FROM THE MOUNTAIN TOP ^^ ^1 \n ^ 6 'ST c >> •H 00 00 fi ^^ >» +3 O iinuntain Snp From the Mountain Top + HALCYON BOOK CONCERN HALCYON, CALIF. am:* FEB S 1915 INDEX Angel of Healing, The 68 Angel of the Path, The 269 Answer Me 166 Armor of Faith, The 45 As Ye Sow 50 Ask and Receive 1 10 Ask Each Day 160 Be Merciful to God 24 Beautiful Message, The 235 Bird of Life, The 44 Birds of Prey 180 Birth of the Soul, The 37 Book The 104 Call of the Flesh, The 107 Cause and Effect 232 Cease and Sing 275 Central Flame, The 148 Child of Love, The 55 Children of Light 39 Christ-Born, The 120 Christ or Judas 80 Clarion Call, A ' 276 Come 234 Come Back 72 Come Forth 66 Come Forth, Thou Christ 240 Common Chord, The 196 Compassion 90 Compassion's Veil 153 Cross and Crown 76 Cross of Fire, The 91 Crown, The 221 Cyclic Rounds, The 218 Darkness 163 Dead in Life, The 114 Death 199 Debtors to Life . . . . • 155 Deliverer, The 27 Diamond Soul, The 178 Draught of Lethe, The 86 399504 NDEX Earth-Born God, The 40 Emotion 203 Endurance 167 Enter the Path 74 Eternal Warfare, The 263 Face of Christ, The 25 Faithfulness 149 Father iNIine 19 Father's Care, The 223 Fear 200 Feast, The 226 Find the Good 106 From God to Man 184 Fruit of the Tree, The 38 Fulfilment by Faith 230 Garden of the Soul, The 266 Gift of God, The 103 Gift of Life, The 109 Give Way 108 Goal, The 52 God of Pain, The 81 Grave of Sin, The 175 Greatest is Charity, The 135 Great Moment, The 233 God Still Lives 64 God's Thought 56 Grow Wings and Fly High 188 Guerdon of Humility, The 42 Guerdon or the Loss, Tlie 143 Harp of Infinity, The 49 Hearken to Me 141 Heart of God, The 185 Heart of A World, The 29 He Comes 151 Heights of Life, The 105 His Birthright 237 Higlnvav. Tlie 1 82 Hold High Tliy Trust 1 86 Hold and Listen 79 INDEX Homage of the Heart, The 33 Holy Angel Love, The 83 Holy Flame, The 75 Humanity 21 "I Have Kept The Faith" 126 Illusion's Flames 93 Inner Temple, The 274 Intervals of Life, The 125 It 171 I Stand and Wait 23 I— Thv Soul 22 Jewels of Light 96 Judge Not 272 Just So Far 222 Justice 132 Justice Reigns 116 King Cometh, The 82 Latch, The 14.'5 Law Fulfiled, The 271 Lens of the Soul, The 270 Let Go 170 Life in Death 152 Life Knots 229 Life's Demand 220 Life's Opportunities 48 Life's Shine and Shadow 268 Lift Thou Thine Eves to Ciod 262 Lift Up Thine Eyes 142 Lift Up Your Heads 71 Light of Life, The 77 Light of Peace, The 65 Light of the Soul 260 Light Within, The 197 Listen 118 Little Things, The 245 Living Christ, The 131 Load, The 224 Look Deep <53 Look Within 161 NDEX Loose Him ~53 Love and Hatred 97 Love Divine, The IS Love is God 239 Love the Avenger 62 Love's Abode 57 Love's Conquest tS Love's Offices 207 Loyalty 157 Make Clean Thine Heart 84 Make Room for Me 164 Man 69 Message, The 242 Milestones, The • 254 "Mv Father" 133 My Gifts to Thee 231 M V Kingdom 18 My "Little Ones" 26 Mvsterv of Mvsteries 53 Need of Pain,' The 214 New Births 191 New Cycle, A 67 Next Step, The 209 Nine Steps, The 212 No Recall 112 Northern Windows, The 162 Obstruction, Tlie 211 Open Thine Eyes 129 Op])ortunity 177 Pain of Progress. The 265 Path, The 88 Path is Hard, The 99 Path of Dutv. The 47 Peace of All" Fulfilment, The 2r)6 Peace of God, The 173 Perfect One, The 195 Place of Peace, The 87 Power of Loving, The 248 Power to Build, The 1 1 1 INDEX Prayer 138 Price, The 2Ki Price of Love, The 1 1 i"' Pride 73 Prophecv, A 78 Relight 'Thy Torcli 2G7 Renunciation 3G Rich, The 179 Right to Seek, The 202 Rouse Ye ■'59 Scoffer, The 168 Search 1 ;"50 Seek the Cause 1 93 Shadow, The 165 Shift Thy Load • 1 5 i Sing Soft and Low 1 H Song of Life, The 2 11 Sorrow 181 Soul of Song, The 51 Soul Redeemed, The • 259 Soul's Opportunity, The 91 Speech of Christ^ The 156 Spiritual Birth 31 Stand Up 101 Stones of Sacrifice, The 215 Stream of Sacrifice, The 213 Stricken Soul, The. 169 Tail of the Dragon, The 58 Task. The 214 Temple Plan, The 174 Threefold Warning, The 172 Thou Hast Done Well 1 16 Thou Wanderer 32 Thine Own 92 Thus Saith The Lord 119 Thy Bonds 227 Thy Choice 20 1- Thy Crown 110 Thy Golden Opportunity 187 INDEX Thy Heritage 85 Thy Star and Mine 35 Thy Trust 121 To" the Dead in Life 89 To Mine Own 137 To the Neophvte 34 To My Beloved 17 To the World 261 Trimurti, The 113 Truth 183 Twili(;ht and Dawn 249 Unselfish Love 273 Unfinished, The 201 Umbilicus, The 219 Veil, The 194 Veils of the Soul 70 Victor, The 216 Voice of God, The 95 Warriors of Light 278 Weapons of the Self-Born, The 134 Web, The 198 What Doest Tliou for Me ? 20 Wheel of Suffering, The 264 Wheel of Time, The 30 Where is God ? 98 Which of the Three 60 Will Divine 192 Will to Live, The 252 Wine of Life, The 41 Wing Thv Heart Home 54 Word Eternal, The 189 Workshop, The 123 World Pain, The 208 Wouldst Thou Win ? 225 Ye Too 176 You Must Choose 250 Your Defeats 258 Your Hours 217 Your Resjwnsibility 228 FOREWORD THE following pages are sent forth anononiously to the world at large for the reason that, in the majority of instances, "we humans" only recjuire a specific statement of fact to arouse in oiu' minds a spirit of contradiction or argumentation which at once prevents us from perceiving or accepting the given fact at its true value. If this can be avoided in this instance by withholding the knowledge of the real source of the contents of this book, thus permitting unprejudiced consideration of the messages imprinted on these pages, as well as an opportunity for intuitiion to supply any missing links, it is hoped that their mission of service to the discouraged and heart hungry, to the careless and indifferent, may be accomplished. Truth is its own authority ; the light within alone is able to recognize the light without in any message, teachings, or teacher. Thus the Divine in the human recognizes and realizes its identity with the Divinity cased in human vestments — for Truth and that Divinity are akin — are one in fact. On the Scroll of Infinite Duration is writtin in letters of flaming life, the basic meaning of the first Great Word — that Word which all evolving life is spell- ing out in orderly sequence, letter by letter, syllable by syllable, as the ages pass. The higher consciousness of the human soul is part of that scroll of light, and on that plane understands its Unity with All — but, entombed in matter and outer husks, the personal entity, though "trailing clouds of glory from afar" is seethed in oblivion and forgetfulness, so far as its real nature, its inherent divinity, is concerned. Wars, pestilence, famines and cataclysms, with their attendant shocks of suffering serve to awaken the latent spiritual memories of man to the fundamental moral meaning of existence by stilling the outer self and driv- ing it in, and for those "whose vision is single," vibra- tions of sound and light come from heights where stand the Sentinels of Life ever transmitting and modifying the cosmic evolutionary forces to the status and under- standing of races and worlds on the levels below. Gently but persistently descend those cosmic vibrations into the valleys where dwell the multitudes. Ever and anon, the inner ear, sight or feeling, of some one in those valleys may catch a tinkle of sound, or sense a flash of light, or a color of cosmic feeling, falling from those altitudes celestial, and then — translated into terms of human un- derstanding — a new keynote, a higher impulse, is given to human endeavor with deeper concepts of life; or it may give a more basic understanding of the true phi- losophy of Being; it may mean an uplifting poem or work of art, a high musical inspiration, a new scientific truth or invention that will further unify the races of the earth, or, in the field of politics and government be rendered into terms of a regenerating principle and plan for action that will move the world a step nearer that economic freedom in line with life's fundamental purpose. Eternally beating, ever beating, the rain of spiritual influences fall ceaselessly on humanity, refreshing, quickening and awakening the human more and more to his interdependent greatness, spiritually, morally and materially, with all that is. Standing on life's peaks of snowy whiteness, where one may look down — and under- stand, the Word thunders its truth to the Inner Self and senses. In the valleys, however, are but the faint whisper- ings of that truth, "not easily lieard, and most easily mis- understood, yet the basic meaning of that AVord of Eife is attainable* to all who unselfishly aspire— and search. Brliirat^li to jHumanity S^d^olJl I ^tU0 ^nta Ei^v^ a K01J TO MY BELOVED AROUSE ye! arouse ye! Children of tke New Covenant. Why stand ye in the pubhc places idle throughout the busy day? The war of the ages is upon thee — the strife between the Sons