IRLF 
 
 S ? I Ft 
 
 in "the 
 
 PflRKER BOYD 
 
GIFT OF 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 IN 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF 
 HARD KNOCKS 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 Announcements 
 
 Pronouncements 
 
 Colleges 
 
 Courses of Study 
 
 Teachers 
 
 Honors 
 
 Illustrious Graduates 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS PARKER BOYD 
 
 Author of "The How and Why of the Emmanuel Movement," 
 
 "The Voice Eternal," "Borderland Experiences, or Do the 
 
 Dead Return ?" "The Finger of God," "The Armor of 
 
 Light," "The Catechism of Life," "Applied 
 
 Psychology," "Temple Talks," Etc., Etc. 
 
 "THE GOOD MEDICINE BOOKS," No. 3 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THOMAS PARKER BOYD 
 
 8AN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 
 
Copyright 1920 
 Thomas Parker Boyd 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Announcement v 
 
 Pronouncement vii 
 
 The College of Science 1 
 
 The College of Arts 11 
 
 The College of Law 27 
 
 The College of History 39 
 
 The College of Anthropology 47 
 
 The College of Economics 53 
 
 The College of Psychology 61 
 
 The College of Philosophy 71 
 
 The College of Medicine 77 
 
 The College of Theology 83 
 
 The College of Mystics and Seers 117 
 
 The College of Paleontology .....139 
 
 The College of Illustrious Graduates 149 
 
 417196 
 
 [in] 
 
DEDICATION 
 
 To her who trusted though she could not see, 
 
 Bore patiently the uneven-burdened yoke, 
 Suffered all things without murmuring, 
 
 Learned the hard lessons of life smilingly, 
 Holding faithfully and firmly the soul of man, 
 
 Waiting awhile genius was coming to bloom, 
 Who has not lived but ever is living, 
 
 The ideal woman, the mother of men, 
 The woman who understands. 
 
 PRESS*/ 
 
 KNIGHT- COUNIHAN 
 PRINTING Co. 
 
 [iv] 
 
ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 THE subject matter herein has been preparing for a 
 fetime. The title of the book was announced 
 some seven years ago after many years of lecturing 
 on the subject. The manuscript was finished some five 
 years ago. 
 
 When just ready to proceed with its publication, the 
 author had a new lesson in the University of Hard 
 Knocks. He was arrested by the State Medical Board 
 for some supposed violation of the prerogatives of the 
 doctors. The offense really consisted in laying hands on 
 men in the name of the Lord and saying to them, "Thy 
 sins be forgiven thee; in the name of Jesus Christ rise up 
 and walk," or the practice of religion. The defense 
 turned upon the fact that his right to heal men antedated 
 all doctors, all remedies, and all legal enactment, being 
 nothing less than the authority of Him who healed by 
 the Finger of God. 
 
 The verdict reached in the Superior Court of the State 
 of California was a complete vindication on all the items 
 of the statute. 
 
 The expense of this legal battle has held up this book 
 for four years. In the meantime another book by another 
 author under the same title has been published, so that it 
 has been necessary to change the original title and make 
 it merely a sub-title. This is well, for the book is more 
 
 [T] 
 
ANNOUNCEMENT 
 
 of a prospectus than it is a university. It took me some 
 years to see that fact. I accept it cheerfully as the new 
 lesson I learned through the delay. 
 
 All things work together for good to them that love 
 God, and we learn to bless the "All Things." 
 
 One or two notes have been added to the original 
 manuscript. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 [vi] 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 LIFE begins with a question mark ; it should end with 
 an exclamation point. Our business here is to 
 know the facts of life, to accept them as such, to 
 interpret life's meaning by the facts, and to adjust our 
 thinking and living to that meaning. In this way the 
 whole field of knowledge is opened up. Out of this 
 search after knowledge there are developed certain final 
 statements of truth which are inclusive and conclusive, if 
 not, indeed, self-evident, and which are called categories. 
 
 The first of these is Being, embracing all that we know 
 or may know of life, of substance, spiritual or material. 
 
 The second one is Reality, embracing the truth in the 
 unconditioned Absolute, and the relative. 
 
 The third category is that of Quantity, which includes 
 the truth of unity, plurality and totality. 
 
 The fourth one is the category of Quality, having 
 reference to reality, negation, and limitation. 
 
 The fifth one is Relation, embracing substance and 
 attribute, cause and effect, action and reaction. 
 
 The sixth one is Modality, embracing possibility, actu- 
 ality, and necessity. 
 
 These are more or less adaptations of the famous cate- 
 gories of Aristotle and Kant, and in the study of life in 
 the light of them there is accepted the categorical imper- 
 ative for all life, which is, the absolute claim of moral 
 
 [vii] 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 law to our obedience, the legal supremacy of the right as 
 disclosed by scientific knowledge and as asserted by con- 
 science or the moral sense, over human life. 
 
 These categories have not been followed in any formal 
 way, but the studious reader will detect that they have 
 always been kept in view while blazing the trail in a 
 wilderness of opinions where so many have pioneered, and 
 few have left any helpful landmarks. 
 
 The intention in this volume is to interpret life accord- 
 ing to scientific principles, and to present obligation from 
 the standpoint of a rational philosophy, and to outline a 
 conception of God, and formulate a destiny of humanity 
 based upon the findings of science and philosophy in their 
 dealings with human experience, rather than upon the 
 traditions of the past. To be sure no thought enters of 
 disregarding or discrediting these traditions when they 
 have any content of proven value, but to use them as side 
 lights on the main scheme of interpreting life. 
 
 Only one phase of life is here sought to be explained. 
 It is: if there is a God, why does trouble in its many 
 forms loom so large? And the very inadequacy of the 
 answers to this question has made many despair of finding 
 a suitable answer. Now, to the thoughtful man the 
 origin, the course, and the end of trouble resolves itself 
 into a ministry whose outcome is beneficent. To him who 
 ponders long the course of human development the furnace 
 of trouble has played a mighty part in the world's evolu- 
 tion; from chaos up to form, order, beauty and fruitage, 
 from animalism, to savagery, to barbarism, and finally up 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 to civilization. It has been the one chief means of 
 extracting the clinkers and slag out of human nature. 
 
 The scientific observer beholds the sparkle of saintliness 
 brought out of some diamond in the rough by the fast- 
 flying emery wheel of trouble. He sees pig iron carried 
 up to finely-tempered spring steel by heat, chemical action 
 and heavy hammering. He beholds the entire universe 
 which in its last analysis is one spiritual substance, ad- 
 justed in a mechanical way, and in it the fundamental law 
 that in the raising of lower forms of energy up to higher 
 expression, there is heat and stress and eons of time in the 
 process of reaching the stage of soil and fruitage, and that 
 this process in the material world corresponds to the action 
 of pain and trouble in carrying human nature upward 
 from animalism to God-likeness. 
 
 He discovers that all things in this universe are incor- 
 porated into a University of Hard Knocks, into which 
 we are matriculated at birth. There is no correspondence 
 course; there are no proxies; attendance is compulsory. 
 We all begin as pupils and end some time and somewhere 
 as masters. The course is adapted to the pupil. Just 
 how he will have his trouble depends upon his heredity, 
 his environment, his temperament, and other facts which 
 give a personal bias. One takes his schooling in one 
 allopathic knock-down dose of calamity, while another 
 gets his in little homeopathic pellets of annoyance. We 
 may not always choose how we will have the lessons, 
 they seem to be automatically adjusted to us, but we 
 
 [ix] 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 may choose how well we learn them, and, therefore, how 
 soon we may graduate. 
 
 It is just possible that we may, as many have done, 
 suggest improvements in the course of instruction to the 
 Absolute Wisdom, our teacher, only to find that He 
 retires into "ways that are not our ways, and thoughts 
 that are not our thoughts." 
 
 Sometimes we throw down our books and quit school 
 over night, but in the morning we find the tutors of pain 
 and trouble are not discharged, and that school keeps 
 right on. 
 
 Every day the angel of the morning turns a new page 
 in the great book of life, and we find a new set of words 
 to learn. One day we spell out "joy," and the next day 
 we wonder why the lost baby's curl is lusterless with 
 "grief." One day we learn to spell "love," and too often 
 we next learn "disappointment." One day we spell out 
 "happiness" as we read the names on the marriage license, 
 and another day we read through dimmed eyes the word 
 "sorrow" on the tombstone. One day we spell out 
 "wealth" ; the next day we meet the hatchet-faced teacher, 
 "want." Day by day we add new words to our vocabu- 
 lary. They all come in the course of study. Some of 
 them we have learned over and over again, until they are 
 our very own. Often we rebel and feel like quitting 
 school, only to find that we cannot quit until we have at 
 least learned to take good and bad with equal good grace. 
 
 Often we worry about the words we expect to find in 
 tomorrow's lesson, and when the morrow comes the words 
 
 [x] 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 that gave us troubled thoughts and dreams are not on the 
 page at all, but new and strange ones. When will we 
 learn that "sufficient unto the day is the spelling lesson 
 thereof"? We would go to school with a merrier whistle 
 and come home to a sweeter rest if we were content to 
 learn the lesson of today. 
 
 It is said that a priest passing through a woodland saw 
 an ignorant boy kneel as if in prayer, and, drawing near, 
 heard him repeating the alphabet. He rebuked the boy 
 by saying, "This is no way to pray," to which the boy 
 answered, 
 
 "I say my letters on my knees; 
 He makes the words Himself to please." 
 
 And, strange as it may seem, the boy was right, for as 
 life proceeds we learn at length that some great, loving, 
 wise purpose lies back of all our experience, directs our 
 schooling without any hard and fast rules, and interprets 
 our thoughts and actions according to their spirit, rather 
 than their form. 
 
 This course is personally conducted. It is yours while 
 you are taking it, and the results will be yours when you 
 are promoted. 
 
 You begin as a pupil, you develop into a student, you 
 are promoted to a teacher, and you unfold into a master. 
 
 It matters not whether you finish the course in this 
 world or in some other world. Having entered, there is 
 no discharge until you finish the course. 
 
 [xi] 
 
PRONOUNCEMENT 
 
 The illustrious ones of every age are those who, with- 
 out shrinking, have taken good and bad alike with full 
 understanding of their purpose and results, and have 
 passed upward into cosmic or divine consciousness. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 NATURAL AND OTHERWISE 
 
 IT is the function of science to discover, describe and 
 register facts with regard to the ways of being and of 
 happening. It finds events occurring in a certain way 
 and formulates the hypothesis that all similar facts occur 
 in that way, and this hypothesis becomes known as a law 
 because it explains that class of occurrences. Following 
 this method, science furnishes us with the great hypoth- 
 eses of gravitation, the undulatory theory of light, the 
 electronic theory of physics, the nebular hypothesis, evolu- 
 tion, etc. Because these theories of operation were the 
 best methods of explaining the facts in a given series of 
 happenings, they were accepted as the law of procedure in 
 their respective realms of activity. In like manner a 
 knowledge of the laws governing mind, morals and con- 
 duct have been evolved through a more or less scientific 
 observation of the effects of various methods of directing 
 mental and moral action for the welfare of the individual 
 and society. 
 
 Science, concerning itself with matter and material 
 happenings, gathers a mass of facts, classifies them and 
 ascertains their method of happening. Out of this scien- 
 tific study have arisen certain axioms or self-evident truths 
 of science, which are valuable, such as, "Out of nothing, 
 nothing comes"; "There is a cause for every effect"; 
 "Nothing just happens." The laws of matter apply to 
 all material things, no matter in what form they exist. 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 The law of gravitation acts on the human body just as 
 it does on a piece of iron, and no amount of thinking can 
 suspend the law of gravitation. 
 
 The materials for nutrition and methods of metabol- 
 ism, or change, are similar in all living forms. Oxygen 
 alone and in combination with other chemicals is indis- 
 pensable to all material life. Water is a large element in 
 all living bodies. Under the law of the conservation of 
 energy the form of these factors in body-building may 
 change, but the substance must be present. Literally, 
 "No man by merely taking thought can add a cubit to his 
 stature." Pure thinking can no more build the body 
 without material substances than can feeding the body 
 give it trained mentality without mental activity in 
 thought materials. Elijah hungry was a deserter from 
 duty, but twelve solid hours of sleep and two square 
 meals made him again the lion-hearted prophet. Science 
 determines that the body must have a certain percentage 
 of proteins, fats and carbo-hydrates, together with water 
 and minerals, and for these there is no mental or spiritual 
 substitute. 
 
 Science determines that the mental powers develop 
 through contact with the material world, acting upon it 
 and being reacted upon by it. Furthermore, that the 
 brain, the instrument of mental activity and power, 
 reaches its maximum weight about the age of forty, and 
 begins to decline both in weight and efficiency, unless 
 kept constantly active by feeding on new truths, wrestling 
 with new problems, and seeking new achievement, in 
 
 [2] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 which case it constantly increases in power. For mental 
 drill and exercise in the realm of truth and fact there is 
 no material nor spiritual substitute. There is a law of 
 the mind, just as there is a law of the members. 
 
 Science determines that the development of the spiritual 
 life, while largely influenced by the condition of the body, 
 through the nervous system and by the mind in their 
 contacts with the world of material things, cannot depend 
 on either material or mental things for its sustenance, but 
 must find its pabulum in a realm of purely spiritual sub- 
 stance and be sustained by intercourse and communion 
 with an ultimate Spiritual Being. 
 
 Beyond the study of such exercises and their effects 
 science has made no explicit pronouncement in the realm 
 of spirit as to its essence. Howbeit the spiritual activities 
 and their effects warrant a cause, just as movements and 
 effects elsewhere vouchsafe a cause. 
 
 The ideas of God, the immortality of the soul, the 
 rational exercise of prayer, the effects of faith, hope and 
 love in producing character, all stand upon the same 
 logical base as do the theories of gravitation, evolution 
 and other great doctrines of science. Their fundamental 
 principles are identical, and their manner of proof is 
 similar. They best explain the facts with which they 
 have to do. 
 
 The method of science in material things is one of 
 exactness by weight and measure. It has the facts in 
 hand. In studying the mind it has to do with mental 
 action and the results that are left behind as the mind 
 
 [3] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 goes out from the self as a center. In spiritual things it 
 has to depend upon secondary evidences, as, for example, 
 faith produces peace and content, and these are deter- 
 mined and reported by the actions and experiences of 
 those who exercise and enjoy them. 
 
 A difficulty common to scientific study of mental and 
 spiritual activities is found in the fact that no two people 
 are affected mentally or emotionally in exactly the same 
 way by the same stimulus; that is, they do not see nor 
 feel exactly alike. Furthermore, the reliability of their 
 states and experiences is not always dependable, especially 
 their reports of them, and their explanationsof their causes. 
 And finally, the difficulty of reproducing their experiences 
 makes it necessary for science to generalize by studying 
 the spiritual activities of the race at large. No individual 
 experience can be taken as a criterion. 
 
 Science still further dealing with the facts of spiritual 
 life discovers occurrences and experiences which lie outside 
 the methods of material activity. It discovers the ego, or 
 self, entering into experiences and having perceptions of 
 activity which do not come within the range of the five 
 senses, nor in the realm of three-dimensional activity. It, 
 therefore, posits as a result of these facts a fourth dimen- 
 sion as a possible field of activity and experience, such as 
 was used by Jesus when He sent His vibrations across the 
 spaces for healing the nobleman's son. It likewise posits 
 a sixth sense or universal power of perception as was 
 manifested in Elisha, the prophet, who at Dothan saw 
 the hosts of limitless power on his side ready to help, and 
 
 [4] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 in Jesus when He saw Nathaniel around a material corner. 
 
 Science recognizes from tabulated facts that there arises 
 from such spiritual activity an intangible but very real 
 thing called character. It likewise recognizes that char- 
 acter itself can be graded and classified, and that there is a 
 certain affinity or spiritual gravitation by which every 
 individual form of life eventually finds its own level and 
 every human being comes or goes to his own place. 
 
 Science applying the law of the conservation of energy 
 recognizes that all seen things have come out of the un- 
 seen, and that all seen things may be resolved back again 
 into the unseen. Inasmuch, therefore, as the unseen is 
 the source and goal, it follows that all life and all that 
 pertains to life are constantly maintained by supplies from 
 the unseen, which are ministered through the channels of 
 activity, called laws. 
 
 Science reaches the dignity of Divine Science, therefore, 
 when by using the scientific method all things are observed 
 to proceed from a first great Spiritual Cause, whose 
 methods of operation are uniform, and whose effects are 
 unfailing. Furthermore, that the most potent agencies 
 are those nearest the purely spiritual, those that are called 
 mental taking their place lower down in the scale, while 
 material forms of energy are still less refined. Neverthe- 
 less, they are divine energies, adapted to use in their 
 respective realms, as in Ezekiel 47: 12 it is said, "the 
 fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for 
 medicine." 
 
 Applying the methods of science to the problem of 
 
 [5] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 health, studying the incidents and experiences in the 
 careers of the great healers of all time, there are inducible 
 certain general principles. The first one is that all dis- 
 ease comes from the violation of law, technically called 
 sin, and that all healing, technically called righteousness 
 or wholeness, comes by a return to keeping the law. 
 Science in its discrimination finds many diseases and ills 
 of character purely material in their origin, such as 
 wounds and fractures and lesions and germ-infections and 
 auto-intoxications and abnormal forms of cell growth, 
 which are in some way violations of material law, whose 
 cure must be brought about by faithful obedience to the 
 law which has been broken and through the use of mate- 
 rial agencies, with a recognized specific action. 
 
 It further recognizes a large class of the ills of life 
 which arise from wrong habits of thinking, or violations 
 of the mental laws, whose cure must be brought about by 
 re-education of the mind in the proper methods and habits 
 of thought. 
 
 It likewise finds many ills and afflictions, both of mind 
 and body, growing out of the violation of moral ,and 
 spiritual laws whose cure must logically depend upon the 
 sufferer being restored to harmony with the sources of 
 moral and spiritual power and life. The principle, there- 
 fore, of all these classes of ills arising out of violation of 
 the law and their cure being involved in keeping the law, 
 is included in a wide application of a sentence from the 
 lips of the great Healer Himself, "Thy sins be forgiven 
 thee," a statement which invariably attended or was 
 
 [6] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 included and understood in the injunction, "Be thou made 
 whole." And so far-reaching was this truth that the 
 Master Healer of the Ages made it apply to every 
 form of ill. 
 
 Again, facts gathered and classified by scientific method 
 disclose the common method of all healers, to actively 
 demand, or to implicitly depend upon the faith of the 
 individual who sought healing, or the faith of his friends, 
 and without this faith even the Master Himself "could 
 do no mighty works." 
 
 The same scientific analysis of healing discloses that 
 the faith itself was merely an instrument in the healing. 
 It was necessary that the patient exercise implicit faith, 
 regardless of whether the things which he believed were 
 true or the person in whom he trusted were genuine, the 
 faith being a means of arousing within the patient himself 
 forces which, operating through the channels or laws of 
 health, restored the sick one. The same analysis of the 
 methods of the healers reveals a spiritual quality in the 
 healer and in the patient, which proceeded from some 
 unseen but limitless reservoir of health and power. 
 
 Furthermore, in the experiences of some mighty prac- 
 titioners of healing, such as Elijah and Jesus of Nazareth, 
 the element of physical contact and the use of material 
 agencies were frequently relied upon. Elijah used the 
 working principle of the modern scientific pulmotor for 
 setJj&lg up artificial respiration, while Jesus touched the 
 blind eyes, the deaf ears, the paralyzed body, put spittle 
 upon the tongue, and in one case anointed the blind man's 
 
 [7] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 eyes with clay, which by the time he had traveled to the 
 pool of Siloam and scrubbed off this sticky ointment, had 
 by manipulation thoroughly stimulated the circulation 
 and nervous activity in his eyes, in addition to arousing 
 his faith and expectation. The same practice of material 
 contacts is observed in the experiences of St. Paul, St. 
 Peter and St. James. 
 
 Similar scientific analysis discloses the fact of healing 
 vibrations being sent to a distance without the use of 
 oral word or direct contact between the healer and the 
 patient, as was seen in the healing of the nobleman's son 
 and the centurion's servant. 
 
 The scientific deduction from these facts is, therefore, 
 that in many cases of purely physical ill, the use of mate- 
 rial agencies alone is sufficient to set in operation the 
 healing forces which work through physical law. That 
 right thinking, established in many mental disorders, will 
 restore the sufferer to normal mental balance and experi- 
 ence. And that the restoration of harmony with the 
 spiritual source of life the Infinite God will produce 
 health in a large majority of cases having their rise in 
 spiritual inharmony, restore the sufferer to wholeness, 
 while in other cases the combining of two or all of these 
 classified forces will prove effective where a single one 
 might fail. And from these there follows the final deduc- 
 tion that whatever agencies may be used their source may 
 be traced to that region of unspoilable health from which 
 One spoke and said, "I am the Lord that healeth thee." 
 
 In its last scientific analysis, therefore, health is a 
 
 [8] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF SCIENCE 
 
 spiritual thing, the result of spiritual forces having their 
 source in the Absolute and operating through every agency 
 in which is embodied the energy of the great "I Am." 
 
 In like manner there may be deduced the truth that 
 every good for man, whether it be peace, harmony, power 
 or abundance, is found to rise out of man's relationship 
 to the invisible and spiritual reality, and it does come into 
 manifestation in accordance with the measure of his con- 
 scious realization of that fact. 
 
 If knowledge of the truth gives man such wonderful 
 privilege, then it also follows that the only limitation he 
 can have is that imposed by ignorance of the truth. And 
 the supreme test of scientific method is that belief does 
 not make anything true. We can only know that which 
 we have put to the test. And the only way to graduation 
 in the U. H. K. is to know things by proving them. 
 
 We are steadily moving back toward the power house. 
 We are still waiting for the master who shall give us the 
 formula by which the atom shall be unlocked and its vast 
 power set free to take the place of our clumsy efforts at 
 power through the use of the fast diminishing stores of 
 coal and oil. 
 
 Likewise the whole world is waiting the Newton who 
 shall write the Principia of the Spiritual Life, giving us 
 its powers, principles and laws so that the spoken word of 
 truth shall become the living word of the Christ with its 
 miracle-working power that shall banish the physical 
 miseries of mankind by the finger of God, and make men 
 whole through spiritual realization. And the day is at 
 hand is at the door the glory of its dawn is upon us. 
 
 [9] 
 
MY WAGE 
 
 I bargained with Life for a penny, 
 
 And Life would pay no more, 
 However I begged at evening, 
 
 When I counted my scanty store. 
 
 For Life is a just employer, 
 
 He gives us what we ask. 
 But once we have set the wages, 
 
 Why, we must bear the task. 
 
 I worked for a menial's hire, 
 
 Only to learn dismayed, 
 That any wage, I had asked of Life, 
 
 Life would have gladly paid. 
 
 Jessie B. Rittenhouse 
 
 [10] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 THE arts are both liberal and otherwise. The liberal 
 art is a skillful adaptation and application of 
 means to an end. In substance, it is a system of 
 rules and methods to facilitate the performance of certain 
 actions. Applying the term liberal in its largest sense to 
 art, the way is open for the continual readjustment of 
 rules to meet new conditions as they arise in a given 
 realm. 
 
 Among the liberal arts which open the field of scientific 
 achievement for spiritual interpretation and application to 
 the Fine Art of Being Well, Happy and Prosperous, there 
 are seven. 
 
 GRAMMAR 
 
 The first one is grammar, carrying the thought of 
 powerful expression through words. The grammar of 
 the Absolute Life has one tense, the present, expressing 
 itself as "i AM THAT i AM." In human life it has three, 
 the future, the present, and the past. 
 
 The working method of the tenses of the spiritual life 
 is seen in the words, "Thus saith the Lord : It shall come 
 to pass." This future is followed by a conditioned present 
 in which certain things were done as prescribed, and the 
 record of the past reads, "And it came to pass." 
 
 The grammar of the spiritual life rises to the dignity 
 of a fine art when its rules and expressions get past the 
 
 [in 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 text-book stage, and are embodied into the form of the 
 personal pronoun, I am; I can; I will, thus rising from 
 principles and formulas to the Personality of God in man. 
 
 All of the moods, potential and otherwise, reach their 
 highest expression in the indicative, I am; I can; I do; 
 I love; I believe, etc.; and, in the imperative, "Go thy 
 way"; "Be thou made whole"; "Take up thy bed and 
 walk." 
 
 The grammar of the spiritual life is imperfect because 
 it has no term for third personality without a gender 
 coloring. Its pronouns have no neuters. They are I, 
 thou, thee; hence, God and the angels are all represented 
 as masculine, but the grammar of the spiritual life knows 
 that "there is neither male nor female," nor any other 
 sign of division or incompleteness in the spiritual realm. 
 "He that doeth the will of My Father, the same is My 
 brother, My sister, My mother." 
 
 Words are the incarnation of ideas. They bring us in 
 sight of the Creative Word that was "with God in the 
 beginning." For the creative process is, that God thought 
 and called by name that which He thought, and He 
 became that which He thought, and it was Good. He 
 spake and it was done, he commanded and it stood fast, 
 He sent His word and healed them. "Go thy way, thy 
 son liveth." "With great power gave they witness and 
 great grace was on them." Now it is given man to speak 
 the creative word if he will learn the grammar of the 
 spiritual life. Then whatsoever he shall bind on earth 
 shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever he shall loose 
 
 [12] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 on earth shall be loosed in heaven. This is another way 
 of saying that he shall have authority over all things. He 
 must also know that the spirit has a new language for 
 each new unfoldment of the truth. In the grammar of 
 the spiritual life there is a new name which none but 
 himself knoweth. 
 
