THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL &NIV, JDF CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES Lilian Whiting's Works THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. First Series THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. Second Series THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL. Third Series AFTER HER DEATH. The Story of a Summer THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE FROM DREAMLAND SENT. Verses of the Life to Come KATE FIELD : A Record A STUDY OF ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL IN BOOKS BOSTON DAYS THE LIFE RADIANT THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL BY LILIAN WHITING Author of "The World Beautiful," "The Spiritual Significance" "Boston Days," etc. " The house of man's own soul has such a door into the Infinite Beauty, whether he has found it or not " BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1905 Copyright, 1905, BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY. All rifktt reserved Published April, 1905 THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. TO YEN. ALBERT BASIL ORME WILBERFORCE, D.D. Archdeacon of Westminster Abbey, WHOSE MARVELLOUS INSIGHT INTO SPIRITUAL TRUTH AND NOBLE INTERPRETATION OP THE DIVINE TEACHING ENRICHES AND EXALTS ALL LIFE, THESE PAGES ARE INSCRIBED WITH THE AFFECTION AND THE REVERENCE OF LILIAN WHITING. 2133879 What constitutes a new force of finite life and experience ? A new sort of self-hood ? The answer is: A new form of self-hood means simply the appearance of a new type of interest in the world, in God, and in finding the way to self-expression. PROFESSOR JOSIAH ROYCE. CONTENTS. PAGE THE DELUSION OF DEATH 3 REALIZING THE IDEAL 17 FRIENDSHIP AS A DIVINE RELATION ... 32 THE ETHEREAL WORLD 62 THE SUPREME PURPOSE OF JESUS .... 84 AN INWARD STILLNESS 119 THE MIRACLE MOMENT MAY DAWN ON ANY HOUR . 141 THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL. The delusion of Death shall pass, The delusion of mounded earth, the apparent withdrawal; We shall shed our bodies, and upward flutter to freedom. STEPHEN PHILLIPS. With what body do they come ? . . . And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. 1 CORINTHIANS. THE OUTLOOK BEAUTIFUL. I muse on joys that will not cease, Pure spaces clothed in living beams, Pure lilies of eternal peace Whose odors haunt my dreams. jjHE Angel we call Death may be more truly regarded as the Angel of Life, as God's messenger who comes to guide the way into the life more abundant. Into the Unseen world, whose beauty eye hath not seen nor hath Th6 Delusion it entered into the heart of man of Death - to conceive, the soul goes forth, companioned with infinite tenderness and enfolded in the arms of Everlasting Love. No one can come near this experience, either through personal sorrow or sympathy with the personal sorrow 3 The Outlook Beautiful. of others, without a new and more profound sense of the consecrations of life. Death is so marvellous an event that even though it is the universal experience, the one event absolutely sure and inevitable for every in- dividual, it never ceases to be invested with a mysterious sublimity. Its transcendent imagery appears almost as a heavenly vis- ion. It brings all who share this thrill of sorrow into closer relation with God, "the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the resurrection and the life, in whom who- soever believeth shall live, though he die." Not, indeed, as the end of life, but as an event in life, is this . great change to be regarded. It is the supreme experience of the sojourn on earth. It emphasizes a definite crisis. It is the withdrawal from the visible and tangible relations of the physical world. It is the process by means of which the spiritual body is released from the physical and enters on the next higher 4 The Outlook Beautiful. plane of the spiritual universe. For this present life, too, is the spiritual world in just the degree that man lives in the spirit, for man is here and now an inhabitant of both worlds. It rests with himself to live " as seeing Him who is invisible." This more pure and exalted life is perfectly practicable, day by day, in all the stress of the common life. If it could only be lived in the cloister and not in the market-place, it would be hardly worth discussion. But the life of the spirit, that life which is joy, peace, and sweet- ness ; the life of liberal sympathies, of finer comprehensions, is that in which a higher potency and more applied energy can be brought to bear than can be gained from the cruder and lower phases of existence. For religion is, in its true reading, spiritu- ality, and spirituality is a life and not a litany. With what body do they come ? With the spiritual body, which is the refined and ethe- 5 The Outlook Beautiful. real counterpart of the body we know here. They are about us in the simple, natural way. "The life which we are living now is more aware than we know of the life which is to come," said Phillips Brooks, and added : "Death, which separates the two, is not, as it has been so often pictured, like a great thick wall. It is rather like a soft and yield- ing curtain, through which we cannot see, but which is always waving and trembling with the impulses that come out of the life which lies upon the other side of it." With what body do they come? There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body. Spirit is always embodied. Casting off the natural, it remains in the spiritual body, a finer and an ethereal counterpart of the nat- ural one. The specific work a man has been doing here he can carry on with increased power and energy from the higher plane. " No work begun shall ever pause for death," says Robert Browning. 6 The Outlook Beautiful. To regard death in the sense of effacement from participation in the energies of life is pagan and not Christian. The change is an event in life, as going to another country may be, save that it involves a greater individual change. The person becomes more alive. He achieves a higher spirituality, and only to the degree that one lives the life of the spirit does he live, in any real sense, at all. " What is man ? " questioned Prof. Ben- jamin Peirce. " What a strange union of matter and of mind! A machine for con- verting material into spiritual force ! A soul imprisoned in a body ! " To be still more definite, the real man is the soul clothed in its ethereal body, which is, also, during his sojourn in the material world, clothed upon with a physical body. The withdrawal from this temporal body, the mere physical instrument, is that process we call death, and it is simply the entrance on the "life more abundant." 7 The Outlook Beautiful. To come suddenly into a vivid realization of this supreme event of death with its mystic and impressive significance is to re- construct all one's relations with those still here. How one feels anew the beauty of holiness! How one feels anew the sacred- ness of all human affections! "Be such a man, live such a life," said Phillips Brooks, "that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be paradise." These words condense the Christian ideal of daily living. For life is a trust divinely committed to man. It is the most priceless, the most in- finitely valuable of possessions, a gift of rare powers and unlimited resources, to be used for the benefit of others, and thus, in the truest way, for one's self. One only lives for himself in the best way when he lives for others. " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples," said the Christ. To 8 The Outlook Beautiful. "bear much fruit" is to live in the widest relations with human life; to render the service needed at the moment, not counting the cost; to give the gift that is needed, though it leave one's own hands empty. For spiritual treasure is infinite, and to him who lives in the spirit the supply is sure. And only he who scattereth, increaseth. Not to scatter it wantonly, selfishly, and thoughtlessly, but in meeting every real need that appeals to one with the very best that is in his power, that is to live in the spirit, and thus be a partaker of all the infinite and boundless riches of the Lord. These are among the lessons of life that are suggested by death. They thrill and magnetize toward all that is beautiful and sacred. The strains of celestial melody seem to linger, and one hears, as in a dream of heavenly exaltation, those wonderful, haunt- ing strains of melody, 9 The Outlook Beautiful. " Angels, ever bright and fair, Take her take her to thy care." This Outlook Beautiful into the next stage of the infinite progression surrounds one with an atmosphere of divine tranquillity, the peace which, as Cardinal Newman has said, "grows from the life of God in the soul which is the same as the life of pure love. Why should a soul be otherwise than tranquil which seeks for nothing but what comes in the Providence of God ? . . . Let us seek the grace of a cheerful heart, an even temper, sweetness, gentleness, and brightness of mind, as walking in His light and by His grace. Let us pray to Him," continued the Cardi- nal, " to give us the spirit of ever-abundant, ever-springing love, which overpowers and sinks away the vexations of life by its own richness and strength, and which, above all things, unites us to Him who is the fountain and the centre of all mercy, loving-kindness, and joy." 10 The Outlook Beautiful. May we not, then, consider this supreme and universal experience of human life, this event we call death, in the light of this all- abounding " mercy, loving-kindness, and joy " ? The entrance upon earthly life is by birth ; the entrance on the next stage of experience is by death ; each is a part of the absolutely universal experience of every human being ; each is natural; each is the event divinely appointed by God, and why should the latter be invested with any gloom? Faith alone illumines the path; but if to faith can be added knowledge, spiritual percep- tion is thereby supported by intellectual conviction. When Jesus came into the world two thousand years ago, divinely commis- sioned by the Father " to bring life and im- mortality to light," He gave every pledge and promise of the beauty, the exaltation, the heavenly peace, of the higher conditions. The developments of scientific and psychic truth now offer a vast array of detail ex- 11 The Outlook Beautiful. plaining and illustrating the truth taught by Jesus. The poet's felicitous phrasing of " the delu- sion of death " accurately defines the impres- sion made upon the mind by this change. What has occurred ? The ethereal form has withdrawn from the physical form. The latter lies before us, inert, lifeless, creat- ing in the mind a " delusion," indeed, unless faith, or knowledge, or both combined, illu- minate and explain the phenomenon. The ethereal body is in a state of far higher vibra- tion than is the physical body. The physical eye is limited to a certain range of vibration beyond which its vision cannot penetrate. Even this general range differs largely among individuals, some being able to perceive ob- jects at twice the distance possible to the range of vision by others. Now, beyond a certain rate of vibration the physical eye cannot penetrate. Beyond a certain rate of vibration the physical ear takes no cognizance 12 The Outlook Beautiful. of sound. The highly trained and sensitive ear of the musician will catch notes higher than those heard by the ordinary person. So it is seen at once that the eye and the ear of the physical body have their definite limitations. When the ethereal body with- draws itself from the physical, it may stand beside us, and we do not perceive it, because its subtile delicacy and higher rate of vibration transcend the physical range of vision. As Stephen Phillips has said, " I tell you, we are fooled by the eye and ear. These organs muffle us from the real world." The poet's insight is in exact accord with all the teachings of Jesus as given us in the New Testament. The conditions surrounding him who has entered into the ethereal world and him who remains here are entirely different, although between the two there is no vast gulf fixed ; the change is in no sense revolutionary, but, 13 The Outlook Beautiful. instead, evolutionary. It is simply the ex- tension of the horizon line as one journeys on. But the next great consideration is this : man even while on earth is a twofold being and an inhabitant, at once, of both the physical and the ethereal worlds. These constitute a twofold environment, to each of which he responds by virtue of his two- fold nature. To him who is living the life of the spirit, the life of intense intellectual activ- ity, of abounding spiritual energy, to such a man the ethereal realm is more real than is that of the physical. He is more largely in correspondence with its nature. All great discoverers, great inventors, great projectors of important undertakings, as well as the artist, the poet, the teacher, and the preacher, are living far more in the ethereal than in the physical world. Tethered here by means of the physical body which is simply the essential instrument of communication and 14 The Outlook Beautiful. transmittal with the physical universe tethered by means of this body, a proportion of time and energy is inevitably absorbed by physical demands. The proper food, clothing, and shelter of the physical body are primary conditions for its serving as a reliable instrument for work. It must be kept in repair. / When the intellectual and spiritual life is limited ; when this higher energy has hardly developed beyond the rudimentary order, then it requires nearly all to merely create fair conditions for the physical life. Multitudes are born and die who achieve little beyond this while on earth. Multitudes are born and die who do not even achieve this while on earth. But we must take heart of grace and remember that the earthly life is merely one evolutionary phase, and that the soul has before it an Eternity in which to progress and develop ; for God gives to each the heritage of in- finite time and infinite love. Yet, as Dr. 15 The Outlook Beautiful. William T. Harris often says, "Realize your ideals quickly." By so much does one enter on his great reward in beauty and joy of life. One is the victim, we will say, of a certain recognized fault; he realizes that he is selfish, or impatient, or irritable, or prone to procrastination, which, though it may not be enrolled among the Seven Deadly Sins, is almost as fatal in disastrous results as any one that is so enrolled. One is the victim, we will say, of any of these defective con- ditions. Now, by a supreme effort of will he may just as well overcome his defect at once make any hour a definite crisis beyond which the fault shall no more tyran- nize over his conduct as to go on year after year, fully resolving to correct it some- time and somewhere, but never achieving this correction. Let him realize his ideal quickly, and thus enter on a richer period of activity and beautiful experience. For immortal life is simply a condition, and one 16 The Outlook Beautiful. that may be entered upon increasingly here and now. Columbus demonstrated its qual- ity in his sublime intuitive grasp of a new world awaiting discovery. No outward biog- raphy of the great discoverer has ever so interpreted to us his real self as is offered by Lowell in his sublime poem entitled " Columbus ; " for the poet enters into this ethereal world, this more real world, and translates to us its significance. The power of realizing ideals quickly is that of entering more and more into this higher life of the spirit which is the R ea u z i ng source of all great achievements the IdeaL in physical activities. Where did Columbus receive his leading that guided his wonderful discovery ? Where did Morse gain his insight into ethereal conditions enabling him to utilize the ethereal force, electricity, to serve as a communicating instrument ? Where did Cyrus Field receive his inspiration to bridge the ocean with instant response? Where did 2 17 The Outlook Beautiful. Marconi learn to make our coast " bristle with towers whose fingers pick the impalpable messages off the clouds " ? The gigantic en- gineering enterprises, the wonderful inven- tions, the marvellous creations of man in every variety of human endeavor, are simply the re- sult of the power to discern and to enter into the mastery of these more intense potencies of the ethereal world. This it is, indeed, to be a co-worker with God. So that all who are living the higher life of activity, of valu- able purpose and achievement, of moral great- ness and spiritual exaltation, are, in all their varied degrees, living in touch with this higher environment that surrounds us, the ethereal realm. For it is not only by the process called death that we enter into its vast possibilities. The ignorant man who dies does not merely by the withdrawal from his physical body enter into the practical realization of all these higher activities to a greater degree than the trained and educated 18 The Outlook Beautiful. man who is still tethered to the physical world; although given an equal degree of intellectual and spiritual development, he who enters into the ethereal world by with- drawal from the limitations of his physi- cal body can better participate in the higher range of activities than he who is still im- prisoned, so to speak, in the earthly body. Still, that expression, " a soul imprisoned in a body," is not quite adequate, for this body may be made, to a great degree, the instru- ment of expression rather than the mere case that is the limitation and repression. The great truth must constantly be borne in mind that man is a spiritual being now ; that by virtue of his spiritual nature he is an inhabitant of the spiritual universe, and does not necessarily await the transition by death to enter, in a great degree, on the nobler possibilities of that environment. / The question constantly recurs, Where is the spiritual world ? Where is the man who 19 The Outlook Beautiful. was here yesterday, but has now withdrawn from his physical form which lies lifeless before us ? Where is he now ? What are his immediate experiences ? In what is he engaged ? Is he cognizant of the general trend of life here ? These questions are con- stantly asked. Is there no reply ? Must this change of condition remain to us an impene- trable mystery? May we not claim, first of all, that what we call " the spiritual world," " the spiritual life," are vast inclusive terms and include and imply an eternity? The physical realm is one part of the " spiritual world," one condition, one probationary period, so to speak, in it ; while the ethereal world is another pro- bationary period in it, leading on to still more subtile and refined and more intensely potent spiritual conditions. That is, the spiritual universe includes the life on earth and infinite degrees of successive states of life on and on in infinite progress. So for clearness let us 20 The Outlook Beautiful. speak of the next state of being that succeeds the physical world, or the physical environ- ment, let us speak of it as the ethereal world and the ethereal environment, a con- dition finer than the present, but one in the endless chain of increasingly fine and high environments. Spirit includes matter, and is not differentiated from it. Spirit is the more refined and exalted condition, as matter is the cruder and the less developed condition. But as water, ice, steam, and vapor are merely different conditions of the same ele- ment, so are spirit and matter. Matter is potentially spirit. It is on the way to be- come spirit; and that which is spirit has been matter. Now the infinite realm of psychic science may be explored with increasing results of larger knowledge, as are those that attend the exploration of stellar science. "Can man by searching find out God?" He can add to his understanding of God's laws. 21 The Outlook Beautiful. Man is a divine being; he is the inheritor of eternal life ; he is made in God's image ; he is God's child. Let him claim his birth- right ! The two worlds, so called, the physical and the ethereal, are simply two successive conditions in the all-enfolding and all-circling spirit world, and they inter- penetrate each other. Where, then, is the ethereal world ? It is here. It is not a lo- cality ; it is a condition. The ethereal world is the ethereal side of the physical world. Conversely, the physical world is the physi- cal side of the ethereal world. Between the two there is no great gulf fixed. The change from the one to the other is no more myste- rious than is the change from infancy into childhood; from childhood to youth; from youth to manhood. When we turn to the rationale of this change we call death, what do we find ? What are the results, to date, of all the varied experiments of investigation and re- 22 The Outlook Beautiful. search ? The past half-century has been one of singularly active energy in this line. The phenomena called spiritualism have offered a vast range of testimony establishing the exist- ence of laws outside of, and beyond, those known to the physical universe. Theosophi- cal inquiry has brought to the general knowl- edge a vast fund of special detail regarding this complex problem of life. These two lines of departure may be studied from their own literature and no attempt will be made here to enter into any close discussion of their phases, which range from much that is signifi- cant and true to much that is totally incon- sequential and fraudulent. In a general way, however, a few great facts have been estab- lished, and these facts will be used here without effort to argue or prove, as argu- ment and proof are available to every indi- vidual who cares to pursue investigation into the nature and the progress of the soul. It may then be taken as a truth, for the 23 The Outlook Beautiful. initial point of departure, that the soul is clothed in a subtile body which could not be seen by the physical eye. j This subtile body is encased in the physical body which we see. This subtile (or ethereal) body corresponds to the ethereal world as the physical body corresponds to the physical world. Again, the ethereal realm interpenetrates the phys- ical realm in the same magnetic and close relation that exists between the physical and the ethereal bodies. Now the physical body is in relation to the physical world, while the ethereal body is in relation to the ethereal world. Here we have, then, the rationale, a twofold body and a twofold world. As a matter of fact, the body has several divisions, or states, which Theosophy names and defines ; but for a simple and immediate view those further complications may be left for indi- vidual study, and while they are most cer- tainly to be recognized, they will not be especially emphasized in these pages. For 24 The Outlook Beautiful. we are now concentrating our attention alone upon "the delusion of death." It may well be emphasized that regarding life, death, and immortality, the divine Word is sufficient for the utmost confidence, the most absolute and vital faith. Jesus came to bring life and immortality to light; He came to reveal to all humanity the " life more abundant." Faith is all-sufficient for the reply to this entire problem ; and still, if one may add to his faith knowledge, the faith is in no sense lessened, but is rather in- formed with an even fuller intensity of con- viction. As the astronomer may explore and constantly achieve larger knowledge of the sidereal universe; as the geologist may con- stantly enlarge his knowledge of the formation of the earth ; as the archseologist penetrates into the buried life of the historic past, so may all who follow Christ press forward into a larger grasp of the divine laws that govern man's relation to the divine universe. 