of Uni- versal Light and the Brothers of the Shadow. The long list of the Sons of Betrayal, the Judas power of the ac- cumulated ages, hath its arms about thy neck and is press- ing upon thy cheek the kiss that bringeth crucifixion. Awake! thou that sleepest, and the Logos shall shine upon thee. The Christ in thine own soul whis- pers: "Be of good courage, I have overcome the world." The days of preparation are upon thee. Gird on that armor of Righteousness which is the heritage of every Son of the Living God, and strike for the freedom of the races of the earth from the clutch of the Beast, the embodied JVIammon who now holdeth in subjection the children of Man. Think ye that no protest rises to the seventh heaven from the murdered Abels of the long past ages? Think ye the Law hath lost its power because its judgments tarry long? Become one with the law. Enter thou the Holy of Holies with unsandaled feet and covered head, that the forces of Love, Law and Life may flow unob- structed through the Stone of Sacrifice upon which thou standest, and the return wave bear to thee the spiritual essence that shall make thee free. In freedom lies thy strength. The sword of the Spirit shall be thy reward, and He whom thou lovest shall lead thee to living waters, for He is the Warrior of Light, the Unconquerable, for whom the hour shall never strike. He is thine own true Self, and when thy shadows flee away thou shalt be- hold the King in His beauty and hohness. MY KINGDOM I BUILT me a nest; — I, Hamsa — in the heart of a hall of lire. I hrought from far off regions of space huge relics of long dead spheres to build it strong and true to the lines Infinity fashions and bounds all living things. I lined it with coral reefs and with precious gems, wrought by the fiery lives; I brought fleecy clouds from the sky to soften and cool the glowing stones to which my nest must cling, lest the Storm-Gods, angered by my presumption, should tear it apart from its foundations and scatter its fragments afar. Then I sat me down and waited in the solitudes of Time. Waited, till the whirling balls in the sky above had burst and scattered their glowing earthy embers on the surface of my nesting place and hemmed me in, close, warm, safe from the baffled fury of the Storm Kings. I brought forth my young; creeping things, plants, birds, fishes, animals, and finally man. Then I raised my wings and soared away to the heavens above. Now I fly in never ceasing motion around my nest- ing place, watching, ever watching for the day to dawn when those I brought to birth and gave the chance to win the heritage of the blest, shall look up and see me, and seeing, shall know me as I am. Not as those that hate me, know me, but as I AIM in truth, to lover, friend and husband, bride and mother; and, having known me, yield themselves to me in love, that so at last I come into :MY OWN, my Kingdom, that I loved to life, long ages since. 18 FATHER MINE FxVTHER mine! though Thou hast cast me down where deep calls unto deep across the span of human woe, though Thou hast stripped from me the mantle of protection Thou gavst me, and left me naked, lone, exposed to every blast; though Thou hast given power unto mine enemy to raze my home and send its beams and rafters crashing down upon my shrinking form; yet I behold Thine everlasting, all encircling arm outstretched to me, and through the storms and wreckage of my outer life I see the Star, the symbol of Thy Power, that evermore must rise and set upon Thy breast, — the Star of Thy Nativity — and know that even as its rays reach out and lighten all the vaults of heaven, so doth a single ray of that same Star reach out and pierce the gloom within mj^ heart and make a nesting place of light therein. A single ray! but even so a carrier of the voice of God; a God that speaks such words as no mere human ear can bear, yet speaks in tones my soul doth under- stand, and says — "Fear not, for I am with thee in the dark as well as in the light, and I will cover thee with mine own hand and keep thee safe against the day w^hen thy betrayer seeks the light of that fair star upon my breast w^hich leads to thee. For not until thine enemy doth seek thee out and bind the bruises made upon thy tender flesh, and with repentance and rejoicing brings thee back unto thine own, can e'en a glimmer of that Hght fall o'er his blinded eyes." He who doth strike his brother down and leave him to the beasts of prey, may never find his Father's house again, till led by that same brother's hand back to his Father's feet. 19 WHAT DOEST THOU FOR ME? WHEN Star struck Star and space was quivering from the shock; while flames were flashing red and white-hot metals crept in streams between the flery tongues which leaped from place to place in search of food for burning; I sought and found and held thee in the hollow of my hand till once again the power of Water intervened and cooled the molten mass ; then gathered up the remnants and formed another ball on which my feet might rest the while 1 built another nesting place for thee. Another day of time, when floods were loosed and overwhelmed the earth, on torrents fierce I rode to rescue thee. In crest, in trough of wave I sought and found and tore thee from the water demons' clutch, those demons of the depths who seize and drag the sons of men down to the ocean's floor and take their blood for starring gems to deck satanic crowns. While other Gods looked down on earth from otlier suns in search of portents for their guidance in the war of worlds, I sought thee out for thou wert more to me than all dead worlds. Through all the kingdoms of the earth, in war or peace, through blackest night and light of day, in this, another age, I sought thee in thy wanderings, paid thy ransom, brought thee home. And thou, what doest thou for me? Thou now hast come unto the parting of the ways and if thou turnest from the way marked out by me and mine, then transient life alone remains for thee. 20 HUMANITY AS SHINE the stars set in my kingly crown, the crown which my desire hath welded of my con- quest of the Dragon of Illusion, and studded with the jewels of thy sacrifice, so shalt thou, the prince, the heir to all my universe of riches, shine in that great day when all mine own shall come to me to feast ^\ith me on viands all the ages gone have grown from seed sown in my hody and watered by my deep compassion. As vast as is my kingdom, even so is vast the love which sheltered and protected, conceived and bore thee, son of mine, — the fiery essence of that love which clothes thee, as thou art clothed, with woven garment, clinging close about thy form, — the love that all the waters of the misty deeps can never quench; the love which grows, like to the tree of life whose topmost branches touch the skies, with every day of every age that thou hast passed in battle with the powers of Hell. Then canst thou doubt my purpose, scorn my mes- senger when every tree and flower and living thing points all unerringly to thought for thee, or strive to find some other way to reach the rest and bliss thy soul desires? The poignant grief, the agony of spirit rising like the ocean's waves within thy heart, drawing from thy ten- sioned lips the cry "^ly Father," paves the way and floods the mile-stones with a light supernal, that thou shalt not be hindered when thy face is turned towards me, thy back upon the fleshly things that strew thy way and stay thy feet. Yea, even more, for thou shalt be my crown, my KINGDOM and MY ALL. Lo; I shall live in thee, as thou in me, when dawns that other day. 21 I— THY SOUL THROUGH vaster spaces than thy thought-wings compass. Through the long eternities of never ceasing motion, I — thy soul, must wander, wait- ing, ever waiting for the hour to strike when thou, the body linked to me through all the vanished ages, may clear-eyed look into my face and know me as I am, for now, alas! thou art a living lie; the light of truth is far away from thee, and thou hast taken of my strength to build that lie. "The Path" is hard to tread for thee, for thou hast made it hard. Thinkest thou that self same path is easier for me? I needs must walk therein until thine eyes are opened, and thou seest through the veil of flesh which thou hast built and closely folded round about thee, lest thou be compelled against thy will to see tlie naked truth; for well thou knowest thou must shrink abashed and terror-stricken, if its glorious light fall full unon thee now. But one day surely that same light will pierce the veils despite thy frantic clutch upon them, and as thou bearest all its searching beams, so wilt thou bind me closer far to thee, or drive me forth unbound and deso- late, compelled to leave thee to the Jinns thou hast evoked. 