 RHETORIC 
 
 This is art with reference to the form and power of 
 the symbolic expression of truth. The mind is not content 
 with the bare facts. It must know the nature of them, 
 the power behind them, and the laws of their production. 
 It likewise is not content with bare statements of the 
 truth, but seeks ever to beautify the truth with ornate 
 diction, perfected formulas, and glowing symbolism. The 
 principle of evolution moves upward from crudeness to 
 perfection; from ugliness to beauty; from roughness to 
 polish. The simplest spiritual service obeying the same 
 law moves upward ever until it reaches the most elaborate 
 ceremonial. The commonest daily activity inevitably 
 takes on the character of a sacrament. 
 
 In dealing with the immensities we naturally turn to 
 rhetoric for help. The ten spies returning to Moses 
 reported that, compared to the powerful Canaanites, "We 
 are like grasshoppers." The ecstatic Isaiah, comparing 
 the nations and peoples with the God Who is vision- 
 revealed, saw them as a "drop in the bucket," as the small 
 dust of the balance." Only the boundless dimensions of 
 length, breadth, height, and depth can express the great- 
 ness of Divine mercy, love, and forgiveness. 
 
 [13] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Spiritual rhetoric exhausts language and imagery in 
 picturing the greatness and goodness of the Supreme One, 
 that it may properly impress us with the dignity and 
 character of the life of His Life of which we are living 
 expressions, and thus help us to realize and use our own 
 potentially divine natures to accomplish God-like results. 
 LOGIC 
 
 This is correct reasoning, especially by inference. The 
 logic of Being is, "I am God, and beside Me there is 
 none else." When science has gathered all facts and 
 philosophy has formulated their purpose and end, and art 
 has devised rules of application, the logic of life is that it 
 begins with God and ends with God. Back of every 
 effect stands the Cause. Back of all causes and causality 
 stands the Changeless Cause. God alone is the Ultimate 
 Being. Back of light and darkness, back of truth and 
 error, back of right and wrong, back of matter and spirit, 
 and all expressions of duality whatsoever, stands the one 
 Ultimate Reality, saying, "LOOK UNTO ME AND BE YE 
 SAVED," and by "ever looking unto Him, the Author and 
 Finisher of our faith," all else is relative reality. 
 
 Steadfastly beholding Him who is Good, there is no 
 evil. 
 
 Steadfastly facing Him who is Spirit, there is no matter 
 with its laws. 
 
 Steadfastly facing Him who is Abundance and Com- 
 pleteness, there is no lack, loss, absence or deprivation. 
 
 Steadfastly facing Him who is Love, there is no fear, 
 for there is nothing to fear. 
 
 [14] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 Steadfastly facing Him who is perfect Wholeness, there 
 is no sin, sickness nor death. 
 
 Steadfastly facing Him who only hath Immortality, 
 man is immortal. 
 
 To the downward vision which entangles our feet in 
 the web of things, these are all real, while to the uplifted 
 eye, beholding the One Reality, things are non-existent. 
 
 This is the logic of the spiritual life, and points the 
 way to be saved from the bondage of sense, and time, and 
 space, and limitation, into freedom, aspiration and God- 
 likeness. Because God is I Am. 
 
 MATHEMATICS 
 
 Primarily this science has to do with numbers and 
 spaces, but its principles applied to the spiritual life 
 appear in such problems as, "Give all diligence to add to 
 your faith, power, and to power, knowledge, and to 
 knowledge, self-mastery," etc. 
 
 However, in spiritual mathematics subtraction comes 
 first. There is the taking away of false notions, wrong 
 ideas and actions and hurtful habits, obsolete words and 
 statements of truth. Then follows addition, for in spir- 
 itual addition only likes can be added to likes. The unlike 
 cannot be added. 
 
 This is followed by multiplication, the short method of 
 addition, for spiritual potencies grow so fast that only the 
 terms of multiplication can express the process. "Grace 
 and peace be multiplied by the knowledge of God." The 
 multiplicand is grace and peace; the multiplier is your 
 knowledge of God; the product depending upon the size 
 
 [15] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 of the multiplier in every case of spiritual attainment. 
 "Acquaint now thyself with God and be at peace." The 
 measure of your peace is your knowledge of God. 
 
 Spiritual division follows, in which diversities of gifts 
 are imparted among men, according to the proportion of 
 their faith, and this spiritual ratio and proportion is 
 always evident in the endeavors we put forth and the 
 results which we obtain. 
 
 Spiritual mathematics presents the enigma that one and 
 one make one, never more and never less, and these count- 
 less unities make eventually one Unity, "that God may 
 be all in all." 
 
 It is an axiom of mathematics that "A whole is equal 
 to the sum of all its parts," which finds its parallel in 
 spiritual Being, in which all individual expressions of 
 life are summed up in the One Being. 
 
 GEOMETRY 
 
 The great science of measurements, dealing with three- 
 dimensional principles, finds itself confronted by space 
 that is topless, bottomless, sideless, endless. And spiritual 
 geometry finds this boundless space filled with a Being 
 whose love dissolves sins, restores integrity, inspires effort, 
 and moulds character. 
 
 Spiritual geometry announces the great triangle of spir- 
 itual experience in the words, FAITH, HOPE, LOVE. The 
 first two discover and bring into spiritual realization all 
 the riches of the spiritual existence, and make them pos- 
 sessions and endowments of the soul, while the third one, 
 LOVE, goes forth with arms extended, to shower its bless- 
 
 [16] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 ing and its abundance upon others, and so to reflect its 
 kinship to that God of love Whose language is giving. 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 Harmony is an adaptation of parts, one to another, so 
 as to form a connected whole. The lack of this proper 
 adaptation between the various intervals in the scale 
 brings inharmony, or discord. In the realm of spiritual 
 harmony there is conceivable a kingdom of harmony in 
 which all wills move in unison in thought, word and deed. 
 This is the Universal Stave. 
 
 Poetry has dreamed of the "music of the spheres." The 
 illumined prophet saw in the seraphim the impersonation 
 of the forces of the universe offering themselves unto God 
 in service. And all of the inspired ones have at times 
 risen above the tumult and discord in the wheel of earthly 
 things to see a Kingdom in which there is not one thing 
 to offend, peopled with beings "without spot or wrinkle 
 of any such thing"; where there is an end of evil, of 
 sorrow, and of death. 
 
 In moving upward toward this "far-off divine event, 
 toward which the whole creation moves," human experi- 
 ence has developed two songs with which to still every 
 earthly inharmony. A song is the constantly recurring 
 note about a single theme, and its purpose is by such 
 repetition to fix our wandering-mindedness back upon the 
 one essential truth. 
 
 The song of the ancients had for its theme, I AM THAT 
 I AM, and was called the "Song of Moses." 
 
 The song of modern peoples has for its central theme 
 
 [17] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 that one Matchless Name, forever enshrined in the world 
 of harmony, or heaven JESUS CHRIST, and it is called 
 the "Song of the Lamb." 
 
 Facing the troubles, the trials, the afflictions of this 
 life, which have separated us from our heritage, "the 
 ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with 
 songs, and everlasting joy upon their heads." And these 
 are the songs they sing. And these are the shouts of 
 triumph before which all walls of obstruction fall down. 
 Steadfastly facing Him, sing this old song of Moses: 
 "Oh, High and Lofty One inhabiting eternity, 
 
 Clothing Thyself with beauty, as with a garment, 
 
 Hiding Thyself under the names of relationship, 
 
 I know that Thou art, and that Thou art 
 
 The Rewarder of them that diligently seek Thee. 
 
 Deliver me by the might of Thy great name I AM." 
 Or this song of the Lamb : 
 "Oh Face of the Blessed, behold me 
 
 Bowing with every kindred and tongue 
 
 In glad allegiance to Thy loving care ; 
 
 Breathe into me the breath of Thy deathless Life; 
 
 Feed me with Thine unfailing Substance ; 
 
 Infold me in the secret place of Eternal safety and 
 power, 
 
 Thy matchless name JESUS CHRIST." 
 Hidden in these songs is the might of that kingdom 
 which, released by faith, brings food and clothing and 
 plenty, rolls back the stone, stops the lion's mouth, 
 quenches the power of flame, makes Aeneas' palsy to 
 depart, and makes Dorcas rise into life again. They are 
 the songs of High Deliverance. 
 
 [18] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 ASTRONOMY 
 
 Man's first thought of the world is that his little earth 
 is the center of things. Then he learns that he is deceived 
 by appearance. Some far-off sun is found to be the center. 
 When he gets adjusted to the heliocentric idea, astronomy 
 comes to his aid with a scale of distance and immensity 
 beyond his power to adequately conceive, telling him of 
 another center about which all things move, and conjec- 
 turing that even this great system is only a small part of a 
 vastly greater, until his mind can no longer grasp the 
 thought, for it leads to infinity. 
 
 Astronomy shows man the wonderful forces playing in 
 this material universe; the marvelous exactness of the 
 laws by which it is governed; the infinite intelligence 
 manifest in the movements of its numberless worlds; and 
 in the development processes going forward everywhere. 
 Astronomy hints a wonderful beneficence in the results of 
 these activities, and a remarkable adaptation of the whole 
 situation to the needs of man at the present stage of his 
 unfoldment. 
 
 So man is led to see in this universe governed by law 
 and order the temporary form of a spiritual reality, a 
 spiritual universe of perfect law and order, of perfect 
 being, life, intelligence, love, goodness, and every other 
 right idea, the sum total of which we call God. So that 
 God is over all, through all, in all, and all in all; the 
 totality. 
 
 Man's first thought of this infinity is that himself is 
 the center of being which has no circumference, but 
 
 [19] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 astronomy leads him to think of other centers like himself 
 who make up a system of spiritual life called the body of 
 Christ the divinely conscious. He is led to think of 
 other worlds of intelligences, with their activities, "other 
 sheep not of this fold," until at last his mind conceives 
 that all of them are gathered into one Being who is 
 Infinite. 
 
 In this Being who is bottomless, topless, endless and 
 boundless, man is ever in God. He cannot get lost in 
 material earths or spiritual heavens. He cannot wander 
 from his father's house which embraces all. He cannot 
 lack any good thing, for all things are his at any moment 
 when he will claim and use them. Out of the limitations 
 of his earthly temple he is born from above, into largeness 
 of consciousness, and gradually moves upward to a destiny 
 as limitless as God in Whom he lives and moves and has 
 his being. His highest attainment in the University of 
 Hard Knocks is to become fully conscious of this spiritual 
 reality as always in action, and always available, which 
 works in and through him to the attainment of every 
 ideal, and the full realization of every divinely inspired 
 impulse. 
 
 Besides these arts and embracing them all there is THE 
 FINE ART OF BEING WELL, which consists in the use of 
 methods and rules by which the body is brought to har- 
 monious co-operation in all of its functions, and is thereby 
 made a fit temple for the indwelling of the Spirit of Life. 
 
 The mind is set to the task of developing its forty and 
 more faculties until it comes to the measure of the stature 
 
 [20] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 of the fullness of Christ. The spirit likewise following 
 the art of spiritual attainment is to reach that perception 
 of the spiritual realities of existence and so work in har- 
 mony with them that by-and-bye when we shall appear in 
 the glory of spiritual realms, we shall be like Him, clothed 
 with equal brightness and crowned with equal glory. It 
 is to produce such a harmony in the workings of the body, 
 the mind, and the spirit, that this unity in turn may enter 
 into full partnership with that spiritual consciousness 
 lying back of, and expressing itself through, the universe 
 of things and of beings, and realize completeness here 
 and now. 
 
 Certain simple rules are here formulated according to 
 the laws of art to carry out THE FINE ART OF BEING WELL, 
 which includes well-being for body, mind, and spirit, 
 whether it be health, happiness, prosperity or serenity of 
 spirit, or whatever you want to be. 
 
 Earnestly desire to be perfectly whole, to be successful, 
 to be beautiful, or whatever else your wish may call for. 
 The desire is innate. It is of God. The very fact that 
 you desire it is the prophecy of its possibility and the 
 warrant of its full realization, but you can intensify it by 
 dwelling upon it, thinking and talking about it. 
 
 Visualize it. Mentally picture yourself as perfectly 
 well and filled with abounding energy; as graceful in 
 movement; beautiful in form; bright and active in con- 
 versation ; perfect in your love toward others ; as successful 
 and happy. See yourself as the image of the Perfect One ; 
 clothe yourself with His Health, Strength, and Goodness, 
 
 [21] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 and you will find every ill slipping away, for "no man can 
 see God and live" after his former estate. This method 
 applies for success or any other possible attainment. 
 
 Affirm that the thing you desire and visualize is yours. 
 Keep affirming it until it becomes the habit of your mind 
 to think of yourself as you want to be, and when it be- 
 comes your habit to think of yourself as you want to be, 
 then you will be what you want to be. Affirm until your 
 mind passes out of the exercise of affirmation into full 
 consciousness and realization. 
 
 Believe that it is for you; that it is now yours; that 
 your real self partakes now of the nature of the Divine 
 Mind, the Source of unspoilable health, the Source of 
 unbounded success; count that health as now yours in your 
 real self, and that inasmuch as yourself in perfect health 
 fills every part of your body, it will make every cell in 
 your body vibrate with perfect health. 
 
 This faith arouses and calls into action all the healing 
 forces of the Absolute, and your faith is the measure of 
 its working. "According to your faith be it unto you." 
 Your faith is the sixth sense, the incorporeal eye which 
 sees the spiritual reality; sees the crooked arm already 
 straight; sees the troubled mind in perfect peace; sees the 
 disturbed spirit resting serenely in the bosom of the God 
 of love; sees the one Absolute Reality in which appears 
 the Divine Nihilism of all negative and relative things. 
 
 Get your will into action, for "It shall be unto thee 
 even as thou wilt." Your imaging faculties may visualize 
 health or success ; your desire may focus on what you want 
 
 [22] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 and put you in the right condition for realizing it; your 
 faith may arouse all healing potencies, but it remains for 
 your will to direct these to the desired end. Your will 
 must hold you in the attitude of receptivity to the divine 
 healing agencies. It must direct your thoughts and imag- 
 ing faculty to the thing desired. It must resolutely divert 
 your mind away from pain, weakness, failure, depression, 
 poverty or whatever it is. These negative ideas and con- 
 ditions return with devilish persistence, and only the edict 
 of a royal will can keep you from thinking, worrying, and 
 fearing about them. Resolutely set your face as a flint 
 away from them and toward the spiritual realities. You 
 need only to attend to the causes of health the effects 
 are certain. 
 
 Interest yourself in others' welfare. It will react on 
 you. Go out and comfort some one in trouble, and you 
 will go home relieved of your own trouble. Send out a 
 thought a prayer to another, and the vibration will 
 reach and help its object and will react for good upon 
 you. Reduce your message to the form of a code, a single 
 sentence, a single word. Let your love and sympathy and 
 desire to help gather about your message and empower it 
 to wing its flight as you earnestly send it, and no matter 
 what the mental attitude or state of your friend, it will 
 bring to him relief. 
 
 Health, success, and happiness are all by-products of 
 simply busying ourselves about other things and other 
 people's welfare. Scatter forth the seeds of truth, and 
 the golden sheaves of freedom, of health, of prosperity, 
 
 [23] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 and happiness will be the rich harvest along your pathway, 
 and will return many fold into your own bosom. 
 
 The renewing power of a new interest is proven in the 
 life of every individual. In fact the art of living so as 
 to defy the ills of old age consists in forever finding a 
 new and fresh interest for the mind and new activities for 
 the body. Our grandmother retired at fifty to the corner 
 with knitting needles and a white cap. Her race was 
 run. Today a woman's greatest work is just begun when 
 the work incident to the creative equipment is past and 
 the higher and sublimated forms of the creative power 
 come to the front. Then the arts, the sciences, the philos- 
 ophies of life are taken up and woman finds her youth 
 renewed under these new inspirations. This is equally 
 true of the other sex. Even a kaiser can find surcease 
 from the remorse of the most colossal crime of the ages by 
 cutting trees and making garments. Some of the master 
 minds of the ages have done their greatest work late in 
 life by finding some new problem to solve. 
 
 The genius of living is revealed in service. The secret 
 formula of genius is given in the words, "I Am among 
 you as One that serveth." The indelible water-mark of 
 genius is to work patiently on to achieve the desired end, 
 and to resolutely put aside discouragement or impatience, 
 at least to prevent anyone from finding it out if you 
 should feel them. 
 
 Therefore, if you would graduate from the college of 
 Arts, and know and enjoy THE FINE ART OF BEING WELL, 
 you must "study to show thyself approved unto God a 
 
 [24] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ARTS 
 
 workman that needeth not to be ashamed." You must 
 earnestly seek the vision of the higher ends of living and 
 then "endure as seeing Him who is invisible." You must 
 "be strong and of a good courage." You must hold 
 clearly in your mind your objective and "patiently wait 
 for it." You must fully believe that it is for you, and 
 then "show your faith by your works." And you must 
 "work out your salvation," keeping ever in mind that "it 
 is God that worketh in you both to will and to do." For 
 whatsoever life holds for you it is prefaced by the Eternal 
 promise, "it shall come to pass," and is crowned with the 
 Absolute period, "and it came to pass." 
 
 [25] 
 
FULFILLMENT 
 
 The thing that I thought I wanted 
 
 Was the thing that I did not get ; 
 The thing that I got was empty, 
 
 Was bitter, was sad, and yet 
 I learned a wonderful lesson, 
 
 A lesson of more than control, 
 For I left my selfish darkness, 
 
 I live in the light of the soul. 
 
 The thing that I thought I wanted 
 
 It had broken my heart to lose; 
 The thing that I got but added 
 
 A throbbing pain to the bruise. 
 And yet the light of heaven 
 
 Banished the clouds of earth, 
 And I found a joy eternal 
 
 In place of fleeting mirth. 
 
 And now things that I want 
 
 Are always the things that I get, 
 And the things that I get are sweet; 
 
 They leave me with no regret, 
 For I find I have ceased to ask 
 
 From a selfish wish alone, 
 Because in the light of the soul 
 
 I long for, I want but my own. 
 
 Mrs. Cornelius A. Fish. 
 
 [26] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 THE universe in its last analysis is spiritual. It is 
 being adjusted to material form and mechanical 
 means of expression. It is an evolution out of the 
 unseen into the seen ; out of the Absolute into the relative ; 
 out of the everywhere into the here ; out of eternity into 
 the now. This evolution proceeds by certain orderly 
 methods called laws. Law has no causality in it. It is a 
 rule by which some power beyond it proceeds. A law is 
 the way a thing is done. It is energy following a certain 
 norm or method of expression. Things exist and events 
 occur in certain ways, called laws. 
 
 The reign of law is universal. All realms are con- 
 stituted to be governed and perpetuated by law. All beings 
 are likewise governed by laws suitable to their nature and 
 condition of existence. There is a law for inanimate 
 things, and a law for the animate, and a law for intel- 
 ligent beings in the flesh, and a law for purely spiritual 
 beings. Everything must obey the laws governing it. The 
 material world would be a chaos if it did not obey the 
 laws of inertia and gravitation. The animal world would 
 cease did it not obey the laws of nourishment and growth. 
 Every rational being in the universe is bound to fail of 
 this life's vast good if he neglects to keep the law of his 
 being. There is the tradition of such failure with the 
 
 [27] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 early progenitors of our race. There is a tradition con- 
 cerning "angels which kept not their first estate," and it 
 is possible that God Himself might fail if He did not 
 fulfill the whole law, just as a vast business might fail 
 for lack of organization, order, and central authority. 
 
 Among the fundamental laws of the universe of ma- 
 terial things there is the law of Inertia, by which matter 
 is held in a state of rest. And the law of Gravitation by 
 which the relation of each part to the others, and of all 
 parts to the whole material organism, is maintained. There 
 is the law of the Conservation of energy by which the 
 sum total of matter is preserved against waste, and there 
 is the law of the Conversion of energy by which the work- 
 ing forces may adapt materials to any possible need. 
 
 Within the operation of these laws is the principle that 
 in the raising of lower forms of matter and energy up 
 to higher forms there is invariably the attending facts of 
 heat and stress. The gold is extracted from the ore by 
 heat and hard pounding. The diamond is brought to its 
 power of expression by the fast flying emery wheel. Ore 
 goes up from pig iron to spring steel by heat and ham- 
 mering and chemical action. Perfume comes out of the 
 flower under pressure. 
 
 In the realm of moral law strength of character is 
 realized under the influence of trial and temptation, just 
 as the muscle gains strength by exercise. These grow out 
 of the laws governing the individual expression as it comes 
 into contact with the laws governing the social body, and 
 the necessary adjustments thereof. 
 
 [28] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 In the mental realm the law of development is that 
 thinking power unfolds according to mental laws, and 
 that the mind acquires power through its contacts with 
 material things in seeking knowledge of, and control over 
 them. The mind gains facility of action through the 
 stress of work. The will acquires strength by repeated 
 action of the will in choosing one of two or more alterna- 
 tives. Cognition becomes clear only by the unceasing ef- 
 fort to think. Feelings become deep and reliable and in- 
 spiring only when they are constantly tested by adjusting 
 to changing conditions as they appeal to the emotional 
 life. Thus the mind moves upward from ignorance to 
 knowledge and wisdom and understanding through the 
 stress and challenge of difficulty. 
 
 In the realm of spiritual laws those things of highest 
 value are made most difficult of attainment. The Great 
 Captain of our salvation was made perfect by the things 
 that He suffered. The same thought is found in the 
 words, "The God of all grace . . . after ye have suffered 
 awhile, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." 
 Those who were "clothed in white robes" had already 
 "come up through great tribulation." The human life 
 moves up from animalism to spiritual supremacy and 
 power only in the University of Hard Knocks. 
 
 THE LAW IN OPERATION 
 
 The law works after the principle of cause and effect, 
 rather than by that of rewards and punishments. In all 
 material things this is accepted, but in human affairs it is 
 
 [29] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 debatable, for the reason that the human being is able to 
 feel the effects of disobeying the law, and to think about 
 it and to conjure up the specters of right and wrong, and 
 by letting them get headway in his life do himself to 
 death, thinking that he is being rewarded or punished 
 accordingly as his experiences are pleasurable or other- 
 wise, when he is really being corrected in his views of 
 life and is undergoing enlargement of outlook through 
 the operation of this law of cause and effect. 
 
 The idea of Job's day was that when a man received 
 ill it was a sign that he was a sinner, and the enormity 
 of his sin was determined by the severity of his suffering, 
 all of which was attributed to the action of a personal 
 being against whom he had offended. It was a crude 
 groping after the law of cause and effect. In Job's par- 
 ticular case, he had ceased to grow because he was so 
 well situated and so comfortable, and this violation of the 
 law of growth called out all the effects as they are seen 
 in that wonderful narrative. He was emancipated from 
 the limitations arising out of failure to grow, and the 
 result is seen in a greatly enlarged enjoyment of life. 
 He had not knowingly violated the law, it is true ; never- 
 theless he received the full benefit of the effects of his 
 unknowing violation of the law of progress, not because 
 he deserved it, but because he needed the emancipation 
 into larger life, through practicing a higher obedience to 
 the law of life as it was for him. 
 
 ALL LAW IS POSITIVE CONSTRUCTIVE 
 
 All its results are beneficient as long as the natural 
 [30] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 movement of the law is known and kept. When the law 
 is violated there follow consequences whose repetition may 
 eventually become a law of itself. Digestion, for instance, 
 normally follows the keeping of the law of dietetics, while 
 the violation of the law brings out a new and unpleasant 
 law of procedure called indigestion. 
 
 The laws of heat when kept can bring comfort in any 
 clime, but violated, a new law of expression called cold 
 comes in the form of the absence of heat. 
 
 The laws of light when kept flood our pathway with 
 light and certainty, while their violation brings darkness 
 and uncertainty or the absence of light. 
 
 Mental activity brings knowledge, while mental in- 
 dolence leaves us in the negative ignorance. 
 
 The positive "law of Life in Christ Jesus" a law of 
 conscious oneness with God, obeyed gives us character 
 like God, and makes the human soul "free from the law 
 of sin and death," which is the absence of conscious one- 
 ness and harmony with God, which becomes a rule of 
 existence by disobedience. From these facts it appears 
 that that which at first is merely a negative, or the absence 
 of the positive, rises by continued action into the dignity 
 of a law of wrong procedure, together with its effects. 
 
 All good comes from the keeping of the law in its par- 
 ticular realm. All evil comes as a result of not keeping 
 the law. Every ill, therefore, is the result of law unkept. 
 There may be no moral turpitude attached ; that is to say, 
 the law was not broken intentionally, especially not with 
 
 [31] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 the purpose of injuring self or another, yet the effect 
 comes as a result of sin which is the violation of the law, 
 consciously or otherwise, by the afflicted one or by some- 
 one else. The fact that all evil of any sort, moral, mental 
 or physical, arises from some form of sin, was recognized 
 by the Master of the University of Hard Knocks, when 
 He said, "It is as easy to say thy sins be forgiven thee, as to 
 say, arise, take up thy bed and walk." He could not say 
 one without saying the other. The fact that He could say 
 the one and have it come to pass was evidence that He 
 could say the other and have it come to pass. Further- 
 more, when He said one it always included the other. 
 Finally the fact that He used the expression regardless 
 of whether the trouble was physical or spiritual indicated 
 that He regarded any and all ills as arising from sin. 
 
