely encompass It.  This is a glorious concept, and one which fills us with wonder at the majesty of our own being - forever hid with Christ in God."

July 31 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

FROM THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

By Ernest Holmes

Abiding in the One (John 15:7)

“If ye abide in me and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.”

It is impossible for humanity to literally abide in the man Jesus, so we must look for a figurative meaning in these words.  He is speaking of the spirit of his teachings; and the whole spirit of his teachings is to the effect that man is an individualized center of God-Consciousness.  The spirit of man is the spirit of God, for God is One.

When we abide in the One, we cannot ask amiss, but we must ask for that which is right and good.  Consequently, our prayers to the One will be answered.  But let us remember that the prayer is answered according to the law, and this law is one of liberty and never one of license.  True liberty comes only through true harmony; true harmony only through true unity; and true unity can come only through the conscious realization that we are one with God or Good.

Jesus implies a power which can and will work for those who harmonize with, and believe in it.  But we must first abide in the Spirit of Truth.  And what is the spirit of Truth other than that we live in conscious unity with good and do harm to no one?  Goodness is natural, while evil is abnormal.

To trust in the law of good is to constantly believe that we are surrounded by a Power which can and will cast all fear from our minds, free us from all bondage, and set us safe and satisfied in a new order of living.

That Ye Bear Much Fruit (John 15:8)

“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit.”  When we express a greater livinginess, then Life is more completely expressing Itself though us.  A barren tree does not express the principle of abundance and production, so a life barren of good does not fully express the divine ideal.

Evolution has brought man to a point of self-expression and it can do no more for him until he consciously co-operates with it.  Its law is one of growth and unfoldment.  God goes forth anew into creation whenever anyone discovers a new truth or increases knowledge about an old one.  Each is a center of the All, and each has access to the All, through his own nature.

Jesus refers to his joy on the eve of his greatest lesson to mankind.  That joy which is full and complete.  That joy which no man can take away:  the joy of a sense of completion.  He was about to lay down his earthly life, as the greatest object lesson ever taught.  And what was this lesson?  That LOVE knows no bounds and that the Eternal Goodness gives Itself to all.  God as man, in man, is man.”

June 21 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MEDITATIONS for Self-Help

by Ernest Holmes

The Radiation of Life

The life of God within me radiates and shines forth from me in a constant stream of Light to all.

The One Life flowing through me is Life to all who come near.

The One Power operating through me is flowing into everything that I contact.

Life radiates from me.

Unity

Today I realize that I am One with the All Good; my God and I are One.

I cannot be hid from His face.

I behold Thee, O Most High, enthroned in my temple of flesh.

Thy secret place is within me.  I feel Thy presence,

I hear Thy voice, I rejoice in Thy Light.

Today my body responds to the Divine Behest:  "Be perfect."

I know of my perfection and wholeness; I am complete and perfect now.

Let every thought of disease flee from me, and let Thy Light shine.

O Light Eternal, O Light of my Life, I come into Thy presence with joy and thanksgiving.

So be it.

May 6 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

PHYSICAL PERFECTION (Continued) ~ Ernest Holmes

"We realize that mental healing must also be spiritual healing, for the two cannot be divorced. We know that a belief in duality - a belief in the power of Good and the power of evil - has helped to destroy man, and the understanding of Unity alone will heal him.  We seek to realize this Unity with God in all our healing work.  Every treatment must carry with it a realization of God, if it is to be a good treatment.  We are not in any way superstitious about this, but understand that it is necessary since all life is One, and God is the ONE Life in which we all live.

We realize that since our understanding is not yet complete, it is legitimate to use all methods which will help troubled humanity, but we do look forward to the day when Truth alone will answer every need!  The mental healer will do all his work in mind, and will give his whole time and attention to correct knowing, but he will leave his patient free to use any method that will benefit him.  In this way, the practitioner will get the best results, for everything is good as far as it goes, but the consciousness of Truth alone is the tool of a spiritual practitioner.

Too much cannot be said against the belief that will power is creative.  The will is directive but not creative.  Will is the conscious, directive power of the intellect and as such has a very important place in the creative order but in no case is it to be used as though it could force things to happen.  Any idea of using the will to influence people is a mistake.