22 I STAND AND WAIT LOOK! my beloved, I stand at the gate and wait. Wait, while my knees bend low, my back bows down 'neath the weight of the heavy load I must bear, lest over-weariness come upon me, the gate swing shut, the latch fall into place, and thus shut out for aye some wayworn child who through my entreaties has entered the path that leads to the mount of transfigu- ration. My outstretched hands must needs fend off the Guardian of the Threshold lest he close the gate ere the threshold is cleared and leave but a part of thy mangled form on either side of the gate. Then canst thou not bring me oil for my anoint- ing, relief for my straining muscles and a kerchief to wipe the bloody sweat from my face? Bring them thy- self from the farther land. I may not enter the nearer land to ease mine own self till thou hast passed the gate, for thou hast bound my body to the gate supports by the network of thy weakness. I plead not for release, but that thou shouldst bring me the 'kerchief and oil, — bring them thyself. 22 BE MERCIFUL TO GOD POOR, weak and fickle, blind and feeble human soul, not even fully born, yet daring and defying God in ignorance of the effects of sacrilege so heedlessly committed. The vaults of Heaven echo with the calls of the re- leased who fain would draw me from thee, saying, "What is this man to thee that thou shouldst sacrifice thyself for him"? Yet all the treasures of the myriad spheres which jostle mine can never yield to me what I M'ould lose in losing thee. ]Man cries to God for pity in his hour of trial, but never sees that God might even cry to man for pity in an hour when in his cowardice, his faithlessness and in ignorance man opens wide the door of Hell and leaps therein in his mad search for that he never yet has earned — the peace of all fulfilment — and so compels the Christ, the first born son of God, to enter Hell again, and yet again. The loss of hand or foot will often send a man despairing to his tomb; yet man will tear a])art the heart and limbs and body of his God, by tearing faith and love and mercy from his soul, — the body of his God, — and not perceive his cruelty until too late to stay his hand. Be merciful to God, thou son of man, and God will mercy find for thee, in that dark hour when all alone thou standest forth to meet the Dweller on the Thresh- old of the future, and battle for thy right to live again as Man. 24 THE FACE OF CHRIST THROUGH all the long, long day, at morn and noon and night, ^ve cry to Thee, Thou Christ of God. At morn we hail Thee King and build a throne and seat Thee there; by noon we tear Thee down, deny that we have ever known Thee, and, ere falls the night, with fulsome flattery or jest we plant the kiss of foul betrayal on Thy lips, and cowardly or stupidly stand by and see Thee nailed upon the cross. And Thou, each day that we in turn do crucify Thee afresh, dost look into our eyes with tenderness, compas- sion, yet in sorrow past all telling; and nevermore while life and reason last, may we forget those eyes of Thine, those limpid pictures of the woes of all the world, nor fail to recognize that one wherein is limned the part that we have played in all that anguished woe. Ah, human race! how great the price which day by day is paid again and yet again to raise each unit of the mass to heights where it may see the face of Christ in every human eye, and understand that only by a brother's need, a sister's pain, can one in justice gauge the helj) which should be given. 25 MY "LITTLE ONES" GENTLE, tender, obedient, fit dwellers for the habitations of light, — though now wandering in wild jungles where herd the human beasts of prey, or through the stony by-ways which thy brothers have prepared for thy weary feet, in ignorance of the law of final retribution; — to thee and such as thee, w^ould I speak a word of promise. Though thine head be now bowed low ; though thine heart pulsate with the thud of the fallen stone, though thy feet are torn and bleeding, — yet shall the weight of thy brother's sin be lifted from thy neck, the blood once more course through thy veins with the bounding life of the days of thy youth; and I, even I, will cast aside the stones from thy path and deliver thee from the power of the human beasts of prey. Thou shalt be led to altars set on high, where thou mayest give thanks for the glory shed upon thy life; and power shall be given thee to reach down thy hand and help thy fallen brother to thine own side on the mountain-top. 26 THE DELIVERER WILL nothing, life or death, the lonehness of the wilderness, the screams of the mob, the heights or the depths, open the eyes of the skeptic to the truth? From the first gleam of light thrown on the law of gravitation; from the first observation of the moon's influence on the tides, life and law have been pouring out streams of corroborative evidence to every open mind, to the fact that "like seeks like," and seeks that it may kill, and kills that it may raise to higher fields of action, that which it kills. In terror, in despan*, or for the sake of self-indulgence, man casts away the only prop that can possibly hold him safely to the Path, — his faith in God — the ultimate Good, and refuses to see that only by the pain he suffers, the sacrifice he is com- pelled to make, (whether he will or nay), his sorrow, repentance and final surrender, can he grow toward God and can gain full Illumination. Like as every grain of sand, leaf of tree, sense or organ of body has developed by stress and strain, and all that action of life which impells to stress and strain and consequent suffering, so it is that all the best in man can only groAv by suffering; and yet the slightest pain, the least sacrifice, the faintest trace of coming sorrow will arouse the demons in his nature to activity, and they will force him to yield them all of their de- 27 THE DELIVERER CONTINUED sires (however hard the blows he strikes at their behest must fall upon some other suffering soul) ; until the hour of his deliverance has come. If all the power he arouses at the call of those demoniacal forces might be turned in the right direction, the pain would vanish, the sacrifice become joy past telling, the desire for self-indulgence change to spiritual satisfaction, but Fear, the paralyzer, seizes him in its grip and only requires a breath of suspicion to cause him to relinquish his power and all that he has hitherto beheved in or hoped for. Make way for the Deliverer. Enthrone the power of Endurance. 28 THE HEART OF A WORLD TREAD softly, my child; breathe lightly, mine own. The sacred place of a breaking heart hath power to bow down the heads of Angels, to hush the wild shrieks of the Demons, and hold e'en the Ham- mer of Thor suspended in space when the last fretted strand is parting. Be still, little ones, you are standing today on most holy ground, for the INIother-heart of a world is break- ing, and with it thy Father's heart. The Devas are raising the altar, and gathering the incense, grain by grain, as 'tis wrung from the sweat of despairing Souls; and the stars are clearing a path through the heavens that the Holy Fire may descend and kindle the Living Sacrifice of broken and contrite hearts. In the smoke of its burning the "seeing" eye may descry a vision of Law fulfilled and of Love, re- deemed from bondage to sense, enthroned forevermore. Go softly, be silent my child. Behold, and listen! 29 THE WHEEL OF TIME Restless, Unsatisfied, Faithless Children: — KNOW ye that no power can stop the Wheel of Time to which I as well as thou art bound se- curely by fetters of our own forging? The more thou strainest at the fetters, the more they will cut into thy quivering nerves and flesh. By twisting thy tor- tured form to catch a glimpse of some other way which thou thinkest may haply lie on the other side of the Wheel, thou dost only succeed in crushing thy head between the spokes. Will ye leave me again as ye have so oft before, to bear the burden of your woe alone, while you go back to the slimy depths of the under-world amid the creep- ing things that weave their webs of Lust, Avarice and Selfishness about you — till ye are helpless in their meshes, and bound more helplessly than ever upon that Wheel from which ye seek release? O that my words were arrows that they might pierce your hardened hearts, — that my thoughts were flames of love that they might kindle the dead embers on the cold altars of vour souls! 