 All ill comes then from sin. Sin is a violation of the 
 law, a missing of the mark. The remedy for sin, there- 
 fore, is to keep the law to hit the target. The remedial 
 work begins when we stop sinning. The consequences of 
 the law are automatic. If we get pain by violating the 
 law, we get ease by keeping the law. Every law is 
 remedial and healthful, and the moment we begin to keep 
 it, recovery begins. To use the old form of thought, if 
 the law is self-punishing, it is also self-rewarding. "Cease 
 to do evil, and learn to do well," was the scriptural 
 recognition of the automatic, remedial, self-healing action 
 of the law. 
 
 THE LAW IS CHANGELESS, BUT ADAPTABLE 
 
 All law is immutable. It cannot be changed. It can- 
 [32] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 not be broken with impunity, but it may be adapted to 
 the conditions of existence. As the conditions in a given 
 case change, the law is adjusted to meet the new condi- 
 tions of existence. For example, vegetarianism was the diet- 
 ary law at first when the population was scattered and the 
 activities of life were simple . With a complex civilization 
 arose the necessary use of foods in more concentrated 
 form and more easily procurable under all exigencies. In 
 like manner things which were allowable in the time of 
 Moses were no longer permissable under the more en- 
 lightened times of the Master. And the consciousness of 
 the race concerning the use of intoxicating drinks, slavery, 
 and the rights of woman, has risen so that there is a new 
 adaptation of the law to ever changing conditions. 
 
 THE VALUE OF A LAW 
 
 A law is important according to the interest it protects. 
 The law of existence expressed in the primal instinct of 
 self-preservation has made respect for human life, and the 
 right for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, to 
 assume the place of first importance, while the questions 
 of possessions, morals, and all else come in as secondary 
 considerations. 
 
 The laws of the physical body are of great importance, 
 but they have to do with that which is but temporary, 
 while the laws pertaining to the mind and soul are of 
 supreme importance because they have to do with the 
 immortal self and its destiny through development. The 
 violation of the physical laws does not popularly come in 
 
 [33] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 the same category of sinfulness as the violation of those 
 laws which have to do with the moral nature. 
 
 In every case the law is remedial, be it great or small, 
 in the interest it protects. The moment the law-breaker 
 becomes a law-keeper the healing action of the law begins. 
 In the midst of the blindest bigotry as to their definition 
 of sin and their demand for its punishment, calmly stood 
 the Master, and said, ''Neither do I condemn thee; go 
 thy way and sin no more." 
 
 In the good old time, the promise to Israel was that 
 when they began to keep the law the Lord would restore 
 to them the years that the caterpillar and the cankerworm 
 had eaten. It was a wonderful way of saying that what 
 one needs to do is to know and keep the law, and he shall 
 be made whole, and that which he has lost or its equiva- 
 lent shall be restored to him. To know the truth and 
 keep it as it applies to his particular case of violating the 
 law will make him free from the bondage of sin and enter 
 him into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. 
 
 The remedy for any ill is not only to deny the ill, but 
 to know the law, affirm and keep it. We do not deny the 
 darkness nor try to drive it out, but we obey the law of 
 light by turning on the electric current. We do not cure 
 pain by merely denying it, but by obeying the law of ease 
 and comfort, by laying emphasis on the fact that God is 
 the God of all comfort, and using the things that make 
 for comfort. In the sight of the law pain is but a symp- 
 tom of growth. Trouble is a trumpet call to triumph 
 over difficulties. Stumbling blocks are a golden stairway 
 
 [34] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 leading to the heavens of repose and peace. Every knock 
 is a boost ; every fall is an upward movement. 
 
 Accept them, therefore, as a part of the curriculum in 
 the University of Hard Knocks which is to eventually 
 graduate you into self-mastery. Take them cheerfully. 
 If the cup of trouble is presented to you, drink of it. Take 
 your medicine and do not play with the spoon, at least, 
 not until you have swallowed the dose. Half of the ill is 
 neutralized when you get rid of self-pity. Do not be 
 sorry for yourself. Do not try to work on others' sym- 
 pathy. Such an attitude is a sign of weakness. No real 
 man is looking for a soft snap. The call to suffer and 
 endure and to master the causes of suffering challenges 
 the best within man. Only a weakling wants to be pro- 
 tected from the necessity of meeting for himself and 
 solving of his own initiative and persistence, the problems 
 of life. 
 
 Matter is the material expression of energy. Withdraw 
 energy and matter disappears. Energy is kinetic and 
 potential, it is God in action or at rest. It is uncreated, 
 for it is a principle of divine being. It cannot be in- 
 creased nor diminished. Its action may be raised and 
 materialization takes place. Its action may be decreased 
 or changed, and dematerialization takes place. In other 
 words, certain combinations of energy move into material 
 expression while other combinations move to destroy ma- 
 terial form. But the volume of energy is neither increased 
 nor diminished. 
 
 That combination of energy which we call human life 
 
 [35] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 is measured in its manifestation of power by the number 
 of the laws of expression a given person can obey. Inas- 
 much as all the forces of God are potentially in man, 
 and are subject to his command, it follows that he can at 
 will increase or decrease the volume of energy he expresses, 
 and so determine the richness and beauty of his life. 
 
 This power to command the forces of the universe was 
 spoken of in the pastoral parable of Edenic creation, is 
 again recognized by Isaiah, Chap. 45: 11, where God is 
 represented as saying, "Concerning my sons, and concern- 
 ing the works of my hands command ye me." This mas- 
 tery of energy is offered to him who will know and keep 
 its laws, so that he may at a word make the oil and meal 
 or the loaves and fishes increase, or the swelling or the 
 eating sore to be healed, or the anxious fretting of the 
 mind to cease. It is the authority to command the invis- 
 ible forces and know that " it shall be as thou wilt." 
 
 SUMMARY 
 
 The reign of law is universal. The law is no respecter 
 of persons. If even God should violate His Own laws He 
 would cease to be God. If man violates them he ceases 
 to be God-like. 
 
 The law is corrective and constructive. Its effects are 
 educative rather than destructive. The whole scheme of 
 living consists in learning the laws of life and keeping 
 them. 
 
 The physical body passes through all the processes of 
 growth and change and renewal in obedience to law. Any 
 attempt to run one department of the organism by the 
 
 [36] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF LAW 
 
 laws governing another department inevitably calls up 
 the old tutors of pain and disease. No amount of right 
 thinking can make amends for sleeping in a closed room 
 or eating wrong food combinations. Nor can perfect 
 breathing in the open air take the place of nourishing 
 food, or proper exercise. The laws of metabolism which 
 demand the breathing of plenty of oxygen are as imperious 
 in their demands as those of dietetics or hygiene. The law 
 is, therefore, our schoolmaster to bring us to health. 
 
 The laws of mental development are just as specific as 
 those for the organism. Any neglect or over-development 
 of any of the elements of mental life, as Cognition, Feel- 
 ing, or Will, eventuates into an unbalanced mentality, 
 while obedience to the laws of education gives one balanced 
 mentality, a trained mind, and leads to mental efficiency 
 and culture. The law is therefore our schoolmaster to 
 bring us to knowledge and wisdom. 
 
 Likewise the moral nature develops by obedience to the 
 moral laws as they have been revealed by ages of human 
 experience. However faulty the form of the Ten Com- 
 mandments, they stand for the protection of specific inter- 
 ests of the moral nature which can never change as long 
 as man lives on the earth. The law is therefore our 
 schoolmaster to bring us to character and self-mastery. 
 
 Out of this triple realm of the reign of law the spiritual 
 life develops by attention to the spiritual laws of being, 
 and so "the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ," 
 the Anointed, which is, in a word, the consciousness of 
 Oneness with God. 
 
 [37] 
 
BITTER SWEET 
 
 "Let no man pray that he know not sorrow, 
 
 Let no soul ask to be free from pain, 
 For the gall of today is the sweet of tomorrow, 
 
 And the moment's loss is the life-time's gain. 
 Let no man shrink from the bitter tonics 
 
 Of grief, and yearning, and need, and strife, 
 For the rarest chords in the soul's harmonics, 
 
 Are found in the minor strains of life." 
 
 [38] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF HISTORY 
 
 HISTORY has to do with the material world, its 
 development, the forces and processes involved 
 therein, and the probable end. It has further 
 to do with the processes by which life came upon the 
 earth, and the steady upward movement of that life 
 through all its variant forms until it reached that form of 
 perfect expression called man. It has to do with man's 
 rise from animalism, up through savagery to civilization. 
 It studies the records of that progress as they appear in 
 the political, social, economic, and personal experiences 
 of men. 
 
 The sources of the history of the material world are 
 found in the structures that abide. The stories of the 
 rocks, and soil, the testimony of the air, earth and water 
 are all eloquent witnesses of some intelligent purpose, 
 finding material expression for some fruition beyond the 
 material world itself. Living forms carry within them 
 the record of an evolutionary process by which an under- 
 standing of their rise, their use, and their probable end 
 may be ascertained. 
 
 Biology, a scientific study of these records, has shown 
 us how life began with a single cell whose unlimited 
 multiplication has resulted in peopling the earth with 
 living creation. It shows how each form carries within 
 itself the history of its own development, and the hered- 
 
 [39] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 itary influences of all the forms that have gone before it 
 and of which it is an improvement. 
 
 Availing itself of the records found in the vestigial 
 remains in the human body, and the hereditary traits and 
 other marks of life reaching back untold ages, together 
 with certain impulses, both vague and well defined, history 
 is being rewritten in reference to man's origin in the 
 world and the length of his stay here. 
 
 Remains and traces of human life, reaching back 
 through vast and remote geological ages, and others more 
 recent, yet far antedating written records, have enabled 
 the modern historian to present an intelligible case for 
 humanity, which has put a new interpretation upon the 
 highly colored symbolical attempts of the ancients to 
 account for the world and the life upon it. 
 
 Even the written records of human progress must be 
 read as if one were entirely detached from them, other- 
 wise the element of personal interest or sympathy enters 
 in and the historical record is made to say things that are 
 not warranted by the facts. For history is not only a 
 record of the facts of life, but it is also a philosophy of 
 these facts. Moreover, the facts must be in hand before 
 the philosophy is formulated, otherwise we shall read the 
 facts to suit the philosophy, instead of adjusting the phil- 
 osophy to the facts. 
 
 In every age men of special gifts and unusual illumina- 
 tion have organized and recorded the experiences of hu- 
 manity in such a way as to enable them to formulate some 
 statement of the cause, method and purpose of living. 
 
 [40] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF HISTORY 
 
 These have been the seers, the illuminati of the ages, the 
 men who have towered above their fellows, and their 
 records have been incorporated in what are known as the 
 "Sacred Books" of humanity. 
 
 Among all the volumes so written and classified, there 
 stands out one peerless and alone as an authority in all 
 matters of physical, mental, and moral life, because of its 
 evident fidelity to facts, and the reasonableness of its 
 explanation of those facts. It deals with personal and 
 national affairs in every stage of human progress and 
 experience. Its text is in poetry and in prose. It has to 
 do with the most interesting and exalted subjects, such 
 as the earliest origin and history of the human race; the 
 providential government of God; the exhibition of the 
 alternate progress and declension of civilizations; the 
 ways of God in dealing with men; the consummation of 
 Divine wisdom, purity, love, and life in the Person of 
 Jesus of Nazareth. The scope of its records embraces 
 laws, hymns, prophecies, correspondence, philosophy, nup- 
 tial songs, and elegies, in their bearing upon national, 
 social, and individual life. One strain of agreement runs 
 through it all a harmonious presentation of the most 
 sublime views of God, as to His Nature, Character, 
 Words and Works; as to man, his origin, fall, redemp- 
 tion, hope and destiny; his duties and privileges, his rela- 
 tionships in life, here and hereafter. It was written by 
 illumined ones from every walk of life, in the most simple 
 style, yet the most beautiful, dignified and ornate diction. 
 In short, it is the record of the unfolding of the Con- 
 
 [41] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 sciousness of God in the race. It is the Scriptures of the 
 Old and New Testament, and stands forth among the 
 "Sacred Books" of the world, as the standard of religious 
 history. 
 
 In it is the faithful record of the greatness and weak- 
 ness of human nature, of man's oft-repeated failures, and 
 his glorious achievements. In it are exhibitions of human 
 animalism and divine possibilities. In it are traces of the 
 phallic origin of all religions and the ideal for the attain- 
 ment of spiritual supremacy by looking upward to the 
 Absolute. In it is the marvelous symbolism of the Ori- 
 ental mind, and the common-sense, matter-of-fact state- 
 ment suited to the Occidental mind. It is to be read as 
 history, as a summary of human experience, although it 
 deals largely with humanity from the standpoint of a 
 single nationality. Some of its figures of speech have 
 never been understood, hence a great variety of interpre- 
 tations. Most of its facts are given from an experimental 
 viewpoint; many of its terms are obsolete, and some of 
 its substance mythical ; many of its texts suffer in transla- 
 tion from the original languages, while others gain in 
 significance. It is to be studied, and taken as a guide, and 
 not worshipped as a fetich. Its statements are not to be 
 accepted because of some theory of inspiration, but be- 
 cause the facts recorded are in line with similar ascer- 
 tained facts of today by scientific method. It is the 
 organized experiences of good and bad people, for encour- 
 aging and warning. It is to be accepted as authority, not 
 
 [42] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF HISTORY 
 
 from a single statement or text, but from the general 
 principles of Tightness underlying all its statements. 
 
 This history, like all history, is to be regarded not 
 merely as a record of happenings, but actually as a study 
 of the movement of great principles and forces lying back 
 of the phenomena of life, as they crop out here and there 
 in some upward movement and its climax. These usually 
 center about some nation or individual, sometimes giving 
 the impression that history is made for a few nations or 
 for the glorification of a few individuals. If history is 
 to be intelligently read the attention must be fixed, not 
 on the events of a year, a lifetime, or even centuries. It 
 can be read aright only in millenniums. The history of 
 the given generation cannot safely be written for at least 
 a century afterward. The history of the Jewish people 
 can be read and understood only in the light of millen- 
 niums, reaching back to Moses, to Jacob and to Abraham, 
 and can be accounted for on no other ground than the 
 worship of an Almighty Jehovah, by people who were 
 His chosen elect and specially privileged. This made the 
 Jew the miracle of history. When Abraham was a small 
 boy playing about his father's tent, millenniums had 
 passed over the Chinese people whose ancestor worship 
 made John Chinaman the same peace-loving, non-pro- 
 gressive throughout succeeding millenniums. 
 
 Thus the history of an individual or a race is read in 
 millenniums of the past, and this tremendous span of 
 time is not read by a few spectacular items or persons, 
 but in the final achievement, just as the life of an indi- 
 
 [43] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 vidual does not consist of a few prominent actions, but is 
 to be interpreted by a process called the "logic of life," 
 the summing up of all his actions and thoughts, as they 
 have obeyed the movement of the Great Divine Impulse 
 that "worketh in him both to will and to do." History 
 is, therefore, the record of the expression of the universal 
 life, in all its forms of growth, flower and fruitage. 
 
 The history of an individual must begin back beyond 
 all material worlds in that Over Soul, the Father of 
 Spirits, the Source of all Life. There it entered into all 
 the movements of the Absolute Life, and when it came 
 forth into material incarnation it brought with it factors 
 of the Divine Nature and Character which have outlived 
 all incarnations and rise up into unutterable longings to 
 return to its Source. This is the "spirit in man which 
 the inspiration of the Almighty hath given under- 
 standing." 
 
 The first steps of his material incarnation must be read 
 in the protoplasmic forms of all organic life, thence 
 through the seven great stages of animal evolution in 
 which he took on their physical and mental characteristics, 
 traces of which still abide with him after he has taken on 
 the human form and is "planted" or made to stand upright 
 in his earthly Eden. 
 
 His record must be read through all those ages of sav- 
 agery, in his conflicts with animal creation from which he 
 was but a few steps removed. In the struggles to preserve 
 life, his constant fears and alarms, and watchfulness 
 against surprise, he took part in all the lives of his 
 
 [44] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF HISTORY 
 
 ancestral strain, and at last came up to savagery and to 
 civilization with instincts of fear, and suspicion, and con- 
 flict, all of which enter into his own personal incarnation. 
 
 His history must be read in the light of national ideals, 
 racial prejudices, tribal characteristics, and family traits. 
 This is the hereditary setting of individual history. 
 
 Biography enters into all the facts of environment, 
 home, school, work, love, and religion as they affect his 
 personal peculiarities of temperament. His relation to 
 these issue into habits of action and thought, which even- 
 tuate into character. And character is the honor earned 
 in the University of Hard Knocks in which he struggles 
 from the first protoplasmic cell of organic life until that 
 moment when he lays aside the temple of the flesh, and 
 puts on the vesture of Immortality. 
 
 History is therefore the individual collective record of 
 living souls, each of whom came from God, under the 
 motive of finding expression. Each bears the character- 
 istic qualities of its source, who is Life, Love-Truth, 
 Goodness, Power, Beauty. 
 
 Every exercise of initiative in obeying the laws of 
 expression, and in finding variations in the applications 
 of these laws, brings results which make up the sum 
 of living. 
 
 All the experiences of loving and serving are additions 
 to his personal knowledge. These he must compare with 
 the organized experiences of all the past, carefully checking 
 up with the same, yet keeping the way open for variations 
 
 [45] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 of experience so that the history he is helping to make shall 
 be an advance on the past. 
 
 The history of the body opens with the sentence, "Unto 
 us a child is born." It closes with the sentence, "He is 
 gone." The history of the Soul is in countless aeons of 
 time when it came out of the bosom of the Absolute into 
 material form, moved up through all creative stages of 
 development, learned to stand upright, learned to make 
 intelligent sounds, found symbols for their expression, 
 learned to make fire, and invented written symbols for 
 his ideas, and thus achieved personal character, which is 
 finally made into the likeness of the Son of God, then 
 leaves the flesh and rises into the Paradise of the spiritual 
 life. The coming out from the Father of Spirits into 
 flesh records the "fall" whose memory is hinted in all the 
 traditions of the past. His return to God in conscious 
 oneness is his rising again. And the facts of these experi- 
 ences are woven into the philosophy of History, which is a 
 record of the unfolding of the loving purpose of God. 
 
 [46] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ANTHROPOLOGY 
 
 THE wise man, beholding in wonder the glories of 
 the heavens, and the economies of earth all ad- 
 justed to the use of man in his development, asked, 
 "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" He did 
 not forget that in this world provision was made for all 
 other things, but they were secondary to the interests of 
 man (Anthropos the one looking upward), for he alone 
 was capable of the rational use and appreciation of it all. 
 Then he answered his own question, "Thou hast made 
 him a little lower than God, and crowned him with glory 
 and honor." 
 
 Reading the traditions and myths of the past, man's 
 origin was conceived as that of an immediate creation at 
 the hand of God, the crown and splendor of all creative 
 action, perfect in all respects. Then came the story of 
 the Fall, to account for his present condition. Then 
 began the process of his recovery. Such is the brief out- 
 line of tradition accounting for man. 
 
 Science, reading the unimpeachable records written in 
 man's body, his form, organs, and features, his mental and 
 moral nature, all bearing the marks of kinship with the 
 animal world, has answered the question that man is the 
 climax of an evolutionary process that began with a single 
 cell, in which the Over Soul clothed a particle of Being 
 with material form; gave it the power of multiplication 
 
 [47] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 or growth; caused it to unfold upward through vast 
 periods of time by selection and fitness, until, at last, man 
 stepped forth from the rest of his kind, an animal looking 
 upward, and standing upright. 
 
 Science follows his history from animalism to savagery, 
 thence to barbarism, and all the intermediate steps in 
 which he slowly left his animalism behind, and finally 
 reached a civilized state. 
 
 Science, therefore, places the period when the step up- 
 ward from an animal to a man was taken, which corre- 
 sponds to the biblical creation, to a far more remote 
 antiquity than that indicated by the records of tradition. 
 The traces of human culture and high states of civiliza- 
 tion are found far back of all records. Pictography is 
 the earliest intelligent record. Back of this are the 
 implements of still earlier ages, and last of all human 
 remains are found with those of animals of a long for- 
 gotten past in another geological period. 
 
 Following the prehistoric culture came the pictures and 
 other symbols which were the earliest forms of record; 
 then signs for letters, then writing, language, the family, 
 the clan, the tribe, the nation, marriage and other social 
 origins, all indicating an evolutionary process of vast 
 periods of time. The force of all these teaching facts is 
 that somewhere in past ages life, from the Source of all 
 life, began to express itself in material form, and that the 
 essence of this life principle is the same, whether it be in 
 protoplasm, tadpole, frog, fish, serpent, animal or man. 
 In other words, the unity of all life is proven, so that 
 
 [48] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ANTHROPOLOGY 
 
 man's origin is safely posited in the Absolute Life of the 
 universe. 
 
 In the process of man's development, he first attains a 
 human consciousness through whose activities he realizes 
 that he is a brother to the race. He next develops cosmic 
 consciousness, in which he is a brother to the worm, and 
 all living. He finally develops Divine Consciousness, by 
 which he is the son of the Absolute, in the sense that he is 
 a part of the Universal Being. 
 
 A scientific study of the body reveals the indelible marks 
 of his animal ancestry in some forty vestigial remains of 
 organs and parts for which he no longer has the need 
 which their original use supplied. It reveals that in the 
 lower forms of life automatic and reflex movements were 
 in the ascendancy, while as the scale of intelligence rises, 
 these decrease and volitional actions increase. Further- 
 more, in man himself those parts of his body least con- 
 trolled by intelligent volition, as the vegetative organs, 
 are most richly endowed with reflex equipment, while 
 those parts of the body equipped for motived movement 
 are very scantily supplied with reflex movements, all these 
 facts indicating the steady movement upward to the 
 supremacy of mind over matter. 
 
 Science detects the traces of man's emotional and mental 
 life in the lower forms of life, as the instinctive power of 
 nest-building, or the remarkable structural skill seen in a 
 honey bee's cell, or the maternal instincts both in birds 
 and animals. It finds his intuitions, his instinctive move- 
 ments, many of his emotions and his animalism of mind 
 
 [49] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 and character to be improvements upon similar qualities 
 in his more humble ancestors. And it likewise determines 
 that as the brain, the seat of the higher consciousness, 
 develops, the altruistic sentiments arise, the arts and 
 sciences develop, and the higher qualities of life and 
 character are in the ascendancy. 
 
 Man's earlier surroundings were those of stress and 
 danger. His constant effort to defend his life and his 
 interests, together with his recent emergence from animal- 
 ism, made fear a hereditary feeling, and by far the most 
 powerful and elemental emotion. In his ignorance of the 
 nature and laws of the great natural forces playing upon 
 him and about him, in which he detected some seeming 
 intelligence or method, he attributed their action to gods 
 whom he constructed in his own image. They had the 
 same selfish passions as himself. They were to be feared 
 and placated by any and every means ; hence, the first gods 
 to arise in his mind were fear gods, and his first religion 
 was the reverence of fear. The evolution of social cus- 
 toms growing out of contact with his fellows resulted in 
 trust, and mutual dependence and love, until the gods had 
 become the gods of love, while religion changed to the 
 reverence of love. Likewise the many gods whom he 
 esteemed to be necessary to carry on the various interests 
 of the universe, gradually were merged into the conception 
 of one God, and his faith passed from polytheism to 
 monotheism. 
 
 This glimpse of the headlines of human development 
 reassures us that our origin is in the Absolute Being, and 
 
 [50] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ANTHROPOLOGY 
 
 its whole movement further prophesies that our destiny is 
 likewise in the attainment of Universal Consciousness. 
 Furthermore, that the process of evolution is the chosen 
 method for bringing a vast number of life expressions into 
 separate existence, giving them individuality, which is 
 clothed with personality or character. This is the Infinite 
 in man, and if he would know the Infinite Who is the 
 sum of all finites, plus, he must learn of him through the 
 Infinite in himself and others. There is in this thought 
 also the basis of universal hope, and hence a warrant for 
 the aspiration to highest attainment, for in science there 
 is no lost energy or substance or life. Some expressions 
 of life rise more rapidly to the Infinite standard, it is true, 
 by a vast impelling force in life, but that same truth 
 guarantees the persistence of each individual expression 
 until its highest destiny is reached. 
 
 To describe the stress under which progress has been 
 made, science has coined such an expression as the "sur- 
 vival of the fittest," which indicates that all things bearing 
 upon the life, the character, and the destiny of man, and 
 the things leading up to man, are incorporated into a 
 University of Hard Knocks. Its curriculum is provided 
 for in the actual causes and forces embodied in the ministry 
 of trial and trouble. The outcome of this can be prophe- 
 sied with certainty, for its results have been written in 
 the organized experiences of humanity, and they speak 
 with no uncertain testimony. 
 
 Accepting his matriculation gladly, man finds himself 
 allied with an intelligence in whom there is no variable- 
 
 [51] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 ness nor shadow of turning. He finds himself identified 
 with a love from which nothing is able to separate him, 
 and eventually he discovers that all the qualities of the 
 Infinite are perfectly reflected in himself. Then he has 
 graduated, for he has found the goal of life. 
 