25 The Outlook Beautiful. " How wonderful is Death! Death and his brother, Sleep." The association is as true scientifically as it is in outer semblance. The only difference between death and sleep is, that in the former state the connection between the physical and the ethereal bodies is severed, and in the latter state it is not. As in sleep the connection remains, the ethereal body continues to ani- mate the physical body. As in death the connection is severed, the ethereal body can- not return to resume its connection with the physical body. Sleep is the condition pro- duced by the temporary withdrawal of the ethereal body or the " etheric double " from the physical body. As this ethereal body is an inhabitant of the ethereal w T orld, it requires a certain proportion of time in its native atmosphere in order to sustain its vitality and continue its energy through, and by means of, the physical instrument. Sleep is primarily and essentially for the refreshment 26 The Outlook Beautiful. of the spirit and not (primarily) for the rest of the physical body. In sleep this ethereal body withdraws from the denser body with which it is connected by a fine magnetic cord, or line ; and if this is broken, death is the result ; while the magnetic connection remains, life in this world continues. Physi- cians offer constant evidence of this separa- tion of the subtile and the dense bodies under the influence of anaesthetics. This is, indeed, the explanation of the manner in which chloroform, ether, or mesmeric influence en- ables the patient to endure surgical opera- tions, as they produce the separation of the " etheric double " from the physical body which is operated upon. This fact also re- veals that the nerves and vital organs belong to the ethereal body rather than to the physical, and that when the connection be- tween the two is broken and death ensues, it reveals that all these vital organs remain with the ethereal body in the ethereal world 27 The Outlook Beautiful and are not discarded with the physical body. Their outer case, so to speak, is a part of the physical body ; but their vitality remains with the subtile body, even as the withdrawal of the electric current from the trolley car leaves all the mechanism with the car, but the motive- power is not there. It is the complete being which, having withdrawn from the physical body, stands in the ethereal world. The heart beats ; the lungs inhale the ethereal air; the eyes see; the ears hear; the voice speaks; and the difference between this condition and that of the physical world is simply the difference of degree. The new condition is that of a wonderful exhilaration of freedom ; of a far more clear and intense consciousness. The physical body is at best a somewhat defective and clumsy vehicle. It limits the inherent energy of thought even while it is its only instrument of expression in its rela- tions with the physical world. In that 28 The Outlook Beautiful. remarkable work entitled " A Study in Con- sciousness" by Annie Besant we find this truth thus formulated: " The ordinary waking consciousness of a man is the consciousness working through the physical brain at a certain rate imposed by it, conditioned by all the conditions of that brain, limited by all its limitations, balked by the. varying ob- structions it oifers, checked by a clot of blood, silenced by the decay of tissue. At every mo- ment the brain hinders its manifestations, while at the same time it is, on the physical plane, its only enabling instrument of manifestation. " When the consciousness, turning its attention away from the external physical world, ignores the denser part of the physical brain, and uses only the etheric portions thereof, its manifesta- tions at once change in character. The creative imagination disports itself in etheric matter, and drawing on its accumulated contents, obtained from the external world by its denser servant, it arranges them, dissociates, and recombines them after its own fancies, and creates the lower worlds of dream. 29 The Outlook Beautiful. " When it casts aside for a while its ethereal garment, turning its attention away completely from the physical world, and shedding its fetters of physical matter, it roams through the astral world at will, or drifts through it unconsciously, turning all its attention to its own contents, receiving many impacts from that astral world, which it ignores or accepts according to its stage of evolution, or its humor of the moment. If it should manifest itself to an outside observer as may happen in trance-conditions it shows powers so superior to those it manifested when imprisoned in the physical brain, that such an observer, judging only by physical experiences, may well regard it as a different consciousness. "Still more is this the case when, the astral body being thrown into trance, the Bird of Heaven shows itself soaring into loftier regions, and its splendid flight so enchants the observer that he deems it a new being, and no longer the same entity as crawled in the physical world. Yet truly is it ever one and the same ; the differences are in the materials with which it is connected, and through which it works, and not in itself." 30 The Outlook Beautiful. The event we call death does not, of itself, work any miraculous change. It introduces the individual into new conditions, con- ditions more favorable to the growing signifi- cance of life. The mere fact of withdrawing from the physical does not, of itself, work any instantaneous miracle. The essential self persists. The dominant strain of inter- ests and attractions remains the same. But if these interests are of the lower order they are thereby out of harmony with the higher and more subtile environment, and one so weighted is not thus prepared to enter on the joys of the new life, as is he whose aspirations are spiritualized and who finds his interests in the intellectual and spiritual realities. Of these higher realities a leading joy is to be found in all social relations, in loves and friendships. " Art symbolizes heaven ; But love is God, and makes heaven." Friendship is itself one of the divine re- 31 The Outlook Beautiful. lations. "My friends have come to me un- sought," says Emerson. " The great God gave them to me. By oldest Friendship as a Divine right, by the divine affinity of Eelation. . . virtue with itself, I find them, or rather, not I, but the Deity in me and in them, both deride and cancel the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex and circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now make many one. " The end of friendship is a commerce, the most strict and homely that can be found ; more strict than any of which we have ex- perience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and grace- ful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution." That friendship " is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death ; " that it is not only " fit for 32 The Outlook Beautiful. ( serene days and graceful gifts, and country rambles," but also "for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecu- tion," is the only true view to take of a re- lation that is not merely social charm and privilege and joy and sweetness, but is, in its deeper sense, of the order of divine relation- ships, and one that bears all tests and all burdens and sacrifices that may fall upon it. Friendship is for sorrow as well as for joy ; it is for hardship as well as for privilege. In any true sense one who is a friend must be " a discerner of spirits," so to speak ; he must be able to see, in another, not only the man or woman that is, but the angel that may be that will be, sometime and somewhere, in the long march of evolu- tionary progress. Of course there is an abundance and to spare of agreeable, evanescent companionship, pleasant while it lasts and with no claim to permanency, that holds in it no such elements as these; that 3 33 The Outlook Beautiful. holds in itself no staying power; that is pleasant enough while the sun shines ; that is "fit for serene days and graceful gifts," but vanishes before " rough roads and hard fare ; " and this, too, while it has no claim to canoni- zation, is yet one of the pleasant surface- experiences of life, and the surface has a legitimate place as well as the profounder depths. Only, do not let us mistake the one for the other. Let us not " call nothing something, and run after it." That is not worth while. The real friend is a born " discerner of spirits." He sees the higher self of the other as the real and the permanent individual, and does not lay too much stress on or take too greatly to heart transient and passing defects and faults. For all that is noble and good in a man's character is of the per- manent and the immortal life. It persists, it develops, it increases. All that is trivial and defective and evil falls off and dies. 34 The Outlook Beautiful. It has in it no element that inherits immortal life. " For evil in its nature is decay, And any hour may blot it all away." Michael Angelo declared he saw the statue in the block of marble. The real friend sees the angel in the human being, the angel that he is on the way to become. Discerning this, he recognizes the angelic qualities, even though latent. Their active assertion over the man's life is only a ques- tion of time, and any true friendship implies the recognition of this truth. For always is it true that any real love " . . .is never blind But rather gives an added light ; An inner vision, quick to find The beauties hid from common sight. " I see the feet that fain would climb ; You, but the steps that turn astray ; I see the soul, unharmed, sublime ; You, but the garment and the clay. 35 The Outlook Beautiful. " Your unanointed eyes may fall On him who fills my soul with light ; You do not see my friend at all, You see what hides him from your sight." Now all friendship worthy the name is for mutual aid and help and progress as well as for mutual pleasure. It is the relation in which there is mutual tolerance ; in which the fault of a moment is not laid up in memory; in which impatience or irritability however unreasonable is seen to be a condition, not a crime, and to be met with I ^ f_ _ _ ^ - - -*^^ the serenity that sees beyond. " Irritability is a sin of the flesh," truly said Mrs. Stowe. It is the result of fatigue, annoyance, ex- hausted nerves, of a thousand transient influences or circumstances; and while it is not to be held as a beautiful and desirable exhibition of one's self, neither is it to be un- duly a cause for offence. The friend " comes unsought," he comes as the fulfilment of a divine relation. 36 The Outlook Beautiful. All that comprises the world of thought, of aspiration, enters into and creates spiritu- ality. The Rev. W. Stainton Moses, a clergyman of the Church of England, was an opposer of spiritualistic phenomena, and he became convinced of it by means of the automatic writing of his own hand, which was con- trolled by a very lofty and pure intelligence, who signed himself "Imperator." There is a book called " Spirit Teachings," composed of these communications of " Imperator " to Mr. Moses, and it is well worth reading. " Imperator " gives such teachings as this, for instance : "Man is a spirit, temporarily enshrined in a body of flesh ; a spirit with a spiritual body, which is to survive severance from the earth body. This spiritual body is the object of train- ing in this sphere of probation to develop and fit for its life in the sphere of spirit. This spirit- ual being, temporarily enshrined in the body of 37 The Outlook Beautiful. earth, we regard as a conscious, responsible intel- ligence, with duties to perform, with responsi- bilities, with capacities, with accountability, and with power of progress or retrogression. It has its opportunities of development, its degrees of probation, its phases of training, and its helps in progression if it will use them. Man, as a responsible spiritual being, has duties which con- cern himself, his fellow man, and God." The life in the physical and in the ethe- real realms is so interpenetrated that a clear realization of these relations endows the in- dividual with added power. For all are co-workers with God. He that maketh the winds His messengers also maketh all those who lift up their hearts to Him whether in the physical or in the ethereal world to become His helpers and ministers. The recognition of the law is the condition of entering into its beauty. The Bible is full of these instances. " Keep the will united to the will of God and failure and defeat and 38 The Outlook Beautiful. sorrow are impossible, for God is invincible." Those who meet in their common faith and aspiration are mutual helpers, and at any moment one may ask the aid of a friend in the 'ethereal world and receive strength and guidance that God gives, but gives through His messenger and co-worker. The great oratorio of " Elijah " offers not only the entrancing melody of Mendelssohn, but with every repetition the sublime lesson of absolute trust in the Divine leading must be more and more impressively felt by all who listen to it. For instance, take such passages as these: " Angels. Lift thine eyes to the mountains, whence cometh help. Thy help cometh from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He hath said thy foot shall not be moved ; thy Keeper will never slumber. "Angels. He, watching over Israel, slumbers not, nor sleeps. Shouldst thou, walking in grief, languish, He will quicken thee. 89 The Outlook Beautiful. "An Angel. Arise, Elijah, for thou hast a long journey before thee. Forty days and forty nights shalt thou go, to Horeb, the mount of God. "Elijah. Lord, I have labored in vain; yea, I have spent my strength for naught ! " that Thou wouldst rend the heavens, that Thou wouldst come down; that the mountains would flow down at Thy presence, to make Thy name known to Thine adversaries, through the wonders of Thy works ! " Lord, why hast Thou made them err from Thy ways, and hardened their hearts that they do not fear Thee ! that I now might die! " rest in the Lord ; wait patiently for Him, and He shall give thee thy heart's desires. Com- mit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him, and fret not thyself because of evil doers. " He that shall endure to the end shall be saved. "Elijah. Night falleth round me, Lord! Be Thou not far from me ! hide not Thy face, O Lord, from me ; my soul is thirsting for Thee, as a thirsty land. 40 The Outlook Beautiful. " An Angel. Arise now ! get thee without, stand on the mount "before the Lord ; for there His glory will appear and shine on thee ! Thy face must be veiled, for He draweth near." The entire story of Elijah is that of the utmost literalness of faith in God, and of simple, natural, direct communion with Him. The Lord commanded him to go on a journey, promising that the ravens should bring him food, and that the widow's cruse of oil and barrel of meal should not fail. In implicit trust Elijah set forth. The angelic hosts assured him : " For He shall give His angels charge over thee ; that they shall protect thee in all the ways thou goest ; that their hands shall uphold and guide thee, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." He came to the widow who implored him to restore her dead son, and his prayer was answered. The widow exclaimed : " Now by this I know that thou art a man of God, and that His word in thy mouth is the truth. What shall I render 41 The Outlook Beautiful. to the Lord, for all His benefits to me?" And the answer came : " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." Then comes that transcendent offering of himself to God : " This day let it be known that Thou art God, and I am Thy servant ! " and the angelic chorus replies : " Cast thy burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain thee." Elijah invokes Him who maketh His angels spirits ; whose ministers are flaming fire ; and he invokes destruction upon all who have transgressed against God. But Elijah's way now stretches before him into the gloom and wilderness. He is in despair. " It is enough, Lord," he says ; " now take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers. I desire to live no longer ; now let me die, for my days are but vanity ! " He continues : " I have been very jealous for the Lord God of Hosts ; for the children of Israel have broken Thy covenant, thrown 42 The Outlook Beautiful. down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword : and I, even I only, am left ; and they seek my life to take it away." Then came to the prophet those marvellous and in- vincible assurances out of the unseen world ; he is enjoined to lift his eyes to the moun- tains; he is assured that help cometh from the Lord ; that his foot shall not be moved ; that God, who watcheth over Israel, neither slumbers nor sleeps, and is warned of a long journey before him. At this, Elijah's courage falters: "I have labored in vain," he ex- claims, " for I have spent my strength for naught," and he begs that he may die. But the angelic hosts again are around him with sustaining assurances : " Oh, rest in the Lord ! " they enjoin him; "wait patiently for God," they entreat him, and add the promise : " He shall give thee thy heart's desires. Commit thy way unto % Him," urge the heavenly mes- sengers to Elijah, " commit thy way unto Him, and trust in Him, and fret not thyself because 43 The Outlook Beautiful. of evil doers," and then comes the promise : " He that endureth to the end shall be saved." Still, Elijah is sad, and he feels the night falling around him. "Be thou not far from me, O Lord," he implores, and the marvel- lously triumphant answer comes : " Arise now: stand on the mount before the Lord; for then His glory will appear and shine on thee!" And Elijah believed and caught the glory of the vision. His spirit rose in transcendent strength, and he sublimely ex- claimed : " I go on my way in the strength of the Lord; my heart is glad; my glory rejoiceth." Then we are told that the words of Elijah "appeared like burning torches ; " that " mighty kings by him were overthrown ; " that he " stood on the Mount of Sinai and heard the judgments of the future." The entire story is the most vivid and extraordinary lesson of the power of faith in God: the lesson that absolutely nothing in 44 The Outlook Beautiful. the universe can withstand the power that man acquires and achieves and makes his own, by uniting his own will with the divine will, by putting his trust in God. It is the supreme measuring of human life ; it is the reason of the soul's journey through this world, in order to learn, by sorrow and by joy, by all mingled and varied experiences, that the only strength, light, and leading which can impart usefulness, success, and per- sonal joy is the strength that is gained from the Divine through prayer and through faith. Prayer and faith create the open door between those in the Seen and those in the Unseen. The next condition beyond this present one is in close and harmonious re- lation to our own, and it is far more defin- able, far more natural, so to speak, than many of us have dreamed. The ethereal realm is one to which the physical realm corresponds in the sense that each has scenery ; mountains, hills, lakes, rivers ; each 45 The Outlook Beautiful. has cities, schools, churches, temples ; art, literature, science, and ethics. Each is con- ditioned by progress. Man by reason of his twofold nature is an inhabitant here and now, even, of both these realms. The physical body tethers him to this world. His spiritual nature relates him to the spiritual world. Death is merely the pro- cess of leaving the physical case in the physical world to its decay and disintegra- tion ; while the freed spirit, in its ethereal body, enters on its new round of conscious existence in the ethereal realms. Now, bearing in mind the twofold nature of the world we are in, the twofold nature of man, our third contemplation, that of man after death, becomes clear. Everything in nature has its ethereal as well as its physical side, forests, mountains, oceans, rivers ; therefore the ethereal world has its scenery, its landscapes, its architectural crea- tions, and its cities and occupations. Its 46 The Outlook Beautiful. life is that of intellectual and moral progress. Its occupations include art, literature, preach- ing, lecturing, teaching, all that, in a more rudimentary way, we see and enter into here is carried on there with a greater force and elevation. As Phillips Brooks so well said, " Death is not the end of life, but only an event in life." The spiritual being dwelling in the ethereal world remembers perfectly his friends who have not yet been released from the physical world, and thus spirit signals to spirit. As telepathy is now an accepted law, as absolute a fact as is telegraphy, and as telepathy is the language of the spirit, it is as easy to realize how it works between those in the seen and in the unseen as it is to realize that it may work between two persons in Boston and New York respec- tively. Communication by means of what is known as mediumship is frequently true, but on that phase I will not touch. If 47 The Outlook Beautiful. telepathy is a law, it is the divinely appointed means of communion between those who are separated by death. Evidential communications from those in the unseen reveal that life in the ethereal world is an active, progressive state; that special tastes or talents denied development here are there encouraged and assisted. The