30 SPIRITUAL BIRTH LET NOT weariness of flesh or travail of Soul plunge you into sloughs of despair or discourage- ment. Ye cannot yet behold the dawn of new life — the fruition of your long travail. Know ye not that the spiritual man cometh to birth in the silence, coldness and darkness of the Soul's mid- winter, as doth the new life of the tree which seemeth cold and dead, whilst within the shelter of trunk and branch a new life-stream is rising, which shall bring forth healing and beauty when the long winter be passed? Think ye the future foliage, flower and fruit hath knowledge of the newly risen life-stream which is to bring them forth from the unseen, the unmanifest? It is ever he who is willing to lose his life that shall find it. The pure life-stream which sprang forth from Infinity may be dammed up by willful evil, and made a receptacle for vile refuse, the flotsam and jetsam of human infirmities, and can only be clarified by pain, anguish and toil. Tear down thine own peculiar dam, whate'er it cost thee, that the stream — purified by thy toil and suffer- ing — may again flow back to its source, bearing on its bosom thy cargo of experience, and receiving in re- turn the impulse to new life, new birth. 31 THOU WANDERER COME back to me, my child! Thou wanderer — come, ere falls the night of life, and all enwrapped with shadows dense thou canst not see the way. As deep hath called to deep across the centuries of time, so have I called to thee, and in thine egotistic blindness every path save one, — the right one — draw- eth thee afar from me, and I must fain stand still and see thee go to certain sorrow. The star which draws thee now is not the liome thou seekest, nor canst thou reach the nearer star where I now stand, unless thou now wilt take my hand and let me lead thee home. I do not threat thee, child of mine, but with my soul in arms against thy foes, I plead with thee to turn thy back on all the voices of the night, and though it be on sharpened rocks which pierce thy feet, retrace thy steps — come back to me. 32 THE HOMAGE OF THE HEART TIllXK not to gird the laurel leaves of earthly fame upon the brow of him whom countless hosts of Light hail, "Victor!" in Life's lists. What careth he for things — for sense illusions? Purified by fire, bereft of pride, what king of earth or angel of the skies hath power to lead him to the throne where jNIaha Deva awaiteth his appearance? Alone, unheralded, he came upon the screen of time ; alone he lived and died ; alone he must ascend the steps — the spheres strewn with the vanquished and the slain of long past ages. Each hard fought vantage ground he wins gives footing to another who hard beset doth follow; each plunge into the stream which flows from Maha Deva's head doth shower with cleansing drops some other weary soul too weak to reach their source. The homage of thine heart alone will strengthen him for future battles with the hostile dAvellers on "The Path" who fain would stop his way. Love imparteth strength for stern endurance and he may not lay down his arms and crown himself until you too stand by his side, a conquerer in truth. 33 TO THE NEOPHYTE TO ATTAIN tlie goal of perfection— that goal where the consciousness of mortal man identifies itself with all the purity, power and glory of the divine, the inner Self, — the candidate must pass through the Fires of Renunciation which alone can yield the Waters of Regeneration wherewith the sin- stained sheathes of Soul are purified. While passing- through the fires or struggling in the waters. Victory will seem unattainable. A silence, vast, deep, incomprehensible, comes over the neophyte wlien the supreme test of patient endur- ance of pain and suffering is at an end; his arms clasp but empty air as he raises them beseechingly to the Great Self for succor, for strength to bear the unut- terable loneliness that envelops and falls like a pall about him. But it will pass, aye, pass it must, and in the peace that succeeds each hard won fight, there comes a sense of knowledge and power unspeakable — the guerdon of the travailing soul. The indescribable sadness which invariably follows each successful battle with the lower self is natural ; for as the candidate mounts each rung of the ladder of sentient life, he must grope around in the darkness for the next rung upon which to place his weary feet, until the eye of the soul is able to see — beyond the darkness — the star that shines overhead, the Star of Initiation. 34 THY STAR AND MINE WHEREFORE pourest thou forth streams of wrath upon thy brother's head — when amidst the flashing gems that deck the Mantle of the Gods, he finds a single one more })eautiful to his simple vision than all the starry host that thou dost worship? But for a difference in degree, the same light shin- eth through each and all — the same hand guideth all. The brilliant galaxy might w^ell blind a too sensitive eye, when the mild beams of a single star in an azAire field, would fall with tender blessings into depths where soul sight yet was holden. Rejoice with him that he hath seen even the first glimmer of light, and whisper to thine own lieart: "Be still." The King hath many crowns, each of different hue and guise. The one he gives to me would ill become mv Lord— the Warrior of the Skies. 35 RENUNCIATION IT IS not by renouncing the thing of lesser value nor those pleasures whose edges have become dulled to the cloyed senses, that the narrow path to the Gods is made plain. That path lies hidden within thine heart and many tendrils of intense desire must ruth- lessly be torn apart ere its golden portals be disclosed. Do not think that any unselfish effort for others is ever lost or wasted. As the rose attracts, holds, and then gives forth its life in terms of fragrance and beauty, so does the aroma of every true, unselfish act ascend as sw^et incense to the footstool of the Gods — to return with added power as blessings for humanity. "He that loseth his life shall find it," for it is only by renunciation, only by waiting in the darkness when there is no light, until the Way opens and the shadows disappear, bearing the pain, loving the causer of the pain, that the light from the great Father-love can break through the Christ to thee, thou child of Christ. On the first mount thou shalt find a Cross; on the second mount, thy Transfiguration. 36 THE BIRTH OF THE SOUL WHEN Eros, the Star of Love, flashes a gleam of hght into the hidden chamber of the heart, it stirs to hfe and action the sleeping Soul therein. With tender touches Love plumes the pinions of the Soul for flight to some other point in space where yet another Soul, lost in slumber, awaits its coming — for Love alone can bring the Soul to birth. Ye daily clasp the hand and gaze into the eyes of soulless beings. But too often the riven casket alone remains to mark the spot where once dwelt the Splen- dor of God— driven thence by lack of sustenance: for the Soul hath need of daily food no less than hath the body. That which imparts life, sustains life— and Love is Life. 37 THE FRUIT OF THE TREE THE Wisdom apj^les of the Tree of Life hang high on the topmost boughs, and only he who has won the power of far-reaching and strength for high climbing; only he who can keep his head cool and clear and his feet from slipping, can pluck and eat of that fruit. It is the daily food of the Gods and only the God- like man, armed with a purified will, can prevail over the Dragon that eternally guards the roots of that tree. On its lower branches hang the silver apples of Knowledge, and he who hungers for that fruit must pluck it with the hand of Experience, gained through ceaseless search for hidden causes in the hearts of people and things. He must find and destroy the worm of self coiled in the core of the apple he has plucked, and win the soul power of discrimination for by that alone can he find the Seed — the matrix wherein is accomplished the birth of Hermes, or Wisdom. 38 CHILDREN OF LIGHT FREEi born children of Light, what have ye to do with darkness? Darkness, the distorted offspring of Hate and Pride ; darkness, the illusive ensnarer, the bertayer of mind, the glamor which blinds and leads into hopeless captivity the struggling soul; then leaves it to beat its tender wings against gross form until exhausted it sinks into apathy or despair. Ye are Gods ! Death hath no power over ye, condi- tions cannot bind ye; ye are Masters of Destiny if ye so will. Rulers over divine kingdoms. No God, no devil can banish ye from it or wrench it from ye — but alas! ye may renounce it by refusing to rule in right- eousness and peace. Ye are beyond the law for ye are Spirit, and Spirit is liberty, but mark ye. Liberty is not License, it is self- surrender, selflessness, unity, while License begets separateness, the great heresy. Lay not thine head in the dust of the earth, for so the armies of the Shadow shall trample ye under foot. Go forward with faith and lo! the serried ranks of the Hosts of Light shall encompass ye, and together ye shall win in the battle of the ages. The Christ shall lead thee, He who holdeth the hearts of men in his keeping and will not let them go, thine own true self, the AVarrior of Light. 