 [52] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS 
 
 THE basic principle of economics is found in the 
 unity of all life, and in the solidarity of all its 
 contents and interests. The interests of the indi- 
 vidual are included in the larger interests of the com- 
 munity. Those in turn are vested in the State, while 
 those of the State are held in trust for the nation, and the 
 nation's interests can stand fairly only in their relation to 
 all peoples. Just as the State holds ultimate right to 
 individual holdings, so all interests of all nations are 
 vested in the ultimate wisdom and purpose back of all 
 life. There is, therefore, a broad fundamental principle 
 of community of interest in all things classed as pos- 
 sessions. 
 
 In the processes of production and consumption of 
 material, the key-note of all real economic progress is 
 co-operation. Competition may stimulate rivalry and 
 lead to greater prominence of the few, but it ends inev- 
 itably in needless waste, for the Ultimate Intelligence has 
 decreed that moth and rust and profligate sons and daugh- 
 ters shall work to bring these prominent ones back toward 
 the level of common interests. 
 
 Economic freedom rests upon two facts. One is the 
 individual's ability to produce. Full consciousness of that 
 ability is real wealth. The other is an equitable distribu- 
 tion of the results of this applied ability. In these results 
 
 [53] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 there is more than a supply for all legitimate needs of all 
 people. Economic freedom, therefore, is conditioned upon 
 the granting to others all the rights claimed for self, and 
 the measure of freedom is in exact proportion to the 
 mental attitude toward others and their rights. Wealth 
 further consists in what one is able to distribute prudently, 
 and this process creates a reflex supply, on the principle of 
 "Give and it shall be given to you again." This is 
 prefaced by the understood truth that you have already 
 had value received. The eternal principle of compensation 
 demands an equitable return, which either has already 
 been given or is to be received. Equitable compensation 
 given and required is the stepping-stone to lasting posses- 
 sions. Therefore, give value received. Pay as you come. 
 Pay as you go. Do not pauperize. Let each man feel 
 that the law of compensation demands an adequate return 
 for every service. It is an unwritten law, but a universal 
 proverb, that we appreciate that for which we give an 
 equitable compensation, and the obedience to that law is 
 the stepping-stone to material freedom. 
 
 The right to consume is predicated upon the fact that 
 it has been earned. He who receives without making 
 compensation is a loser at last. Any other basis of action 
 violates the law of compensation, and tends to pauperize 
 the consumer, for prosperity is what one is, and not the 
 abundance of things which he possesses. Apart from the 
 happiness and satisfaction in their use material resources 
 have no abiding value. 
 
 Ownership rests upon the conception of the owner 
 
 [54] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS 
 
 being a custodian of public resources, which office carries 
 the right to one's quota of supply, and the obligation of 
 stewardship in seeing that others have their quota. Just 
 as economy of personal energy demands the laying up of 
 a reserve for further service in living, so economy of 
 material resources is an obligation to conserve a reserve 
 supply for the practice of altruism. 
 
 The race that is recognized as the most thrifty of all 
 peoples was schooled by Jehovah in the principle of the 
 divine ownership of the land and all that the land could 
 produce. Of the land he was the tenant; of the produce 
 he was the steward. The custody of these was committed 
 to him as his right because of his relationship to the Most 
 High, and because no high degree of civilization was 
 possible apart from some form of individual ownership. 
 This ownership was safeguarded by two facts. The first 
 was: "It is. He that giveth thee power to get wealth"; 
 the other was that it was held in trust for others. The 
 gift of stewardship is as sacred as the gift of prophecy, 
 and sometimes more immediately practical. 
 
 The secret of abundance still rests in an understanding 
 of vital oneness and harmony with the All-abundance, and 
 there is given us a sure method of realizing it. It is, "Be 
 diligent in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." 
 Two counts of the three conditions of success in this great 
 formula of success have to do with what the person is, 
 rather than what he has. Riches of personal character 
 bring contentment, and also attract material prosperity. 
 
 [55] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 That service which is most freely and abundantly given 
 is the key to opulence, for it reacts upon him who gives it. 
 
 The laws of supply and demand automatically adjust 
 the two sides of the equation in all economic questions. 
 The demand clearly recognized will find that the supply 
 is at hand. We receive what we are really looking for, 
 with clear recognition of its source, and acceptance of its 
 conditions. Abundance and want are largely creatures of 
 our own suggestion. Most of the world's poverty rests 
 upon the highly suggestive heresy that there isn't enough 
 to go round, while in the Father's house there is in reality 
 an abundance and to spare. 
 
 The principle of value rests upon the utility, durability, 
 and quality of a given resource. 
 
 The tiller of the soil is a producer of elementary 
 resources which furnish the materials for progress. The 
 builder organizes these materials into forms of utility. 
 The educator is a developer of latent mental resources 
 which are more valuable and lasting than material ones. 
 The spiritual teacher is a producer of the highest of all 
 resources, for spiritual qualities are the fundamental and 
 everlasting standards of value. Economics must therefore 
 recognize that all values, whether they be called material, 
 mental or spiritual, come within the scope of its provision 
 for governing their production, use, and distribution. 
 
 The most stupendous loss of the race is not brought 
 about by disease or even by war, but is found in the 
 undeveloped mental and spiritual forces in the individual, 
 and collectively in the nation. 
 
 [56] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS 
 
 Economics has to do therefore with man's temporal 
 well-being in the widest sense. It refers not only to 
 material production, distribution, and consumption, but 
 to all the conditions of organized society as they are 
 advanced or retarded by the use or misuse of the resources 
 entering into social life. 
 
 Primal among these resources is the instinct of self- 
 preservation, and next to it comes the creative impulse 
 and power, an economical and wise use of which peoples 
 the earth with an ever increasing population of an ever 
 advancing type. It equips them with instruments and 
 implements for a steadily growing mastery of all life 
 forces, whether they be physical, mental or spiritual. 
 
 Lack of economical rule in the direction and expression 
 of this impulse results in waste in the forms of lust, 
 disease, race-suicide, defective children, fractional adults, 
 and in drink, drugs, and the instruments of destruction 
 and butchery as are found in modern warfare. No amount 
 of denial of the evil of these things will change them. 
 Only a return to the practice of justice and right, and 
 other ethical qualities in economics can stop the waste, 
 and make "the desert places blossom as the rose." 
 
 Economics is still further concerned with the proper 
 use of the individual's own vital forces, challenging his 
 right, for his own or others' sake, to waste them by 
 needless indulgence or by such selfish hoarding as comes 
 from a philosophy of egoism whose endless monotony 
 results at last in frazzled nerves, abnormal ideas, and 
 functional disorders, all of which reduce his efficiency. 
 
 [57] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 As the only remedy economics proposes an altruistic 
 activity whose variety and diversion tends to preserve 
 normality of mind and body, and so conserve the energies 
 for the highest ends. The warrant for this "seeking each 
 another's welfare" is found in the Master's summary of 
 the law, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." This 
 is at once ego-altruistic, and is the key to the highest 
 welfare of the race. 
 
 The increasing practice of celibacy among men and 
 women diverts the movement of creative energy from 
 social to personal and selfish ends, and threatens the social 
 economy of the world. To be sure, there are those who 
 have sublimated their creative forces by using them in 
 some form of creative productiveness for the social good, 
 such as a great book, a work of art, an organization, or 
 the perfection of a noble ideal, and these are justified by 
 the law of economics. But to choose the way of celibacy 
 for the purpose of evading the obligations of the social 
 order places one in the ranks of the violators of the law 
 of economics, and inevitably assigns him to that class who 
 "are poor indeed." 
 
 The growing belief in "birth control," resulting in 
 fewer children to the people who by virtue of superb 
 physical, mental and moral endowment are best fitted to 
 produce them, holds a subtle danger. It lies in the 
 question as to whether the belief is fostered and practiced 
 from these high and altruistic motives or rather to evade 
 the inconveniences and disabilities which attend the carry- 
 ing out of full obligation to society. It certainly gives 
 
 [58] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF ECONOMICS 
 
 pause to the thoughtful to see at the same time action of 
 the unrestricted fecundity of the less fitted, whose progeny 
 seem unlimited. Only clear and positive ^ teaching and 
 practice can keep the standard from moving downward 
 until it becomes a menace to the economics of the social 
 order. 
 
 Only the most careful study and application of the laws 
 of economics in the University of Hard Knocks can 
 steadily reduce and finally eliminate the criminal class, 
 the defectives of every sort, and people the world with 
 people who are made in the image and who demonstrate 
 that image through unselfish service. 
 
 The practice of these economic principles will graduate 
 the student in the University of Hard Knocks into the 
 possession of and the mastery over material possessions, 
 and into the more lasting values to be found in the under- 
 standing of mental and spiritual power. 
 
 [59] 
 
Right is the seed within the sod 
 
 That knows not who, but thro' the clod 
 Uplifts itself to seek for God. 
 
 Right is the impulse of the soul 
 
 That stirs through all the sense control 
 Insisting on a nobler goal. 
 
 Whatever helps you to the height 
 
 Of your best self, and gives you light, 
 To see God's truth that thing is right. 
 
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox 
 
 [60] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY THE SCIENCE OF THE MIND; THE STUDY 
 OF THE SELF 
 
 THE method is to gather the experiences of the race, 
 and out of them formulate the laws of mental ac- 
 tivity. Certain terms constantly recur in the study. 
 
 The spirit of man is the Divine Life as it came from 
 God the Absolute Spirit, sometimes called the super- 
 conscious or divine mind. 
 
 The soul is the undivided self. It is the spirit over- 
 laid with the influences and effects of material incarnation 
 and evolution. 
 
 The mind is the dual expression of the soul in con- 
 scious and unconscious activity. 
 
 The body is the instrument of the mind through which 
 it acts upon the material world and by which it is reacted 
 upon by material things. 
 
 The activities of the mind are included in the term 
 consciousness which includes both conscious and uncon- 
 scious processes. The main elements of consciousness are 
 known as Cognition, Feeling, and Will. Cognition and 
 Will face outward, and are the channels of perception 
 through which the soul knows material states, while Feel- 
 ing faces inward, whereby the soul may know itself. These 
 
 [61] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 overlap and are inseparable. If Cognition predominates 
 we have the coldly intellectual. If Feeling predominates 
 we have the emotional types. If Will predominates we 
 have the types of leadership and personal force. 
 
 The body influences the mind in that it is the mind's 
 instrument. The point of contact is the brain and nervous 
 system. Pressure on a nerve by impingement of the bones 
 or contraction of the muscles cuts off the motor nerve 
 supply and causes functional disorder, because the control 
 of the mind is impaired. Poor breathing leaves the blood 
 loaded with carbon-dioxide which renders the brain slug- 
 gish and thought power is reduced. Lack of exercise slows 
 up the liver and allows the blood from the portal circula- 
 tion loaded with poisons to pass back into the circulation, 
 poisoning the brain and depressing mental activity. These 
 and many other physical conditions impair the mechanism 
 through which thought finds outward expression. If the 
 instrument is unstrung harmony is destroyed and the 
 music becomes discord. 
 
 THE MIND INFLUENCES THE BODY 
 
 First: Objectively and consciously, by directing its 
 movements and activities, and determining the materials 
 with which it shall be built and renewed. 
 
 Second: Subjectively and unconsciously, by directing all 
 its functional processes, and reporting, classifying and 
 controlling all its sensations. Intense mental concentra- 
 tion, over-anxiety, such emotions as fear, worry, anger and 
 nervous shocks through bad news, etc., act first on the 
 
 [62] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 conscious, then on the unconscious side of mental life, 
 landing in the sympathetic nervous system, locking up the 
 innumerable reflexes of the organs, or over-stimulating 
 them, and thus cause a great many serious derangements 
 of the body. The converse is true, that right thinking 
 and normal emotional states keep all the functional ac- 
 tivities in vigorous and healthy condition when the 
 physical laws are obeyed. 
 
 The conscious side of mental activity begins after birth. 
 It is developed to enable the soul to find its way safely 
 through the earthly labyrinth. It is the architect of the 
 body, mind and character. 
 
 The unconscious activities are present with the first 
 cell with which our bodies start. The unconscious fashions 
 and forms our bodies according to a plan carried over in 
 consciousness from our ancestors. It renews our bodies 
 with the materials that are consciously furnished it. It is 
 the builder and renewer of the body. 
 
 The conscious activities arise in reason. The uncon- 
 scious activities arise in suggestion, by affirmation or im- 
 plication. 
 
 The mind also acts and reacts upon itself. The steady 
 assertion of having a strong will or a perfect memory, 
 tends to produce a strong will and a good memory, while 
 such statements as "I am losing my memory or will 
 power," tends to weaken them. Affirmations of this kind 
 made to others will prove helpful and will react upon 
 the one affirming them. All the mental powers like will, 
 
 [63] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 memory, reason and judgment, gain strength by being 
 called into action, just as a muscle grows strong by being 
 exercised. Every appeal to turn aside from a chosen plan 
 of action is a test a temptation, which, yielded to, 
 weakens the will and the character, but denied, strengthens 
 the will and beautifies character. 
 
 Out of human experience there have been formulated 
 standards of action for all the mental and spiritual 
 faculties. These followed slavishly destroy all initiative, 
 while disregarded entirely they expose the doer to all sorts 
 of bad results. Followed as general landmarks, leaving 
 freedom for personal initiative and action they result in 
 the highest attainable effect. 
 
 Meeting and solving the great problems of life as con- 
 tained in philosophy, science and art, gives added power 
 to every mental faculty; wrestling with the problem of 
 what is best for self and others and then doing the best, 
 issues in strength and moral character; seeking to know 
 and fulfill all relationships with the spirit, back of all 
 these gives spirituality. 
 
 Continued action of a given sort forms a habit of ac- 
 tion. Continued thinking in certain ways results in 
 thought habits. Continued dwelling of the mind upon a 
 single thing until it is ever uppermost in consciousness, 
 produces a fixed idea. Allowing the imagination to dwell 
 on and clothe this fixed idea with unusual power and 
 effects, will end in an obsession. Constantly dwelling on 
 imaginary things will tend to produce an hallucination, 
 
 [64] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 while allowing yourself to think that the world is run by 
 chance and whim will eventually cause the mind to drift 
 into any sort of a phobia. Turn the mind to behold law, 
 and order, and wisdom under the direction of an Ab- 
 solute Mind, and all these mental errors will end. 
 
 The psychology of pleasure has never been formulated. 
 When the engine is running smoothly and cool, and all 
 the cylinders are firing, tanks are full and distributors all 
 working, and the car hums along, the motorist surrenders 
 to the joy of movement. But let something go wrong 
 a spark plug or cylinder get fouled with carbon, or the 
 radiator get to boiling, or a queer knock start up, and the 
 car is stopped, the joy clothes are laid aside and the ma- 
 chinist begins to explore for the cause of the trouble. 
 He knows that it is caused by something he has negelected 
 and he usually berates himself for not attending to it. 
 
 When the mind is clear and the spirit is joyous and 
 the body is filled with vigor and energy and comfort, man 
 goes forth with the very joy of living. He knows that it 
 is the result of careful living, and he finds satisfaction in 
 doing the things that give him such satisfaction. But if 
 his spirit is clouded and his mind sluggish and heavy, and 
 his body filled with pain and discomfort, he knows that it 
 is the result of neglect of the simple laws of body and 
 mind. He begins to analyze the situation that he may find 
 the exact cause, and he usually finds its, and begins to 
 make things worse by blaming himself and pitying him- 
 self, instead of resolutely setting to work to do the things 
 that will right the wrong conditions. 
 
 [65] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Self-introspection is about the worst thing he can do, 
 yet he proceeds to analyze every act and every motive until 
 the mind is so rilled with these elements of self-analysis 
 that he cannot turn to thinking and doing those construc- 
 tive things that would restore him to normal. The anal- 
 ysis should be made by someone else and should not 
 magnify details, and should be aimed at finding and setting 
 to rights the wrong mental state. 
 
 The mental cure for wrong habits of action is to choose 
 a correct action and repeat it until it becomes a habit 
 which replaces the bad one. Wrong thought habits are 
 righted by persistently thinking of right things. "What- 
 soever things are good, pure, true," etc., "think on these 
 things." Unfix that fixed idea ,by resolutely turning your 
 attention to other things. Get rid of your obsessions and 
 hallucinations by making your thoughts and imaginations 
 line up with those of healthy, normal people. 
 
 The first great mental law of activity and growth is 
 to avoid monotony. Mental normality depends on varia- 
 tion. The monotonous drip of water, the tick of a clock, 
 the repetition of an idea, the monotone of a voice, all tend 
 to suspend mental activity, and produce a state resembling 
 sleep. Diversion of the mind to other thoughts, to other 
 activities, and to the welfare of other people is the only 
 way to keep from being mentally smothered with selfish- 
 ness. 
 
 Let the mind dwell upon the world of nature, its life, 
 its growth, its color, music, beauty and peace. Meditate 
 
 [66] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 upon the world of people, their thoughts, feelings, aims 
 and achievements. Cultivate altruism. Direct the track 
 of mental vision upward. 
 
 The spirit of man finds its completeness in oneness of 
 purpose and character with the Absolute, in other words, 
 in spiritual consciousness. 
 
 The soul finds its rest in harmony with other souls or 
 cosmic consciousness. 
 
 The mind finds rest in the thought world of thinking 
 beings or mental consciousness. 
 
 The body finds normal health when it is in harmony 
 with the laws of the universe of which it is a part. 
 
 Life finds its goal of perfection here in that harmony 
 which comes through the attainment and supremacy of 
 spiritual consciousness. "The words that I speak and the 
 works I do are not Mine but the Father's." Identify 
 yourself with the purposes and aims of the Unlimited 
 Intelligence and Goodness, so that you have a specific 
 part and place, then act the part and fill the place. 
 
 Just as the eye is at rest on the furthest point of vision, 
 so the mind is at rest when it is contemplating things 
 furthest removed from self. Self-introspection is the 
 most difficult and thankless of all self-appointed tasks. 
 Leave it to others. 
 
 The greatest thought possible is that of the Absolute 
 Being, and to calmly and trustfully turn the mind toward 
 Him is to find perfect peace and rest. The value of 
 religious meditation, therefore, is that it keeps the atten- 
 
 [67] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 tion of the mind away from the body, and gives the health 
 forces a chance to build and keep it well. This is aside 
 from the fact that the power of a suggestion is measured 
 by the estimated value of the truth dwelt upon, and by 
 the greatness of the personality speaking it. 
 
 The psychological lessons to be learned in the Uni- 
 versity of Hard Knocks are many. The cardinal ones are: 
 
 Don't worry! Like a rocking chair worry gives a vast 
 amount of agitation and no progress. Get the calmness of 
 trust and move forward. Close the mental door in the 
 face of such callers as depression, "the blues," and melan- 
 choly. These are all states of vacuity. The sky is blue 
 only where there is nothing in sight. Fill your mind with 
 stars of hope; people it with great resolves and ideals. 
 Take a vigorous walk; breathe deeply; wake your solar 
 plexus; oxygenate your brain; do the Nebuchadnezzar 
 walk to wake up your liver and portal circulation; get 
 busy helping some one else and your "blue devils" will 
 go out into the abyss not to return. Replace your fear 
 with love. Count your blessings and forget the other 
 things. Believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts. Talk 
 about your beliefs and keep still about your doubts, and 
 you will soon dwell in the land of beliefs and of reality. 
 Avoid anger, hatred, envy and jealousy as you would the 
 plague. Eliminate self-pity and self -blame. It makes your 
 trouble two-story. Live in the sweet NOW AND NOW. Do 
 the task in hand. Every day is a new beginning. Let 
 there be no yesterday nor tomorrow. Lift the corners of 
 
 [68] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 your mouth. Keep smiling. Do not blame others. They 
 did not understand maybe they could not. Forgive them 
 and love them, and leave them off your calling list until 
 they can understand. You cannot get along with every- 
 body the Master did not. It is best to keep most people 
 at arm's length. Your friendship would be more lasting. 
 Walk with God. Keep step right, left, forward 
 march ! 
 
 [69] 
 
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting 
 
 The soul that rises with us, our life star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And cometh from afar. 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come, 
 
 From God, who is our home. 
 
 Wm. Wordsworth. 
 
 [70] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 PHILOSOPHY is unavoidable. Every normal child is 
 a walking interrogation point. Every man is a 
 philosopher. He begins by distinguishing between 
 that which is self and the not-self. He progresses by 
 asking such questions as: 
 
 What is man ? 
 
 What are his faculties and powers? 
 
 Whence did he come? 
 
 Whither is he going? 
 
 How shall he guide himself ? 
 
 What is the vast universe around him? 
 
 How did it arise ? 
 
 How is it ordered and maintained ? 
 
 What is man's relation to it, and to the great Power 
 behind the veil, manifested in wondrous movements and 
 changes ? 
 
 What is the nature of this Power? 
 
 What are his duties toward it, toward himself and 
 toward his fellows? 
 
 What knowledge of these can he acquire ? 
 
 What are his duties and aids for their achievement? 
 
 These, and like questions, indicate the province of 
 philosophy. They are so vital that every rational mind 
 engages in the pursuit of knowledge about some or all 
 of them. 
 
 [71] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 When the scientific method has gathered a mass of 
 correlated facts concerning any of these topics, and has 
 indicated the law of their expression, philosophy is at 
 once summoned to construct a purpose and an end, and 
 out of these constructive processes we have natural, 
 mental, moral, spiritual and countless other philosophies. 
 Every imaginable topic reveals an aptitude for philosophic 
 treatment, and furnishes a basis for some special philos- 
 ophy. It is, therefore, logical to seek for some general 
 principle underlying all and common to all, and binding 
 them together into an unity, such as is found in the 
 statement, "By Whom all things were made and by Whom 
 they consist." 
 
 Philosophy, therefore, begins with the reason and end 
 of countless things. It concludes with an ultimate reason 
 for all things. It begins with loving pursuit after 
 knowledge. It ends with the apprehension of eternal and 
 unchanging verities. 
 
 Philosophy following this method brings us to the Ulti- 
 mate Truth God is the One Reality, out of Whose 
 spiritual substance all things have been made. He is the 
 One Life of Whom all living forms partake. The mate- 
 rial universe is the organism through which He expresses 
 Himself, just as man's body is the organism for his 
 expression. His universe is ordered and maintained by 
 His divine energy, working through chosen methods under 
 the direction of His Will. 
 
 Man's relation to God is twofold. His body is material 
 and is subject to the laws of matter. "Dust thou art." 
 
 [72] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The real self is an expression of the Life of God. He is 
 partaker of the divine nature; is subject to the laws of 
 spiritual Being; has the possibilities of the divine Char- 
 acter. "In the likeness of God created He him." When 
 the ends of life have been achieved, "his spirit returns to 
 God Who gave it." 
 
 The relation of God to all material things is that of 
 immanence. He indwells in all things. Man's relation 
 to Him is inherent oneness, and is best expressed in the 
 term sonship. 
 
 The method of the world's creation is an evolutionary 
 process. Life itself in its material expression is an evolu- 
 tion, from a cell up through all the countless forms of 
 life to man himself, who alone is capable of fully express- 
 ing in a human personality the qualities of the divine 
 Character. 
 
 In the evolutionary process man lived in the lives of 
 all his ancestors, receiving from them physical, mental 
 and moral characteristics, which have been impressed upon 
 his spirit. To eliminate these marks and influences of 
 animalism and savagery, and to rise to the power of 
 spiritual vision so that he can discern the changeless reality 
 of the spirit, and also learn the changing unreality of 
 matter, so that he may live "not after the flesh but after 
 the spirit," and thus attain to that mastery which is the 
 pre-eminent mark of the divine Image, is his task. For 
 his guidance in material things his objective reason and 
 judgment are developed for this stage of his existence. 
 For his moral and spiritual guidance the Eternal reason 
 
 [73] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 within him is the final authority as to his moral action 
 and spiritual growth. For his assistance spiritual science 
 has developed certain great ideals which he may follow 
 until by an inner assimilative process he is clothed with 
 the brightness of spiritual glory and the express image of 
 the divine person. 
 
 To reach these ideals philosophy has developed certain 
 rules of conduct in relation to his fellows, to his sur- 
 roundings, to himself, and to God, which human experi- 
 ence has proven to make for moral character. These 
 experiences are incorporated into certain great statements 
 found in the Bible and other sacred books. 
 
 It has furnished him with rules for physical health, the 
 keeping of which shall make his physical life an open 
 channel through which the unspoilable health shall flow. 
 
 It has discovered to him the scope of his mental powers, 
 their almost unlimited possibilities, and the supreme end 
 of the mastery of all things, by the mastery of self. 
 
 It holds before him for spiritual guidance such rules of 
 spiritual activity as faith, hope, love, prayer, confession, 
 forgiveness, and absolution, and aids him in their enforce- 
 ment by the example in every age of some super-man, or 
 divinely illumined one, like Enoch who "walked with 
 God"; like Abraham who "was a friend of God"; like 
 Moses who "talked with God"; and like Jesus of Naza- 
 reth, Who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God." 
 
 Imitating these examples in his effort to meet the 
 ceaseless demands of life, man finds himself becoming like 
 them. The hereditary influences in him are constantly 
 
 [74] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PHILOSOPHY 
 
 being appealed to by the things about him, the yielding to 
 which causes him to "miss the mark" of high attainment, 
 and if repeated causes him to live in a state of human- 
 consciousness, called "the law of sin and death," with its 
 attendant pain, ills and troubles. It is his right to live in 
 Divine-Consciousness by resisting the appeals of the senses, 
 and by obeying "the law of the Spirit of Life in Christ 
 Jesus," and so be free from these hindrances. 
 
 The effort to resist the impulses of the flesh and to 
 recover from their effects when he yields, opens to him the 
 full curriculum of the University of Hard Knocks. 
 