If we agree that we can influence others by will power, then we are also admitting that someone else with a greater power of will can influence us.  There is no law of nature that works only one way since all natural laws are impersonal.  The temporary effects of will power continue only so long as the will forces them to.  They have no real life within themselves and must disintegrate as soon as the unnatural force is withdrawn.

Moreover this use of will power contradicts the main foundation upon which all true mental science is built, that we use a Creative Power which does not need to be urged or forced into action.  It is Its nature to act and because we are as we are, it is Its nature to act creatively upon the images of thought that we impress It with.  We do not create energy, we distribute it, and in the natural sciences we know that we can transform energy from one type to another.  So the will may decide what form the energy is to take but it cannot nor does it need to create the energy.

The Energy of Mind like other natural energies already exists.  We merely use It and it is within our province to use It in any way we may desire, we have it within our power to cause it to take varying forms for us, no particular one is permanent.  The imagination is creative, the will is directive.

Through will we decide just what we wish to have done.  We may wish to use the creative power of mind for helping someone else, for self-help, or for some other purpose.  The will holds attention to the mental viewpoint until the creative power has time to work through the law of unfoldment.  We may wish on the other hand to draw some information to ourselves; the will then holds to the idea that we are receiving the desired information.  It can become active or receptive or it may pass into a state of neutral contemplation where its purpose is merely to sense the wonders of the spiritual life.  But in no case does the will become creative.

The will is given us to protect ourselves with.  Nothing should be allowed to pass into the creative currents of our thought until the will has first admitted it.  The will must first analyze, dissect and then decide what it wishes the inner imagination to work on.  True spiritual work will strengthen the will without exhausting the mind; if our mental work tires us then we are using the will in the wrong way.  The right way would be to determine to think peace whether there appeared to be any reason to expect that peace would be forthcoming in the experience.

As we should understand the proper use of the will, so we should understand the true meaning of concentration.  So many different ideas have been promulgated that a great deal of confusion results.  To concentrate means to bring to a center, and in Mental Science it means focusing the mental attention on some definite and desired thought, image, idea or thing.  Of course we are dealing with the idea as though thoughts were things.  The spirit of the thing is in the thought.  This is its essence, law and cause."

April 20 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

MENTAL and SPIRITUAL TREATMENT

Ernest Holmes

Treatment:  What It Is

"Effective mental treatment is propelled by a consciousness of love and a realization that the Creative Spirit is always at work.  The practitioner does not feel that he must compel the Force to work.  It is the nature of the Creative Power to take form, and it is the nature of man to use It.

A treatment should be given a calm, expectant manner and with a deep inner conviction of its reality, without any fear or any sense that the human mind must make it effective. The work is effective because the Law is always in operation.

The Purpose of Treatment

Mental or spiritual treatment should bring into actual manifestation the health and happiness which are mankind's normal and divine heritage.  Such healing includes the emancipation of the mind from every form of bondage through a new concept of God, which causes the heart to beat with joy and gladness.  This healing power is a consciousness of the Unity of all Life and the spiritual nature of all being.  Man's life is rooted in the Universal and the Eternal, which life is none other than the Life of God.  The healing process, in so far as it may be termed a process, is in becoming conscious of this eternal truth.

Treatment should incorporate a conscious recognition that health has always been ours, abundance has always been ours, happiness and peace have always been ours; they are ours now, for they are the very essence and Truth of our being.  All there is of evil, of whatever name or kind is an inversion of eternal good."

February 23 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Oneness with All Law ~ Ernest Holmes  

"When we know our Oneness with God and Law, what a great burden is removed.  Any sense of opposition is removed from the consciousness which perceives Unity.  That which we call OUR subjective mind is but a point in Universal Mind where our personality maintains its individualized expression of Spirit.  If we think of ourselves as being separated from the Universe, we shall be limited by this thought, for it is a belief in separation from God which binds and limits.  WE ARE BOUND BY NOTHING EXCEPT BELIEF.  "They could not enter in because of their unbelief, and because they limited the Holy One of Israel."