39 THE EARTH-BORN GOD REASON'S votaries — blind leaders of the blind — shepherdless sheep, straying in barren, waterless wastes, in treacherous quagmires; making dwel- ling places at the foot of fiery mountains, at the mercy of the Demons who are but sleeping, or in the beds of old rivers, the waters of which shall once more return and overflow their banks; — know each of you, that the wild beasts of the forests, the hzards sunning them- selves on thy thresholds, interpret the signs of the times far better than thou — thou who hast enthroned earthly reason, and cast down the God of ancient Wisdom, — thou who hast set on high the darkness of the lower mind and quenched the Light of Intuition! The wild beast fleeth from the ])ath of the storm; thou seekest that path upon which to build thy resting place; nor canst thou flee if thou wouldst, for thou hast weighted thy feet with the lead of possessions, and art caught — as it were — in a net of things. What boots it to thee that a warning voice from the mountain top rings out again and again; thou canst hear but the clink of Gold in the Market place and the beguiling voice of thine earth-born God — human rea- son. 40 THE WINE OF LIFE LISTEN, My Beloved:— Pour not with lavish hand upon the earth the wine of life, — that sparkling draught thy mother Maia gave thee at hirth for strength and succor 'gainst thine hour of need. The dregs that remain within the cup art but vile refuse, unfit to feed gross swine upon, though still may- hap retaining some faint flavor of the wasted wine. And if too vile too feed to swine,— how canst thou offer such a gift to God, or lay it on Life's stone of sacrifice ? To the pure heart, all things in heaven and earth are pure; and if thine heart be pure, the cup of wine will overflow and turn to streams of light while still within thy grasp, carrying life and healing on their waves far down the distant centuries of time. 41 THE GUERDON OF HUMILITY HEARKEN unto me, thou who standest with straightened neck in the path of the coming Tempest, the powers of which are seeking to equihbrate the varied forms of life-forces thou hast called into action. Bend low thine head, lest the Daemons, the Satel- lites of the Storm King strike at thine eyes and destroy thy clear vision, — and thou canst not find the path which leadeth to safety. Pride ever precedeth destruction. Only when thou hast gained the guerdon of true humility canst thou stand erect in safety, — for then only hast thou power to don the Armor of sure protection — the Armor of Compassion. 42 THE LOVE DIVINE CAN the Rose tree burst into bloom if turned downward in the earth? Can the Coral Polyp attach its reef to the clouds of the air? Can Water freeze in the path of the Electric bolt? Xo more can man live without love. Xo more can man attain his full spiritual growth away from the rays of the Sun of Righteousness, the warmth of Infinite Love, than he can attain to phys- ical perfection if shut away from light and air. From that love emanated the first impulse of his being; in it must eventually be absorbed the last. He may exist for a time in ignorance of that love, but he will not realize what life means, — for to such, only a cold negative existence is at most possible on earth, and a hopeless looking forward to final annihilation ; for with- out Love tliere is no life either here or hereafter. 43 THE BIRD OF LIFE THINKEST thou, child of my soul, to climb the steep path to thy Father's home with thy feet weighted with the viscid mud of the under- world? Thinkest thou to reach thy Father's heart by means of the power thou hast filched from thy weaker brother — or that thou canst reach Love's heights through Ha- tred's depths? Build thou a nesting place in thy broth- er's love, and the overshadowing wings of the Bird of Life will cover both thee and him. If thou buildest elsewhere, the tierce talons of the Bird will tear asunder and scatter the fragments of that nest to the four winds of heaven; then shalt thou be left homeless and com- fortless, and thy brother sad and lonely, for thou hast robbed him of that which is his by right of the divine brotherhood which dwelleth within his heart as well as witliin thine own. 44 THE ARMOR OF FAITH IF THY nearest and dearest friend stand in its path, the same snake that strikes its poisonous fangs into thy tender flesh, will strike at thy friend with redoubled power gained through the life blood thou hast unwittingly yielded up. Protect thy friend, as well as thyself, by clothing thyself with the impenetrable armor of implicit faith. A single snowflake, carelessly rolled amidst others of its kind, exposed to rain, and left to the power of the Ice King for a time, will make a missile with which thou may est fell a giant. A careless gesture, a thoughtless word rolled amidst others of like character, exposed to the wither- ing blasts of a foul mind, may strike down and cripple the soul thou lovest best. 45 LOVE'S CONQUEST Pl'^ACK and Power come swiftly to the man who hfteth his sister from the depths of her despair, to i)lant her feet on the first step of the ladder of Renunciation. The Law of Compensation will one day set his feet on the highest step of that same lad- der — the step that leadeth to the door of the Inner Sanctuary. AVoe and Ketri})ution fall swiftly upon the head of that woman, who, to enhance her own value in the eyes of the one her eyes are fixed upon, wantonly de- stroys his trust in the honor of another. The murdered trust will arise from its tomb in mighty power to avenge the wrong. With joy and gladness shining as the gems of a coronet upon their placid brows ; with feet shod with the sandals of full reparation; — upward, always upward, passeth the two made one, who have vanquished their deadliest foe, and raised from its ashes the Peace of Purity, — who have built in their hearts a nesting place for the Bird of Love, and opened their ears to the mys- tery and splendor of the Song of Life, — that joyous song, the first sweet notes of which break down for- ever the. wall of separation between two souls, uniting them in the single stream that floweth ever onward to the Ocean of Tufinitv. 46 THE PATH OF DUTY WOULDST thou turn thy face away from thine earthly love at the bidding of another? If so, thou art not worthy of that love. How much less worthy then art thou of spiritual love, if so be thou fleest from the path of duty at the behest of another who hath not even won the power to discern the path wherein he himself might most per- fectly unfold. How much less power, then, hath he to guide thee aright. 47 LIFE'S OPPORTUNITIES LIFE'S opportunities, like angel visitants, pass swiftly, silently, — and if we fail to catch the first faint echo of their coming footfalls, or, all un- trained to action swift, we fail to seize and force them to reveal their hidden power, their passing is for aye. They are tlie spans hy which our lives are measured — a ladder straight and long — with one step leading into Heaven, and yet another reaching down to Hell, — the mile stones 'twixt our puny littleness and the measureless largeness of God. 48 THE HARP OF INFINITY FORGET not, child of my heart, that thou art a builder of worlds: — that millions uncreate await but the touch of thy fingers on the strings of the Harp of Infinity to sirring into being as Paeans of Victory and Life, or discords Satanic, which needs must end in evil and death. Strike full clear tones, that thy place may be opened in the Choir of Heaven. 