 [75] 
 
All are but parts of one stupendous whole, 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul. 
 
 Pope 
 
 [76] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 
 
 DIS-EASE is the lack of ease. It may arise from 
 without or from conditions within. Germs from 
 the outside find soil in the body for lodgment and 
 set up a great variety of diseases. The bacilli of tuber- 
 culosis can find enlodgment only in an under-nourished 
 body ; small-pox can find a foothold only in impure blood ; 
 ptomaines can thrive only in an acid condition of the 
 secretions of the digestive tract, and so on through a list 
 of ills. Every one of these conditions is the result of 
 violating the laws of health sin against the body or the 
 mind for undernourished conditions may arise not only 
 from lack of proper food, but from lack of assimilation 
 through a high tension of mental states, and from neglect 
 of proper exercise. Acidity may be caused not only 
 by the food one eats, but by nervous tension, anxiety, fears 
 and jealousy. Thus it will be found that most of our 
 ills can be traced to some violation of the law; hence the 
 first step to recovery is to "cease to do evil" stop violat- 
 ing the law then "learn to do well" begin to keep 
 the law. 
 
 Chemistry following the scientific method of noting the 
 properties of elementary and compound substances, and 
 formulating the laws of their atomic relations, has found 
 certain agents with a specific action on the human system 
 for remedial purposes, as, for instance : aconite in the case 
 
 [77] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 of fevers; quinine in combating malaria; thymol in eradi- 
 cating hookworm. 
 
 Physiological and biological chemistry finds the presence 
 of certain chemical properties in various bodily secretions 
 in healthy and in diseased conditions, and sets about to 
 find material chemical agents with corrective value. This 
 knowledge is standardized not only by the knowledge of 
 the chemical action of an agent upon a given material 
 substance, but also by endless experimentation, both on 
 animals and on human beings. 
 
 In like manner emotional chemistry, still in its infancy, 
 is slowly but surely determining that certain emotional 
 states resulting from mental and spiritual activity or in- 
 dolence, have a marked and specific influence upon the 
 chemical character of bodily secretions, hence upon the 
 nervous system, and finally upon functional activities. 
 
 Physiology reveals that the body is filled with certain 
 forms of automatic activity, called reflexes, which orig- 
 inate and carry out specific movements without any direct 
 communication to the brain or command from it. These 
 may act from purely physical stimuli, as, for instance, 
 percussion of the patella reflex makes the foot kick for- 
 ward, or percussion of the seventh cervical vertebra slows 
 the heart's action, or percussion of the fifth dorsal causes 
 the pyloric end of the stomach to lower and expand, 
 emptying its contents into the duodenum. There are 
 other reflexes connected with these same organs, having 
 an opposite effect. 
 
 [78] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 
 
 The functional activity of all these organs is controlled 
 and may be altered by these reflexes. Spinal misadjust- 
 ments and other unusual conditions of the frame-work 
 of the body may bring pressure to bear upon a given 
 nerve, and so influence the action of the organ with which 
 it connects. Furthermore, there are emotional states which 
 act as stimuli, causing these reflexes to operate and quicken 
 or slow up the functional activities of any organ involved. 
 Fear causes the heart to move upward and backward, 
 giving the sensation of the heart being in the throat. 
 Anger and other emotions affect in similar manner the 
 stomach, liver, intestines, and the whole system of the 
 vegetative organs. Strong mental and emotional states 
 may also contract the muscles, choking the action of the 
 nerves, or getting the frame-work out of alignment so as 
 to impinge upon the nerves and thus lead, through the 
 derangement of the reflexes, to all sorts of functional 
 troubles. Business or other anxieties and mental strain, 
 will produce over acidity in the stomach, and this con- 
 tinued and intensified will result in ulceration, and this 
 neglected lead to abnormal cellular activity, known as 
 cancer, tumor, etc. 
 
 Mental and emotional states have a decided influence 
 on the blood pressure. Anger and kindred emotions raise 
 the pressure while fears of all kinds lower the pressure. 
 This change of blood pressure in turn affects the mental 
 states and functional activities. This at once indicates 
 that even in the treatment by purely spiritual methods 
 
 [79] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 scientific method must be employed, giving to the anger- 
 habited patient the quieting and calming truth, and giving 
 to the phobia-habited the strong, invigorating phases of 
 the truth. 
 
 With this brief analysis of the causes and nature of 
 physical ills, the system of normal, rational cure must fol- 
 low the Law of Cause and Effect. 
 
 The medical doctor has through the medium of chem- 
 istry a large number of agents with a more or less specific 
 action which experience proves helpful to readjust the 
 chemical conditions of the body and relieve the various 
 toxic states existing in the body. He has also the knowl- 
 edge of dietetic chemistry in the way of food values, food 
 combinations; also the value of rest, the proper methods 
 of hygiene, as well as diversion of the mind. 
 
 The drugless practioner has for his agents a knowledge 
 of these powerful reflexes of the entire body, of the 
 locations of the nerve centers controlling the various func- 
 tional activities, and the methods of stimulating or in- 
 hibiting their action. He likewise has access to the knowl- 
 edge and use of the laws of nutrition, rest, hygiene and 
 mental diversion. 
 
 The doctor of mental therapeutics has a powerful sys- 
 tem of agents in the knowledge and use of the mental 
 powers and their processes in the governing and control- 
 ling of functional activities. He has a knowledge and skill 
 in the specific effects of the mind on all functional ac- 
 tivities, and all organic processes. He has that most 
 
 [80] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 
 
 powerful of all corrective agents, Suggestion, by which 
 the mind may bring to bear almost unlimited stimulus to 
 energize bodily activities and regulate the entire physical 
 condition. These he may use in conjunction with the 
 drugless healer's methods, and in co-operation with the 
 doctor of medicine. 
 
 The doctor of spiritual healing forces, while coming 
 last in the enumeration, actually stands first in importance, 
 because he is dealing in the primary forces and the change- 
 less realities of life and energy. Using suggestion, his 
 healing efforts are aided by the most powerful suggestion 
 possible for the mind to grasp THE THOUGHT OF THE 
 ABSOLUTE BEING, as the ultimate healing force. He also 
 has access, and consistently so, to all the knowledge and 
 use of mechanical manipulation, and finally, his co-opera- 
 tion with the material healing agencies is priceless, inas- 
 much as all of these agencies owe their potency to the 
 great Physician, Whose he is and Whom he serves. 
 
 If, therefore, one would be emancipated from disease, 
 suffering, and other ills, and live in perfect health, he 
 may find his liberty, his freedom from the bondage of 
 material ills, and his health, at the Hands of his God, 
 Who is the Author of health and all of the agents of 
 health, and the Director of all the forces and processes 
 and laws involved in health. 
 
 [81] 
 
All nature is but art unknown to thee ; 
 
 All chance, direction, which thou canst not see, 
 All discord, harmony not understood, 
 
 All partial evil, universal good: 
 And spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
 
 One truth is clear whatever is, is right. 
 
 [82] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 REMARKS AT THE OPENING OF THE THEOLOGICAL 
 SEMINARY, UNIVERSITY OF HARD KNOCKS 
 
 RELIGION is the great historic force. It has made and 
 unmade all the civilizations of the world. Man is a 
 religious animal. The moral sense is universal. The 
 phrase "I ought" is in every language. The first rational 
 movements are seeking after some personal good, and 
 logically this seeking leads to the Supreme Good. The 
 soul intuitively rights itself in its bearings, just as it 
 instinctively shuns the things that work ill. In all its 
 activities and seeking, the central thought uttered or 
 unexpressed is, "Where is He?" 
 
 The great law of being is that every being finds its 
 satisfaction in the fullness of the elements of which it is 
 composed. The birds of the forest, the cattle of the hills, 
 the finny tribes of the deep, and all living things in which 
 the material predominates, eat their fill and are satisfied. 
 But man eats and is still hungry; he studies and is still 
 restless and unsatisfied; he sweeps the whole gamut of 
 sensation; he adventures in every field of knowledge and 
 wisdom, and cries out that "it is all vanity and vexation 
 of spirit." With this world's things he is never satisfied. 
 "There is a spirit in man," said Job, "and the inspiration 
 of the Almighty has given him understanding." He is 
 
 [83] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 satisfied only in the conscious oneness with the Eternal 
 Spirit from whence he came. He is spirit and only spirit 
 can fill him. He came from God and only God can 
 satisfy him. To find that Being, to know Him, to live 
 with Him in spiritual communion, is the end and supreme 
 aim of living, and it is the work of this school to teach the 
 nature of that Being, the laws of His existence, the forms 
 of His activities, His relation to the world and to man, 
 likewise to teach man's relation, duty and privilege 
 toward Him. 
 
 The facts of the spiritual life are subject to scientific 
 treatment and philosophic formula, just as any material 
 or mental facts are. Science can have no facts nor group- 
 ing of facts, nor theory concerning these facts, in which 
 there is not a place for Him as their first Cause. Philos- 
 ophy can furnish no scheme of aim and end of living that 
 does not arise at least to greet the dignity of the Supreme 
 Wisdom Himself. Art can formulate no rules and 
 methods of living that do not have Him for their final 
 objective. Medicine can have no potency or specific virtue 
 in which He is not present, nor can it act in any way 
 except as the agent of Him Who is our Help, the Great 
 Physician. The laws of material success even can find no 
 rule so far-reaching, and no example so potent, as that 
 one given to the Hebrew people, "I Am the Lord that 
 teacheth thee to get money," or that other formula of 
 Christian peoples, "Be diligent in business, fervent in 
 spirit, serving the Lord." 
 
 We have, therefore, in this teaching to deal with the 
 
 [84] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 ultimates, the finalities of existence, as they are found in 
 Him Who is the First and the Last. 
 
 POSTULATES OF BEING 
 
 There is one Being the Absolute from whence comes 
 all life, power and manifestation. This Final Causality 
 is called God, Mind, Spirit, Principle, Intelligence, and 
 other terms of personality, relationship and condition. 
 
 He is the Omni the All. He is the Uncreated Sub- 
 stance, the Source of all things, visible and invisible. 
 
 God is Spirit. He is not a spirit, but Universal, 
 Uncreated Spirit. Spirit is without form or parts. Hu- 
 man spirits conform to the body in which they dwell, but 
 He is Absolute Reality. All material forms are relative 
 reality; all material things are temporary instruments of 
 expression, the organism of which He is the active life. 
 His movements in material incarnation are the text-books 
 in which we learn of Him. 
 
 GOD IS THE ABSOLUTE AND ETERNAL 
 
 There are no limitations in God, the Spirit. Time and 
 space do not exist to Him. All time is now; everywhere 
 is here. The only limitations of being are those found in 
 the conditions of material expression. In these He works 
 by law, and does not work otherwise. In His Own 
 Potential Spiritual Completeness He is the Unconditioned 
 Absolute. 
 
 GOD IS OMNIPRESENT 
 
 There is no place where He is not equally present. He 
 is an Eternal Here. Every living soul is the center of 
 Divine Being. Every spot is Holy Ground. Every task 
 
 [85] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 is a Sacred Duty. Every service, sacred or secular, is 
 a Sacrament. 
 
 GOD IS OMNIPOTENT 
 
 Energy, whether potential or kinetic, is God at rest or 
 in action. "Power belongeth to God." He is the Uni- 
 versal Servitor, "working in us both to will and to do," 
 and in His work "He is able to do exceedingly abundantly 
 above all that we can ask or think." 
 
 GOD IS OMNISCIENT 
 
 He is the All-knowing One. He is the Full, Final, 
 Absolute Truth. His methods of thought are such that 
 the beginning, the middle and the end are present to Him 
 in the Eternal Now. There are no mysteries in Divine 
 Consciousness. These are merely the result of limited, 
 human consciousness. 
 
 GOD IS PERSON 
 
 He reveals Himself in the terms of relationship. This 
 may be for our accommodation, but He also bears the 
 stamp of personality. He has the power to know, to feel 
 and to will, and reveals the character that results from 
 the exercise of these faculties. His is Infinite Personality, 
 and His Personality is apart from all idea of form. Man's 
 personality is identified with the human form. The ele- 
 ments of personality are mental and spiritual, and these 
 alone constitute the Image of God in which we are made. 
 
 GOD IS THE SELF-EXISTENT CREATOR 
 
 With Him there is no beginning nor end. "In the be- 
 ginning God." He is the Alpha of all beginnings, and the 
 
 [86] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 Omega of all endings. All things else begin and end in 
 Him. He is the Totality of Being. 
 
 GOD IS IMMANENT 
 
 He is the Administrator of all movements and changes 
 in the universe. He indwells in all living forms. He ex- 
 presses Himself in all living things. "The invisible things 
 of God, even His Eternal Power and Godhead, are 
 clearly seen from the created world, being understood by 
 the things that are made." He lives out His spiritual ac- 
 tivities in the spirits of men. "That which may be known 
 of God is seen in us, for God hath revealed Himself 
 in us." 
 
 GOD IS THE FATHER 
 
 As the Author of our being, He is the Universal Serv- 
 itor and Provider. He careth for the sparrows, feeds the 
 ravens, clothes the lilies, numbers the hairs of our heads, 
 and is identified with every experience of every living soul 
 and of every living thing. 
 
 GOD IS THE SAVIOUR 
 
 He helps in every need, is "touched with the feeling of 
 our infirmities," enters intimately into all our experiences, 
 is acquainted with all our griefs, stands with us in trouble, 
 and shows us the way out. 
 
 GOD IS THE COMFORTER 
 
 He enters into sympathetic relationship in all our ex- 
 periences, encourages when we halt, and strengthens when 
 we are weak, guides us in uncertainty, upholds us in 
 trial, and makes us to abound in every good word and 
 work. 
 
 [87] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 HE IS THE GOD OF LOVE 
 
 His Name and Nature is Love. Inasmuch as the lan- 
 guage of loving is giving He is ever giving of His bound- 
 less store to His children whom He loves. Since He is 
 Omnipresent, love is the universal moral force. His Love 
 is the inspiration for every good, the cure for every moral 
 ill. It casts out fear ; it makes an end of hatred, envy and 
 all other evil passions. It never fails. The soul, led and 
 inspired by the God of Love, can know no permanent 
 failure or reverse. It has entered upon the pathway that 
 "shines brighter to the perfect day." It has entered upon 
 a day which has no noontide height from which to slowly 
 decline, but upward to whose zenith the soul may rise to 
 communion with the princes of the spiritual realm, to be 
 bright with equal brightness, and great with equal glory. 
 
 These are postulates of Being, the assumptions of 
 spiritual truth, founded on the organized experiences of 
 the race, announced by the seers of all races and times, 
 and recorded in the sacred books of all peoples. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO THE WORLD 
 
 God is the Creator. "All things were made by Him." 
 "That which hath been made was life in Him." His Own 
 Spiritual Substance furnished the elements for material 
 creation. Evolution was the method of creation, and 
 just as creation proceeded by a principle of development, 
 it is maintained by specific laws of movement. Law is 
 simply the method by which the forces and powers of 
 the Almighty operate in carrying on the countless pro- 
 
 [88] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 cesses in the universe. Things do not happen by chance, 
 but by orderly procedure. 
 
 These laws are uniform. "He sends rain on the just 
 and the unjust," meaning that the laws of the precipita- 
 tion of moisture are in no wise related in their action to 
 the moral or spiritual condition of people. Lightning 
 strikes a church about as often as it does a saloon. Riches 
 or poverty come to the good and the bad alike, if they 
 obey or disobey the laws of prosperity. Small-pox is no 
 respecter of persons when the blood is impure. Tuber- 
 culosis assails the best and the worst alike if the laws of 
 nutrition have been broken. When the properous and 
 content settles down to vegetate and stop growing, the 
 eternal law of progress scatters his flocks and his family, 
 smashes his credit and assails his body until he gets up 
 and moves on. Vibration and ceaseless motion are the 
 conditions of life's continuance. If God ever says, "Stand 
 still," it is only that the soul may hear Him say, "Move 
 forward." Growth, health, prosperity, happiness, etc., are 
 results of Divine Energy, moving in the channels or 
 laws governing each. God does not grow new lung tissue 
 in a diseased lung. He does not grow a new arm on an 
 old stump. That is not His law of producing such things. 
 He made the laws and He fulfills them; otherwise He 
 would cease to be God the Perfect One. 
 
 Man can be God-like only by knowing and keeping the 
 laws that apply to His Life. It is conceivable that the 
 ordinary law of procedure may be superseded by a higher 
 
 [89] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 one, and so results be obtained outside or above that which 
 occurs under normal conditions. The so-called miracles, 
 or wonder works are reasonably explainable in this way. 
 Because of the immanence or indwelling of God in all 
 living forms, it follows that there is no movement under 
 any law in which He is not directly present. It is His 
 method to work from the inside rather than from without. 
 In dealing, therefore, with the forces of the universe as 
 we touch them and they touch us, we are to remember 
 that because of His indwelling we are dealing directly 
 with Him, even though we are using material agencies. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO MAN 
 
 Man is the glory and crown of creative process. He is 
 the climacteric of material evolution. He is the most 
 complex of all organisms. He can obey more laws of 
 life, and hence can experience and express more of life 
 than all other living things. 
 
 The spirit in man is of the same essence of being as 
 God. This unity of life, this oneness of nature, power, 
 and purpose, is expressed under the term of sonship, while 
 God is called "the Father of Spirits," through subjection 
 to Whom and in communion with Whom, man lives. 
 Life's greatest moment begins in the full realization and 
 acceptance of this oneness and sonship; thenceforth He 
 finds a familiar voice within himself, crying out to the 
 Great Absolute, and saying, "Abba, Father." This is the 
 hour in which he is "born again" or "from above," in 
 which he steps out of human-consciousness into Divine- 
 
 [90] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 Consciousness. Thenceforth, his task is to meet his earthly 
 contacts and their results, and to so master them and 
 eliminate out of his character their hurtful influences and 
 incorporate their good effects, that he shall show forth the 
 character of God. In this work he is a co-worker with 
 God, a partner in the world affairs. 
 
 God is the Being of Ceaseless Activity. He worketh 
 hitherto and evermore. Man is likewise a partaker of this 
 divine impulse to work, whose unfoldment finds work a 
 necessity. He is to work out his salvation from sickness, 
 sin, heredity, and environment, into the full enjoyment of 
 sonship and of divine masterfulness, knowing that "God 
 worketh in him both to will and to do." If a man will not 
 work "neither shall he eat." The nation or individual 
 who will not work invites decay and death. Work is esti- 
 mated a curse only by a lazy man, but is a blessing un- 
 told to him who accepts his place in the divine scheme of 
 living. He who attains a success and retires violates the 
 first law of being. Every attainment is the beginning of 
 a new task. The crown of every evolutionary process 
 is but the foundation of another great cycle of activity 
 and development. Every seeming failure in any of these 
 processes is a shunt in a new direction toward success. 
 Each of the seven great stages of material creation was 
 the foundation for a further upward move, and the present 
 stage of human activity and achievement is but the ground- 
 work for a new world of activity in a spiritual realm. 
 
 If a man disobeys the laws of his sonship to the Ab- 
 
 [91] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 solute, he receives the consequences or effects of a sin. As 
 soon as he obeys the law it is remedial and he is saved. 
 He is constantly beset with temptations to violate the law 
 for his own immediate pleasure. If he yields he must ac- 
 cept the consequences. If he resists the temptation he 
 loses a moment's pleasure, but the law rewards him with 
 a greater gain. If he is an A. B. he does not practice 
 sin; he cannot sin because he is "born from above." It 
 is the same moral "cannot" by which a boy might strike 
 his mother, but his love is the restraining power, and he 
 "cannot." 
 
 The relationship is, therefore, the relation of the whole 
 and the part; the relationship of a unity facing in two 
 directions. Man is a part of God's life as truly as his 
 finger is a part of his hand, and because of this his standard 
 of living and of achievement is set from the standpoint of 
 spiritual supremacy. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO PRAYER 
 
 God hears and answers prayer. He encourages the sons 
 of men to pray in prosperity and in adversity; in health 
 and in sickness; in every condition and estate, and about 
 everything. 
 
 In vain shall man cry, "where shall I find God that 
 I may pray to him," until he looks within his own spirit. 
 God is the being without circumference whose center is 
 everywhere. The center of Spirit is within man, out 
 from which focus its lines diverge toward omnipresence. 
 Turning the mind to this center is prayer. It is provi- 
 
 [92] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 dence within calling upon providence without. It is de- 
 mand calling on supply. It is effect changed into cause. 
 It is the ground for certainty that all true prayer is 
 answered. 
 
 Prayer is the silent or expressed desire of the soul to 
 come into the Presence of Him Whom it recognizes as 
 Being, Will, Wisdom, Power, and Love. 
 
 Prayer opens up the channels of communication be- 
 tween the Infinite and the finite, so that the true aliment 
 of the soul may steadily flow in, renewing, enriching and 
 empowering the life. 
 
 Prayer takes on the form of confession by which the 
 soul unloads its sense of wrong-doing by telling it to 
 Him. 
 
 Prayer is the universal and instinctive call of the soul 
 in the hour of its extremity. 
 
 Prayer in the form of praise is the irresistible impulse of 
 the heart in the hour of attainment. 
 
 Prayer is the spontaneous ejaculation of the soul in 
 the moment of imminent need or of supreme triumph. 
 
 Prayer is talking to God. Prayer is listening to God 
 speak. 
 
 Prayer is thinking the thoughts of God and so directing 
 the creative forces of God. 
 
 Prayer for forgiveness must be prefaced by a forgiving 
 spirit toward others and ourselves. Prayer is not heard, 
 at least, not answered, so long as we blame ourselves or 
 others. 
 
 [93] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Prayer takes on the character of importunity when the 
 need is great and the obstacles insurmountable. Under the 
 importunate prayer the soul gets a vision of what is 
 wanted. Its purpose becomes clearer. The resolution to 
 have it becomes more definite, and the faith that we can 
 have it reaches that triumphant note of realization, which 
 cries, "It shall be done," and it is. For this faith, all 
 the forces without and within, upon whose action the 
 answer depends, have waited and do wait. Spiritual under- 
 standing, through receptivity, and the divine compelling 
 note of faith, set all the spiritual forces into action. 
 
 The results of prayer are, therefore, both objective and 
 subjective. 
 
 Prayer prepares the suppliant to receive what he asks, 
 and that which is already his. 
 
 Prayer brings him into conscious harmony with the 
 spiritual source of all things. It sets these forces which 
 flow through him into active operation, and directs him 
 to the desired end. 
 
 The time to pray is always. "Pray without ceasing." 
 Pray instantly for each new condition that arises. 
 
 The scope of prayer is universal. "All things whatso- 
 ever ye ask believing ye shall receive" ; the things we can 
 do alone ; the things we cannot do alone. 
 
 Prayer is equally effective in material things, mental 
 things, or spiritual things. 
 
 The conditions of prayer are a sense of need, a forgiving 
 spirit and a believing heart ; with clean hands ; in harmony 
 
 [94] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 with the Divine Will ; for the welfare of self and others, 
 and in co-operation with other praying spirits. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO HEALTH 
 
 God is the health of His people. "I Am the Lord That 
 healeth thee." He is the Life of the world, and His Life 
 is Perfect Health. Only by clogging the channels through 
 which the life forces flow can we induce a state of dis- 
 ease. Even though we become diseased He is still the 
 Master to heal all our diseases. Obeying Him we have 
 the same warrant for health that He gave to the people 
 of the Exodus, "I will not suffer any of the diseases of 
 the Egyptians to come upon you." Those who have come 
 to full consciousness of His Unspoilable Health have been 
 masters over disease and old age. Moses was so clothed 
 with Divine Consciousness that at the time of his passing 
 out at the age of one hundred and twenty years, "His 
 vision was not dimmed, nor his natural force abated." 
 Jesus and His initiated disciples broke the bonds of dis- 
 ease, and assaulted the gates of death itself, in their 
 supreme confidence in the Great Healer. Facing the 
 conflict growing out of all material contacts, St. Paul 
 cried triumphantly, "Thanks be to God Who giveth us 
 the victory." The psalmist, recounting the works of God 
 for His people, summarizes them in the words, "Who 
 forgiveth all thine iniquities" the cause and "healeth 
 all thy diseases" the effects. 
 
 Speaking of those who forgot God, the real Healer, the 
 Prophet Jeremiah said, "In vain shalt thou use many 
 medicines." No plaster nor powder has any virtue not 
 
 [95] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 imparted by the Great Healer, and the action of these 
 specific virtues in material things is greatly enchanced by 
 one's faith, or retarded by one's doubt. 
 
 When the Master was teaching a church gathering 
 from all over the Holy Land, the record says, "The power 
 of the Lord was present to heal them." That same con- 
 dition of healing power was present over and over again 
 in His Life and the life of His disciples, and it was recog- 
 nized as what might be expected to take place in any 
 church service anywhere. 
 
 In the Prayer Book, the statement of the purposes of 
 the service has this clause: "And to ask those things 
 which are requisite and necessary as well for the body as 
 the soul." And again, in the act of receiving the symbolic 
 bread and wine, the communicant hears the words, "Pre- 
 serve thy body and soul unto everlasting life," both state- 
 ments clearly recognizing that whatever the content of the 
 service may be, it is to apply equally to the physical and 
 spiritual welfare. 
 