There is but One Mind.  Here is the point:  everything we experience, touch, taste, handle and smell - environment, bodies, conditions, money, happiness, friends  - all are effects.  Is it clear that the infinite and limitless possibilities of that One of which man is a part, depend in man's expression, upon his own concept?  If he is a point of personality in Limitless Mind, which he is; and if all his life must be drawn from this One Mind, which it must be, there cannot be anything else, can there?  And if there is nothing else, if there is nothing to move save Mind - and if man is a thinking center in Mind- nothing is going to happen TO him that does not happen THROUGH him, whether it be the result of his own erroneous conclusions, those of his grandfather, or those of the race to which he belongs!  This is not in any sense fatalistic, for WE MAY CHANGE THE TREND OF CAUSATION WHICH IAS BEEN SET IN MOTION AT ANY TIME WE DECIDE TO DO SO.

Everything comes from Intelligence.  There is nothing but Unity; there is nothing but freedom; there is nothing but completeness; there is nothing but Totality. Begin at the beginning and reason this out, time after time, until all doubt disappears. It is necessary that each one do this for himself.

Such is the power of right thinking that it cancels and erases everything unlike itself.  It answers every question, solves all problems, is the solution to every difficulty.  It is like the sunlight of Eternal Truth bursting through the clouds of obscurity and bathing all life in a celestial glory.  It is the Absolute with which we are dealing and nothing less."

February 12 ~ The Science of Mind in a Year

Unity and Multiplicity ~ Ernest Holmes

"The stuff out of which our human bodies are made is the same etheric substance from which all things are made. The One Mind conceives all things.  From Unity - which is the One, back of all things, through the One Law, which is the Medium of all action - multiplicity is manifested, but the many never contradict the Unity of the whole.  When we realize that we are dealing with an Infinite Intelligence, and with an Infinite Law within this Intelligence, we see that no limit should be placed upon the Creative Principle.

Could we understand Absolute Causation, we should perceive It to be pure Intelligence operating through perfect Law, and producing effects which live and have their being, not by virtue of an isolated life buy by reason of a Universal Unity which permeates all things.  We should then see that the world of multiplicity is deep-rooted in a Universe of Unity; that nothing happens by chance; that we live under a government of Law - from the vast planetary system to a garden of roses; from the Archangel (the Christ), to the saint and the sinner; through good an in what is called evil.  Thorough cosmic activities and in human destinies, we behold the vast objective panorama of invisible, but adequate, subjective causes.

We should not separate Life from living, Spirit from matter, nor Divine Principle from a Universal Creation.  God is "All in all."  That is, God IS, and is in everything.  The gardener finds a divine idea concealed in the seed; loosed into action this idea produces a plant.  The geologist finds the imprint of invisible forces in the rock.  The evolutionist reads the history of cosmic activities on this planet, as he deciphers the unfolding of an Intelligent Life Force carrying creation forward to its consummation point here, which is the production of self-conscious life.  The scientist finds an energy concealed in the atom, and the spiritual genius discloses an intuitive knowledge, which can be accounted for only on the theory that we lie in "the lap of an Infinite Intelligence."

So close is the union of creation with the Creator, that it is impossible to say where one begins and the other leaves off.  Emerson tells us that nature is Spirit reduced to Its greatest thinness; and Spinoza says that Mind and matter are the same thing; while Jesus proclaimed that the very words which he spoke were Spirit and were life.  Robert Browning writes of the spark which we may desecrate, but never quite lose, and he further announces that all are gods, "though in the germ."  Wordsworth sings that Heaven is that native home of all mankind, and Tennyson exclaims that more things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams, while Shakespeare perceived sermons in stones and good in everything.

We are on the verge of disclosing a spiritual Universe, and will ultimately conclude that what we call the physical universe is a spontaneous emergence, through evolution of inner forces which cannot be explained, but which must be accepted.  How, then, can we doubt that the very mind which we now use is the Intelligent Principle from which all life draws its power to be and its intelligence to express?

The furtherance of evolution depends upon our ability to sense a unity with Nature and her forces.  When the knowledge of this unity comes alike to all, the tread of armies will cease and the bugle call will echo the soft notes of brotherly love."