49 AS YE SOW HE WHO dips his pen in the bitterness of gall and wormwood and therewith destroys the peace of his brothers, by the same act opens the latent centers of poison in his ow^n aura, l)ringing upon him- self disease and spiritual degeneracy. The pen will turn to a sword which, though it pass through his broth- er's heart, will lie embedded in his own at last. 50 THE SOUL OF SONG WOULDST thou, Musician, sing the Song of Life, in tones that gods and men may hear and, hearing, thrill with rapture? Then thou must, by long and patient plodding, strive to reach the inner- most recess of every congery of force — of every thing and being, and reaching it, to make thyself a part of it. Thou canst not sing a tone of it aright if separated from the Soul which is its life ; for, rising, falling, swell- ing with an agony of bliss, the tone called forth from hidden places, responds in fullness only to a soul more hungry than itself; and called by such an one it rushes forth and intermingling with that other Soul it rises in a glorious burst of sound too fine, too strong, for mortal ears to hear and bear. 51 THE GOAL AS POIXTETH the mariner's needle to the white Star of the Xorth, however the waves of the ocean swell or the winds of heaven roar, so must thou point thy will to the Star of thine ambition. In- stability and change may be thy brother's pleasure, but they should find no place in one whose feet are strongly set upon the Path of God. Ah! take thou thought, set thine ambition high. Love and Peace will be worth infinitely more to thee than myriads of lesser prizes, however brightly their reflected light may glow before thine earthlv eves. 52 MYSTERY OF MYSTERIES POOR, desperate, self-tortured Human Heart; large with the largeness of God, narrow as the path of eternal hfe! Selfishly grasping the straws of life for thine own glory, carelessly sacrificing thy Royal inheritance, unwitting that such sacrifice is the crown of thy life-series of mistakes. Blind, yet having the power of infinite perception; dumb, yet possessing the sweetness of Angel tongues or the virulence of Demon speech. Mystery of Mysteries art thou; truly, thy name is Legion, thy nature Incomprehensible. 53 WING THY HEART HOME WING thy Heart home, thou wanderer in desert places. Though needles of sharp cacti pierce thy feet, and scorching sands fill thine eyes; though not a living thing speak thee guidance, yet shalt thou find the path and keep it to the journey's end. For where the heart hath found surcease, there must perforce the weary body follow. So, once again, I say, wing thy heart home, mine own. 54 THE CHILD OF LOVE WHEN your gratitude to me becomes a subject for reasoning — when you can convince your- self that you have earned or deserve that which has been given you in love, — then have you thrown down the Angel of Selfishness and set up an Idol to Self. As gushes forth the spring of water over the thirsty soil, heedless of where its drops may fall, delighting, revelling, in its power to give, even to the uttermost, so gushes from the heart of the child of love, pure grati- tude. 55 GOD'S THOUGHT AH, LITTLE one! God's latest thought. Ah soul reborn on earth from infinite domains! dost think thou camest hence thyself; hence to a world of woe? God thought thee into being; winged thy soul with love and sent thee on the way to find those other thoughts of His — thy brother men, and intermingling with them, form a pool wherein the Light which lights all the world mav be reflected. 56 LOVE'S ABODE MV LITTLE, ones, sit ye here with me in the twihght, while peace falls as a curtain over the turmoil of the day. Let the softly whispered "Hush!" of earth and sky fall on your inner ears as your heads are bent for the benison of the brooding Spirit of Rest. I, too, w^ould speak to thee, weary foot- sore traveler o'er stony places and desert sands. I have seen thine ujDlifted hands, have heard the low cry which passed unheeded by those most near, most dear, to you, and would say again and yet again — seek not surcease from pain and longing in the haunts of men, the hearts of women, for it is not there. Dig deep through the encrusted layers of your own souls till you find the spot which Love hath chosen for its dwelling place — the nesting place of the Infinite. Ah, well I know the tale is trite and old. Too oft hath it fallen on unheeding ears. But it is ever new to some sad soul, and when you have found that spot, it will be all things to you, for it holds the Key to the beginning and end of thy travail, — to the unspeakable heights and depths of the manifest Universe, — the glory of the Shekinah — the crown of thine own and all other lives. 57 THE TAIL OF THE DRAGON THE tail of the Dragon is coiled about the Star of Destiny. Down, down through the fields of space — through the ranks of the Rishis is that Star now (h-awn. Howl, ye sons of ^len, ye Daughters of Earth! War, Panic, Desolation cometh upon you. In the market-places will ye cry, "Xine loaves of bread for a penny," and there will be none to take. Ye call upon the Lord with your lips and defile His image with your hands! Ye dash down the cup of Life from the lips of your brethren, and will not drink thereof yourselves! Ye call out "Liar, Thief, xVdulterer!" while ye are liars, thieves, adulterers. Ye are thieves, for ye steal the fair fame of your brethren; ye are adulterers, for ye cohabit in lust of mind and eye, and l)ring forth spawn of Hell for your brethren's corruption. Ye seek a sign and are blind to the signs ye have received. Liars and hypocrites, who sit in high places! the Dragon will bring you low. Your measure is all but full, and Mercy draweth close the veil over her face till your times are fulfilled. 58 ROUSE YE! POOK, pett}^ figment of matter enmeshed in mud of thine own making! Ye would draw down the stars to minister to your puhng cries! Ye ask, but will raise no hand to receive the offered gift! Ye listen, and hear naught but the echo of your piping voices. Cowards! Renegades from the battle of life — unworthy the great sacrifice offered you! Ye turn and run from a kitten's claws into the mouth of a hungry wolf! Unstable as water, fickle as wind, neither Heaven nor Earth hath room for you — while in truth, ye lay back on your earthy oars in pitiable self-suffici- ency and cry "Ho, Comrade! Behold how great a man I am!" Rouse ye! Mount as have mounted the suns now circling in motion swifter than thought in yonder vaults! Shine as doth shine those flaming thoughts of God that people the aisles of Heaven; for ye are of God, and all power is yours if ye seek aright! 59 WHICH OF THE THREE? HO! Soldiers of the Grand Army of the Great White Lodge! Know ye not, the War of the Ages is on? The warriors are hning up for battle. Where do ye belong? Are ye warriors of Light or of Darkness? Are ye banner men of true and loyal heart, or are ye cowards, traitors? Can ye grasp and hold the colors, the words of truth brought to you under fire, bind them on the hilts of your swords, emblazon them on the ban- ners ye bear, and stand forth to battle for them with the natural foe of your common humanity? Go, with the Rallying Cry of the Red Ray on your lips, the light of high purpose flashing from your eyes, ready to do or to die, as seemeth best, upon tluit field above which soars the gage of battle — the Soul of man! Or will ye steal from the ranks while the war cry is sounding, kill the bearer of the Orders, seize and hide the message in your own selfish hearts until ye find a safe i-etreat wherein, secure from other eyes, ye may gloat over it as misers o'er their gold, under the delusion that ye are saving your souls alive? Will ye join in the din and strife of the battle, raise your voices to stifle the moans of your comrades, reck- lessly trample the wounded 'neath your feet, pile up the bodies of the slain to cover your retreat to the enemy's ranks, all unknowing the fate that is closely following your steps? 60 WHICH OF THE THREE? The grains of corn now in process of grinding by Nemesis, flow fine as mist into the bins the avenger has built and the blood of the slain in battle will yield 230wer for the milling. To which of the three divisions dost thou l)elong? I ask thee. Thee — each in turn, enlisted soldiers of the Army of the Great White Lodge, thou must answer the question. Thine own soul makes demand and will not be denied. 61 LOVE THE AVENGER GODS iiuiy thuiuler, xViigels may whisper, "thou shalt not," "1 pray thee not" to awakened pas- sion in tlie human heart, yet the glamour cast by elemental fiends over tlie mind of men and women, first narcotizes, then drives them on, on to satisfaction and satiation, and finally into hells of their own mak- ing, such as devils might envy them the power to make. For God — Love — is a jealous God. In so far as God is jealous, he is jealous for Love's sake, for Love is higher than any God conceived by mortal mind; and Love betrayed by passion surely bringeth vengeance upon the betrayer — venegance that will eat the heart, as worms may eat the vitals of tlie dead. Passion grati- fied at the expense of Love — illicit love — will turn to gall within the human breast and embitter life, at every turn, and worst of all, it will destroy the very marrow in the bones of the soul. It will leave a man or woman without a vestige of self-respect, and in place of the self-respecting man there M'ill arise a prating effigy, a simulacrum, a thing without a soul. Stretch out your trembling fingers, ye passion- tossed of tlie world. Twang the strings of that harp of the soul, until it has lost the pure tone that the Angels of the Throne attuned it by, if ye Avill, and then quiver in agony at the harsh discords your fingers will thereafter draw from that dishonored harp. You must play u])on it whether you will or nay, and the key-note by which its strings might be attuned is beyond your reach, if liove has been abased, and vengeance has fallen. 