 God is the Healer of all diseases. He uses divine 
 agencies in any form that the case may require. "The 
 earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof," so that 
 healing through the use of pill, powder or scalpel may be 
 as truly Divine Healing as that which comes through 
 prayer, or the laying on of hands, or the use of a sacra- 
 ment. So that for every condition, every disease, we are 
 called upon to use every means, and at the same time obey 
 the Divine Fiat, "Look unto Me and be ye saved." 
 
 [96] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 IN HIS RELATION TO THE AFFECTIONS AND EMOTIONS 
 
 God is Love. He is the Source of love in all its mani- 
 festations, from the maternal instinct of the lowest crea- 
 tures, to the highest intellectual conception of love for its 
 own sake the love that goes out freely with no thought 
 of reward or return. 
 
 Love is the prevailing and dominating characteristic of 
 the Divine, and it is the anterior force in all advance. In 
 it is life's secret of abundance. It comes from the one 
 Absolute Source, and to give it the right of way in the 
 heart is to fulfill all law, human or divine. 
 
 Perfect love seeks always another's good. Selfishness 
 seeks one's own good. Two people love perfectly only in 
 forgetfulness of self, "Love seeketh not her own." Yet 
 the reciprocal operations are such that love never fails to 
 draw its own. The law of affinity, the irresistible attrac- 
 tion of likes, guarantees that "None shall lack her mate," 
 and that every individual goes to his own place in the 
 scale of character. 
 
 The affections and emotions are grounded in the Divine 
 Love, which is universal and perfect. Instinctively love 
 clothes its objective with a perfect ideal. To the lover 
 love is supreme, and all things are lovely and lovable, just 
 as "to the pure all things are pure." Often he finds that 
 the ideal is not fulfilled by the one he loves. It is this 
 eternal struggle between the ideally perfect and the realis- 
 tically faulty objective that tries so many couples to the 
 breaking point. Only a course in the University of Hard 
 
 [97] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Knocks can help the student to a wise adjustment of his 
 perfect ideal to his imperfect human mate. 
 
 Love is the legitimate basis of all ties, especially those 
 of the family. Marriage can arise only in the outgoings 
 of this Divine Love ideal, which finds its own though it 
 cross continents and worlds, and they two are one. Mar- 
 riage can begin, continue and end aright only in this 
 Divine Harmony of two ideal lovers. This alone consti- 
 tutes marriage, and because of this perfect harmony it is 
 said that marriages are made in heaven. Legal and 
 ecclesiastical sanctions alone cannot make "Holy Matri- 
 mony." Love alone is the divine warrant. The other 
 sanctions are provisions for the protection of the social 
 order. The love that endures is so akin to God that it 
 takes the form of worship toward God and His Human 
 Image. Love is, therefore, a divine prerogative whose 
 volume is measured to the individual according to his 
 intelligence and uprightness. Love fills its possessor with 
 a general altruistic inclination which expresses itself in 
 kindness to every living thing. This is the key to every 
 permanent success. Divine Love, with its gentleness, 
 cannot exist apart from a forgiving attitude toward all 
 others and toward one's self. Love endows the soul with 
 redeeming purpose and power. Love stimulates the incen- 
 tive to achievement, industry, presentable personality and 
 self-esteem. Love imparts its divine quality to every- 
 thing, and transforms its surroundings into a paradise. 
 Love reclaims when all else fails. "Thy gentleness hath 
 made me great," was the testimony of the inspired one of 
 
 [98] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 old, and it is the secret of all preferment. Love alone 
 with its kindness and gentleness can inspire to greatness 
 of achievement. Love promotes to honor and shapes 
 destiny. Love may lose its objective because love was not 
 pure, unselfish and exalted, or because the objective was 
 not worthy, but love can never lose itself and the fruit 
 of its service. "I am persuaded that nothing can separate 
 us from the love of God." Love is the highest form of 
 divine harmony, making its human medium a harp of a 
 thousand strings, upon which vibrates forth its soothing, 
 healing and ennobling power. Love, with its feelings 
 and deep sentiment, profoundly impresses the physical 
 body, filling it with contagious health and boundless 
 energy; in other words, one's feelings are appropriated by 
 one's system, and every cell in the body shouts for the joy 
 of living when the divine stimulus of true love reaches 
 them. Love absolves from all wrong and consumes all 
 iniquities, for "we are without blame before Him in love." 
 
 Love inducts one into the thought atmosphere of the 
 Eternal, for "He that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God, 
 and He in him." It lifts one out of the idea and sense of 
 time into the method of the Divine Existence. The idea 
 of time is lost to lovers. Jacob's seven years of service 
 "seemed but a few days for the love he had for her." 
 
 Love is the all-compelling force, for "all things work 
 together for good to them that love God." Logically 
 this is true of love whatever be its object. Therefore, 
 the greatest thing in the world is love, for love is the 
 
 [99] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 highest characteristic of the Divine Nature and noblest 
 expression of a Divine Character. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO FEAR 
 
 Fear is the most elemental and powerful of emotions. 
 The chicken hiding from a hawk, the primitive man 
 dwelling in a tree or cave, as well as the fear manifested 
 by the modern civilized individual, all show that the fear 
 germ is in all living things. It is an offshoot from the 
 instinct of self-preservation, and because in the earlier 
 stages of human life so many physical dangers beset and 
 threatened life, constantly exercising the sense of self- 
 preservation, fear became highly developed. Instinctively 
 it rises in the presence of a force with marked power and 
 unknown purpose. 
 
 Naturally fear was the first motive in religious activity, 
 and when fear was the supreme emotion furnishing the 
 motive in man's attitude toward God, the circle or reign 
 of fear was complete, having to do with his preservation 
 here and with his welfare hereafter. Under the reign of 
 fear whole colonies of fear germs together with their 
 progeny beset the pathway of human attainment. The 
 world is filled with people who have all the elements of 
 great attainment, but they are beset with fear to venture. 
 We call it timidity, but it is plainly fear that paralyzes 
 their powers of initiative and achievement. 
 
 The Fear family is very large, some of its principal 
 children being fear of mistakes, fear of ridicule, fear of 
 failure, fear of public opinion, fear of suffering and fear 
 of death. These are a few of the counts in the "bondage 
 
 [100] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOClf , ;.}"',*''. K> \ 
 
 of fear" in which people live, hindered from reaching that 
 success for which they are endowed, and to which plainly 
 they are divinely called. 
 
 Fear always magnifies the real danger and blinds its 
 victim to the real safety. These timid, hesitating, blush- 
 ing, stammering, shrinking souls need to know the rela- 
 tionship of God to this whole fear impulse, and that in 
 the presence of His Almightiness, fear is only the negation 
 of love and trust. That Power of all powers, the God 
 Whose we are and Whom we serve, is a Being of Love. 
 Every power in the world works under the influence of 
 the supreme law of love, and is, therefore, beneficent. 
 Every far-reaching divine purpose is good, and every 
 normal outcome of action is just. Every failure comes as 
 the result of fear to trust and use the powers always at 
 our disposal. Bold initiative in a world set for adventure ; 
 implicit confidence in the heart of love back of all forces; 
 unfaltering fidelity in using what is at hand; these pave 
 the way to the conquest of fear. 
 
 To believe in the One Supreme God and in one's self 
 as His representative on earth, is to clothe the soul with 
 the panoply of all spiritual powers. God, the very Life 
 of the world, is Love. Love is His Name and Nature. 
 Esoteric knowledge of that truth marks the end of fear. 
 Fear is a negative which ends the moment the soul under- 
 stands the Great Positive. Perfect love casts out fear; 
 makes it non-existent; sets the captive free. Active iden- 
 tification of one's life with the Life of the Being who is 
 Love, ends fear in whatsoever form it may assail. There 
 
 [101] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 can be no fear of failure in a soul consciously identified 
 with the purposes of an Almighty Love. There is a 
 "Thus saith the High and Uplifted One," that carries 
 him unafraid through the testing things of life, and makes 
 him more than conqueror of fear. It enables him to 
 demonstrate love in its power over sin, sickness or death, 
 and enables him to realize the great ideal of Zacharias in 
 that song of the centuries, the Benedictus, "Might serve 
 Him without fear all the days of our life," and enables 
 him to say, "Though I walk through the valley of the 
 shadow ... I will fear no evil, because Thou art 
 with me." 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO SIN 
 
 The history of humanity has been made to revolve 
 around the tragedy of human transgressions, for thereby 
 the destiny of the race has been threatened. 
 
 In the ignorance of the simplest laws of material life, 
 of mental activity, and social relationships, man found 
 himself suffering the consequences of broken law, and 
 these ill effects he ignorantly attributed to gods whom he 
 had not pleased, and whose tyrannical rule he must 
 placate. It did not occur to him to mend his ways, but 
 rather to purchase the favor of his gods with some sort 
 of gift, or sacrifice. It was a sort of tribute to a personal 
 tyrant whom he feared, and whose displeasure or ill-will 
 he could not afford to invite. When he found his god or 
 gods co-operating with him and apparently prospering 
 him in right-doing, his fear was softened into reverence 
 for this senior partner of his life's doings. 
 
 [102] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 He still had no idea of the reign of law. The ten 
 words, or Commandments, he accepted and tried to obey. 
 He made sacrifices and offerings because he could not 
 obey. He esteemed these Commandments as the announce- 
 ments of his God, and did not gather their significance as 
 laws, which protected interests vital to racial destiny, the 
 doing of which protected his own interests and the inter- 
 ests of others, and furthered the progress of man. If 
 violated, he perceived that they brought upon him and 
 others specific visitations of Divine wrath, rather than 
 understood that they automatically visited him with 
 definite consequences. Sin was to him therefore an offense 
 against a personal being who took vengeance upon the 
 sinner. He had to grow into the truth that sin was the 
 violation of the laws that made for the best interests of 
 himself and others, and whose effects came to him and to 
 others regardless of the personal attitude of the law-giver. 
 
 His first object lesson of the nature and effects of sin 
 came in a ceremonial observance in the which a man in 
 priestly garb, clothed with authority to represent God, 
 took a goat, and, in view of all the people, laid his hands 
 on the goat and placed on him all the sins of the people. 
 This scapegoat was then separated from his kind, sent 
 away into the wilderness, banished from the protection of 
 the shepherd, to be chased by wild beasts, and to perish 
 without the camp. 
 
 There was no thought, really, of vicarious suffering in 
 this process. It was merely to teach him that the violation 
 of the law was attended with certain definite consequences 
 
 [103] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 which work automatically. Doing right brought good 
 results ; doing wrong brought bad results. 
 
 Furthermore the priest took incense and burned it, and 
 as man saw it ascending, his thought turned upward 
 toward his God, and he learned the secret of devotion, 
 the upward breathing of his spirit, and the efficacy of 
 prayer. 
 
 Ages of bondage to the fear gods passed before he found 
 that there was very little relief in the sacrifices he offered, 
 but rather a measure of good results from avoiding certain 
 forms of action, and in following out certain other prin- 
 ciples, which experience showed were followed by happy 
 consequences. 
 
 Carrying his divinities over into the activities of his 
 life, he found that his gods seemed to work with him as he 
 followed lines of conduct having some other motive than 
 self-gratification, and especially when he became concerned 
 in the betterment of the family, of the tribe, of the nation, 
 and of the world at large, so that eventually his life moved 
 out into the activities of the various channels of altruism. 
 By and by his sacrifices for sin took on a sacramental 
 meaning, for they not only placated the Divine Being, 
 but he found an inner subjective experience and peace in 
 offering them, which good results he eventually discovered 
 followed the obedience of certain forms of action, thereby 
 furnishing him with an incentive to keep the law. 
 
 In all of these processes "the law was his schoolmaster 
 to bring him to Christ," the Divinely-anointed, and to 
 conscious fellowship with God. Slowly but surely he 
 
 [104] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 grew into the thought of God as a beneficent Being, Who 
 co-operated with him in all good endeavor, and eventually 
 the gods of fear passed upward into the God of Love, and 
 his religion passed from a fear motive to a love motive. 
 
 Moreover, the God of Love was no longer interested 
 in the "blood of bulls and goats," and other sacrifices, 
 but rather in the offering of a contrite spirit, which was 
 demonstrated by amending the life, stopping the violation 
 of physical, moral and spiritual law, and by a positive 
 obedience to the same. 
 
 Religion, therefore, became an intensely personal mat- 
 ter, and resolved itself into a loving co-partnership with a 
 Being of Absolute Love. 
 
 Does he through ignorance or otherwise, find himself 
 violating the law, he simply changes his action to obeying 
 the law, and finds his wrong doing absolved in the Great 
 Spirit of Love Whom he serves. And this God of Love 
 with Whom he is at one, sheds forth into the heart of 
 him who seeks to do His Will, that all-cleansing Love, 
 which is the solvent of every sin, the healing for every 
 disease, the restoration from every fall, the success lead- 
 ing forth from every failure. He requires no sacrifice, no 
 price paid, but a loving obedience to the command of a 
 Loving Heart, "Go thy way and sin no more." 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO PROSPERITY AND ADVERSITY 
 
 God is the universal force behind and in all phenomena. 
 A certain great principle is discernible in all that takes 
 place, as, for example, the principle of growth. In the 
 
 [105] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 operation of power under these great controlling prin- 
 ciples, certain methods of action, called laws, are apparent. 
 Inasmuch as He is the Intelligence guiding these opera- 
 tions, it is evident that whatever is is referable at last to 
 Him. Whatever happens is His action through the opera- 
 tion of His laws, and all that He does is wise and just 
 and good. In whatsoever form the results of His divine 
 movement come they may be grouped under the head of 
 good or prosperity. These are the positive products of 
 Divine Forces at work. 
 
 Now God not only does things through law, but He 
 permits things to happen by law. In all things in which 
 there is no form of choice, as in inanimate things, the 
 operation and effect of law is uniform, but as soon as 
 will, or its earlier forms of automatic, reflex, and intuitive 
 action arises, the operation of the law continues uniform, 
 but the results of the law are conditioned upon obedience 
 or disobedience to the law. 
 
 The great principle of production with its laws is in- 
 fallible, but the volume and character of its results depend 
 largely upon the preparation, seed time, cultivation, and 
 other factors involving an intelligent understanding and 
 obedience to the laws of growth. 
 
 In production of any sort in which intelligent co-opera- 
 tion with the forces of production is involved, the volume 
 and character of the result is conditioned upon keeping the 
 law. Failure to obey the laws of the harvest results in 
 reduction of the outcome, both in volume and quality, 
 
 [106] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 while obedience moves in the direction of abundance. 
 Obedience to the principles of growth causes every species 
 to move steadily upward, while disobedience is followed by 
 a reversion to more primitive and less perfect forms. This 
 atavism can never occur as long as intelligent co-operation 
 with the law is maintained. These principles, operative in 
 the realm of material production, result in prosperity or 
 adversity as a comparative condition. "If ye be willing 
 and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land." That is 
 material prosperity, and the secret of its attainment. "But 
 if ye refuse and rebel ye shall be destroyed." That is ma- 
 terial adversity, together with its cause. 
 
 This same principle applies to mental growth, and its 
 fruits of intelligence, literary production, the arts and 
 sciences, and other attendants of civilization. And mental 
 prosperity, is marked by the fruits of knowledge and wis- 
 dom which are organized into a general condition of 
 mental supremacy and prosperity, in the knowledge, prac- 
 tice and enjoyment of the truth. Failure to obey the 
 same laws results in ignorance with all its limitations 
 which eventually become organized into a general state 
 of mental poverty with its embarrassing limitations of ex- 
 pression. 
 
 Nor does the principle apply any the less powerfully in 
 the higher realms of spiritual adventure and growth with 
 their activities of faith, hope and love, exercised in prayer, 
 praise and service. These issue into peace and happiness 
 here and now as the normal spiritual condition of an 
 
 [107] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 obedient and therefore prosperous people. These spiritual 
 exercises which result in a clearer understanding of God 
 and of our oneness with Him, growing at last into full 
 conscious completeness in Him, is called "the law of life 
 in Christ Jesus," and failing to obey this law leads to a 
 state of spiritual destitution, which is called "the law of 
 sin and death," for sin and its effects persisted in are soon 
 organized into a condition of active evil, so pronounced 
 and intelligent, as to be personified with the title of 
 "devil." 
 
 Inasmuch as the exercise of spiritual forces puts one 
 into the most intimate touch with Him Who is the re- 
 pository of all resources, it follows that prosperity is pri- 
 marily a state of the soul whose wealth may express itself 
 in wisdom, or knowledge, or skill, or in material posses- 
 sions. 
 
 The abundance of God is related to individual charac- 
 teristics. One may be surpassingly rich in all results of 
 spiritual adventure, and yet have little of material re- 
 sources, but his wealth is that of contentment with higher 
 things, and that very state of spiritual abundance tends 
 to draw to him whatsoever he needs for his personal wel- 
 fare. 
 
 Prosperity and adversity are therefore grounded in the 
 state of one's relationship to God. Job, unconscious of 
 having violated the law of growth and yet feeling its 
 effects, said, "Shall we receive good at the hand of the 
 Lord, and shall we not also receive evil?" 
 
 [108] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 The secret of prosperity is to abound in spiritual riches 
 in all conditons of life, being "diligent in business, fervent 
 in spirit, serving the Lord," remembering that "He hath 
 blessed us with all spiritual blessings," and that He "shall 
 supply all your need according to His riches in glory by 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 The student in the University of Hard Knocks learns 
 how to abound and be in want, and rise above them as 
 merely incidental in the presence of the greater riches of 
 spiritual treasure. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE 
 
 These are the three cardinal principles which abide 
 changeless in a changing world. They are the essential 
 elements of the Divine Life. They are the working virtues 
 which lead to spiritual supremacy. They are the going 
 forth of the Divine within us to the Divine without us. 
 They form the spiritual triangle upon which life projects 
 itself along the pathway of eternal progress. They form 
 the three sides of the prism which reveals every hue of 
 spiritual light and beauty. They are the three-dimensional 
 qualities which combine to make the universal dimension 
 in which all perception is possible, and all understanding 
 feasible. 
 
 They stand in order as the first, the last, and the great- 
 est thing in the world. 
 
 Faith is the first thing in the world. It is first because 
 it is the means of contacting the source of supply. Faith 
 is an exalted reason. Reason is an extended vision, which 
 
 [109] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 is an extended arm, which is an extended mouth, which 
 is an extended stomach. It is the highest form of ap- 
 propriating supplies for the universal hunger, which 
 ranges from bread for the stomach to spiritual grace for 
 the soul. It is first because one cannot come to God with- 
 out first believing that He is. It is first because in the 
 beginnings of spiritual growth we commence with faith 
 alone, to which is added knowledge, and to this, power. 
 
 Hope is the last thing in the world, if for no other 
 reason than when all else is lost, we may still have hope. 
 Hope relates us to the future as memory does to the past. 
 Hope is the positive pole of being, around which the world 
 of our thought and achievement revolves. Hopes sees the 
 unseen beyond the veil of material things. It discovers 
 the boundless reservoirs of spiritual substance, which faith 
 may appropriate and love may distribute. Hope is the 
 pioneer of all progress. In the hour of success hope is still 
 looking forward. In the hour of adversity hope sees the 
 way out. Hope is the steadfast anchor which outrides all 
 storm and stress. 
 
 Love is the greatest thing in the world, because it is 
 concerned with the not-self. Faith and hope are concerned 
 primarily in the discovery and attainment of valuable 
 possessions, while love is concerned with their distribution. 
 Faith and hope come laden with arms full, but love goes 
 forth with arms extended to scatter its treasures abroad. 
 Hope discovers the fields of adventure ; faith goes forth to 
 gather the fruits of conquest, but love distributes. 
 
 [110] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 It is conveivable that faith may fail in the presence of 
 uncertainty, that hope deferred may be dimmed by despair, 
 but love never fails. 
 
 These three abide, for they enable one to live safely 
 between egotism on the one hand, and altruism on the 
 other. 
 
 Hope sees with God-like vision; faith achieves with 
 God-like authority, while loves gives with God-like aban- 
 don. God makes them the abiding instruments of all 
 progress, the channels of all supply, and the triple crown 
 of all virtues. They are the three modes of the Divine 
 movement for establishing the kingdom of heaven among 
 men. 
 
 IN HIS RELATION TO LIFE HERE AND HEREAFTER 
 
 Human life began with God. It is His Life in material 
 form, in which it achieves countless personalities. Each 
 individual existence can be traced backward to a first 
 living cell. Before that its origin arises in the first great 
 Cause, the Over Soul of the universe. It lived in all the 
 lives of countless living forms, not as a separate con- 
 sciousness, but partaking of all that occurred in the life of 
 each form through which it passed. This principle is illus- 
 trated in the case of Levi who is represented as having 
 offered tribute to Melchisedek, the High Priest of Heaven, 
 while he was yet in the loins of his Grandfather, Abraham. 
 Of course, Levi had no separate consciousness of the active 
 part that he was taking in the proceedings, but the effect 
 of it was a strain of heredity which fitted him to be the 
 tribal head of the Levitical priesthood. 
 
 [in] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 The Man of Nazareth, pondering upon His antecedent 
 life, saw so clearly the pathway of His past in the expe- 
 riences of His human ancestors, that He said, with full 
 consciousness of its truth, "Before Abraham was, I Am." 
 However, individual experiences begin in the moment 
 when the life parts company from his ancestors, and begins 
 a new line of succession, that is, the moment of concep- 
 tion. From that moment his experiences are his own, 
 although he is powerfully influenced by all his uncon- 
 scious past, and by his mother's mental states and physical 
 condition. When this formative and dependent period of 
 his individual existence has passed or is finished, a second 
 climax in his life occurs at birth, when his individuality 
 enters upon conditions of full expression. He begins to be 
 acted upon by the material world, and to react upon it. 
 Sense perceptions spring up, memory images are summoned 
 from past perceptions, comparative thinking is established. 
 He begins to distinguish between self and the not-self. 
 His affectional and emotional life begins to develop. His 
 body grows to the stature and form of family and racial 
 types; his mind unfolds into full conscious activity. He 
 exercises free initiative in all things. He meets life's con- 
 tingencies and disposes of them with freedom of choice. 
 He wrestles with his problems, deals with the ups and 
 downs of life its vicissitudes until character is formed, 
 personality is achieved. 
 
 Sooner or later all the intricate processes of his physical, 
 mental and moral life reach their zenith, and some, if 
 
 [112] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 not all of them, decline until he stands at the border-land 
 of this life. He sees the great Sun of light, of life, and of 
 energy, sinking into the mysterious West. Into this realm 
 he has often peered, usually to draw back affrighted at its 
 mystery. Sometimes he has dreamed of it; perhaps he 
 has heard footfalls on its ethereal plains, or caught the 
 echo of familiar voices in the corridors of eternity, or has 
 felt the vaguely familiar touch of a hand, but has not 
 been sensitive enough to get any continuous and intelligent 
 message from the realms of radiant light and perfect 
 truth, and boundless freedom. 
 
 The heaven-born ideal of perfection which has rested 
 upon some person or thing and has filled the mind with its 
 substance and its inspiration, is now projected forth upon 
 the screen whose background is spiritual reality, and he 
 sees some representation of that ideal, like mother, or the 
 Virgin Mary, or the angels, or some loved human form, 
 or the Saviour Himself, and he knows that he stands upon 
 the borderland of a new life. Farewell messages are 
 given to his friends, and greetings sometimes exchanged 
 with the inhabitants of the spiritual realm, and the 
 supreme climacteric has been passed. The God Who 
 gave of Himself has taken back unto Himself. Without 
 the sound of trumpet his spiritual body, fashioned after 
 the form of its earthly temple, but clothed in the glory 
 of its spiritual ideal, steps forth into spiritual reality, 
 clothed with the substance of all life's thoughts and acts. 
 He needs no unerring judge to determine his state. He 
 steps forth to take his place in the next plane of existence, 
 
 [113] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 and by the affinities of character which is the great law of 
 spiritual gravitation, he lands in the midst of those of 
 similar spiritual attainments. 
 
 Here he still goes forward on a limitless pathway by 
 learning of those who return from their positions of 
 greater attainment, and by making practical use of this 
 acquired knowledge in teaching those who are behind him 
 in spiritual understanding. And his growth may further 
 be enhanced by exercising his higher wisdom and power in 
 the interests of those who are yet earth-bound, as a minis- 
 tering spirit, "ministering to those who are heirs of salva- 
 tion," seeing their struggles and perplexities with clear 
 vision. Knowing their outcome to be for good, he sur- 
 rounds them with guidance and loving influence, as a 
 mother surrounds her child and sees that its problems are 
 but for a moment. 
 
 In this sexless spiritual world he meets and renews all 
 the memories of the earth life, and understands the 
 refining influence of its hard knocks. He finds the ties 
 of earthly relationship ended, and knows that "he that 
 doeth the Will of God is brother, sister, wife or mother." 
 The love of human relationship has ceased, or been merged 
 into Universal Love. Earthly limitations are passed. The 
 desire for knowledge is followed by its possession. The 
 earthly processes of reasoning which were limited to a 
 few perceptions, are replaced by the open perception of all 
 reality. Human judgment which has been limited to a 
 few concepts passes upward into perfect understanding. 
 Memory which was so often forgetful is quickened into 
 
 [114] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF THEOLOGY 
 
 perfect grasp of. all the facts in cosmic consciousness, 
 whether they were known to him or unknown. Here the 
 dreams and ambitions and plans and hopes, so often 
 dimmed and shattered by earthly impact, rise into reality 
 and possession. In this realm of eternal progress the 
 human spirit passes upward from plane to plane of spir- 
 itual knowledge and power, and passing eons find him 
 steadily enriched in the knowledge of the Body of Christ, 
 which is made up of the spirits of mortals made perfect, 
 which is the Life of God. 
 