artist continues to produce his creations of beauty ; the scientist has greater facilities for exploring the universe ; the writer, the preacher, the teacher, continue their special avocations. There are temples for worship; there are homes in which those near to each other dwell together. There are, apparently, keener sympathies and swifter comprehen- sions than are commonly found here ; but it is all one life, the life that is and that which is to come, but evolutionary in its progressive development. This ethereal realm has infinite resources in these finer potencies of energy, which we 48 The Outlook Beautiful. draw upon to an increasing degree in our utilization of electricity and of air currents, as in wireless telegraphy. As this ethereal world interpenetrates the physical; as man, by virtue of his twofold nature, is an inhabi- tant of both, it is not strange that he dis- covers and utilizes more and more these higher potencies. Our horizon line of "the unknown" constantly recedes, and we realize that " the unknown " is not the unknowable. Thus it may be said that psychic research, in its larger significance, has revealed a rational relation between the life before and the life after death. It has added to our faith knowledge; and this knowledge banishes all fear of death ; it leads us to realize the con- tinuity of life. It enhances our earnestness in all endeavor, and emphasizes to us the truth that life is an infinite chain of progress- ive experiences. Annie Besant has said that the material for progress after death is all that has been 4 49 The Outlook Beautiful. thought and striven after while in the physi- cal world. "Every aspiration, every desire for human service, every endeavor that you have made for human good, come back to you there as the material out of which your progress will be fashioned. Think what it means ! So many of you have hearts larger than your opportunities, feelings which go beyond your practical capacities. Do not let your heart break, you who are tender to the sorrow of the world. Sympathize as much as you can ; feel as much as you can ; be sorry for the sorrowful ; and do not shrink from the pain of the human sympathy. For every feeling that you have had during your earth-life will come back to you in your life in the heavenly places ; and you will build it, not into futile hope as you may have thought but into capacity to achieve ; when your time comes to be born again into the world, you will come back to it with your heart and your brain full of schemes for human welfare that 50 The Outlook Beautiful. you will be able to carry out, every hope turned into a power, and every pulse of sympathy into a faculty to help. Not one throb of sorrow will be lost; you will find it in the treasure-house of heaven to work into power power to conceive and to bless. That is part of the good news we bring from the other side and how good it is only those know whose hearts have almost broken in facing the misery of the world. Not one of you need pass through death's gateway without carrying with you material of that splendid kind which, in the heavenly places, you will thus weave into faculty and power. " And so also with every emotion that you have so often on this side of death. Emo- tions of love give, perhaps, as much pain as pleasure sometimes even more. Do not shrink from the pain which comes from a noble love, even though it be unrequited. The love of the mother for the son who almost breaks her heart, the love of the 51 The Outlook Beautiful. father for the daughter who has wandered far from home, the love of husband for wife, or wife for husband, where due return has not been given, the love of friend for friend, outliving even neglect and betrayal those loves come back to us in the higher worlds and enrich and glorify our heaven. For there is not one human soul for whom we have kept our love untouched and unbroken, not one human soul that here we may seem to have lost, that there we shall not find. All souls that love each other find each other out in heaven, for the bond of love is a bond over which the icy hand of death has no power ; love is immortal, love is divine ; and the son that has broken his mother's heart in his manhood, loved his mother when he was a little boy playing round her knees : and that love-tie is only submerged, and will re-assert itself on the other side of death. So that where your love becomes a pain instead of a joy, cling to it and clasp it to your heart, 52 The Outlook Beautiful. and it will bring you to the place of joy. And in that world of love and of peace the power to love will grow with the loves which here have been disappointed ; and every dis- appointed love is a jewel which will be worked up into the great mosaic of faculty that we shall make in heaven. " Pass from the emotions that deal with love, and think of the artistic emotions. These are part of the soul and not of the body. There is so much frustrated art in this world ; so many who can do a little but not much, for lack of faculty ; so many with great ambitions and poor achievements ; so many who dream more than they can realize. Let them still have courage and dream on ; let them dream of the Beauty that they can- not reproduce, of the Music and the Painting and the Sculpture that only gleam to them in visions, which their hands are unable to fab- ricate. The power to achieve will be made from the aspiration. Practise whatever power 53 The Outlook Beautiful. you have ; do not be ashamed of it because it is small ; cultivate it, water it, let the sun shine on it : and, in the grander world beyond, that seed of art will flower into genius, and none of the efforts will be wasted. " And not only the emotions, but the intel- ligence grows there, far more swiftly than it does here. The man who is eager for knowl- edge but cramped in the narrow conditions of his daily life, shall not he also have his har- vest on the other side of death ? Only do not let him lose his desire for knowledge. Let him, if only for a few minutes a day, read some great book, or study some great thought. . . . That life only is fit to grow in the heavenly places which is a life of sharing, of giving, of everything that one has gathered. And there is this joyous thing about all the real goods of life : the goods of intelligence, of emotion, of art, of love all the things which are really worth the having they do not waste in the giving; 54 The OutUok Beautiful. they grow the more, the more we give. These physical things get smaller as we take away from them, leaving so much less for future use; and so, when it is a question of sharing the physical things men calculate and say : ' I have only enough for myself, for my wife, for my child. How can I give any away ? ' All that is matter is consumed in the using; but that is not true of the higher things, the things of the intelligence, of the heart, and of the spirit. If I know something, I do not lose it when I teach it. Nay! it becomes more truly mine be- cause I have shared it with one more igno- rant than myself; so that you have two people enriched by knowledge, by the shar- ing of a store that increases, instead of dimin- ishing, as it is shared. And so with all that is worth having. You need not fear to lessen your own possessions by throwing them broadcast to your hungry fellow-men. Give your knowledge, your strength, your 55 The Outlook Beautiful. love ; empty yourself utterly, and when for a moment you think you are empty, then, from the inexhaustible fount of love, and beauty, and power more flows down to fill the empty vessel, making it fuller, and not emptier than it was before. " There is the secret of useful life ; there the inspiration to noble living nothing that I can win that is worth having, which does not grow as I share it with my fellows. And those who have thus learned, those who see the physical and compare it, worth- less as it is, with the emotional, the intellec- tual, the spiritual, they, and they alone, are wise, and know how to live; and as they live, their lives are a benediction ; and when they die, their lives are a continual progress ; and when they return, they bring the fruits of the progress to share them also with their fellow-men. And so they learn to be the Servants, the Guides, and the Saviours of the world." 56 The Outlook Beautiful. The delusion of Death shall pass. It is passing now. Before the Twenty-first cen- tury it will have vanished before the high illumination of Science and of a diviner Faith. "Truly," said Bishop Jaegar, in a sermon preached in the opening days of 1905, " truly scientific research is dreaming very far out into the realm where Christ went long before and gave back the thrilling word : 'He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.' " I call men and women, therefore, to hero- ism for the soul's life. * In your patience win your souls' stand firm for faith and hope and love. " We must give the soul breath toward God if we would win the true life for the world and for ourselves," he continued. " Standing fast in the living truth by fortitude, we shall develop the spiritual life and win our right to be as Christ's disciples." 57 The Outlook Beautiful. The Gospels assure us that "the pure in heart shall see God." The pure in heart do see God in the spiritual sense of sight which is knowledge and see and know Him in exact proportion to the degree in which they have achieved purity of heart. The new revelations made by Theosophy of the very nature of the universe; of the vast pilgrimage of the soul on its way toward the ultimate perfection of the divine life ; the illumination thrown on the relations of the spirit and the series of bodies which it in- habits during this long and varied journey, all these extend the horizon of knowledge; enable man to enter with more intelligent faith into the mysteries of being. Out of that which is true (rejecting that which is false) in Theosophy ; out of all that is true (rejecting that which is false) in psychic investigation, will arise new deductions of truth to be incorporated into the teachings of the Church. A reasonable theory of the 58 The Outlook Beautiful. universe and of man's place in it is a legiti- mate part of religious faith. Theosophy, in its truest interpretation, offers this theory, which is one that reconciles and harmonizes all the teachings of the Christian Church. Theosophy in itself is not a religion, but a science ; and science is the handmaid of religion. The curious failure to realize the truth regarding the spiritual body that body of which Saint Paul definitely affirms, "There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body" is at the basis of all the failure to understand the nature of death and the un- broken continuity of life. Saint Paul even calls this spiritual body the substantial body, the body that is more real than is the physical, which is not real at all in any permanent sense, but is constantly chang- ing. The truth is simply this: We are all spiritual beings, now and here, the soul embodied in a spiritual form (or body). 59 The Outlook Beautiful. This spiritual (or ethereal) body is clothed upon, temporarily and in a perpetually changing way, with a physical covering, or case, to enable the spiritual being to come in touch with the physical world by means of the physical body. It is the connecting link, so to speak, and that event we call death is merely the escape, the slipping out from the physical case. But as for "the eye which has seen such wonders, the ear which has heard such harmonies," why, it is the eye and the ear of the ethereal (or spiritual) body which really sees and hears, through the physical eye-and-ear mechanism while here in the physical world, but much as one sees through an opera-glass, or a telescope, or hears through a trumpet, or an audiphone, but laying down these mechan- isms which enlarge and intensify the vision and the hearing, does not, yet, deprive one of sight and hearing; so, laying down the physical eye and ear does not mean then 60 The Outlook Beautiful. the deprivation of sight or hearing for the spiritual being. As a matter of actual fact, the physical body limits and restricts and in a degree imprisons the spiritual being so that, when released by that process we call death, the faculties are keener and more vivid. One is in the " life more abundant." It is the enlargement of consciousness. As for death in the sense in which the term is ordinarily used there is no death. There is no such thing as death possible. No consciousness can be extinguished. No energy can be annulled. All force is evolu- tionary, appearing in a succession of new forms, but itself is unquenchable. Rev. Dr. Minot Savage notes that death is as natural as birth. The latter introduces us into this life as one of the long series before and after; the former introduces us into the next higher stage of evolution. In the transition to the "life more abun- dant " there is nothing to fear. Nor is the 61 The Outlook Beautiful. life to come merely a question of hope ; it is a matter of absolute knowledge, of unques- tionable reality. "The life to come" and "the life that now is" are one, with no more line of separation than is between infancy and childhood or between childhood and manhood. Life is one and eternal, and is simply evolutionary immortality. "Death is the concentration, or bringing to a focus, of all the forces of the first life, The Ethereal that they mav thence be re-ex- World> panded and spread out into the second," said Phillips Brooks at one time ; and he added: "There is no such thing as death touching the real life of man, and the imperishable will never die." The leading characteristic of the Twentieth century is the re-discovery of the essential truths of Christianity. The world is coming to a true appreciation of the cause for which the Son of God came into this world. He came " to bring life and immortality to light," and 62 The Outlook Beautiful. humanity is only now beginning to realize the profound significance of these words. Immortality includes the spiritual world of two thousand years ago and that of to-day, and implies its close relation with the physi- cal world of the present hour as completely as its close relation with the physical world when Jesus walked among men on earth. Jesus taught the infinite potency of prayer. " Ask, and ye shall receive," " If a man ask anything in my name I will hear him," "Whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believ- ing, ye shall receive." To ask and to receive implies that the request, the petition, is heard. To imply that the petition is heard presup- poses and establishes the spiritual relation be- tween man and God. It establishes the truth of telepathic communication, of spirit to spirit flashing its message. It presupposes the infinite spiritual universe in reciprocal relations with the physical universe. When the important truth that the spiritual world 63 The Outlook Beautiful. acts systematically upon the physical world is clearly recognized, this recognition marks a crisis of the most arresting significance in human life. In his great work entitled "Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death," Frederic W. H. Myers says of the conditions beyond : " Firstly, and chiefly, I at least see ground to believe that their state is one of endless evolution in wisdom and in love. Their loves of earth persist ; and most of all those highest loves which seek their outlet in adoration and work. . . . Yet from their step of vantage- ground in the universe, at least, they see that it is good. I do not mean that they know either of an end or of an explanation of evil. Yet evil to them seems less a ter- rible than a slavish thing. It is embodied in no mighty potentate ; rather it forms an isolating madness from which higher spirits strive to free the distorted soul. There needs no chastisement of fire ; self-knowledge 64 The Outlook Beautiful. is man's punishment and his reward; self- knowledge and the nearness or the aloofness of companion souls. For in that world love is actually self-preservation; the Communion of Saints not only adorns but constitutes the Life Everlasting. Nay, from the law of telepathy it follows that that communion is valid for us here and now. Even now the love of souls departed makes answer to our invocations; even now our loving memory love is itself a prayer supports and strengthens those delivered spirits upon their upward way. No wonder; since we are to them but as fellow-travellers shrouded in a mist ; ' Neither death nor life, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature' can bar us from the hearth-fire of the universe, or hide for more than a moment the inconceivable oneness of souls. " As man is by his very nature an inhabitant, now and here, of both the physical and the ethereal worlds, there are hours and seasons 6 65 The Outlook Beautiful. when he realizes this consciousness of living in a finer atmosphere. That peculiar thrill of a very ecstasy of happiness that is not infrequently experi- enced by every one is caused by the fact that, at that moment, the entire being is in responsive vibration with the heavenly world. For the moment the conditions are such that there is perfect harmony between the forces on the Unseen side and on this, and the result is that thrill of indescribable exaltation and joy. If this can be the ex- perience of rare and infrequent moments, may it not come to be the constant and the universal experience of every day and every hour? The question arrests attention. It involves a problem that fascinates the im- agination. It is really only another form of asking, " What shall we do to be saved ? " For if we are to be saved, we want to be saved now, saved all the time, redeemed this very hour and caught up to all glory and 66 The Outlook Beautiful. greatness and grandeur of life, and not rele- gate all that makes life worth living to some vague, distant, intangible future. The practical question then formulates itself: Can one so live as to dwell in perpetual and unbroken harmony, peace and joy? The one great objection that will be in- stantly offered is that one's happiness de- pends so very largely on events which he cannot control and on the conduct and atti- tude of other people. "No man liveth to himself." No man can possibly foresee, or determine, the circumstances and events that surround and befall him. The bank in whicli all his money is placed suddenly fails ; death claims some one of his nearest and dearest ; illness, or accident, occurs to him and leaves him helpless, or in pain; business troubles arise; friendships are alienated; plans are thwarted, a thousand ills and mischances and apparent wrongs, disasters, calamities, or failures stand ready to invade any hour of 67 The Outlook Beautiful. his life. This is what huraau life life on earth is; this is the uncertain and unfore- seen texture of which it is made; these are its constant possibilities and liabilities; and who is there whose life does not experience some one of these or of various other forms of trial? Can one, then, so hold and determine the conditions as to be able all the time to enter into this heavenly joy ; to be responsive to the vibrations of the heavenly world ? It is always possible to dwell in the miracle region, on the plane where the higher forces work and weave their figures and enchant life to nobler purposes and swift fulfilments. " Born and nourished in miracles, His feet were shod with golden bells, Or where he stepped the soil did peal As if the dust were glass and steel." The entire panorama of life is the logical outcome, the inevitable result, of that which has been created in thought 68 The Outlook Beautiful. " Whate'er our state, we must have made it first." Still, this truth holds its vital encourage- ment rather than the reverse. If we have made a given state, we can unmake it and make another. The one controlling truth of existence is concentrated in Emerson's expression, " The flowing conditions of life." The conditions are not fixed, crystallized, im- movable, and unchangeable. They are fluid, not solid. They are more than plastic, they flow. They are ready to run into any mould, and the mould is created by thought. This intense force has created one form of mould, and "the flowing events" have run into it, and have thus become certain given conditions of life. Those conditions will remain as long as the thought-forces hold the mould in shape, but as soon as these forces dissolve that mould, and create another, conditions change. And thus one's life is really in his own power if he has sufficiently developed his higher self to have achieved 69 The Outlook Beautiful. the power of thought-creation. But this is something very remote from the mere wish and word. The wish, the desire, is feeble and inarticulate compared to the thought. For thought, in its ideal perfection, is the divine power, and man only approaches it in proportion as he increasingly achieves his higher possibilities. There are multitudes of people who go through life without ever having compassed the power of real thought at all. What they take for granted is thought is really mere vague mental out- reaching, in wish that never deepens and crystallizes into will, in desire that never realizes itself in determination. Thought is something as different from this as the light- ning's flash is different from the dim burning of a tallow candle. Dr. Mclvor-Tyndall, in a recent scientific paper on "Electric Waves of the Human Brain," refers to the theory of Dr. Tommasiua of Geneva, who has arrived at the conviction that the human body can 70 The Outlook Beautiful. itself serve as a receiving station in wireless telegraphy. He finds that as a receiver the body is almost as perfect as a wire or metallic rod. It is less of a conductor than metal, but as an offset presents a wider surface, which practice has demonstrated to be very advantageous for the reception of waves in wireless telegraphy. We have made use of our bodies both as receiving and transmitting stations, first insulating ourselves properly from the ground. We have thus been able to make communications at appreciable dis- tances by sending and receiving the waves through the body, he concludes. The nervous system serves as a battery. Now in regard to that direction of thought- force known as telepathy, there is a clear scientific explanation of just what takes place. " It is evident," he says, " that trans- missions from brain to brain can be produced at a distance, just as in wireless telegraphy. One brain sets the nervous waves in action, 71 Tlie Outlook Beautiful. and the other receives the waves as in the ordinary wireless receiver." In a word, then, Thought is a