62 LOOK DEEP CHILD of Earth, look deep! The scum of a pool always rises to the surface. Be not deceived by that which lieth close at hand, but search the si- lent, waveless depths beneath, wherein lies thy peace. 63 GOD STILL LIVES AROUSE thee! thou who sittest in the darkness. Bestir thyself and weep, if smiles are no more possible. Better far that thou shouldst moisten thy parched soul with tears, than brood o'er vanished joys in silence and despair. The future yet remains un- tried — and God still lives. Inaction breeds despair, which, like all other life- less things, must quickly he entombed, ere like a poison- ous plant it shall destroy all life within its sphere. 64 THE LIGHT OF PEACE HE WHO i^repareth a place for me, to him will I come in peace. Light from on high shall shed its radiance o'er his dwelling place, and he shall lie down in sheltered places. Darkness shall flee away, as fleeth the conscience-smitten from the law, and the glory of righteousness shall deck his form as with a garment sewn with precious gems. 65 COME FORTH! C031E forth from your hiding places, ye whom Lucifer hath frighted! Know ye not that dark- ness and the hght of day can never dwell to- gether in one place ? And ye did seek the darkness, and tiie peace of nonfulfilment when the demon Fear as- sailed and sandaled you with coward's gear. Light is fire, and fire will burn; but better far for thee the burn, the pain, the longing, than dark- ness and the ease it brings; whicli, wliile it soothes to sleep, will steal thy crown of life and hide it where thou canst not seek, then softly laugh, when thou, with outstretched arms, art wandering midst the outer s])heres, a formless, shadowy thing, bereft of name, of liome. of all but semi-consciousness. 66 A NEW CYCLE THE eventide of a cycle has passed and the rays of the morning sun of a new cycle are tinging the horizon of your lives. Whate'er of shadow still remains in memory's vaults, will iielp to soften the aftermath of the high noon days to come, and serve as a screen on which to limn the outlines of a higher ideal than those you have pictured in former days, if so be you have gained the Spiritual Will that can wield the brush of pure Desire aright. But. Beloved, bear well in mind the note of warning I now sound — never dip that brush in the heart's blood of another human being. That blood would darken and spread o'er the form you limned till naught but a dull, red smear would remain to mark its place. Witli brave, strong hand, dip the holy brush into the infinite depths of Love's sacrifice of Self, draw the lines straight and true by the rules of the Higher Self, and an Ideal will flash forth upon that screen of the Soul, too strong, too ])eautiful. mayhap, for other eyes than thine to bear, yet pregnant with a radiant stream of life that, lieing born, will reach and feed all starv- ing hearts witliin your spliere of touch. 67 THE ANGEL OF HEALING WOULDST thou court the Angel of Heahng for thy suffering friend? Then bring not gifts of sorrow's choosing, such as doth al- ready sore afflict thy friend; for so, the Angel first must heal thine own infirmity ere passing to thy friend, for in the bringing, thou hast bound the gifts so close about thy form, they can no more be separate from thee until the healing Angel's touch hath struck thy fetters down and set thee free. 68 MAN WALKING shadows of things that might have been ; potential forms of things that are to be, — God and man in one. Paradox supreme art thou, amidst a universe of paradoxes. Creatures of an hour, fast digging graves with your own hands your forms must fill. Angels of eternity fast build- ing thrones your souls will grace. Who can measure your heights or sound your depths, thou mystery of mysteries? 69 VEILS OF THE SOUL CHILDREN mine, with iiiinds so like as yet the gaseous state of this Dark Star, when, countless a?ons gone, the vapory, shifting masses sejiarated, and to all-seeing eyes disclosed a dazzling tongue of iiame, a softly shimmering light with here and there a peak or pinnacle of glowing fire, which hid a power unspeakahle. Aeons hence, a nearer balance will be struck between you and the world in which you live. The seeming vapory shadows veiling soul from soul, are in reality but background for the liglit concealed, a background upon which the vagaries, tlie dreams of man may fall. But tlie shades will lift and pass away forever when Light and Soul become again the One, as in the far away beginning. 70 LIFT UP YOUR HEADS CAN ye see the faint Hush of the daybreak, ye Children of Light? It hangeth low in the cos- mic darkness as yet, but eyes not holden may catch a gleam of its brightness, ears not dulled hear the clarion note in the distance. The Day Star is ris- ing, rising, rising, and, though sky and earth seem drenched with blood-red reflections— the first emana- tions of darkness — the golden light cometh to redeem, to sanctify, to bless the hard-pressed children of Maya. Lift up your heads, strengthen your weakened knees, bind closer the burdens ye bear, turn your eyes to the East, and watch, wait and work. 71 COME BACK COjME back to me, my children, wandering now in trackless wastes, without guide or compass save thy pride, thy self-sufficiency. Not e'en the sun in heaven can cut its deep wide swath alone, but needs must hold its place by power of other brighter suns. And thou, poor foolish one, because thou canst not always see a golden gleam of light upon the path I laid 'twixt thee and me, must darken more that path, that life, by all the pain and anguish thou canst lay upon it; and then, alas, cry out, there is no path, no light, no loving Father's hand to guide, to hold, to cheer amid the shadowy way of life, both you and I must tread, together or alone. 11 PRIDE FAR better were it for thee, would-be Child of the Stars, wert thou covered with the filth of sensuality, or the foul corruption of the market places, than that thou shouldst stand upon the heights of worldly power, and loudly cry unto thy brethren, *'Behold my virtue, bow to my accomplishments, bend low thy back that I may tread dry-shod the slimy pool in which thou art engulfed." The pride which strips thee of all likeness to the Blessed Ones, will drag thee lower far than lieth now the meanest of thv brethren. 73 ENTER THE PATH HEARKEN thou to the resonant voice of the Silence of Life, the voice of the Warrior hold which calleth to thee from the Place of Peace, powerfulh% pleadinglj^ bidding thee open thine ears, conquer thyself, make room in thine heart for the bloom of th}^ soul long budded, and wearying sore for the power of fruition — the power by which thou canst see my face, and grasp the sword I hold in my hand. The power of the self -born, the warrior bold, alone can open the close-shut door of the hidden garden of life, and shelter give to the sorely pressed of earth. Enter the Path; though the way may be rough, the end will bring thee power and peace and joy ])ast hu- man telling. 74 THE HOLY FLAME SONS of my soul, my tears, children of my tor- ment, why will ye not hasten to lay the wood and coals of fire upon the Seven Horns of mine Altar, that I may descend and bring again the Holy Flame to kindle them. 'Till ye lay wood and coals of fire upon the Seven Horns of mine Altar of your own free will, I must stand and wait. With all the loud voices of earth, sky and sea. I cry unto you, while ye but stand and gape at each other, and fill your ears, that ye may neither see nor hear when Kamsa steals that which is mine ow^n, and that which one dav ve would give a kingdom to possess. 