 In this realm of certainty the emancipated soul looks 
 ahead, to behold the brightest and best of the sons of the 
 morning, knowing that he shall come at last to equal 
 attainment. And beholding even Gabriel, brightest Arch- 
 angel of God, he shall hail him and cry with prophetic 
 certainty "And thou, Gabriel, standing in the presence 
 of Perfect Being, glorious with ages of growth and attain- 
 ment, I, too, shall stand where thou standest, see with 
 equal vision, clothed with equal brightness, crowned with 
 equal glory, and thou shalt have passed upward to other 
 heights of service and attainment." 
 
 He was an illumined soul who said, in substance, when 
 our vision is opened to behold God we shall be like Him, 
 for we shall see Him as He is. Life here is God coming 
 into material expression, "the Lord gave." Death is God 
 withdrawing from material incarnation, "the Lord hath 
 taken away," and the eternal future is to live in His 
 Perfect Being. Therefore, the graduate of the University 
 of Hard Knocks can with full understanding say, "Blessed 
 be the Name of the Lord." 
 
 [115] 
 
LIFE'S SYMPHONY 
 
 To live content with small means, 
 
 To seek elegance rather than luxury, 
 
 Refinement rather than fashion ; 
 
 To be worthy, not simply rich; 
 
 To study hard, think quietly, 
 
 Talk gently, act frankly ; 
 
 To listen with open heart to birds and stars, 
 
 To babes and sages ; 
 
 To bear all cheerfully, do all bravely; 
 
 Await occasion, never hurry, 
 
 In a word, to let the spiritual life 
 
 Grow up through and above the common 
 
 This is to be my "symphony of life." 
 
 Wm. E. Charming. 
 
 [116] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND 
 SEERS 
 
 AMONG the enumerated gifts of the spirit, the gift of 
 prophecy and of interpretation of tongues and 
 other gifts are listed, which carry the Christian 
 believer over into the realm of mysticism. Neither the 
 Old nor the New Testment teachings are reasonably in- 
 terpretable apart from a recognition of the mystical strain 
 that runs through them. Prophets and seers and specially 
 illumined ones of all ages past have given utterance to 
 and recorded facts of knowledge and experience outside 
 the range of five-sense perceptions, or three-dimensional 
 living. These experiences have been grouped together 
 under the head of mysticism, the substance of which is 
 that every living soul by virtue of his divine origin has 
 the power within himself to hold direct communication 
 with God, without the use of any intermediary what- 
 soever. And in the study of these mystics and their expe- 
 riences in all ages there have come into formulation cer- 
 tain methods by which the mystical power may be de- 
 veloped in a great many people, if not in all. 
 
 In past times the mystics usually have been men apart 
 from the ordinary walks and ways of life. They neglected 
 their bodies, exposed themselves to suffering and hunger, 
 and isolated themselves from the usual habitations of 
 men, thinking that thereby this power was enhanced. 
 
 [117] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Modern mystics have found that all of this inner power 
 and perception can be exercised under the normal condi- 
 tions of life ; that the mystic has the greatest control over 
 his secret powers when the body is most normal in its 
 functions and sensations. He, therefore, gives attention 
 to having his body which is the instrument of his percep- 
 tions and experiences in the most perfect condition. The 
 exercise of mystical power is merely an extension of the 
 power of perception, by which we know things either 
 seen or unseen. All sense-perception is merely a projection 
 or extension of the sense of touch. The lowest forms of 
 life have only one sense to enable them to obey the im- 
 pulse to preserve life. That sense perception enables them 
 to determine the difference between that which is food 
 and that which is not food, and for that stage of existence 
 no further perception is necessary. Nutrition is the first 
 demand of a living organism which feels the impulse to 
 preserve life. As the power to function became more com- 
 plex other senses developed. The stomach was the first 
 organ. The mouth was an extended stomach; the hand 
 an extended mouth ; the eye an extended hand ; the reason 
 an extended eye, and faith an extended reason. 
 
 Along with these new methods of functioning the other 
 senses were developed. Now while perception ordinarily 
 uses all the five-sense agencies, it is not limited to this 
 use. It may transcend them by simply ignoring or closing 
 them up, or it may extend them almost indefinitely. 
 
 All religious thought and teaching has had its begin- 
 
 [118] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 nings in the mystical experiences of the seers and prophets 
 of the ages past. 
 
 Since Adam talked with God and heard Him walk and 
 speak in the garden long ago, every definite advance in 
 religious thought has come from some mystic who has 
 walked and talked with God. Enoch, Abraham, Jacob, 
 Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and Melchizedek were all mystics 
 of that early time. 
 
 Nor is the exercise of this extended perception limited 
 to the Jewish peoples alone for the religious beginnings 
 among all peoples have started through the development 
 of the inner perceptions so that they were extended be- 
 yond the usual range of action. 
 
 Perception is an inner and subjective knowing which 
 later in the thought process becomes an objective and con- 
 scious knowing. We inwardly perceive toward a thing 
 before we are consciously aware of it. Thought activity 
 is both conscious and unconscious, and can never be en- 
 tirely separated, and this division of thought processes 
 applies to the Divine Intelligence as it does to the human. 
 The objective side of life in the Divine Being is seen in 
 the discoverable laws and processes of the material world, 
 while the subconscious, hidden and Absolute Life is appre- 
 hended by mortals only by means of the mystical sense. 
 
 This inner and hidden intelligence in man is that which 
 constitutes in him the image of the Divine, for it is the 
 Divine taking on human expression. It is the exhaustless 
 reservoir of power for all achievement. When one dis- 
 
 [119] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 covers its presence, its nature and its resources, he has 
 found the touchstone to all achievement. He needs only 
 to realize that if he will intelligently set this power to 
 work, he may ask of it what he will, and it shall be done. 
 
 One of the methods of calling forth these resources is 
 to accept the fact of the Limitless Power within, and 
 visualize objectively that which we want to take on ma- 
 terial form, and then hold the thing visualized as a fact 
 until this inner power out of its own exhaustless spiritual 
 substance materializes whatever we desire. So did Elijah 
 of old hold within himself the perception of unwasting 
 supply, and "the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did 
 the cruse of oil fail." So did Jesus, having His unseen 
 perception fixed on the Reservoir of all Abundance His 
 oneness with the Father send forth the five loaves and 
 three fishes to fill out all the requirements for the multi- 
 tude. He visualized it as sufficient and it materialized ac- 
 cording to His perception of reality. 
 
 The existence of this power to view the Unseen Reality 
 is recognized in the Divine fiat which said, "Look unto 
 Me and be ye saved." Naturally no demand of this sort 
 could ever have any claim to Divine origin had there not 
 been a power of perception within man to obey the com- 
 mand. The command assumes and challenges the use of 
 a supra-normal or incorporeal eye, which is an extension 
 of the other five senses or avenues of perception. Its 
 presence is manifested in such incidents as Elijah hearing 
 "the sound of abundance of rain," when there was not a 
 
 [120] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 cloud in the sky; or Elisha seeing a "measure of fine 
 flour sold in the gate of Samaria on the morrow" at the 
 time of great famine; or the Syrians "hearing the noise 
 of horses and chariots, a great host," and fleeing from the 
 siege of Samaria; or the incident of Jesus seeing Nathaniel 
 under such physical conditions as to lead the latter to be- 
 lieve and to ascribe to the Master divine powers. These 
 are only a few of many recorded uses of this sixth sense 
 by which the seer became aware of events and facts, not 
 apparent to the five senses or knowable to the ordinary 
 methods of conscious thinking. 
 
 The Master so clearly recognized this power as an en- 
 dowment of every human being that He said to 
 Nathaniel, "thou shalt see greater things than these, thou 
 shalt see heaven opened and the angels descending on the 
 Son of man." The thou is plural, thus including Nathaniel 
 and all disciples. And this statement is borne out by the 
 fact that just such experiences are recorded in the lives 
 of Peter, John, Paul, Philip, Stephen, and many others 
 of the early Christians. 
 
 Just where this place of vision is may be determined 
 by any one who will steadily practice following his mind 
 down to the threshold of sleep, and stopping at the point 
 where he would otherwise step off into unconsciousness. 
 When he can hold himself at this zone that separates or 
 rather joins the conscious and the unconscious activities 
 he will soon hear and see things beyond the range of the 
 five senses. For a time he will find it no easy task to hold 
 
 [121] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 that level. Just a little too much attention to the uncon- 
 scious activities, and he is alseep, while too much atten- 
 tion by the conscious mind to the things that are reported 
 will close the report of the sixth sense. After some prac- 
 tice he will find it easier to maintain this level, and to see 
 as did St. Paul, "things which are not utterable after the 
 common methods of thinking," and after a while he will 
 be able to drop into this zone at any time and anywhere 
 he may desire to ascertain facts that are not available to 
 him through the five senses. Like Elisha of old, he may 
 be talking with his body servant, and at the same time see 
 the chariots of the hosts of the Almighty. 
 
 And this is a common experience of the modern mystic. 
 It happens occasionally in the lives of many people as a 
 mere incident, but a steady attention to the laws by which 
 it is produced will bring this power into operation at any 
 time the seer wills to see or hear. 
 
 This extension of the senses is found in the every day 
 experiences of life. A person beholding and following a 
 bird in its flight will see it when one who tries to see it 
 for the first time will fail. The same is true of sounds or 
 other sense reports. Many people have had the experience 
 of becoming so absorbed in what they are thinking about 
 as to pass their best friends, looking squarely at them 
 and failing to have the image report in consciousness, and 
 possibly "come to" with a start and realize that their at- 
 tention has been abstracted away so that the sense of sight 
 did not report. One may at will so fix the attention 
 
 [122] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 upon a sound as to shut out the report of the eye, or gaze 
 so intently upon a scene as to fail to register a sound, and 
 this abstraction may so apply intentionally to all the senses 
 that by consistent practice one may isolate and insulate 
 himself from material things and may enter the secret 
 place at any time and talk to the Father of lights in 
 secret, and receive such wisdom, and power and health, 
 that when he comes out of the secret place the Lord will 
 reward him openly. 
 
 This all indicates that the modern mystic may and does 
 use these hidden forces in his daily life, without going into 
 a retreat or cloister, or separating himself from the daily 
 tasks of life. He uses this power when he enters the place 
 of prayer. He uses it when he stands in the presence 
 of sickness and sees not sickness but health for the patient. 
 He sees abundance in the midst of the outer appearance 
 of poverty. He sees hopeful conditions out of the most 
 depressing states. He sees prison doors open when they 
 are doubly locked. He sees the morning and deliverance 
 when the earthbound walks the floor the livelong night 
 disturbed and regretting. 
 
 Life holds a new meaning to the mystic who discovers 
 and develops this sixth sense, for it opens unto him the 
 boundless resources of the Absolute Life. It places him 
 in touch with the reservoirs from whence come all energy,, 
 all abundance, and all else that his life ought to express. 
 It reveals to him the source of his being. Man first sought 
 his origin in the dust, but the uplifted vision finds that 
 
 [123] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 his origin is in God. The struggle is always to keep this 
 vision fastened upon Him Who said, "Look unto Me and 
 be ye saved." 
 
 The body, that faithful register of all the sensations is 
 ever calling attention to the ills and pains and weakness, 
 while the incorporeal eye sees the regions of unspoilable 
 health. The five senses keep one tangled in the wheel of 
 things, while this eye of the soul beholds the changeless 
 verities. 
 
 One looking out from a twelfth-story office sees brick 
 walls, and concrete, and smokestacks, and smudge, and 
 cars, and things, if he is looking downward ; but when he 
 exercises the upward look, he sees the sky, the sun, the 
 moon, and the glories above earthliness. The downward 
 look of conscious thinking is concerned with honors, pre- 
 ferment, self-exaltation, and other things that hold one 
 securely in the net of circumstances, while the upward 
 look of the sixth sense, seeing the Changeless Reality, is 
 indifferent alike to praise, honors or contempt. 
 
 In carrying this power of perception into its higher 
 reaches in obedience to the command to "Look unto Me," 
 it is well to recognize that the High and Uplifted One 
 is known in two-fold manner. There is the side of the 
 Absolute as seen in material representation, the objective, 
 the revealed and apparent, and there is the side of the 
 subjective, the hidden and the Absolute, or that side which 
 is unseeable and unknowable to sense perception and 
 mortal thinking. This distinction is essential to keep from 
 
 [124] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 being hopelessly entangled in the contradictions arising 
 out of the relative and the Absolute. 
 
 Being is both relative and absolute. Relative being is 
 that which is apparent to the senses and apprehendable to 
 the conscious mind, while the Absolute is that which is 
 beyond the reach of the senses, and above purely intellec- 
 tual processes, and therefore, knowable only through the 
 use of this sixth sense. 
 
 The relative and material is temporary and changing, 
 while the Absolute is Changeless Reality. The Absolute 
 is the Source from which came the seen and temporal. 
 "The things which are seen were not made of things 
 which do appear." They are the surface things which 
 the surface man may see, but the Ultimate Reality is not 
 discernible to the five senses, and does not act directly in 
 the range of the three dimensions. Only when one has 
 developed the mystical sense so that he can see with this 
 higher vision will he be able to see the Unseen, and to 
 act in the fourth or other higher dimensions of existence. 
 
 This the mystic does when he moves among the three- 
 dimensional things, enjoying them and triumphing over 
 them, living a natural and normal material and objective 
 life, and again at will any time and anywhere he may 
 raise this sixth sense to behold fourth-dimensional activity 
 where the Absolute moves in ways that are not human 
 ways and thinks in thoughts that are not human thoughts. 
 And here he triumphs and knows and sees the Invisible 
 and so endures the material entanglements, knowing that 
 they are but for a moment. 
 
 [125] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Vision has to do with the instrument of seeing and an 
 objective. When two persons look at the same object, 
 one sees more than the other, either because the instrument 
 of vision is better or the power of perception is greater. 
 Vision travels out to its objective and then there travels 
 back over the visional track something of the light, the 
 coloring, and the general perspective of the object. Now, 
 there is set before the sixth sense, the inner vision power, 
 an objective so perfect and complete that there travels back 
 over the visional track to the beholder all that he has the 
 perceiving power to grasp and appreciate. The High 
 and Uplifted One Who says "Look unto Me" is revealed 
 to him in strength, wisdom, love, health, abundance and 
 all else that he may be able to see, and by some inherent 
 power in the self he is at once able to commence to 
 materialize and to express those qualities in himself. 
 
 It is essential to the mystic's highest development that 
 he shall get a clear visualization of Him Whose face 
 shineth upon us as the sun in its splendor. Elisha was 
 not so much interested in Elijah's achievements as he was 
 in the secret of his greatness; hence his demand was, 
 "Where is the God of Elijah?" And having found the 
 answer, he found himself beginning to exercise the same 
 powers of achievement as his Master had done. His 
 ringers were filled with a subtle magnetism at whose touch 
 disease vanished; his breath was charged with healing 
 vapors; his words were clothed with power to heal the 
 poisoned pottage and to cause the meal and oil to increase ; 
 his pathway was marked by monumental acts of helpful- 
 
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THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 ness; he never lost his high visioning power and his very 
 bones were charged with power to heal. The secret was 
 that he found and lived with a clear and perpetual view 
 of the God of Elijah. 
 
 Beholding this same I AM, there came into Moses' range 
 of vision majesty and dignity and leadership which made 
 the strong and mighty follow this man of eighty because 
 the meekest of men was transformed into the image of 
 fadeless strength, so that at the age of one hundred and 
 twenty, "his vision was not dimmed nor his natural force 
 abated." 
 
 When this uplifted vision beholds Him there comes out 
 of the regions of Unspoilable Health power which makes 
 every cell of the body vibrate with divine health and 
 energy. Beholding Him, there comes out of the regions 
 of Infinite Peace a calm and poise of mind which is 
 undisturbed by earthly cares, unfrighted by prison bars, 
 unshaken by any form of material threat of ill. Beholding 
 Him, there moves into experience out of the exhaustless 
 reservoirs of Absolute Love immunity from all sin, from 
 all fear, from all want, so that the mystic can truly say: 
 "I will fear no evil." 
 
 The law of abstraction by which the attention is called 
 from one thing and directed to another operates in a very 
 practical way for relief. The things which we do not see 
 or otherwise perceive do not exist to us, and hence when 
 the perception is ever fixed on Him Who is Absolute 
 Health, Who is Spirit, Who is the Reality back of all 
 appearances, sickness and pain and evil and matter and 
 
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THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 even death are to us non-existent. This divine nihilism 
 of material things is seen in such a statement as that of 
 Job when he said, "Thine eye beheld me and I am 
 nothing." The clear vision of the Absolute suspends 
 relative reality and as the Absolute is constantly visual- 
 ized, the relative reality is made to conform more and 
 more to the image of the Absolute. 
 
 This mystical principle is seen in the text: "For we all 
 with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of 
 the Lord, are changed from glory to glory after his image 
 by the Lord, the Spirit." 
 
 It was this clear visioning of Jesus of Nazareth which 
 enabled Him to see His inherent oneness with the Abso- 
 lute and to say, "The Father and I are one"; and while 
 He attributed His words and His works to the Father, 
 yet when one came to Him, He spoke as if He alone were 
 doing the works. "I will, be thou clean"; "Take up thy 
 bed and walk" ; "I say unto you." 
 
 All others had acknowledged themselves as teachers 
 and seekers after this full vision of the Truth, and not 
 having fully perceived their identification with the Life 
 of the Uplifted One, they confessed themselves as pilgrims 
 traveling toward a better state, and it is recorded that 
 "These all died, not having received the promise." 
 
 But when the Master came and entered into full con- 
 scious communion with the Father, He spoke not as a 
 seeker after truth, but as the Truth Itself. He answered 
 for all time the questions nearest men's hearts. They 
 said, "Show us the truth." He answered, "I am the 
 
 [128] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 Truth." They said, "Give us light." "I am the Light." 
 "I Am Life." "I Am the resurrection." "Whatsoever 
 there is of life to be attained, I Am that." This inner 
 perception of His Oneness with God gave that sense of 
 authority, so that He spoke without a moment's hesitation 
 as to His right to speak, and without a question as to the 
 authority and the effect of His speaking: Take up thy 
 bed and walk." "Thy sins be forgiven thee." 
 
 When He began His ministry of healing His first 
 thought for the people was, "Father, I will that they 
 behold My glory," and that glory was the indwelling of 
 the Absolute in Him, so that to see Him was to see the 
 Father. His second thought was, "Father, I pray that 
 they may be one as We are one," that is, that they might 
 realize that there was within them a oneness with the 
 Father, similar to His Own, and by the virtue of which 
 all power dwelled in them. 
 
 Looking with this sixth sense upon the blind man, He 
 saw not the blind eyes, but perfect spiritual vision within 
 him, and the blind man's inner perception saw the Up- 
 lifted One, the secret of all power and perception, and 
 instantly the atoms of his eye responded to the vibrations 
 of light, and he saw with his material eyes. 
 
 Always the great Teacher saw in every case, not a sick 
 person, but one well and whole. He saw not the withered 
 arm, but an arm stretched forth. He saw not a woman 
 bent double, but a woman made straight and well. He 
 saw not deaf ears and a dumb tongue, but ears that heard 
 and a tongue that spoke. 
 
 [129] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Every healer must be enough of a mystic to be able to 
 exercise some of this visional power, that he may perceive 
 the real Divine Self of the patient, clothed in the perfect 
 health that is his in the realm of reality. Seeing that 
 spiritual self clothed in the Unspoilable Health of the 
 Absolute, he must steadfastly behold him as perfectly 
 well and whole, and with unfailing certainty, out of the 
 unseen regions of His Own Health, the Great Physician 
 will manifest His health in the body of the patient. 
 
 Just as the visional power beholding reality causes that 
 reality to manifest in the body in the form of health, the 
 same process of the Seer beholds the sinner, taken, as in 
 one case, in the very act, so clothed with the Divine Love, 
 that her sins are dissolved in that matchless love, and He 
 said to her, "Go thy way and sin no more." Just as the 
 Absolute Health is the remedy for all disease when the 
 inner vision beholds, so is the Absolute Love the solvent 
 for all sin when the inner eye is uplifted to the Absolute 
 Righteousness. The moment that Mary Magdalen saw 
 herself as Jesus saw her, she arose and became from that 
 moment His most devoted disciple. There was no sort 
 of machinery to be used to make her a good woman. She 
 needed only to see herself as Divine Love saw her, and 
 she was forgiven and perfectly whole. 
 
 This upward visioning is the channel of the re-creating 
 power. Every mind that ever became vitiated or body 
 that became diseased has done so because the vision has 
 not been stayed on Him. They can be restored only by 
 repentance a return of the vision to its one Objective, 
 
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THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 "Look unto Me." Every call to repentance has in it the 
 principle of getting the eye again focused on the High 
 and Uplifted One, for on the pathway of such vision 
 power there is no sin, sickness, pain, death nor lack. 
 These appear when we look downward to material things. 
 They are remitted when we take steadfast notice that 
 Deity beholds. This upward visioning makes us free from 
 the law of sin and death. It gives us the secret of the 
 mastery of all things. When the inner eye becomes 
 adjusted to beholding the Absolute, we hear Him say, 
 "Concerning the work of My hands, command ye Me." 
 This means that authority over all things is given, so that 
 old things pass away, are remitted, and behold all things 
 are made new, by looking unto the Great Original. "No 
 man can see God and live," after his former estate. Fic- 
 titious values pass away. All things assume their true 
 value in the light of higher visioning. Grasping for the 
 things of matter is forgotten in the passion to serve. Bond- 
 age to downward visioning is dissolved, and the untram- 
 melled soul salutes God. Then the soul perceives that be- 
 yond all dualities, such as good and evil, stands the Lord, 
 the Changeless. 
 
 With the coming of the Absolute into the relative there 
 arises duality of expression. Light and its absence called, 
 darkness ; pure bliss becomes both pleasure and pain ; good 
 has its negative expression of evil ; the perfect is shadowed 
 with imperfection; reality is hidden by the apparent; all 
 expression is a mixture a duality. Back of these the up- 
 
 [131] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 lifted vision beholds the "light in which is no darkness at 
 all," the truth in which is no error, the goodness in which 
 there can be no mixture, the health in which there is no 
 disease, and the abundance in which there is no poverty. 
 
 Looking to the body and mind as if they were the 
 sources of health and truth we shall never understand how 
 to arouse and maintain fadeless strength. Rather the body 
 will be clothed with weakness and disease, and the mind 
 with gloom and fear. But when the inner vision goes 
 forth in this secret viewing of the Ultimate and the Un- 
 contaminated, then the Unspoilable Wholesomeness laughs 
 in the substance of our bodies. This is "the path that no 
 fowl knoweth, the vulture's eye hath not seen it, the 
 young lion hath not trodden on it, nor the fierce lion 
 passed it by." It is the highway upon which the uplooker 
 moves out from the causes of calamity. Walking here he 
 beholds, "the earth and its inhabitants are dissolved." 
 Evil has no substance. Matter is not. The world is 
 nothing. They are relative reality, and are nullified by 
 looking to the Divine Original. This nihilism of material 
 conditions, operates in one case in the readjustment of 
 environment. In another case it will bring forgetfulness 
 of environment. For some it is the joy of shining vibrant, 
 physical health. For others it is forgetfulness that the 
 body exists. 
 
 Beyond all the machinery of health stands the Un- 
 spoilable Health, saying, "I Am the Lord that healeth 
 thee," waiting only the upward look that He may come 
 
 [132] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 "with healing in His wings," and make us whole by re- 
 mitting our diseases. 
 
 Back of all ecclesiastical machinery for salvation stands 
 the Perfect Love, in the light of Whose Countenance all 
 our sins are dissolved. 
 
 This power of secret vision has had various terms used 
 to describe it, and none more fitting than that in the 
 llth Chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which 
 faith is the mystical power that withers the common law, 
 "stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of 
 fire, escaped the edge of the sword, opened prison bars, 
 etc." It opened the heart of Job to see an unlimited path- 
 way of service and enlargement and to manifest Divine 
 patience. It took the shrink out of Jacob. It taught David 
 the gentleness that is the secret of greatness. It made the 
 lips of Isaiah clean. It disclosed to the Man of Nazareth 
 that greatness is bedded in willingness to serve. The lan- 
 guage of the Fundamental Knower, the hidden man of 
 the heart, without beginning of days, and universal, is "I 
 Am power incarnated to serve," and this language faith 
 alone can perceive. 
 
 Faith, the ancient term for this inner visioning, dis- 
 covers to the uplooker that authority is resident in the 
 King of Kings, and that He is partaker of that authority. 
 "All power in heaven and earth are then given" to him, 
 so that he may command armies, as did Joshua; command 
 the weather, as did Elijah; or lions, as did Daniel; or 
 fire as did the one in fourth dimension who imparted his 
 
 [133] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 resistive qualities to the three Hebrew children; or ma- 
 terial growth as did Jesus with bread, and fish, and wine; 
 or chemical action as did Paul when he shook off the 
 deadly serpent and suffered no harm. Or, as did 
 lamblichus, of Chalcis, who found that the weather obeyed 
 him and eagles flew hither and yon at his insistence. 
 