force of the most intense quality. It is, at once, the most subtile and the most intense potency in the universe. In its perfection it is the divine power that instantaneously creates all things. In the lesser grasp that man has on it, in the lesser power in which he is able to achieve and to wield it, the creative results are proportionately less. Man may use this power both in the establishment of certain conditions of his own life and in communicating with others by the process known as telepathy. Telepathy will soon become as recognized a method as telegraphy. It will be seen that it has as scientific a basis, and its laws will be discovered and formulated. At present these laws are by no means clearly discerned. One who studies his own experimental experience in telep- athy will find that messages come unsought 72 The Outlook Beautiful. and unconsciously; that they do not come when consciously sought; and again, that they do come when consciously sought ; and out of all those three varied experiences he will be unable to discover why his con- scious effort is sometimes a success and some- times a failure; and why, at times, there occurs an unconscious and unsought success. But at present this is the status : one tries to send a telepathic message and he does not succeed ; one tries, and he does succeed ; one does not try at all, nor have any con- sciousness of it, but the message is sent and is received by the person to whom it is however unconsciously directed. These phenomena certainly enchain the attention and invite research. The power of thought to dissolve existing states; to efface the present mould and create a new one for " the flowing conditions of life" to enter, is one that can only be achieved by entering more and more into 73 The Outlook Beautiful. conscious and intelligent participation of the divine life. Spirit is force, and to the degree in which one lives in the spirit shall he achieve this power and be enabled to exer- cise it. "There is a power in To-day to recreate the beautiful Yesterday," says Emer- son. All that is noble and beautiful has immortality, and though it seems to vanish, it can be recalled and wrought into actual experience again. " ' Pass in, pass in,' the angels say, ' In to the upper doors, Nor count compartments of the floors, But mount to Paradise, By stairways of surprise.' " Robert Browning perfectly characterizes that beautiful condition we call " heaven " when he defines it as the " Heaven of Spirit," and a line of one of his poems runs : " Thou art shut out of the Heaven of Spirit," a line full of profound suggestion. For the only possible heaven is that of spirit, not 74 The Outlook Beautiful. a location, but a spiritual condition, and be- ing a condition of spirit, it may be entered into now and here. If one is not, at the present hour, living in heaven, it is, mani- festly, his own fault. Perhaps we must admit that most of us are not so living ; that we awaken in the morning and close our eyes to sleep at night under a burden of mingled pain, sadness, discord ; conscious, it may be, of being misinterpreted and mis- understood ; and on our own part, perhaps misinterpreting and misunderstanding others until all the fine gold of life is fretted away, and the time all the days and months and years that should be beautiful, joyous, filled with noble achievement and generous out- going; with sympathetic joy in all the good of others come to be, instead, entangled with hopelessness and thus paralyzed into inactivity. Such a condition as this may come without conscious or intentional fault of one's own; it may arise out of cir- 75 The Outlook Beautiful. cumstances, events, occurrences over whose course one holds no direct control. One suddenly finds himself entangled in this network of circumstances that seem adverse on every side; that fairly paralyze his en- ergies. And where is the remedy? What can he do ? He is " shut out of the Heaven of Spirit." What can he do but realize the everlasting truth in the counsel of Jesus, "Knock, and it shall be opened unto you." The door that closed shall open. The peace and radiance that seemed lost shall be regained. The "Heaven of Spirit" is always ready; one may regain it through prayer and the uplift of the heart to God. " Even here," says Phillips Brooks, " every man may claim his own life, not for himself, but for his Lord." Even here and now one may live as unto the Lord, live with tender- ness and consideration and care for others ; live with dignity and fortitude through his 76 The Outlook Beautiful. own trials and keep in spirit-touch with divine and beautiful things. It is the Life Radiant that may be lived. No one of us need be shut out of the Heaven of Spirit. We may live in it now and here by living in the higher and nobler qualities. " For such a social life as that we have a right to pray," says Bishop Brooks. " But we may do more than pray for it. We may begin it in ourselves. Already we may give ourselves to Christ. We may own that we are His. We may see in all our bodily life in the strength and glory of our youth if we are young and strong, in the weariness and depression of our age or feebleness if we are old and feeble the marks of His ownership, the signs that we are His. . . . And while we wait we may make the world stronger by being our own, and sweeter by being our brethren's, and both because we are really not our own, but Christ's." For 77 The Outlook Beautiful this truth is our keynote of life, that we are not our own, but Christ's. Our divine heredity dominates us. We are co-workers with God in the divine universe. The mo- ment we become spiritually enlightened the entire standpoint of life is changed. Life is then focussed from a permanent point of infinite significance and beauty. On this basis it builds itself up on a new pattern. Following a divine ideal, every thought and purpose falls into a beautiful order of related cause and effect, of precedent and sequence, fitting with the perfection of a mosaic each with the other. Now it is possible to estab- lish life on this basis even to the degree that every day's events shall fall into this harmonious and mutually completing order. For instance, one is in a city and desires to meet a friend whose address, at the moment, he does not know, and whose residence in the place has not been of sufficient duration for his name to have been included in the 78 TJie Outlook Beautiful. directory. Yet if his life has been focussed in this divine order, the meeting will arrange itself. That divinely harmonious power con- trols even as it includes all minor events, and the two persons will meet in the street, or in some house, or in the street-car, in some perfectly natural and apparently acci- dental manner, but which is simply a part of this beautiful mosaic-like completeness of daily experience. "If we are related, we shall meet," says Emerson, and again we find him saying : " A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, as the magnet arranges itself with the pole, so that he stands to all beholders like a transparent object betwixt them and the sun, and whoso journeys towards the sun journeys towards that person. He is thus the medium of the highest influence to all who are not on the same level." This higher truth suggested by Emerson, that one may thus become "the medium of the highest influence," is also 79 The Outlook Beautiful. included in the completeness of the divine ordering. The perfection of each element, of each factor, is presupposed in the complete- ness of the entire structural character of the moral universe. The moment one achieves the ideal quality which is the condition of entering as a factor into this divine order, that moment he is admitted to the privileges of that order. He shares in this higher de- gree of energy as the sailing-ship that encoun- ters a wind blowing in the direction toward which its sails are set comes into partici- pation with this more intense energy which moves it swiftly on. Some one has said, " Things are always right if we are right." It is a crude ex- pression of a marvellous truth. The moral universe is a vast and ideally harmonious order in which every element is mutually adjusted to the perfect working of the whole. Man is designed by God as a factor in this creation. It is an order to which he is ad- 80 The Outlook Beautiful. mitted as a participant only by conditions. Those conditions are inherent in the very nature of this divine order and are therefore unalterable. It remains for man to so purify and exalt his own quality of life as to come into harmony with this moral universe. For he is a twofold being. He is born into the physical world, and with this physical order are all his rudimentary relations. But he is, primarily, a spiritual being who, for a temporary period, has assumed these relations with the physical universe, relations that form his instrument, so to speak, for the achievement of his spiritual life. But it is the latter which is his real, his normal life. For man is, literally, the child of God, and it is only in proportion as he recognizes his divine nature and makes his life an expres- sion of his divinity, that he truly lives at all. Increasingly, as he recognizes and expresses his divine nature, does he become an inhab- itant of the moral universe and enter into 6 81 The Outlook Beautiful. its privileges. This moral universe is the Heaven of Spirit. Its central luminary is God, the Father of all. "To know Him everywhere is the true Wisdom ; to love Him everywhere is the true Desire ; to serve Him everywhere is the true Action." A wonderful and vital expression of this achievement of the true and normal life of man is given by Frederic W. H. Myers in his great poem, "Saint Paul," in which the apostle is represented as saying : " So, even I, athirst for His inspiring, I, who have talked with Him, forget again ; Yes, many days with sobs and with desiring, Offer to God a patience and a pain. " Then through the mid complaint of my confession, Then through the pang and passion of my prayer, Leaps with a start the shock of His possession, Thrills me and touches, and the Lord is there. " Lo, if some pen should write upon your rafter Mene and Mene in the folds of flame, Think ye could any memories thereafter Wholly retrace the couplet as it came ? 82 The Outlook Beautiful. " Lo, if some strange intelligible thunder Sang to the earth the secret of a star, Scarce should ye catch, for terror and for wonder, Shreds of the story that was pealed so far ! " Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing, Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand. Only the power that is within me pealing Lives on my lips, and beckons to my hand. " Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny ; Yea, with one voice, world, though thou deniest, Stand thou on that side, for on this am I. " Rather the world shall doubt when her retrieving Pours in the rain and rushes from the sod ; Eather than he in whom the great conceiving Stirs in his soul to quicken into God. " Nay, though thou then shouldst strike him from his glory, Blind and tormented, maddened and alone, E'en on the cross would he maintain his story, Yes, and in Hell would whisper, ' I have known.' " No one is "shut out of the Heaven of Spirit " by any arbitrary decree. This Heaven is man's true abiding-place. It is a con- dition. In this heaven alone does he live in 83 The Outlook Beautiful. the normal expression of his powers. If he shut himself out of it because of his defective spiritual life, he is dwelling in a dungeon when he might walk forth into the radiance and beauty of luminous air. We talk of the mortal and the immortal life as if the one were the fixed and unalterable state before that change which we call death; and as if the other were the fixed and unalterable condition after this event of death. This view is a fallacy. The immortal life is that " Heaven of Spirit " which may be entered at any moment, which is inevitably entered at the moment when the qualities which cor- respond with this environment are achieved. The supreme purpose of Jesus was to bring life and immortality to light. A great truth unrecognized is not less a The Supreme Purpose of truth, but until it is rescued from Jesus. hidden darkness and related to men's lives, it cannot enter into them as an enlarging and ennobling force. Immortality 84 The Outlook Beautiful. has a more profound significance than the mere continuation of existence. " I am come," said Jesus, "that ye might have life, and have it more abundantly ; " and only in pro- portion to the degree in which man lives in truth, in justice, in generosity and helpfulness and love, does he live in any real sense at all. The " life more abundant " is the life of spirituality, and it is the life more abundant which is the normal condition of man, who is, essentially and permanently, a spiritual being, and only transiently related to the physical universe. His real life, now and here, is the life of the spirit. Now, the life of the spirit does not imply an exclusive de- votion to ceremonial religion. The illumina- tion and guidance received at the altar are tested in the public square. " What hear ye in the darkness, that speak ye in the light." Spiritual life is power. Spiritual life expresses itself in progress, in all that makes for the finer civilization. It is seen in the vast enter- 85 The Outlook Beautiful. prises and marvellous inventions that are bringing the entire world into those closer inter-relations of modern life. Space and Time, those two conditions which were formerly held to differentiate the two lives before and after the event called death, Space and Time, belonging to the finite and not to the infinite, are being overcome by those inventions and appliances which the spiritual sight has discerned, as made pos- sible by the clearer understanding and the more comprehensive grasp of the laws of the universe. The most important fact in the Twentieth century is the prevailing and increasing in- terest in the higher development of life. "Who would live in the stone age, or the bronze, or the iron, or the lacustrine ? Who does not prefer the age of steel, of gold, of coal, petroleum, cotton, steam, electricity, and the spectroscope ? " questions Emerson. " All this activity has added to the value of life," 86 The Outlook Beautiful. he continues, "and to the scope of the in- tellect. . . . The hero sees that the event is ancillary: it must follow him. A given order of events has no power to secure to him the satisfaction which the imagination attaches to it ; the soul of goodness escapes from any set of circumstances, whilst prosper- ity belongs to a certain mind, and will intro- duce that power and victory which is its natural fruit, into any order of events. No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character." To the thoughtful mind there is an ever- recurring problem regarding the relations be- tween these circumstances the conditions which we have learned to call Karma and the divine ordering which we think of as being the will of God. Between karma and the divine will is there a great gulf fixed? Or is there, in the more complete interpretation of karma, a significance that closely corresponds to what 87 The Outlook Beautiful. is meant by the will of God? Is not the divine will manifested in all cause and effect? Always there has been this problem as to the relations between the divine and the human will. If the divine will was every- where and always manifested, how, then, did the effect differ from fate and preordi- nation and predestination? And if it was thus invariably manifested, where did the freedom of the will and the moral responsi- bility of each individual begin? Surely the will of God could mean a compelling force acting upon man in a manner to render his actions merely automatic, for unless there were freedom of choice there could be no moral responsibility. The mere surface presentation of karma as simply cause and effect might seem to exclude the divine guidance, but a deeper insight reveals that the two are inseparably connected. Life is a question of choice, and 88 The Outlook Beautiful. therefore of moral responsibility; but the divine will as certainly governs and controls and determines all the relations between choice and results, all that subtile and wonderful sequence of cause and effect that makes the very texture of life. For divine counsel is not divine compulsion. Divine direction is not divine domination. The divine counsel and direction is the privilege of man. It is given in just the portion in which it is sought and recognized and accepted. It is the illumination in which all may walk, but if one chooses the dark- ness and rejects the light, for him the light does not shine. Accepting the illumination, recognizing the guidance, the cause and effect or karma woven with every day be- comes of a constantly higher and diviner order, and increasingly, too, does one choose intelligently and nobly, and thus from a chain of higher causes produce the chain of con- tinually higher and finer effects. Theosophy 89 The Outlook Beautiful. and religion meet on this plane, theosophy being simply the explanation in detail of the religious truth presented in essence. God works through agencies and means both with those in the physical and with those in the ethereal worlds. " In the invisible worlds there exist many kinds of Intelligences which come into relationship with man, a veritable Jacob's ladder on which the angels of God ascend and descend, and above which stands the Lord Himself. Some of these Intelli- gences are mighty spiritual powers, others are exceedingly limited beings. All the world is filled with invisible beings, invisible to fleshly eyes. The invisible worlds inter- penetrate the visible and crowds of intelligent beings throng round us on every side. . . . And to crown all, there is the ever-present ever-conscious life of God Himself, potent and responsive at every point of His realm, of Him without whose knowledge not a sparrow falleth to the ground, the all- 90 The Outlook Beautiful. sustaining Life and Love in which we live and move." Of the great law of progress Alexander Fullerton well says : " If we compare infant humanity with human- ity at this era, we cannot doubt the forward movement. But the process, the healthful pro- cess, will go on. As the world is better to-day than it was millions of years ago, so will it be incomparably better millions of years hence than now. All the sadness and sorrow and pain and privation will show their results in evolution. The evil passes, the good remains. Not for nothing are we born and reborn into earthly life, not for nothing are its lessons forced into our souls. And when the process is once appre- hended, when we know the law and have brought ourselves into harmony with it, that process is immeasurably more rapid. The utmost attain- ments of humanity come into sight when the law by which they are reached is seized. "A cheering view of the future is important, but it is not so vital as a stimulating motive to 91 The Outlook Beautiful. the present. !N"ow it is the pre-eminent merit of Theosophy that it puts into every man's hand the determinant of his own destiny. It is abso- lutely certain that he is repeatedly to return to earth, and it is just as certain that his return will have the quality he himself imparts to it. What he is and desires and does will determine these future incarnations. Nothing that he can do will nullify Reincarnation and Karma, but everything that he does will decide how they shall operate. Thus the solemn responsibility for the happiness and prosperity of his next earth-life is entrusted to him now, and he may know that in each of his enterprises and thoughts and deeds he is framing the mould for another incarnation. It is certainly a momentous fact that the crop shall be as the seed, but it is an inspiring fact that the seed must be such as he himself shall select and be sown even as he shall win." The absolute joy and exhilaration of lifting up the heart to God and recognizing and following the divine guidance transcends all expression ; and the harmony thus created 92 The Outlook Beautiful. becomes an environment of untold beauty and blessedness. The minor events in daily experience are by no means invariably the least significant : " There is no gree.t and no small To the Soul that maketh all. And where it corneth all things are, And it cometh everywhere." George Eliot somewhere speaks of the need we all have "to be judged in the wholeness of our conduct," and in this expression is suggested one of the great truths as well as the great tests of human life. Character is a composite thing, continually changing, always growing finer and more exalted, or else deteriorating, but never fixed and unal- terable. It is, too, inevitably dependent on the " multiple personality," which, to a greater or lesser degree, dominates every individual. Whether this " multiple personality " is so differentiated as to become phenomenal, as in the cases that have enlisted the close study 93 The Outlook Beautiful. of Dr. Pierre Janet, the great French savant and psychologist, or whether its results only appear as occasional inconsistencies, in one way or another it makes a factor in life with which we must inevitably reckon, and in any true estimation the basis must be " the whole- ness of character," and not from a mere frag- ment of it, represented by a momentary lapse, an exceptional action. If the poet at times writes lines that "dying he would wish to blot," so all persons at times do or say the thing they would gladly cancel ; the word, the assertion, that does not truly represent their real and abiding thought or conviction ; the act that practically wis-represents (rather than represents) their real purpose. Out of a moment of discordant conditions one records some annoyance or vexation that, under different conditions, he certainly would not have communicated to any one. So mys- teriously are soul and body interpenetrated that physical ills as often produce mental 94 The Outlook Beautiful. and even moral defects, as the mental and moral defects produce physical ills. Action and reaction, mentally and physically, are largely reciprocal until one has learned, through culture of his spiritual powers, to entirely rule the body as the spirit's instru- ment. This intricate problem of the multiple personality accounts for a large share of the inconsistencies, the defects, the faults, the serious errors of life. Of course it may easily be asked, " Which is the true personality, the lower or the higher, the cruder or the finer manifestation ? " But it requires little reflection to decide. The higher and the finer is of course the real, because this approaches the more complete stage of evolution. " Every human being possesses an inner, a spiritual set of perceptive functions, ever ready to serve when called upon," says a thoughtful writer. " But the prerequisite for all interior attainment lies in the mental attitude of certainty as to possibility of the 95 The Outlook Beautiful. attainment. This means that faith must be called into action. For faith is the coin by which the soul buys its spiritual powers. "To gain entrance into the realm of intu- ition or the kingdom of angels, the aspirant must shun no trials, fear no failures. Again, he must place his mind on the spirit and try to fasten his soul energies on the unseen and the unheard. He shall try to live himself into the actual presence of an inner world, and to adjust his sense-functions to the re- quirements of that world. An arduous, un- ceasing endeavor to live up to the ideal by purifying every centre of action and every movement of thought shall sooner or later unlock the door to the sanctuary. * Ask, and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.' To the purified vision the spirit shall reveal its riches. " The development aimed at is of the heart, not of the head. Any other training 96 TJie Outlook Beautiful. than a moral and an ethical one, any other discipline than in the service of God and humanity, shall lead the aspirant not to the light-spheres of spiritual vision, but to spheres darkened by the twilights of his self-love, self- satisfaction, and egotism. Exclusive interest in self means isolation, contraction, and final death ; while interhuman or universal inter- ests, connecting man with all the mighty force centres of being, mean expansion, growth, and boundless life." The soul is always on its progress toward perfection, and the more nearly it manifests perfection at any moment, the more real is that personality. But it is a great step toward the truer comprehension of the prob- lem of life to realize that the spiritual man clothed upon, temporarily, with a physical body and inhabiting this physical world is, in himself, far more ideal in every quality than he seems to be, because he docs not invariably manifest his real self. The ma- 7 97 The Outlook Beautiful. chine (the body) gets out of tune. The spir- itual electricity falls to a low current, and one does or says what he himself feels to be totally at variance with the wholeness of his character. One can only be rightly estimated by his diviner moments, his more ideal mani- festations. " It is the highest power of these divine moments," says Emerson, "that they abolish our contritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by day ; but when these waves of God flow into me, I no longer reckon lost time. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what remains to me of the month or the year ; for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of dura- tion, but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to be done, without time." A clear comprehension, however, of this problem of the multiple personality will en- able every one to overcome it increasingly by 98 The Outlook Beautiful, eliminating all these less divine moments ; by entirely dominating all less worthy manifesta- tions in act, or expression, and bringing them into absolute subjection to the higher, the ideal self. One writer says : "... Finer and infinitely more delicately wrought media than the physical senses are re- quired for a cognition of the transfigured pres- ences dwelling on these exalted planes. " The effulgent radiance of this purer world can he endured only by a purified inner vision, and the harmonies of the spheres remain silent to all who have not evolved an inner sense of hearing. For what is sympathy but the feeling of the soul, through a cuticle before the anatomy of which the keenest microscope falls powerless ; or love, if not the inner, the spiritual aspect of attraction which in the heart of hearts has its centre of gravity 1 Every phase or conception of consciousness which transcends the cognizance of sense-perception the purely reasoning and intellect ualizing mind pertains to the sphere of intuition. What to the mind whose intuitional 99 The Outlook Beautiful. properties are latent, or merely brooding, appears as an impenetrable mystery, becomes to the puri- fied vision forms and essences of transcending beauty and sacredness." On the " exalted planes " dwell not only the " transfigured presences," but the real self, the higher self, of each individual. It is one's simple duty to dwell on this plane. It is per- fectly possible, nor is it even difficult, for here is all harmony and beauty and happiness. The difficult thing is to live on the lower plane, for there is the soul stifled and imprisoned. The spiritual faculties can be called upon for the guidance and the control of every hour of life, and they can be so evolved and trained as to make " the wholeness of conduct " per- petually amenable to every high and noble ideal ; to every exalted aspiration and beauty of achievement. This wholeness of conduct held perpetually amenable to the nobler ideals is conditioned on the perpetual trust in God, the ever-in- 100 The Outlook Beautiful. creasing accumulation of faith. We find Phillips Brooks saying : "So to the soul that finds in all life new and ever deeper knowledge of Christ, the Lord of Life, life is forever accumulating. Every passing event gets a noble value from the assurance that it gives us of God. This is the only real transfiguration of the dusty road, of the monotony and routine of living. It is all bright and beautiful if, in it all, God is giving us that certainty of Himself by which we shall be fit to meet everything that we shall have to meet in this world and the world to come." And again : "You have been in one business and you are going into another. You have weighed all the chances. You have used all the discretion and judgment that you possess. You believe that you are fit for the larger work. And yet, as you sit thinking it over the night before the new shop is to be opened and the new advertisement is to stand in the papers, you are full of your misgiv- ings. Shall I succeed ? Am I not leaving a cer- 101 The Outlook Beautiful. tainty for an uncertainty ? I know that God has prospered me thus far, but will He, can Ho, help me here? And then, just in proportion to the purity and absoluteness of your confidence that it has really been God who has helped you, and the simplicity and completeness with which you re- solve that, in the new business as in the old, you will be His obedient servant and put no obstacle in the way of His helping you still, just in propor- tion to your faith and consecration, will be the courage with which you see the dawn of the new day that is to bring to you the untried task." These words from Bishop Brooks occur in one of his greatest discourses, entitled " The Accumulation of Faith." The special mes- sage of the sermon is that out of every ex- ' ( perience one may bring, not only gratitude and recognition of the aid and light and leading he may have received, but also greatest of all he may bring a larger faith, j The divine power that has brought him through one great phase or peril ; the power that has enabled him to endure or to achieve, 1 102 The Outlook Beautiful. is ready to help him in the next special need, or crisis. He has proven its beneficence and its potency. With each recurring experience he proves it anew, and thus with the multi- plication of his experiences the accumulation of his faith goes on, the faith that has been strengthened, the faith that shall be. There is constantly and increasingly realized the ab- solute practicality, the wonderful potency of the divine aid. It is always at hand. It is an infinite store of energy surrounding man like an atmosphere, and the greater his need, the more largely can he draw upon it. The only limit is in his own receptivity. All that he can receive is his. At any moment the miracle may be wrought. "He smote the stony rock, and the water gushed out. There- fore I know He can give me bread and flesh ; He will give me bread and flesh if bread and flesh are what I ought to have." The realizations of the past may make the prophecies of the future. We find Bishop 103 The Outlook Beautiful. Brooks saying : " You look back over the years in which you have been trying to serve your Saviour, and what do you see ? Many a temptation conquered by His strength ; many a sin forgiven and turned by gratitude for His forgiveness into an inspiration ; many a hard crisis where Christ your Lord has been all-sufficient for you. Why is it that to-day, in your present temptation, in your present need, you feel so little sure of Him ? A new desert opening before you frightens you even while you remember with thanks- giving how He led you through the old. The thanksgiving dies away upon your lips for the past mercy as you come in sight of the new emergency, for the brave meeting of which it would seem as if that past mercy ought to have fitted you completely." The " new deserts " surely should not appall those who have been led through the old. " Who thinks at midnight morn will ever dawn ? Who knows, far out at sea, 104 The Outlook Beautiful. That anywhere is land ? and yet a shore Hath set behind us, and will ruse before. A Past foretells a Future." May not this, then, be the watchword for this new century, the ever-cumulative power of faith in life? The power that makes it- self a resistless energy, a great creative force, transforming the entire panorama and call- ing into actual existence all in which it be- lieves, this is the power gained by the divine aid that prefigures the Heaven of Spirit in which we all may live in which we all should live. But is faith happiness? Does the former presuppose and predetermine and include the latter? "Of course we can all look back and see how we have been led and guided and cared for, and how when we have reached a point where we absolutely had to have help we asked for it and received it, and the accumulation of faith means, or ought to mean, peace, security, serenity, and if these 105 The Outlook Beautiful. are happiness, then we ought to be happy," said a writer, in a private letter discussing this point, and added : " I have always thought I should be happy if I had an assured in- come and no fear for the morrow." Is, then, " an assured income " happiness ? That it may be a potent factor in usefulness and in serenity of mind is true, but there are few of the material gifts or privileges of life that are absolutely "assured" to any one, . and a good income is not always among them. One can hardly conceive of its vanishing to a Rockefeller or a Vanderbilt ; but in the more moderate of even the great fortunes, it is not invariably a permanent possession and might not a truer conception of happi- ness be so to live that possessions may come and go without the loss of serene faith ; or of that trio of qualities, " Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control," which "lead life to sovereign power." Is it not happiness to keep at one's best in 106 The Outlook Beautiful. mental and spiritual conditions? 'To keep faith in friendship even when friends are faith- less ; to keep a certain poise and energy and persistence even where circumstances arc ad- verse ; to keep, intact, one's faith in the divine leading, even though the path be one of hardship? In a word, is not happiness the power of so living in the spirit, in qualities of intellectual interest ; in gener- /ous aspirations ; in the companionship of ideals; in sympathy with the good fortune of others, is it not possible so to achieve this quality of life as to be happy even when limitations and reverses invest our days? "What a man does, that he has," says Emerson. "What has he to do with hope or fear ? In himself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid, but that which is in his nature, and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let 107 The Outlook Beautiful. him scatter them on every wind as the mo- mentary signs of his infinite productiveness." He may have that which is his own. A man's genius, the quality that differentiates him from every other ; the susceptibility to one class of influences ; the selection of what is fit for him, the rejection of what is unfit, determines for him the character of the uni- verse. / A man is a method, a progressive arrangement, a selecting principle, gathering his like to him wherever he goes. " What attracts my attention shall have it," as Em- erson asserts. "I will go to the man who knocks at my door whilst a thousand persons, as worthy, go by it, to whom I give no re- gard. It is enough that these particulars speak to me. A few anecdotes, a few traits of character, manners, face, a few incidents, have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance, if you measure them by the ordinary standards. They relate to your gift. Let them have their 108 The Outlook Beautiful. weight, and do not reject them and cast about for illustration and facts more usual in liter- ature. ' What your heart thinks great is great. The soul's emphasis is always right." The higher will certainly regulate events, and that " obedience " by which we " become divine" is not a mere passive negation of one's own will and wish to the direction of a higher power, but this obedience is in the sense of entering into, and co-operating with, the divine power, and thus making one's life a part of the divine plan. /Happiness is a con- cern of the spirit. It is a condition. It is mental, moral, spiritual. Its realm is above the things of earth, for it is that peace which the world cannot give, neither can it take away. One potent factor in this peace achieved by faith is that of totally ignoring any experience of personal injustice or incomprehensible an- tagonism. "His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong." Nothing can be more 109 The Outlook Beautiful. practical in its moral uplifting, nothing more ideal in its spiritual achievement, than the resolution that the heart shall hold no mem- ory of a wrong in entering on the initiation of the Heaven of Spirit. This initiation may be made a moral crisis in life by this resolution, to let the heart hold no memory of a wrong hereafter, through life. For there are few, indeed, who are not wronged by their fellow- men, and who have not, intentionally or un- intentionally, been the means of wronging others. Misconceptions, misconstructions, mis- interpretations, are as serious in their effects of wrong as can be more flagrant and pal- pable injuries. Indeed, the latter may be no comparison at all to the former. One may make restoration of property and possessions, while to restore an estimate of character, a reputation, an ideal of individuality, may be far more difficult, if not impossible. Then, too, the philosophy of misinterpretation, of erroneous judgment, goes even deeper than 110 The Outlook Beautiful. this. Though the misconception may never be communicated, it is none the less a wrong for which there is almost no atonement or reparation in any immediate sense. It is a violence done to the spirit, which is inimical, corrosive in its action ; which throws about its object an atmosphere of gloom, despond- ency, and discouragement. It is the hardest thing in the world to stand firm, poised with gladness and ardor, untouched before a recog- nized misjudgmcnt and misconception. On the other hand, recognizing the ideal nature of another absolutely develops that nature. Faith is the most potent of all the creative forces. It creates that in which it believes. It is the sunshine and the electricity that de- velop the germ to its beautiful fruition. So, of all gifts, give this. Of all gifts, give love, give belief, give patience, give faith. " Faith shares the future's promise ; love's Self-offering is a triumph won : And each good word and action moves The dark world nearer to the sun." Ill The Outlook Beautiful. If in any heart there is "the memory of a wrong," shall it not be banished on this recognition of a nobler life? Let there be " no room to hold the memory of a wrong." Whatever it is, however great or small, for- give, forgive entirely and forget as en- tirely. Let it be absolutely complete, the forgiving and the forgetting. Thus is one spiritually prepared to go onward and upward into a World Beautiful, into a Life Radiant, into a Paradise Divine ! For paradise is not geographical in its location, but a spiritual state, a condition, that may be entered into on earth to-day. Indeed, it is not only that to each and all there is the privilege of enter- ing into paradise to-day ; into that exaltation of spirit which absolute forgiveness and for- getfulness of any wrong and absolute good- will and love inevitably create ; there is not merely the privilege of entering into this ex- altation, but the duty of it. It is the revealed obligation of life. The words are good to 112 The Outlook Beautiful. remember and to fulfil, " His heart was as great as the world, but there was no room in it to hold the memory of a wrong." " For," as Rev. William Brunton well says, " the Beatitudes are as provable as the prob- lems of mathematics. I have only to look about me and note the states of mind of my neighbors to see the word of Jesus made good. ) Blessed are the poor, the meek, the merciful, the pure, the enduring of evil. Do I not witness that where blessedness is, there are these states of soul? I can come closer to demonstration than that. I can find an- swer in my own experience. I never did a good thing without being repaid in good. I am positive of its pleasure and reward imme- diately and always when I give myself to it. Religious men are not fools, and they would j never have been allured by a blessed world beyond if they had not made sure that it was here and now. Virtue is its own reward, I and therefore its own evidence of endurance." ^ 8 113 The Outlook Beautiful. In these words Mr. Brunton, whose ser- mons contribute so much to the higher illumi- nation of life and whose poems are perpetual sunshine and inspiration, has formulated a practical truth. That the Beatitudes are as provable as any problem in mathematics is forever true, and it is a truth that offers an unerring clew to the entire labyrinth of life. To live by the Beati- tudes, to live in sweetness and gentleness of spirit; in love, in courtesy, in generosity, just by this quality of living all perplexi- ties, all trials, solve themselves. The moment one attains spiritual poise and harmony, out- ward conditions conform to these. The qual- ity of life holds the secret of all events and circumstances. The inner peace inevitably creates outer harmony. " Love manifests as harmony of vibration," says a thoughtful writer, "and friction, discord, and wrangling are deadly foes to health aud joy. " Live at peace with thine own household and 114 The Outlook Beautiful. with thy neighbor if them wouldst enjoy the blessing of a sweet and spiritual life. "Disease (dis-ease) is nothing but a form of inharmony (in-harmony, or harmony turned in when it should be flowing out in vibrations of love and good-will), and all forms of sickness are due to an effort of Nature to restore harmonious action upon the part of the different organs of the body. " The quickest way to restore harmony and health to a diseased body is to put in operation the law of non-resistance. It is resistance which causes all inharmony. The advice, ' Resist not evil,' is scientific advice. To resist an evil is to endow it with life and power. The more stren- uous your resistance, the more powerful becomes the evil. Let go of it, and Nature will restore you to harmony. "If your life is filled with jangling mental discords, you will repel people and things. Do not say that the discords in your life are due to outside influences over which you have no control. Such is not the case. The kingdom of your soul belongs to you alone, and no outside power can invade that kingdom except by your permission. 115 The Outlook Beautiful. Therefore, if your life manifests discords, it is be- cause you entertain them in your inner kingdom. " It is possible to preserve your sense of peace and poise amidst any and all the clamor of the outer world. If you allow the inharmonious to poison your soul, if you entertain greed, envy, resentment, hate, and the whole foul brood of negative emotions, then you alone are responsible for the consequences. "At the centre of your being dwells the Real Self, in a state of Eternal harmony which nothing can disturb. Recognize this Real Self as ever present amid all the turmoil of the outer life, and you will gradually build up a sublime conscious- ness of peace and strength which nothing can upset. "Cherish this inner kingdom and preserve your consciousness of inner peace and quiet above all things." The test of this philosophy comes when one comes in immediate contact with injus- tice, with malice, with intentional wrong. Is one to submit to evil rather than to re- sist it ? The circumstances under which one 116 The Outlook Beautiful. must face this question are so varied that no absolute rule can be adopted. There are times when the resistance of evil, the " right- eous indignation," seems the diviner leadiug. Jesus drove the money-changers from the temple. To bring life to the dead level of an unvarying and monotonous acceptance of every phase would surely be to debase the soul and to destroy the high and delicate standards of all that is true and fine and of good report. Yet antagonism must be un- varyingly exterminated, and it must be done now and here while in the earth life. One may help the erring to take part against his error rather than to relegate him to an atmos- phere of hatred because of his defects. The perfect harmony can be cultivated without compromise with evil. "Harmony," indeed, " is omnipresent. It may be sought by coming into a mental state of oneness and agreement with the One Life. Let the per- sonal self, with its fleshly desires and crav- 117 The Outlook Beautiful. ings, learn of the soul. Go into the blessed eternal silence; still the clamorous voice of the senses, and learn what the soul has to teach you. It will show you the way to health and harmony and eternal joy. It will open the path before you. The voice of the silence will instruct and lead all in ways of quietness and peace. Follow its leading until at last thou shalt enter eternal harmony." It is a fatal error, it is a great loss of hap- piness and of effective conditions for work, to imagine that this finer and higher state of mental poise is something only to be attained in some vague hereafter. It should be achieved now and here. An ideal state of living is something to be achieved, practically, and experienced and enjoyed in the immediate present. Life is simply a succession of spir- itual states, and the higher and nobler may be sought and attained as well here as here- after. The sooner one achieves it, the nearer 118 The Outlook Beautiful. is he to the eternal blessedness. The nearer is he, also, to all noble and energetic initia- tion and to that state in which he brings power to bear on life. "Why should one live in the cellar when he may as well live in light and beauty upstairs?" Mrs. Abby Morton Diaz used to question. The significance impresses one. Why, indeed, should one live in dark and discord rather than in loveliness and all rnagic and music and enchantment ? Blessedness is a state of the soul, and it is one in which all may dwell at will. The Beatitudes are, in- deed, demonstrable in every hour of daily life. For thus may peace, even that peace of God which passeth all understand- An i nwar d ing, be ours. " Let us then labor for an inward stillness, An inward stillness and an inward healing ; That perfect silence when the lips and heart Are still, and we no longer entertain Our own imperfect thoughts and vain opinions, 119 The Outlook Beautiful. But God alone speaks in us, and we wait In singleness of heart that we may know His will, and in the silence of our spirits, That we may do His will, and do that only." The Theosophists, who avow themselves lovers of all wisdom and seekers after its best results, analyze the being into seven principles, or bodies, and denominate one "the Thought Body," of which it is said: " The mental body is being built by thoughts. It will be the vehicle of consciousness in the heavenly world, but is being built now by as- pirations, by imagination, reason, judgment, artistic faculties, by the use of all mental powers. Such as the man makes it, so must he wear it." Nor is this term the " thought body " a mere vagary. Every thought is registered on the outward form, and the en- tire personality is the result of the habitual thought of the individual. Changing the cur- rents of thought transform the entire body. The mental action constantly creates, destroys, 120 The Outlook Beautiful. rearranges, and readjusts. According to the seer, the atmosphere about man consists of three distinct sublimated bodies, the astral or emotional body, the mental body, and the causal body; the three interpenetrating and interacting, and all three penetrating and act- ing in and through the physical body, much as the nerve systems of the body interpene- trate, interact, and co-exist. The astral or emotional body of man is next in degree finer than the physical body. It is directly influenced by the body, and in turn directly influences the body. Now the regeneration of one's life, which need not wait on the change called death, but may be achieved, now and here, any day, any hour, according to the intensity and the exal- tation of the degree of thought brought to bear, this regeneration is scientific as well as ethical. "If we would set about the improvement of an astral body," says an authority, "it is well 121 The Outlook Beautiful. to remember that it is the vehicle of passion, emotion, and desire, and it is directly affected by the particular emotions and desires which we allow ourselves ; any form of self-seeking, say of anger or of self-pity in sorrow which has self as its centre, immediately diffuses its own ills; whilst unselfish emotions and desires operate in the opposite direction and result in an increase of joy, hope, and courage. This body is also greatly influenced from above by the condition of the mental body, and from below by the clean- liness and purity of the physical life, and still more remotely by the food we eat and drink; exactly the same law operates in the well-being of the mental body, and thoughts which find a lodgment in the mind affect the vibrations of the mind body; if the thought be pure and lofty, finer material and a higher rate of vibration are required to express it, and as this body inter- penetrates and influences directly and indirectly the other bodies, the whole character is uplifted, and the physical body itself shares in this im- provement ; an exactly opposite result takes place when coarse and sordid thoughts are held in the mind ; the mind-body is also influenced 122 The Outlook Beautiful. indirectly from above or below, as in the case of the astral body." The mind operates directly on the astral body, which is controlled and created by the quality and degree of intensity brought to bear on it by thought. All significant results begin in the silence and there germinate and develop. It is in " the inward stillness " that true power lies. The gardener advises that the rosebushes shall be let alone, if one wants the utmost beauty and fragrance of the rose. Rev. B. Fay Mills teaches that if one uses his powers to the greatest limit he will acquire the capacity to create circum- stances. He says: "I am what I choose to be. It is learning this that will make a man an angel rather than an animal. We have learned this to some extent. We say that we control our bodies and create our circumstances; but we will find that it is just as easy to create our bodies and control our circumstances. If this body does not 123 The Outlook Beautiful. suit my purposes, I will learn to create one. If these circumstances are not appropriate, the one thing we are here for is to make them appropriate. " Electricity was in the world for some mil- lions of years before man found it out," con- tinues Mr. Mills. " He did not learn how to run an electric car until twelve or fifteen years ago. He was not able to send his thought around the world. Electricity is the greatest thing we have discovered, but it is not the greatest thing we ever shall discover. " Know ! know ! I beseech you ; know ! I command that you are divine. You are not poor weak mortals, as you have called your- selves. You are not bodies that may be preyed upon by disease, and broken and destroyed by other forces of nature; minds with wills not yet sufficiently strong to with- stand certain great forms of temptation ; hearts that must suffer and break. You are souls ; souls that are one with me, the great Uiii- 124 TJie Outlook Beautiful. versal, Eternal, Omnipotent Soul of Life. Know that the resources of divinity are your resources ! Know that your body and your mind are but instruments for your use nay, more, that they are but expressions of your spirit, your real life, that you may control and adapt them, and farther on you may create them at your will. Why should they ever be weak ? Why should you ever be ill unless you choose ? You shall learn the meaning of the words of that great Master of the art of living, when He said : 1 1 have power to lay down my life, and I have power to take it again.' " The individual has increasing power over his own life just in proportion as he achieves the ability to enter into "the inward still- ness " and there create in thought the events and circumstances that express his nobler ideals and which will then shape themselves in the outer life. Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." It is not irreverent to feel 125 The Outlook Beautiful. that in a degree an increasing degree man, too, may identify himself with God and be one with Him in all pure and holy purposes. To what degree, we may well inquire, is self-denial a factor in creating for one's own soul this atmosphere of peace and "inward stillness " ? Self-denial has been so canonized as a virtue that it may indeed be pardonable if self-abne- gation and self-effacement are not infrequently mistaken for it, with great surprise that the results are not all that those of a pure and lofty sacrifice should give to one who has ful- filled it to the utmost. A man gives to his neighbor things that are due, and adds to that the giving up of things undue, and re- joices in spirit that he is following after divine ideals. He meditates on the Christ who came, "not to be ministered unto, but to minister," and longs with the most ardent desire to live this aspiration into actual 126 The Outlook Beautiful. outward experience. Ethical literature and teachings foster this ideal to a great degree, and when it does not work well in actual practice, the follower redoubles his zeal and throws into the scale still more largely all that he possesses, and consoles himself with some vague philosophy of laying up treasures in heaven. He deprives himself, it may be, of all those conditions which constitute his real power for usefulness ; he possesses the ring of Gyges, and he throws it into the sea. But the fishes have no use for this spell of power, and are none the better for it. They cannot possess it, and the owner has relinquished it. He still holds to the faith that sometime, somewhere, somehow, his act shall result in good, for, behold ! is it not an act of sacrifice ? Is it not self-denial ? Is it not ministry ? And for what other cause came he into this world ? And for what other cause is he a thoughtful and aspiring being, with recognition and rev- erence for spiritual laws ? It would surprise 127 The Outlook Beautiful. him very much to be told that he had done the distinctively wrong rather than the right thing ; that his act was really one of igno- rance and darkness rather than of knowledge and illumination ; practically, in its results, an act of cowardice rather than courage, of defeat rather than of achievement. Out of all the mingled potencies of heredity, environ- ment, and achievement he had created certain conditions which were his responsibility, as well as his privilege, to use aright. These gave to him certain powers which were his instrument ; which represented to him all his possibilities of service. He saw their value ; but the more valuable they seemed to be, the more was he possessed with the conviction that he should give them away! Now this is not philosophy, but fanaticism. It is not noble ; it is ignoble ; it is the enervating rather than the energetic. He flings away all his treasures and then he wonders at the in- gratitude on the part of those who receive 123 The Outlook Beautiful. them. " Grateful ? " Of course the recipient is not grateful. He is very likely bewildered. He has had poured upon him something that does not in the least fit into his scheme of life, for which he has no conceivable use ; and if he is a peculiarly dense be- ing, very likely something not unlike re- sentment, even, springs up in his mind to one who has apparently placed him under some kind of an obligation which he never desired, and which is a burden rather than a blessing. In a recent periodical Mr. John Milton Scott writes on " Self-Effacement, or Self- Fulfilment," and says: " It was not self-effacement, but self-fulfilment, that gave us Jesus and all His great work in the world. He became so highly individualized in His religious nature, in His genius for loving and helping, for enchanting into His own heart the secrets of the Most High, that the world has gotten from Him its divinest aspirations in reli- 9 129 The Outlook Beautiful. gion, in loving, and in helping, its most exalting visions of God. "To be as perfect a man as possible, to fill out the measure of one's manhood, heaped full and running over, was the ideal which Jesus set be- fore Himself and before all men. To be able to sound all the notes of life and being in a perfect- ing harmony is to fulfil the universe and become such child as God thought about when He in- vented us in the deeps of His Fatherhood. " But you say He taught the doctrine of self- denial ! Yes ! but not the doctrine of self-efface- ment. His doctrine of self-denial was simply the doctrine of continuous growth, that we should not pause and waste our energies in the low leaves of our lives, but that we should build up the central stalk, throwing out new leaves, get- ting into the glory of our blossoms, deepening into the splendor of our fruits. He came eating and drinking, and His enemies said that he was a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber. Full as His life was of self-denial, full as His teachings are of self-denial, He never warrants any self-denial for self-denial's sake. No wound is to be given for the sake of the ache. In pain there is no 130 The Outlook Beautiful. glory. Joy is the ordered truth of the universe. All life is to be used, not abused, by excesses; to be used in its moderate contributions to the growth and expression of the whole man, of the whole human life. So universal is the human life that it should enrich itself with all noble experiences, with all noble sympathies, with all noble joys, that so it may grow by the expression of itself, even as the growth of a tree is by the expression of itself in countless blossoms and measureless fruit." Another very valuable view of this sub- ject is thus expressed by Dr. Charles Brodie Patterson : " Very much of the so-called self-denial prac- tised is of absolutely no benefit to its possessors, or any one else for that matter. Analyzed hon- estly, it is the quintessence of selfishness, which, in its turn, becomes the seed of other vices. And it is just these masked vices these wolves in sheep's clothing that are the most insidious enemies of real development, of the well-rounded, efficient life. . . . 131 The Outlook Beautiful. " The religion of asceticism, which only asks for room to deny ourselves, is the religion of spiritual dwarfs, starved and misshapen souls, not the song of the sons and daughters of God. The voluntary, usually pui-poseless and uncalled- for, renunciation of the means of growth is the expression of a warped and near-sighted nature, a nature that needs to be renewed in the spirit of its mind before it can carry the message of the newer life, the life more abundant. " Self-denial in the truest, the interior sense, is only the losing of one's life that one may find it again, the merging of the individual life with the good of the common life of all. . . . Once a soul realizes its true relationship to all humanity, that the part is just as necessary to the whole as the whole is to the part, that humanity's rights can never be conserved through the forfeiting of its own, the morbid fungus growth that passes for self-denial will disappear. . . . " The love of self is as essential to the well- balanced mind as the love of others. The truly virtuous mind is the one that preserves its own integrity of thought and action. The great body of humanity is one. The strength and perfection 132 The Outlook Beautiful. of any part is essential to the completion of the whole." And again Dr. Patterson says : " In order to be truly of service one must first be a true man, a true woman. One must be carrying out God's plan, if he would bear a God- like message to his fellows. Common sense, the same God-given common sense that is efficient in the everydayness of our bread-and-butter lives, is, too, the handmaid of the highest virtue. We can never hasten the growth or increase the effi- ciency of anything in the spiritual world any more than in the physical world by depriving it of the rational means of subsistence and devel- opment. Duties real duties can never clash. Nothing essentially good can be lost. Each ac- tion, as a stage of development, must, because of the unifying motive of the whole, lead fittingly and surely to larger development, God-glorifying growth ; else the action was clearly not a duty, not good essentially ; its motive, fearlessly ana- ly/edj will be found a purely selfish one. . . . " Injustice to one's self, though frequently la- belled unselfishness and self-sacrifice, is injustice 133 The Outlook Beautiful. all the same, and must of necessity work for in- harmony in its final outcome. . . . Self-denial is a beautiful thing when it is true, but the self- sacrifice that is at heart self-seeking or morbid is, in reality, one of the most insidious forms of self- ishness, and will never bring about a harmonious environment." All this is quoting at somewhat undue length, but the truth is one of the most im- portant in all the range of ethical philosophy, and nowhere has it ever been more forcibly and clearly stated. As Phillips Brooks so well said : " You can help your fellow-men, you must help your fellow-men, but the only way you can truly help them is by being the noblest and the best man that it is possible for you to be. And how," he adds, "shall one do it ? By cultivating himself. Instantly he is thrown back upon his own life. For their sakes I sanctify myself. I am my best not simply for myself, but for the world. . . . The man who makes that the law of his 134 The Outlook Beautiful. existence neither neglects himself nor his fel- low-men ; becoming neither the self-absorbed student and cultivator of himself on the one hand, nor abandoning himself to be simply the wasting benefactor of his brethren on the other hand." '. Now a false ideal is a very pernicious, a very dangerous thing. The finer the nature ; the more uncompromisingly loyal to accepted spiritual laws is the man or woman, the more dangerous it is to fix the imagination on an untrue standard of action. We live by our beliefs, our aspirations, and our faiths. Those are not merely " such stuff as dreams are made of," but they are the very texture of our daily life. And to follow a false ideal is to get on the wrong trail altogether, and the more earnestly and loyally it is followed, the more remotely does one wander from the paths of true peace and righteousness. One's conditions of life, in health, wealth, or what- ever degree of possessions there may be; in 135 The Outlook Beautiful. a margin of leisure and solitude for study, work, and growth, one's powers and capa- bilities in all ways are, in the true sense, his responsibilities. He has no moral right to sacrifice them. Between a true and holy self- denial and a mere morbid and weak self- effacement there is a great gulf fixed. " Be courteous, be obliging, Dan," said Sir Hugo to Daniel Deronda, " but don't give yourself over to be melted down for the tallow trade." This counsel may well be kept in mind as good ethics as well as good sense. Yet, self-denial has its place among the diviner qualities. The friend, in any true sense of the term, is one who can bear and hope and believe, even against the seem- ingly unendurable, the hopeless, the denied. Tli is spirit is ideally interpreted in an exqui- site poem by Frederic Laurence Knowles, of which some stanzas run : " I gave you all that I had, And the giving made me glad. 136 The Outlook Beautiful. So great was my love the while I asked neither thanks nor smile. " If you would only let me pour My service before your door, My worship around your feet, The days and the nights were sweet. " I have owned life's costliest thing; Though I have drunk from a spring Where my thirst could never slake, I have given up all for your sake." But sacrifice and sadness are by no means the same. There is an exhilaration of joy possible to sacrifice which could never be realized through any other experience. " I gave you all that I had, And the giving made me glad." The two terse little lines condense an entire philosophy of life. " Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, in- stead of the tough fibre of the human heart," said Emerson, and he added, " I do not wish 137 The Outlook Beautiful. to treat friendship tenderly but with roughest courage." The friendship that is real is sim- ply indestructible. It can enter into the home- liest needs of life, for it is no affair of mere " wine and dreams." It is a sacramental relation. " Those who meet in good can never be separated," runs an Eastern proverb. Distance may intervene ; the tragedy of misun- derstandings may arise, but beyond and above the clouds the glory lives undimmed. Such friendship as this is a spiritual relation, and while one " may throw off the hand of flesh, he can never lose the clasp of spirit." Ideal friendship, however, is only possible between ideal natures ; those who can look through and beyond all the rubbish of temporary imperfec- tions and mutually recognize in each other the spiritual realities, the qualities that will persist to a finer inflorescence. Such friend- ships are almost inevitably linked with great pain and sorrow, but even their pain and sacrifice are more precious than the cheap 138 The Outlook Beautiful. and common joys. The poet crystallizes a great truth in these lines: " If Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, ' For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity, as the preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath ! ' Then would I kneel the monarch to obey, And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or slay ; Since I have tasted love, what inattereth 1 But if, dear God! this heart be dry as sand, And cold as Charon's palm holding Hell's toll, How worse, how worse! Scorch it with sorrow's brand ! Haply, though dead to joy, 't would feel that coal ; Better a cross, and nails through either hand, Than Pilate's palace and a frozen soul." It is not the sorrow, but the " frozen soul," the nature impervious to all delicate and in- tense feeling, from which one would pray to be delivered. If the experience of a sacramental friendship involves suffering, one may yet wel- come the very pain it involves, for it is an initiation into a higher order of life. The 139 The Outlook Beautiful. perfecting of any exceptional relation involves the entire regeneration of the natures of both, and this process implies pain. The merely shallow and selfish relations do not survive this purifying process, which lifts the entire nature to a plane transcending space and time, and endows it with an unspeakable degree of energy and power to transmit this energy into lofty expression. Pain and sorrow are thus to be welcomed rather than feared. They are the processes of initiation to the more perfect life that is only attained through struggle and through faith. Apart, however, from these more excep- tional relations of spirit to spirit from that order of friendship which is a sacramental gift are the incidental contacts of life, all of which hold their potential influence in un- measured degree. To live in the " Heaven of Spirit " is so to radiate beauty, sweetness, and joy that each one becomes a gift and a bene- diction to others. Nothing less than the 140 The Outlook Beautiful. realization of this ideal can create that atmos- phere which is the " Heaven of Spirit." It is open to each and all from the crudest and the humblest to the most lofty and powerful. It is the privilege of the peasant as well as of the prince and the