 Because of these triumphs which certain men of every 
 age have achieved after speaking with commanding de- 
 termination to their invisible powers, they conceived that 
 there must be an order of invisible powers in the universe 
 which is always at the bidding of man. This sense of the 
 mystery of man's inborn authority has been the secret at- 
 traction that has drawn them to obey the Supreme Edict, 
 "Look unto Me," and looking they have found that the 
 will to command the Supreme Presence finds its authority 
 in the revelation that God is the Universal Servitor. Be- 
 holding this truth, the lowliest of men rose up and said, 
 "All power in heaven and earth is given unto Me," and 
 He, with perfect illumination claimed the same authority 
 over devils, disease and death, for everyone who should 
 go forth in His Name, and the fact that these signs fol- 
 lowed attested that the disciples had entered upon his 
 Divine birthright, and was endued with authority to 
 overcome the world. 
 
 It was the Supreme Genius of Jesus of Nazareth to 
 discern and show that the root of authority in man lay in 
 his relationship to the Supreme Good Will. "Thus saith 
 the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His maker, con- 
 
 [134] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 cerning the work of my hands, command ye Me." He 
 spoke and gave His disciples courage to speak as lords of 
 the Obedient God. Blooming out of lowliness into Su- 
 preme Authority He tells us how. Speak like masters, to 
 the Divinity of Lazarus, to the man with the impotent 
 arm, to the mountain, to the sycamore tree. After this 
 manner, speak ye: Thy Kingdom come! Thy Will be 
 done! Thine is the Kingdom forever! Stretch forth thine 
 hand! I will! Be thou clean! Come out of him! Rise up 
 and walk! Go thy way! Be opened! 
 
 This same consciousness of the Eternal was in some 
 measure in Job, Jacob, Johua, and others who rose to the 
 heights of courage to command the Willing Obedience 
 Who is ever challenging us with the words, "See, I have 
 set thee this day over the nations and over the kingdoms." 
 "Lo, I look toward you waiting." "Concerning the works 
 of my hands, command ye Me." And these seers rose to 
 the inborn authority over surrounding conditions. They 
 saw and spoke not of outward conditions but of inward 
 fact as it was held in the mystery of the Kingdom of the 
 Conquering Actual. And it is a challenge to every soul 
 who by his downwad viewing in the past has walled him- 
 self in with feebleness, sickness and defeat, to look upward 
 into the vast Countenance of the Willing Good, realize 
 his oneness with Him, and proclaim with all boldness, I 
 am strength ; I am health ; I am peace ; I am what I wish 
 to be, will to be, for the Universal Obedience worketh in 
 me, and His Kingdom is come. 
 
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THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 Following our Great Example we are to emulate His 
 works. "If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things 
 which are above." Live, think, speak in the realm of 
 authority and power. After this manner speak thee: 
 "Keep me ever facing Thee: Deliver Thou me from 
 evil : Thou art the Overpowering Obedience. I owe Thee 
 bold command, O Thou Owner of all the Kingdoms. In 
 Thy Name I will speak, and it shall be done; will com- 
 mand and it shall stand fast." And in the midst of im- 
 possible conditions there shall speak in the ear of the soul, 
 "Thy God Whom thou serveth, He will deliver thee, for 
 the God of the universe serves those who call with holy 
 boldness." 
 
 Thus is faith the secret visioning power, the confidence 
 of things chosen. It is attainable only with singleness of 
 purpose and lowliness of heart. We have only to remem- 
 ber the apostolic precedent to find that they who sought 
 the highest with the greatest humility spake with such 
 boldness as to put all their enemies to confusion. 
 
 Faith is nothing less than kingship to command the 
 sick to be well, the mind to be at peace, and the bondage 
 of fear to cease. It is the key to His Kingdom. It dis- 
 closes to us the secret power of the Great Servitor, and 
 gives us the secret of all attainment. He that is greatest 
 among you, let him be the servant of all. Looking upward 
 with this extended vision, the soul finds the mystery of 
 the Divine Obedience everywhere, awaiting the rise of a 
 heaven-planted boldness to command. If we have faith 
 
 [136] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF MYSTICS AND SEERS 
 
 as a grain of mustard seed, we shall say to this mountain- 
 ous obstacle of poverty, "be thou cast into the sea," or to 
 this mocking fig tree of disease, "be thou plucked up," or 
 to blindness of mind, "be thou opened," and know before 
 we speak that it shall be so. 
 
 The New Testament is filled with statements which can 
 be interpreted only on the hypothesis that there is in every 
 soul the power to apprehend the Supreme, without the 
 necessary use of any intermediary. Its great ideal of self- 
 mastery is attainable only on the assumption that the soul 
 has immediate access to Unlimited Resources. Man can 
 work out his own salvation only because it is God that 
 worketh in him both to will and to do. This secret 
 identification with the Divine is the basic truth, the know- 
 ing which brings emancipation from the bondage of the 
 senses. The mysticism of the New Testament centered in 
 what was called the Christing, the anointing. It consisted 
 in becoming conscious of inherent oneness with God. The 
 knowing of this Supreme Truth was bedded in the purpose 
 to live the truth. The fact of this oneness with the Divine 
 had always existed, but to become conscious of it, and to 
 make mankind conscious of it, was the effort at which all 
 the mystics and seers of the ages had been unknowingly 
 striving. St. Paul giving to us the heart of mystical 
 Christianity said, "the mystery which was hidden for ages 
 is now revealed unto us by the prophets and Apostles, 
 Christ in you, the hope of glory." 
 
 In the development of this consciousness, a man is rep- 
 
 [137] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 resented as being conceived and born into spiritual con- 
 sciousness. He is represented as a babe in the Christing 
 or anointing. He rises to fuller consciousness, and is a 
 child in the knowledge of his Divine relationship. He 
 attains at last to the measure of the stature of the fullness 
 of this anointing or Christing. He moves onward still to 
 the place of Supreme inner visioning, to say, "I live, and 
 yet not I live, but Christ liveth in me." St. John spoke 
 of this anointing, this Christing, which abideth, and which 
 made one so fully realize his resources in Being that he 
 needed not that anyone should teach him, but knew all 
 things. And just as this mystical perception of God, ac- 
 cording to St. John, brings us into touch with all knowl- 
 edge, it also makes available to us the power, the presence, 
 the love, the peace, and all the completeness of that High 
 and Mighty One, Whose fiat still challenges all that is 
 within man, "Look unto Me and be ye saved" from every 
 material impediment into every spiritual privilege. 
 
 [138] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 A STUDY OF FOSSILS AND SHELLS 
 
 THE progress of natural history is traced in the 
 records of its remains. Likewise, we may trace 
 human progress by study of the fragments or re- 
 mains of ancient civilizations, especially the religious 
 features of them, out of which they have sprung, by which 
 they have been built, and through which they have per- 
 ished. Just as the naturalist is able from a single bone to 
 reconstruct a complete figure of the ancient monsters that 
 roamed the earth, so we may from an occasional fossil re- 
 construct the monstrous deities that in the fancy of ignor- 
 ance peopled the skies, ran riot on earth, and played havoc 
 with the affairs of men. 
 
 THE FALL OF MAN 
 
 This ancient fossil has done yeoman's service in the in- 
 terest of bad theology. In the scientific formula of crea- 
 tion in which a state of divine consciousness took on 
 thought form, and was called by name, and then God be- 
 came that which he thought and called by name, we 
 have the coming of life out of the absolute into the rela- 
 tive, out of the unlimited into the limited and this is 
 really the "fall" and although man was potentially in the 
 first germ of life, he had actively nothing to do with the 
 Fall. If the old allegory seems to picture a sudden fall, 
 
 [139] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 it is because we have misread the story. The Fall was a 
 gradual descent from God, just as the restoration is a 
 gradual evolution back toward the source of being. 
 
 One of the modern fossils is that of Reincarnation. It 
 seems to put a premium on trifling with the opportunities 
 of this life in the idea that by a return again one may re- 
 deem the misspent life. The only conceivable purpose of 
 one incarnation is to give form to an individual expression 
 of spirit, and when that is done the primary purpose of 
 incarnation is accomplished. A body is not essential to the 
 development of spiritual excellencies. Having obtained a 
 spiritual body through the incarnation of life in a physical 
 one, man may not return to the limitations of the physical, 
 for the gate is closed and the flaming sword of the truth 
 blocks the backward move, and illumines the way on 
 which he must go forth and find the Absolute. 
 
 Another choice fossil is that of poverty. That the poor 
 are the specially favored of the Lord. "The poor ye have 
 always with you," is a favorite text to prove that it is the 
 decree of Divine providence rather than a condition out 
 of wrong thinking and wrong action. Poverty, like every- 
 thing else, is primarily a state of consciousness finding ex- 
 pression. An idea that lies at the base of most poverty is 
 the notion that there is not enough to go round. There- 
 fore somebody must be short, and the self-righteous martyr 
 decides that he can endure it better perhaps than some- 
 one else, and thus settles down to make poverty a mark 
 of merit. After all "A man's life consisteth not in the 
 
 [140] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 abundance of the things he possesseth" but in that which 
 he is. If he is rich in those ideas of reality as Life, Truth, 
 Love, Wisdom and Harmony, he will not be much con- 
 cerned about "things" although he will have plenty. 
 
 It may not be God's will. Nothing has been so over- 
 worked as this idea that an absentee God may for some 
 reason which he does not make known, think it best not 
 to give relief. And the sufferer enjoys a bit of self- 
 martyrdom by quoting, "Whom the Lord loveth he 
 chasteneth," and if he loves us much he afflicts us much, 
 and when things get to coming thick and fast the sufferer 
 prides himself that he is one of the Lord's pets. Most 
 human fathers would not wait a minute to give relief to 
 a child of his if it was in his power to do it, and surely 
 God must be as good as an earthly father! The Master 
 said, "How much more shall your heavenly Father give 
 good things to them that ask Him." That ought to end 
 that old fossil but unfortunately it doesn't. People still 
 stick in that old shell because they don't want to shoulder 
 the responsibility and do the work that will bring them 
 out of it. 
 
 One of these fossil ideas was that God was a big man 
 with human passions, ruling the world as it suited His 
 whim, changing His attitude toward it for any reason, and 
 especially when displeased, and this idea is embalmed in 
 some of the hideous idols which have expressed men's con- 
 ception of their deities. Fragments of this old fossil are 
 found in the literature of earlier religions, and is apparent 
 
 [141] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 in the beliefs of some today, who vainly think that God 
 will change His purposes or suspend His laws, to do for 
 them personally, regardless of the interests of the whole 
 race. 
 
 Another of this family of fossils is the idea of favoritism, 
 expressed in the belief of being the elect and specially 
 favored, which has tinctured all beliefs. The elect alone 
 were considered. All others were Gentiles or dogs in the 
 category of opprobrium. The elect were not to consider 
 them, nor have any dealings with them. The elect were 
 in special favor here, and were safe hereafter regardless. 
 
 This ancient idea was reduced to mathematical exact- 
 ness and a high degree of refinement, so that the number 
 of the saved could not be changed. It was not a matter 
 of merit, but of arbitrary favoritism. And lest some ray 
 of hope might lift the gloom of the non-elect even that 
 mercy was blocked by constructing a future atmosphere 
 of fire and brimstone, whose boundaries opened only in- 
 ward. Thus was fixed the final and irretrievable condi- 
 tion of the most of the race, old, young, and "infants a 
 span long." It was a fascinating belief for dyspeptics and 
 hypochondriacs, and other physically and mentally ab- 
 normal people. This God of all human attributes except 
 limitless power thus decreed the number of the saved and 
 the number of the lost because He foresaw it would be 
 that way. Such a conception was no less than diabolism 
 in the will of God. 
 
 This fossil idea was moderated somewhat to the form 
 
 [142] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 that God foresaw just how things were going to come 
 out, but allowed countless millions to be born, knowing 
 them to be elected to such a fate. That was no less than 
 diabolism in the love of God. 
 
 In the mechanism of this ancient fossil, a scheme was 
 worked out, by which one sent from God and partaking 
 of His nature, should suffer all the present and future re- 
 sults of sin, which were really coming to the elect, and by 
 this vicarious atonement, which they were bound to ac- 
 cept because it was eternally determined that they should 
 accept, their future bliss was assured, no matter what they 
 might do or not do. 
 
 This doctrine of partialism finds its echo today in the 
 bigotry of denominationalism, in which each particular 
 body esteems that it holds the essential truth, and that its 
 adherents are in the special favor of the Lord. There are, 
 no doubt, some good people among the others, and it is 
 piously hoped that they may get to heaven! 
 
 The University of Hard Knocks has graduated some 
 of its pupils from the College of Paleontology, and has 
 set them free from the reign of fossils and shells. 
 
 Here and there some bold prophet has seen and pro- 
 claimed that God is no respecter of persons or peoples or 
 places; others have declared that while sin may be visited 
 to the third and fourth generation, righteousness is visited 
 to a thousand generations ; that while sin has consequences 
 reaching into another world, righteousness has con- 
 sequences and potencies reaching into all eternities. Others 
 
 [143J 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 have seen that the Divine Father of the spirits of all 
 flesh can be finally happy only when all His children are 
 home or coming home ; that all are the objects of the love 
 that never faileth; that is not limited as to means or 
 places ; and has all the time and all the eternities to bring 
 them all into harmony with Him. 
 
 One of the most paralyzing of the shells in which people 
 take refuge from the ceaseless prod of the principle of 
 growth, is the idea that any final statement of the truth 
 has been made or can be made. Nothing so cramps the 
 rising aspirations of the soul as to feel that there are no 
 new fields to be explored, nor new expressions of the 
 truth to be given. The only authoritative standards of 
 the truth are those of human experience, and the volume 
 and variety of that increases with every generation, and 
 reaches greater purity as the level of racial development 
 rises ever upward. 
 
 Another ancient shell is the substitution of a form or 
 symbol for the life and power for which it once stood, and 
 the worship of the form goes onward steadily, while its 
 glory has departed. 
 
 Another ancient shell exalted into a fetish, is that one 
 called authority. Some people look to the ministry for 
 authority, until they behold men and women with no min- 
 isterial sanction, moving the multitudes up to higher liv- 
 ing, and they learn that authority is vested somewhere else. 
 Others look to an authoritative church for the final word, 
 until they discover that people with no churchly affilia- 
 
 [144] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 tions are living the life of God among men, and they know 
 that final authority does not rest in the church. Others 
 think they find the final authority in an inspired and in- 
 fallible book, only to find that new truth and new adapta- 
 tions of the truth are constantly being brought to the 
 knowledge of men. And they come at last to realize that final 
 authority is vested in the individual consciousness because 
 it has the power to consciously contact God without any 
 intermediary whatsoever. This does not for a moment de- 
 preciate their value as agencies and instruments, but it 
 relieves them from trying to maintain an impossible pin- 
 nacle such as final authority. 
 
 One of the popular shells from at least mediaeval times 
 is the resurrection of the physical body. Sometimes it is 
 assumed that it will be the identical particles which were 
 in the body at the hour of dissolution. Others thought 
 that it would be the same body, but spiritualized in some 
 way which they left to the Lord, after they had appointed 
 the task. A man who can believe it in the face of the 
 facts involved could believe any other thing regardless of 
 the facts. The difficulties are not enumerated here, but 
 the simple fact that "there is a natural body and there is 
 a spiritual body," right here and now, and that the event 
 which we call death marks the separation of the two, and 
 the rising of the spiritual body into its glory and triumph, 
 points out a rational form of belief. 
 
 Related to this was another which has given many a 
 heartache, howbeit, it may have sometimes furnished a 
 
 [145] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 motive for reformation. It is the idea that, with the resur- 
 rection of the identical body, there is a continuance or 
 resumption of the relationships growing out of this human 
 period of our lives. The Master clearly set aside one 
 feature of it by saying that the woman of numerous hus- 
 bands would belong to none of them for that life knows 
 no such thing as marriage. Likewise He set aside the 
 other features of human relationship by saying that "he 
 that did the will of God, the same was His sister, His 
 brother, and His mother." 
 
 One of the fossils that has done yeoman's service is the 
 idea of a judgment day with its great white throne, and 
 all the appointments of an earthly tribunal, before which 
 all living should in turn pass. All this in the face of the 
 fact that with such an arrangement some of us would 
 have to wait for several eternities to find out our fate. 
 And also in the face of the Master's statement that "now 
 is the Judgment of this world;" the record that Judas 
 went to his own place ; and the statement of St. Paul, that 
 he desired to depart and "be with Christ." The judgment 
 is now in session, and no man needs anything more than 
 the still small voice to tell him just how it is with him, 
 and the resurrection is now proceeding. There is no wait- 
 ing nor uncertainty. We continue after death just where 
 we left off here. Personal identity and recognition are 
 in no wise predicated on a material resurrection, nor does 
 our future depend on anything else but character. 
 
 The Second Coming of Christ as presented usually has 
 
 [146] 
 
THE COLLEGE OF PALEONTOLOGY 
 
 mystified more people, because of the manifest absurdity of 
 applying the prophecies of the event to any physical ap- 
 pearance. The foolish claims of the Millerites and other 
 adventists of even the present day only show how the 
 Master's Words concerning His second coming have been 
 misunderstood. Yet it is but history repeating itself, for 
 the first coming did not in any sense meet the material 
 expectations of the people of the promised Messiah, simply 
 because they had misread the nature and significance of 
 the event. John said to them, "there standeth one among 
 you whom ye know not," and it is true today. The Christ 
 is come in the sense that He is promised, and few know 
 Him because the world and the church have misunder- 
 stood His words. But the steadily growing volume of 
 Christ-consciousness must soon make the blindest see and 
 accept His presence and reign of power. 
 
 Another hampering fossil in its effects on the growth of 
 character is the doctrine of the Vicarious Atonement, in 
 that it purports to do for others what they ought to do 
 for themselves. This violates a law of spiritual economics, 
 not to mention the patent impossibility of one man putting 
 his hand in the fire and another getting the burn. The 
 theory properly belongs to an age when fear was the 
 supreme motive in religion, but it can have no place in an 
 age when love is the motive of religious thought and ac- 
 tion. The At-one-ment stands a changeless fact, but the 
 vicarious theory of it is to be classed with that pagan con- 
 ception that "God was reconciled to us by the death of 
 His Son." 
 
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THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 These and many other fossils and shells cast off and out- 
 worn in which many people still find a seeming security 
 like the hermit crab, all have had a part and served a pur- 
 pose, lor they stood for some truth which they have long 
 ceased to represent. They are old wine skins which are 
 not at all adequate vessels for the fuller understanding and 
 expression of the truth. The pupil who has been promoted 
 to be a student discards the letter, but retains the spirit 
 of truth. To him these "traditions of the elders" are in- 
 teresting relics, but the "I say unto you" of the Eternal 
 Christ speaking within, is his stay and authority. 
 
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ILLUSTRIOUS GRADUATES 
 
 FROM the time when this school was instituted, in 
 that hour when God said, "Let us make man in our 
 own image," there have been illustrious ones who 
 have stood head and shoulders above their fellows in their 
 attainments, who have been the landmarks, the guides 
 and the saviours of men, calling them upward to the 
 walks of self-mastery and the positions of supreme influ- 
 ence. Up toward the level of these epochal men the vast 
 masses have been inspired to strive for similar attainment. 
 God has had his honor men in all generations. There 
 was Enoch who learned to walk with God, keeping step 
 with all the divine requirements, whether walking was 
 good or bad, and one day walked off the edge of the 
 material world of things into the Realm of Reality. 
 
 Another of these was Abraham, who heard within 
 himself a Divine Voice calling him out, and he followed, 
 "not knowing whither he went." In his career he at one 
 time thought nothing of lying to Abimilech, and there 
 were some things in the episode about Hagar that were not 
 to his credit, but he kept on in the great school until he 
 graduated, and came to talk with God, as a man talks 
 with his friend. He was not only blessed, but he was 
 made a blessing, and was called the "father of the 
 faithful." 
 
 There was Jacob, who was by name and nature a 
 
 [1491 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 deceiver and a supplanter, when he entered the school. 
 He did things that would have sent him to State's prison 
 had he lived in this day, yet the ceaseless fall of the 
 tribulum and the constructive processes of the Universal 
 Servitor eventually made him a "prince with God." 
 
 Elisha, who seems to have had some irascible streak of 
 temper so that he could not endure to be teased by chil- 
 dren on account of his bald head, kept on at school, fol- 
 lowing the ceaseless quest, "Where is the God of Elijah?" 
 until the question was answered, and from thence he 
 found himself clothed with mastery. His touch vibrated 
 with health, his breath was charged with healing vapor, 
 his words could heal the virus in the poisoned pottage, 
 and his very bones were charged with life-giving power. 
 
 Job seems to have had less of the so-called "out broken" 
 things in his make-up, yet trouble multiplied for him, and 
 when his troubles came thick and fast, he walked along 
 the brink of blasphemy, and vowed his integrity in spite 
 of trouble. Job's real trouble does not seem to have been 
 that he was in any conscious sense a sinner, but he was so 
 well situated that he had unconsciously violated the law of 
 growth, so there came along an April, '06, earthquake 
 that shook down his surroundings, pulled up the stakes 
 of his tents, smashed his business, scattered his family, 
 knocked the bottom out of his securities, and enlarged the 
 borders of his life. He graduated as God's honor man in 
 the College of Patience. 
 
 David did some very naughty things when he was 
 going to school, and had a very serious heart-to-heart 
 
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ILLUSTRIOUS GRADUATES 
 
 interview with his teacher, but after a prolonged season 
 of "lickin' an' learnin'," he became the voice of the divine 
 harmonies the sweet singer of Israel. 
 
 Isaiah, of seraphic vision, took a thorough course in 
 the school of trouble which was at one time as uncom- 
 fortable as a hot coal from off the altar to heal his lips of 
 the bad habit of telling naughty stories, until at last he 
 spoke in exalted and inspired phrase. 
 
 St. Paul took the full course. A few of his troubles 
 are enumerated, and they were enough for a dozen ordi- 
 nary men. At the place where his marital experiences 
 should have been mentioned there is an eloquent silence. 
 In fact, Paul reacted to trouble so naturally that he 
 rejoiced in it, and was comfortable only when things 
 were coming thick and fast, and he found trouble to be 
 an emancipator. Just why he failed to get rid of that 
 mysterious "thorn in the flesh," we probably shall not 
 know, but he recognized that it was "a messenger of the 
 Satan" whoever he was. He talked with God, could 
 boast of "visions and revelations of the Lord," could heal 
 the sick, and raise the dead, but he could not shake that 
 thorn. What a pity he did not live in this day to learn 
 what a stupendous error he was laboring under; that his 
 thorn in the flesh had "neither intelligence nor sense," 
 but was an "error of the mortal mind," and it is just 
 possible that a change of his thought in regard to the 
 whole ministry of trouble would at least have taken the 
 point off the thorn. He had a remarkable graduation, in 
 that he could rejoice in tribulation, and that he could go 
 
 [151] 
 
THE PROSPECTUS OF LIFE 
 
 forth to give his message and his ministry without any 
 guarantee except that he would be delivered from the 
 people whom he served. What a world of hidden irony 
 there was in that promise ! He was afraid of neither pain 
 nor trouble, and shrank not from either death or dying. 
 Illustrious honor man of the University of Hard Knocks, 
 rest thy soul in paradise ! 
 
 Chief of all the honor men was the Man of Nazareth, 
 Whom we call the Master, "Who learned obedience by 
 the things which He suffered, and was made perfect." 
 That Life which began amid the gossip of neighbors, 
 came into the world in a manger, and went out on the 
 point of a spear, summed up the whole volume of human 
 trouble in one brief life, and set the way for everlasting 
 ages by which each soul may make himself of no reputa- 
 tion, and yet be highly exalted by the very things he 
 suffers, for doubtless nothing can so fully reconcile the 
 ways of God unto men, and so reconcile men unto God, 
 as for one to so fully obey all the laws of the Father, even 
 unto death, in obedience to the categorical imperative, 
 that He became the very Voice of God to men in trouble 
 the Saviour of the world. He did not suffer for us, 
 nor in our stead, nor to reconcile God to us, but He did 
 enter fully into all the experiences of a normal human 
 life, and showed us the way to bear trouble and to triumph 
 over it, and so to reach self-mastery. All hail the Match- 
 less Name forever enshrined in earth and in heaven 
 JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 Other illustrious honor men there have been without 
 
 [152] 
 
ILLUSTRIOUS GRADUATES 
 
 number, but they are so numerous that they are all in- 
 cluded in that white-robed company, who are going "up 
 through great tribulation," and whose number is ever 
 increasing. Among them are the myriads who have died 
 in war at the word of a ruler, who decreed their death 
 by "divine right." There are the martyrs to scientific 
 experiment who have "suffered many things of many 
 physicians." There are the heroic legions who have spent 
 their last breath denying the reality of pain or disease, or 
 even death itself. There are the countless martyrs of 
 scolding partners, who have submitted to be slowly nagged 
 to death, rather than to defy tradition, and sever the bonds 
 imposed by legal and ecclesiastical pronouncement. And 
 there are the myriads of real martyrs to the mills and 
 sweatshops, where life has been robbed of every sweet 
 thing and wrung dry of every fond hope, that the divi- 
 dends of the trusts may be swelled. These have all been 
 promoted, or will be. 
 
 Trouble lasts only so long as it is needed to emancipate 
 us. When we have moved up to freedom that special 
 form of trouble departs and something else comes along. 
 It is one thing right after the other. At first it seems like 
 a tragedy, and then it becomes ridiculous, and then our 
 philosophy gets adjusted, and we rejoice that "tribulation 
 worketh patience, and patience experience, and experi- 
 ence hope." 
 
 [153] 
 
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