potentate. In the vast panorama of human relation- ships we are always fulfilling or denying prayers and demands. "Each or- der of things has its angel: that means the full message of each dawi L on any Hour. from what is afar." All meeting and mingling is not for pleasure, or even, apparently, for mutual advantage. Often these relationships seem fateful ones for disaster and sorrow. " He has mistaken the first idea of human companionship who seeks friendships and con- tacts with mankind directly and simply for the pleasure they will give him," well said Phillips Brooks. This companionship of spirit not uufrequently generates pain and sorrow 141 The Outlook Beautiful. and sacrifice ; but the sacrifice is richer than all treasure. Thus, too, all sacrifice, all com- munion of social relations, transcends the meeting in the physical world, and bridges that gulf we call death. Friendship survives the bodily separation. Spirit to spirit it re- sponds from the Seen to the Unseen. The final test and witness of all true friendship, as well as of all spiritual power, is seen " in the ability to cast the bodily life away, and yet continue to give help and courage and wis- dom to those who see us no longer; to be, like Christ, the helper of men's souls even from beyond the grave." The atmosphere in which we live is filled with friends and com- panions and helpers whom we cannot see. The psychic body is at a rate of vibration so much higher than the physical eye can recog- nize that it is thereby unseen, though not, indeed, unperceived. For there are more subtile senses than the eye and the ear, and these take finer cognizance. By the cloud 142 The Outlook Beautiful. of witnesses are we companioned. To them can we turn for counsel, for guidance. " Are they not all ministering spirits ? " Are not they and we God's messengers, His co- workers in the realm of spiritual forces ? If we are not, then are our lives very remote from what they should be. This intercommunion between those in the Seen and those in the Unseen is a spiritual law. It is best achieved by the development of one's own spiritual power. The more subtile senses can be evolved and educated. The entire trend of conscious life may be so lived on the higher plane that the communion with those in the diviner world is the natural, the inevitable, experience. And this is to dwell in joy and harmony and in the magnetic atmosphere of inspiration and suggestion. It is to find that seeming obstacles are in reality channels conducting us on to the fairer future. " The soul is ceaselessly joyful ; " and in pro- portion as one lives the life of the soul, in 143 The Outlook Beautiful. proportion as he unites his spirit with the divine spirit, does he dwell in joy and radiance* " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," said Saint Paul ; and when he so exhorted his disciples was he speaking extravagant words, idly, or did the exhorta- tion convey to them a beautiful ideal which might become a practical reality? The ear- nestness of the message which is found in his Epistle to the Philippians argues that Paul himself believed he was entreating their ac- ceptance of a possibility. " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus ; " and if this were a possibility for the Philippians, nineteen hundred years ago, it is a possibility for the Christian world to-day. If it were a realized possibility, the general life, the universal life, would be entirely transformed. For mind acts upon nature and circumstances. Thought is the highest degree of power, and the quality and intensity of the thought deter- mine outer conditions. 144 The Outlook Beautiful. " Whate'er our state we must have made it once," writes Mrs. Browning, and she adds : " And though the state displease us, aye, displease us warrantably, Never doubt that other states, though possible once, And then rejected by the instinct of our lives, If then accepted, had displeased us more." S. Life is certainly a continuous chain, a series of sequences in which we are what we are to-day and this year because of what we were yesterday and last year. Our deeds still travel with us from afar, And what we have been makes us what we are." All the outer circumstances and surround- ings, all the environment and the attendant influences, are solely due to the mental condi- tions that have prevailed and wrought the out- ward result. " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." So far as that mind reflected the transcendent spiritual qual- ities of Jesus, the Christ, so far has it im- parted exaltation and significance to life. 10 145 The Outlook Beautiful. So far as it departed from this divine quality, so far is life poor and meaningless. The law is inevitable, is exact, is undeniable. Then, as mental conditions have created certain states, a change in mental conditions can change these states, correspondingly. " Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The history of the gospels reveals to us that the mind which was in Christ Jesus did not save him from sacrifice. It did not in- sure him that which the modern world would call prosperity, by which is always meant the conveniences and the luxuries of material things, and not riches of the spirit. Selfishness and self-seeking determine, for the most part, that which is considered fortunate. It is an environment composed exclusively of temporal things, things which are transitory in their very nature, here to-day and gone to-morrow ; and which, while their uses and true value are not to be ignored, are yet an integral part of the temporary and vanishing world as dis- 146 The Outlook Beautiful. tinct from the eternal and the immortal realm. " What shall it profit a man," wisely asks the apostle, "though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" If he gain the world this spectacular, vanishing world by the sacrifice of all his higher and. nobler qualities ; if he has developed greed and sel- fishness and indifference to his fellow-men rather than generosity and love ; if, on quit- ting the physical life to which, alone, his material possessions bear any relation and in which, alone, they are of any value, he finds himself with deformities of soul, with qualities which are not fitted to inherit eter- nal life ; which are not adapted to enter into the joy and peace and exaltation of energy in the next higher stage of life, what, indeed, shall his brief tenure of luxuries in the tran- sient physical conditions have profited him ? In one of the impressive discourses of Phil- lips Brooks, he speaks of the willing surrender of Jesus. " I want you to think of the noble- 147 The Outlook Beautiful. ness of the surrender of Jesus," said Bishop Brooks, " and of the way in which no man becomes really noble who has not somehow its repetition in himself. The act itself which I have pictured must stir any generous soul. Christ, with freedom and honor waiting at His call, quietly shutting His lips and refus- ing to call them, and going on into suffering and shame, that is one of the scenes which we may make a test-scene of human charac- ter. The man who calls that voluntary self- surrender foolish shows that he is himself ignoble. Everything that there is noble in a man's nature leaps up to honor it ; and every- where, where the mind which was in Christ Jesus has been in any other man, that other man's brethren have felt his nobleness. To give up some precious thing which is legiti- mately yours ; to shut your eyes upon visions of glory or safety or luxury which you might make your own without a shade of blame, [ that is so truly one of the marks of nobleness 148 The Outlook Beautiful. that no man is accounted by the best stand- ards truly noble who is not doing that in some degree. The man who is taking all that he has a right to take in life is always touched with a suspicion and a shade of baseness. There is a paradox in it, no doubt ; one of those moral paradoxes which make the world of moral study always fascinating. Man has no right to take his full rights in the world ; he is not wholly noble unless he sees the higher law which declares that all is not his to take which is his legitimately to own." Do not these words throw into brilliant illumination the quality and the attitude of " the mind which was also in Christ Jesus " ? There is always possible the relinquishment rather than the grasp ; the surrender rather than the triumph ; the sacrifice rather than the victory ; and beyond these is the marvel- lous truth that through the relinquishment, the surrender, and the sacrifice, by means of these ; by means of the mental state, the 149 The Outlook Beautiful. spiritual insight, by which those are made possible, is gained the permanent triumph, the true victory, the immortal achievement. One surrenders the lower to gain the higher ; he sacrifices the temporal to achieve the permanent and the immortal. Again, " He ascended into heaven." The ordinary concep- tion of that simple and sublime assertion has always been that of a definite event following, and made possible by, the physical death of Jesus. But a higher and a more spiritual conception of the great significance of these words reveals that the ascension into heaven is a condition rather than an event ; that it is the possibility of any hour, of any day, for man, now and here ; it is the divine possibil- ity to so achieve that exalted condition of soul as to " ascend into heaven ; " as to live in the heavenly atmosphere. To rise into that nobler state where the mind that was in Christ Jesus may also be in man is to make possible the conditions for living in the heavenly atinos- 150 The Outlook Beautiful. phere. " Let this miiid be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." The sublime endeavor may always hold its increasing measure of divine possibility and immortal achievement. In the autumn of 1904 Sir Oliver Lodge delivered a remarkable address on " Mind and Matter " before the Birmingham and Midland Institute, of which the essence is to be found in the following paragraph : " Consider our own position, it is surely worth considering. We are a part of this planet ; on one side certainly and distinctly a part of this material world, a part which has become self- conscious. At first we were a part which had become alive ; a tremendous step, that intro- ducing a number of powers and privileges which previously had been impossible, but that step in- troduced no responsibility ; we were no longer indeed urged by mere pressure from behind, we were guided by our instincts and appetites, but we still obeyed the strongest external motive, al- most like electro-magnetic automata. Now, how- ever, we have become conscious, able to look 151 The Outlook Beautiful. before and after, to learn consciously from the past, to strive strenuously towards the future; we have acquired a knowledge of good and evil, we can choose the one and reject the other, and are thus burdened with a sense of responsibility for our acts. We still obey the strongest motive doubtless, but there is something in ourselves which makes it a motive and regulates its strength. We can drift like other animals, and often do ; but we can also obey our own volition." The theory is that the universe is divided into the two qualities, mind and matter ; but that matter is, potentially, mind, that is, on the way to become mind. Again, that in each of these two general divisions there are infinite grades and shades. As Professor Lodge himself says : " Moreover, just as variety of matter exists, so it is not unlikely that variety of spirit exists ; and that a Divine Spirit, though transcendent, is also immanent in the material universe, that universe which appeals to our senses, and has enkindled in some of us a passionate enthusiasm for the 152 The Outlook Beautiful. true, the beautiful, and the good. These three great attributes excite Professor Haeckel's, as they excited Goethe's, worship and admiration ; the three goddesses as he calls them, Truth, Goodness, and Beauty ; but there is no neces- sary competition or antagonism between these and the other three great conceptions which aroused the veneration of the philosopher Kant : God, Freedom, and Immortality ; nor does the upholding of the one triad mean the overthrow of the other ; they may be all co-eternal together and co-equal ; provided that by the term God in this connection is meant, as usual, something lim- ited by our conceptions, something corresponding to our human ideal of perfection, some personified aspect or higher mode of being, and is not in- tended to represent the sum-total of existence ; whereby, of course, it would become all-inclusive and impossible to catalogue with anything else. Nor are either of these triplets inconsistent with some reasonable view of what may possibly be meant by the Christian Trinity." Dr. Lodge conceives human life on so vast a scale that he opens new gateways of 153 The Outlook Beautiful. thought. He quotes from Haeckel's " Prob- lem of Substance," and points out that Haeckel comprises all matter and energy under the general term "substance," which he holds to be the sum and totality of all existence. " This he regards as the deep reality," Dr. Lodge proceeds to say, " and all else as appearance. He holds that matter and energy include everything that is real, and that life, consciousness, spirit, joy, free will, etc., are but attributes or functions or de- velopments of something implicit in these fun- damental things ; that these things, together with their attributes, not only constitute the universe as we know it, but that they also constitute the deity all the deity there is." Now Professor Haeckel goes on still fur- ther into the universe. He sees the vast multitude of things that perish, showing that they are trivial and accidental. A flame is ex- tinguished and dies ; a planet or a sun loses its identity by collision with other bodies. 154 The Outlook Beautiful. " All these are temporary collocations of atoms ; but it appears now that an atom may break up into electric charges, and these again may some day be found capable of re- solving themselves into pristine ether. If so, then these also are temporary, and in the material universe it is the ether only which persists, the ether with such states of mo- tion or strain as it eternally possesses, in which case the ether will have proved itself the material substratum and most fundamen- tal known entity on that side." This brings us at last to the final conclu- sion, the ultimate truth, that the only true and abiding reality of life is that on the ethereal side. It is the ethereal body which is the substantial body; it is the ethereal realm in which the real life is lived. Emer- son was precisely in accord with this theory when he said, " Thought lets us into reality." The world of thought, of mind, of spirit, is the only reality. Matter is not real, but only 155 The Outlook Beautiful. on its way to become real. Out of all the life lived on earth the individual has only a small residuum of reality as the result of his entire pilgrimage through the world of matter. Only that part which is refined into spiritual energy continues to persist. But how wonderful is the view of life as presented by Sir Oliver Lodge. First, we are a part of the planet ; on one side distinctly a part of the material world, a part which has become self-conscious. At first we were merely alive ; and even the fact of becoming alive introduced numerous powers and privi- leges hitherto impossible, but these powers and privileges entailed no responsibility. We obeyed merely external motive, " almost like electro-magnetic automata." But now, hav- ing added consciousness to mere life ; now being able to look before us and behind us; to learn from the past, to aspire toward the future, now that having acquired a knowl- edge of good and evil we are capable of 156 The Outlook Beautiful. choosing the one and rejecting the other, we thus come under the burden of responsibility. " We can drift," says Sir Oliver, " and we often do; but we can also obey our own volition." Here is a tremendous fact which confronts us as an epoch-making moral force, the power of choice, the power of exer- cising our individual will. With this power achieved, man has, then, advanced from the plane of mere life into that of intelligent and self-directing consciousness which is the plane of the divine life ; though as " variety of spirit" exists, he is, of course, only in the cruder and the elementary stages of this divine life. But its advancement rests with himself; its ever and ever higher achieve- ment, pressing on to the things that are be- fore, now becomes his responsibility. It is a marvellously inspiring view of human life and its divine destiny. Modern science is, indeed, throwing high illumination on the entire mystery of being 157 The Outlook Beautiful. which includes the mystery of death. In his important work on " zEther and Gravitation," Dr. William George Hooper, F.S.S., thus speaks of the new glimpse into the nature of the ethereal world which constitutes the condition of existence in the next stage after the physical world. " May not, then," he says, "the thing of an atomic, universal, electro- magnetic medium help us on in our groping and searching after light in this direction? Who will uplift the veil ? Already we peer into the spirit-world. A little more light, a little more truth, and then there will burst forth upon the hearts and minds of men the grand- est and most glorious truth that Nature can reveal of her Creator, and then men shall come to know and understand the place that God holds in the Universe, such truth being advanced on its way by an atomic, universal magnetic aether which is as truly matter as our own bodies. . . . All things derive their existence primarily with all the energies and 158 The Outlook Beautiful. powers they possess, from God. . . . Thus behind and beyond all we see, in every living form, there is the evidence of a hidden spirit, which is the governing and controlling and sustaining power, and without which the or- ganism ceases to be an organism, a spirit that animates this mechanism, and uses its activities and powers as it wills for its own purposes and ends. This spirit or power we call its life, which gives to the form its exist- ence, together with all that it possesses, as its powers, activities, energies and productions, for all are but the effects of the hidden life." If this mysterious something, termed its life, becomes in any way separated from the mech- anism or organism, then a distinct and sep- arate organism it ceases to be. The spiritual spectroscope is thus being turned by scientists on the problems of existence. Science is penetrating beyond that horizon line com- monly held to limit this period of life on earth and divide it from the succeeding period 159 The Outlook Beautiful. which was invested in vague mystery. As knowledge advances, the horizon line is ex- tended. That which was the limit beyond which the mind could not penetrate becomes the starting-point of a new quest. Some years ago Professor Dolbear wrote : " The properties of the ether, and their relation to such physical phenomena as have been the subjects of research, are so little known that no one has ventured to embody them in an all-embracing philosophy so as to deduce ap- parent phenomena from them." Since that time the progress in ethereal physics has been so marked that it may be reasonably believed the key which will unlock many, if not all, the problems of physical science will be found therein. All the phenomena of light, heat, electricity, and magnetism have their origin in the universal ether. "Each discovery of science," says Dr. Hooper, " has only strength- ened the hypothesis and existence of the aether, the latest discovery, that of wireless 160 TJte Outlook Beautiful. telegraphy so successfully developed by Signer Marconi, being attributed to the electro-mag- netic properties of this self-same aether." Professor Young asserts, "A Luminiferous aether pervades the Universe, rare and elastic in a high degree," and he points out that this sether " fills all space and floods the universe at large. In it suns blaze, stars shine, worlds and planets roll, meteors flash, and comets rush in their mysterious flight. In it all ma- terial and physical things exist, for it is to them not only the primary meaning of their existence, but, just as the infinite and ever- active energy of the Divine is to the universe in its entirety and fulness the exciting and stimulating spirit of its energies and powers, and without which, though all material and physical things were endowed with the varied capacities of their kind, or life, yet they could neither exert nor exercise them nor even ex- hibit the simple activity of motion. Hence everywhere, where material and physical things ll 161 The Outlook Beautiful. are, there, as the medium of their existence or energy, the aether is ; and where the aether is not, no material or physical thing is, or can be. That the aether is universal is proved by the phenomena of light." Now, as light has a velocity of 186,000 miles a second, and as there are some stars so remote that the as- tronomers assert that it would take light from them, several thousand years to reach the earth, " this fact alone," says Dr. Hooper, " implies that throughout boundless space there is to be found this sethereal medium. Thus inter- planetary and inter-stellar space is not empty but is filled with this ever-present, all-pervad- ing aether : and not only so, but every particle of matter in the universe is surrounded by this universal aether which forms the exciting and stimulating mediums of all the activities, energies and motions of all matter." From this ethereal energy shall the power of the Future be derived. The poet's insight discerns a scientific fact when he writes : 162 The Outlook Beautiful. "In the years that shall "be ye shall harness the Powers of the ether, And drive them with reins as a steed, Ye shall ride on a Power of the air, on a Force that is bridled, On a saddled Element leap. And rays shall be as your coursers, and heat as a carriage, And waves of the ether your wheels. And the thunder shall be as a servant a slave that is ready, And the lightning as he that waits." The poet predicts that we shall even " send the tempest on errands ; " and what a " long distance telephone" prospect is suggested in these lines : "In that day shall a man out of uttermost India whisper, And in England his friend shall hear." Still further the poet leads us along : "And a maiden in English sunshine have sight of her lover, And he behold her from Cathay. And the dead whom ye loved ye shall walk with and speak with the lost : The delusion of death shall pass. 163 The Outlook Beautiful. The delusion of mounded earth, the apparent with- drawal ; Ye shall shed your bodies and upward flutter to freedom." Already has man "harnessed the Powers of the ether." We travel by that subtile force of electricity. We are lighted and warmed, we supply motor-power to a myriad enter- prises, by this unseen force. The day is not remote when air-cars shall traverse the air and when almost literally shall be experienced the fulfilment of the prophecy, " Ye shall ride on a Power of the air, on a Force that is bridled, On a saddled Element leap." For, as Archdeacon Wilberforce has said, " All actions have their origin in mind." All inventions are simply the result of mental vision. All experiences are within the choice and the determination of the spiritual man, of his higher self, which is dwelling in the ethereal realm even while by his denser body he is still tethered to the physical world. 164 The Outlook Beautiful. One may, indeed, almost absolutely determine a day before it begins. All its wants and its groupings of people and incidents will be colored and controlled by the quality of thought brought to bear upon the panorama, and the degree of refinement and elevation of thought depends, first of all, upon prayer, and largely on the quality of reading and general interests. "Every man," says Dr. Wilber- force, "capable of recognizing the paralyzing power of flesh over spirit, the numbing influ- ence of habits formed in the normal tenor of human life, will acknowledge the value of a recurring authoritative appeal to the heart and conscience, which invigorates the will, purifies the aspirations, and elevates the aim and scope of life." The culture of thought, although more important than any other form of knowledge, is far less regarded. The musician gives many hours a day to his practice ; the linguist, the scientist, the historian, the specialist in any 165 The Outlook Beautiful. line, to his studies; but the regular daily reading of the divine Word, the daily seasons for prayer, are too often regarded as some- thing a little apart from ordinary intellectual life; as the specialties of the priest, the brotherhoods, rather than the most absolute necessity for practical progress. The energy by which all work is achieved is gained from close receptivity to the divine life. When Saint Paul said, " I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," he stated a literal truth ; and in proportion as one draws near to Jesus and partakes of the Infinite Energy, can he fulfil his purposes. Thus only does he gain that poise, that serene harmony, which shapes endeavor to fulfilment. Rev. Dr. Charles Gordon Ames has said that the only rescue from the engulfing quicksands of doubt and despair is to share the life of God and to know that we share it. The life of God is love, but love in that great significance of the term that implies in- 166 The Outlook Beautiful. tense energy devoted to the highest and most unselfish purposes. One shares the life of God, not only when kneeling at the altar in the consecration of mystic communion with Christ ; not only in the solitude of his personal devotions; not only when he is specifically engaged in aid to those in need ; but he shares it when he is proceeding with his daily work with energy and persistence ; when he is meet- ing obstacle and trial with patience and cour- age ; when he brings sweetness of spirit, and generous purpose, and sympathetic recognition to all with whom he comes in contact in the day's work; when he so governs the quality of his own life as to radiate serenity and courage and the power to persist in an high endeavor. "To live in the world as a well- ordered home means business," says Dr. Ames, and adds; "It means wakeful intelligence, applied power, invention, industry, economy, self-control, good-will, and co-operation." All this is a part of the living with God. 167 The Outlook Beautiful. The consciousness of this supreme fact, this marvellous and sublime possibility of sharing the life of God, imparts the miracle-power to life. Doubt is paralyzing; it is the way of death. Faith, belief, conviction, are vitalizing and are the way of life. The tendency to de- pression one that is so apt to visit a sen- sitive nature not sufficiently identified with the life of God to counteract this tendency should be resisted as vigorously as any form of positive vice. It is the destructive force. Faith is constructive, and creates even that in which it believes. The future is always moulded out of the inner thought and convic- tions. It is created by the power of thought brought to bear on it, and according to the quality of this thought is it made noble or ignoble. Let one lift up his heart. Let him realize that it rests within his own choice to be a partaker of the divine life. Let him real- ize that as a partaker in that life he shares in the invincibleness of spirit. The affirma- 168 The Outlook Beautiful. tion, " I can do all things through Christ which strengthened me," is as unalterably true as are the processes of the multiplication table. Life is, indeed, as Dr. Ames well says, a divine manifestation, and thus it is full of glory, of power, of infinite energy and exaltation. In these mental conditions every day has its high results, every hour its definite achievement, helping to confirm us in the possession and the enjoyment of all that is best in us. " To share the life of God and to know that we share it," to be thus " placed beyond doubt,"- is to live, here and now, the life of Immortality. In "the Heaven of Spirit" in which man may constantly and immediately live, there are complications of law which present more intri- cate problems than those in the realm of physics. Action and reaction are not im- mediate, on the spiritual plane. On this plane out of the profoundest sorrow springs joy ; out of the saddest defeat arises triumph ; out of the most complete loss one acquires 169 The Outlook Beautiful. his most transcendent riches. It is worth while it is absolutely worth while to go through torture and tears and tragedy for the spiritual riches one finds therein. It is literally true, it is abundantly true, that while "no chastening for the present seem- eth joyous, but grievous," it yet does "yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness." It does transmute itself into a larger view of life, into a wider tolerance, a finer insight, and into more generous and vital sympathies. One lets go all else, but one finds the divine aid, the divine love, that, closer, stronger, than ever before, shall encompass him round about. He finds the consciousness of a new spiritual energy, of an experience that is, literally, that of "a closer walk with God." He is living in an absolutely new atmosphere. Then, too, one gains the strength of that which he has overcome. He gains this more extended horizon. He is not blinded by the seeming injustice meted out to him, nor is he 170 The Outlook Beautiful. receiving it with any antagonism. On the contrary, he looks beyond. He realizes how complicated a thing is human nature ; how the possibilities of evil and of good are held in the balance, and that his own annoyance or sorrow is not the question ; but that the one great purpose of all these mingled expe- riences is that of mutual aid, mutual forgive- ness, mutual encouragement unto the onward way. As Phillips Brooks has said, our judg- ments of others, or their judgments of us, are of small account. But " the truth that issues in duty, and the duty that comes by truth," there is the standard by which to test all ideals of conduct. To accept censure for faults not committed ; to try to do well and yet suffer for it, this, says Saint Peter, " is good and acceptable unto God." This state- ment is one of the profoundest truth. Accept even injustice and evil, if they come, as from God. Learn the lesson they suggest Incor- porate it into that higher life of the spirit, and 171 The Outlook Beautiful. thus overcome them forever. " The meaning of life, of its happiness and its sorrows, of its successes and its disappointments, is this," says Bishop Brooks : " that man must be fastened close to God and live by the divine life not his own, by the divine life made his own through the close binding of the two together by faith and love." To live by faith and love ! In these alone lies our human destiny, which is our divine destiny. Our true life is the accomplishment of a divine service. "We can do our hum- blest tasks not as drudges, but as fellow- workers with saints and heroes." And the life of saints and heroes is not to be regarded in the light of the phenomenal, the exceptional, a life which could only be a possibility in some dim, mediaeval age, but which bears no relation to the modern world with its intense activities. The quality of life that makes the saint and the hero; the pa- tience, serenity, sweetness, faith, and courage 172 The Outlook Beautiful. that make saints and heroes, are qualities common to all, and they are the qualities to be developed and practised in the daily round of pursuits. It is not necessary to retire into the cloister in order to be a saint. "Wall Street has tests for the Christian life un- dreamed of in convent or monastery. " Sup- pose that the routine of life is perceived to be the essential machinery which harnesses spiritual power. ... So we are brought, then, by those co-relations of knowledge and service toward the new idealism which holds the scholar and the hand-worker in the unity of the new world." The phase of life on earth has but one single purpose, that of the development and culture of the spiritual powers. Man is here, not to acquire great possessions, not to live at ease and revel in luxuries, or even in aes- thetic and artistic beauty, save so far as it ministers to the higher life ; nor is all the vast and complicated mechanism of civilization any 173 The Outlook Beautiful. more, in true relation to the divine plan, than a drama of development. A great railroad is extended across a continent, but its signifi- cance lies in the new opportunities for life that it provides. If it invite men into the wilderness to wrestle with the primeval forces of nature, the permanent significance is to be traced in the qualities of mind and heart that are developed, the courage, persistence of purpose, the patience, the sympathy with all who share the common lot, rather than the results of harvests, or mines, or material pros- perity in any form. These are the transient results, but the achievement of high qualities is the permanent result. There is a striking antithesis running all through the Scriptures which continually contrasts the gaining of the world and the losing of one's soul. As if there were, indeed, these two possibilities set before man, either one of which he may choose, but each of which is incompatible with the other. "What shall it profit a man," runs 174 The Outlook Beautiful. the searching inquiry, " if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul ? " A finer ap- prehension of spiritual truth reveals to modern life that the possessions typically known as " the world " are not, in themselves, neces- sarily inimical to the higher life if they are held as means to an end, and that end one of tenderness, consideration, and love to others. The " gaining the world " and " losing the soul" are each expressions signifying certain spiritual conditions. It is not "the world" that is the point of objection, but the use made of it. Saint Paul affirms that he had learned how to abound as well as how to be abased. The divine command is to "love not the world, neither the things that are in the world " not for and of themselves. That way lies the pauperized soul. But take them for their use, redeem them to the service of humanity, and the things of the world are thus transmuted into heavenly treasure./ The alchemy that changes all phases of experience 175 The Outlook Beautiful. into spiritual riches is the realization of the mysterious power of Jesus. He was the mani- festation of the divine life. " God, with His power and love, was, so to speak, humanly manifest in Jesus," says Phillips Brooks. "That human form, walking with self- wit- nessing evidence of divinity there among men, was not merely the declaration of God's love and power ; it was God's love and power ac- tually here." To realize this power in the most intimate and profound sense is to share it is to enter into its transcendent power and glory. If this realization is gained through joy, or through sorrow, by means of ease and prosperity, or by hardship and privation, what matters it, if the supreme result be attained? 'And so one comes back to the truth that I seasons of trial are not, necessarily, seasons of misfortune. They are tests. They reveal to just what degree spiritual power has been achieved. They adjust the balance of char- acter and throw the illumination of radium 176 The Outlook Beautiful. light on all that is false and trivial and un- real, and on all that is exalted to the heavenly qualities of patience, and tenderness, and faith, and love. The seasons of trial are those of a peculiarly close relation to the Divine compas- sion and guidance, and one single moment of intense realization of this close and intimate sympathy of the Divine Love has its infinite power over a lifetime, over a thousand life- times. It is the power for all the eternities. The scientist tells us that a half-pound of radium would keep a room warm, not merely for one lifetime, but for hundreds of generations. The time will undoubtedly come bold as the speculation may seem when one may carry around with him, by a few grains of radium, his own light and his own heat. This may, indeed, solve the problem of Arctic exploration, enabling the intrepid explorer to carry with him his means of com- fortable temperature, and his ineffably bril- liant light to illumine the long Arctic night. 12 177 The Outlook Beautiful. Why not? The Twentieth century is on the eve of great things. The perfect recognition, the entering into the realization of the Divine Love, is, to the soul, what the possession of the unspeakably brilliant illumination and warmth of radium is to the processes of life. " Thought is the wages For which I sell days." The entering into the Divine Love, the reali- zation of what is meant by the divine life, may be the work of a moment, and it may polarize the soul for all the eternities in an unchanging allegiance and sublime receptivity to the Holy Spirit. If a season of peculiar trial shall give this, shall it not, indeed, be welcomed, and shall not all who share in it thank God for the experience through which His hand leads them, and which is propheti- cally encompassed round about by the legions of angels? And ever and ever is it true that 178 The Outlook Beautiful. " We tread the Wilderness to-day, The Promised Land to-morrow." Only by means of the long road through the Wilderness is the pilgrim led onward to the Promised Land! The perpetual phenomena of life furnish all the material for spiritual culture. There is not a day but makes its demands on one for his highest and sublimest qualities. There is not a day whose experiences do not test the most exalted ideals. The working energy of life is to hold the faith of its increasing beauty and power; the faith that the glory and the freshness of its dreams do not " fade away Into the light of common day," but rather merge themselves in a more re- splendent illumination. Noble and beautiful experiences are not gone when they have passed by. All that is best in them lives in / the immediate present. /The beautiful past / foretells a beautiful future. 179 The Outlook Beautiful. " Who thinks at midnight morn will ever dawn ? Who knows, far out at sea, that anywhere is land 1 And yet, a shore Hath set behind us, and will rise before." All that is sweetest and most exalted has in itself immortality. The entire panorama of infinite nature is an Outlook Beautiful. The "delusion of death " shall pass. When Puvis de Chavannes died, a French writer thus opened his com- memorative tribute : " A great light has gone out, a mighty force is withdrawn into the gloom." When one reflects upon such words as these how remote do they seem from the atmosphere of a Christian world. What den- sity of ignorance and darkness to speak of passing on into the life more abundant as a " withdrawal into gloom." But the light is dawning. " What, I ask in the name of God, could so powerfully affect these springs of action, and influence the ethical side of man, as a clear, intelligent conviction of the unal- 180 The Outlook Beautiful. terable purpose, the limitless resources, the universal activity, the thrilling nearness of the Word, or Eternal Reason of God in all ? " ex- claimed Archdeacon Wilberforce. " To be- lieve it, even a little, is to live hopefully, fraternally, humanely ; it is to be liberated from the gloomy conception of a far-off Deity, of whose locality you are uncertain, and of the rectitude of whose purpose you cannot be sure ; it is to feel all the ages linked together, to recognize humanity as the body of God, to be set free from the half-expressed phantom of the stigma upon the Almighty of having left a world alone in darkness till some two thousand years ago." Surely, God has not left the world in dark- ness. He sent His Son with the message of everlasting life. He is guiding and directing the advance of science and of psychic research and of ethics, by means of which humanity is daily approaching an increasingly clearer grasp of the divine laws. The one important 181 The Outlook Beautiful. thing for man is to realize his true relation in the spiritual universe, and to fulfil these rela- tions. Only thus does man fulfil the pur- pose of his life. Yet, as Professor Josiah Royce so ably says: "Never in the present life do we find the Self as a given and real- ized fact. It is for us an ideal. Its true place is in the eternal world where all plans are fulfilled. In God alone do we fully come to ourselves. There alone do we know even as we are known." In this life of ours here and now, any mo- ment may be a miracle moment. Every hour is the hour of God. At any instant the glory that shone around the shepherds on the Judean plain may transfigure our pathway and unite our souls more closely to Him in whom alone is Eternal Life. 182 Cbe QJorld Beautiful BY LILIAN WHITING I know of no volumes of sermons published in recent years which are so well fitted to uplift the reader, and inspire all that is finest and best in his nature, as are the series of essays entitled ' ' The World Beautiful," by Lilian Whiting. B. O. FLOWER, in The Coming Age. Cbe Cdorld Beautiful (first Series) i6mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising : THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL ; FRIENDSHIP j OUR SOCIAL SALVATION } LOTUS EATING j THAT WHICH is TO COME. The world beautiful about which she writes is no far-off event to which all things move, but the every-day scene around us filled by a spirit which elevates and transforms it. PROF. Louis J. BLOCK, in The Philosophical Journal. No one can read it without feeling himself the better and richer and happier for having done so. The Independent. Cbe Cdorld Beautiful (Second Series) i6mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising : THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL ; OUR BEST SOCIETY ; To CLASP ETERNAL BEAUTY ; VIBRA- TIONS ; THE UNSEEN WORLD. The style is at once graceful and lively. Every touch is fresh. Zion's Herald. Cbe Olorld Beautiful (Cbird Series) i6mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, $1.25. Comprising : THE WORLD BEAUTIFUL ; THE ROSE OF DAWN ; THE ENCIRCLING SPIRIT-WORLD ; THE RING OF AMETHYST ; PARADISA GLORIA. The thoughtful reader who loves spiritual themes will find these oaget inspiring. Chicago Inter-Ocean. The Spiritual Significance or, Death as an 6wnt in Life ,*? s& s& By LILIAN WHITING. Author of " The World Beautiful," " Boston Days," etc. i6mo. Cloth, $1.00. Decorated cloth, gilt top, 1.25. Comprising : THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE ; VISION AND ACHIEVEMENT; BETWEEN THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN ; PSYCHIC COMMUNICATION ; THE GATES OF NEW LIFE. It suggests and hints at the ultimate significance of scientific in- vestigation with relation to the totality of thought in a very fresh and suggestive way. . . . The spirit of her book, like that of its prede- cessors, is admirable. The Outlook. A book from her pen means new flashes of insight, a revelation of spiritual truth almost Emersonian in kind. Chicago Chronicle. Sdorld Beautiful in Boofee & & ,# By LILIAN WHITING. i6mo. Cloth, gi.oo net. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net. The careful and repeated reading of " The World Beautiful in Books" would be a liberal education. Philadelphia Telegraph. It is like a Greek urn filled with priceless relics. Hundreds of brains, ancient and modern, are daintily picked of their best thoughts, and there is scarcely a page that is not enriched with some rifled treas- ure. It is, in fact, concentrated food for select minds. Chicago Post. To read it is like being taken informally into a great assemblage of poets, romancers, and thinkers, while all are at their best, and being introduced to them by a near friend of all. The Era, Philadelphia. Boston Pays The City of Beautiful Ideals, Concord and Its Fam- ous Authors, The Golden Age of Genius, Dawn of the Twentieth Century. By LILIAN WHITING. Author of "The World Beautiful," etc. With portraits and other illustrations. I zmo. Decorated cloth, $1.50 net. All the famous names associated with Boston pass in review be- fore the reader of this apotheosis of the intellectual life of Massachusetts. The Boston Herald. The book is full of fascination of the intrinsic sort, by virtue of the material of which it is made up, and Miss Whiting has fulfilled her task with special literary grace and discretion. Albany Argus. A volume to place on the same shelf with the " Yesterdays With Authors " of the late James T. Fields and the " Literary Friends and Acquaintances" of William D. Howells. Cleveland Plain Dealer. The Life Radiant By LILIAN WHITING. i6mo. Cloth, $1.00 net. Decorated cloth, $1.25 net. In this book Miss Whiting aims to portray a practical ideal for daily living that shall embody the sweetness and exaltation and faith that lend enchantment to life. It is, in a measure, a logical sequence of "The World Beautiful," leading into still diviner harmonies. Little, Brown, & Company, publishers 254 daohington Street, Boston, UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 038 336 4