75 CROSS AND CROWN CHILDREX mine, desperate hunted things, weak supine exhausted ones, tortured, tempted, stricken creatures. Hear me while yet I can speak to you. Passion crazed, you go from seeming flower to flower, knowing not, caring not that you go from hell to hell, and are so going because you have not yet the courage, the strength, the will, to look the demons of those hells in the face, grasp their throats, and FORCE them back into their strongholds. One among a thousand, a man or woman can see his or her only chance lies in "throttling the great Beast." As long as you can suffer a single qualm from the poi- son your friend has placed in your cup of life, as long as your enemy can find a tender spot on your exposed parts in which to plant a dagger, you are helpless, un- guarded. As long as a word, a look, a blow or a caress, can start the blood madly bounding through your veins, you are naught but tender nestlings, bound to be de- voured by man and beast. Hear me. Strive to learn to i.ove pain. Open your hearts to crucifixion, that you may so seek the Strength which is in truth vour Real Life. 76 THE LIGHT OF LIFE SENSATION'S offspring, child of Earth thou art, tliough wrapped in fold on fold of starry light. Thine outer vesture masks a spirit stronger far than that which holds it hound hut holds it only through its lack of love and power of sacrifice sul)lime, the love and sacrifice which is thy life, thine all. Regain the poise, the equilibrium wiiich held thy soul in balance true with all that lives and breathes; and which thou parted with in ignorance of all that foul ambition's curse would bring to thee and thy be- loved. Strike for the freedom which is thine by birth- right pure, and be no longer held by filmy threads which stay thy steps and will not let thee go. The light of Life is all about, within and over thee. Open wide the portal of thy soul and send that light, like blessed dew, upon thy brethren wandering now in parched and desert places. It will return to thee ten- fold the brighter, bringing on its waves the joy of life's fulfilment. But if thou hidest it, and w^ill not let it shine for others now in darkness, it will but focus all its power upon thy selfish heart, and only ashes will remain to tell the long sad tale. n A PROPHECY DRAWN by will of the Uaityas from the utter- most ends of Maya's realms, swiftly foregather the clouds in the Eastern sky, hiding the light of the sun from the holden eyes of men. "Ha! Ha!" laugh the Daityas, "no God, no servant of the Lahs can free the earthborn from our power, for we have o'ershadowed the source of their life; now can we stand and watch, while the brown and yellow slaves of our will w^reak vengeance on those who defy our power." Cry aloud, ye sons of earth, for the crashing of arms, the curses of the frenzied, the shrieks of the murdered, now ascend to the fast-barred gates of Devachan, and the Gods heed not, for the hour of judgment is not yet passed. But hold! the Purified comes, to ])iu-st asunder the chains that bind, to tear from their fastenings the bars of those gates. Then must awaken the Gods who sleep, for the new day will dawn. With swift flight will they come to the deso- lated earth; with their breath will they drive back the Daityas to their dwelling-place. They wnll open the inner and outer heavens, and pour down food and drink. They will })ind up the wounds of the smitten, and bring the Holy Fire for the Altars long defiled. Peace and contentment will dwell on the eartli for a thousand rounds. I^ove will conquer hate; and again, as of old, will the Gods dwell with man. 78 HOLD, AND LISTEN HO! YE who hunger and thirst for the enthroned "TRUTH;" and yet look backward longingly into the gulf ye leave, ere lifting foot to take an upward step: Ye hesitate, or dare not stir, lest ye should meet Truth's searching eye, and statid revealed unto yourselves. Ho! Coward, server of the god of Time, fouled with thy satiated lusts, and (huik with hell's fulfilled am- bitions — hold, and listen! Ho! Ye weary and faint-hearted, clutching in thine hand the emptied shell of that which held thy faith; too tired now to seek, too weak to reach Desire, sink- ing 'neath the weight the world hath lain on such as you: Listen all! to one who knows full well the thirst, the hunger and the heat; to one who knows, and once has waded blindly through the sloughs of sin. Listen ye to one who climbed the cross of earth's incessant woe, and nailed his body there for fellow men to smite; who drank the cup ye are too tired to lift, e'en to its dregs; who merged desire for death into desire for life, and made the cross a key to song immortal; to one who learned that even cowardice and shame might lea]) the gulf between the Hero and the slave by consecrated strife, and bind the wreath of all fulfilment on his brow. STRIKE OL^T— all ve who hear and heed! 79 CHRIST OR JUDAS? IS IT Christ or Judas! Ye who hold the scales of earthly power? Have ye yet chosen him whom ye would serve? Choose 3"e must! The time is close at hand. The breath of angels now is held against your choosing. The field of battle stretches far away, but ye are near the ever-living gage, — the gage of man's self-con- sciousness. With hand outstretched, betrayal graven on his face, stands he who ever at the break of day leaps forth to greet each coming soldier of the Christ, who wearied from his journey long and tedious, crazed wath longing for a draught from I^ethe's streams, too often falls beneath the spell, and wrapped in glamour of Satanic w^eaving, looks, and listens, falls — and dies. Art thou of that vast number, son of mine? Or canst thou see the Holy Grail I hold before thine eyes, and seeing, gird thyself and fall in line behind the King of Kings, to die a mortal's death, mayhap — but yet to live eternally with Christ? Will Christ or Judas hold thy mantle in the com- ing strife? Choose ve must — and NOW! THE GOD OF PAIN IF THOU dost choose to learn by pain alone, and turnest far thy face from me when with my gourd in hand I stoop to give thee drink from water sweet which trickles from the font where Knowledge and its sister Power in friendly rivalry do vie to give thee all thy soul demands, — then must I leave thee to the woe which wilful disobedience doth bring to human kind. The power of choice is thine, since the dawn of Kalpas past, the Arhats came to earth to dwell with man — in man ; and if thou heedest not the voice of those who speak thee fair, what is there left for them or me to do but wait until the God of Pain liath chastened thee. 81 THE KING COMETH HEAR ye the thunders of the Triple Six? Know 3'e not the hour of fulfilment is near at hand? Thrice hath INIerodach slain the vultures that tear at the heart of the Sun God, and again must he hend bow and spear ere his task be done, and the glory of the 666 be revealed unto man. Swifter than Hight of arrow cometh the Deliverer to break asunder the chains that bind, and free the cap- tive Prince. Xever again shall the fire of love be quenched with the waters of affliction, the trust of tender woman to be betrayed. Xever again shall the Father's pride in his well-beloved plunge him into outer dark- ness. The King cometli, and who shall prevail against him i THE HOLY ANGEL, LOVE TO DISGUISE the miry sloughs of human pas- sion, hatred, murder, teachery and deceit, man hath used the most sacred of all sacred words — Love; knowing naught of the Holy Angel which it designates; ignorantly fearing not its misused power, which yet is great enough to hold the stars in place and guide the myriad lives of earth to heavenly hliss and back again to earth. The darksomeness of blackest night is no more dense than is the mind that fails to see in Love, the tirst-born Son of (xod; clothed in the vesture of that power which manifests Devotion ]:>in'e and undefiled; the power which tears the gyves and fetters from the limbs of all the human race, and sets it free from bondage to the Wheel of Time. 83 MAKE CLEAN THINE HEART O LITTLE man! O, foolish man! Webbed in the illusive changing scenes about thee, or rooted in the lowest sphere of human fear and passion, thou dost elect by means of potent Will to there remain — content and useless. Back into the faces of the Gods, thou throwest life's great opportunities untried, and draweth close the veil of ignorance around thee. Why trample under foot the seven-stringed Lute through which compassion's low sweet tone may stir thy soul to loftier deeds and aims? Why breathe a film of foul corruption o'er the Lens through which alone the light of Truth may fall on thee? Hast thou not heard the lime grows not on a thorn tree, nor yet a fig on a thistle? Make clean thine Heart, that so the sun- kissed heights of Love may image there the Soul that long hath watched o'er thee — that patiently awaits thine hour of waking. 84 THY HERITAGE THINKEST thou the strength thou usest is thine because of merit won, or is the guerdon of thy labor? Then put away the thought, it ringeth false; for only is it thine by reason of thy unity with all that lives. Yet must thou labor with all diligence from early morn 'till close of day, that thou mayst add to that great sum of all the labor done by Gods and men, by means of which thy heritage, thy greater strength, is won, and will remain for rightful use, 'till life's long day is ended. 85 THE DRAUGHT OF LETHE LOW have you fallen, sons of my Son, who in his greatness cast away the offered gift of endless peace, to win the right to say, "I A^I." For ye would spurn the gift so hardly won by Him, ere ye would suffer pain of body or of soul, and often clutch with greedy hands the cup which holds the draught of Lethe, brewed and offered you by aliens to that Sun of Light who brought self-consciousness to man. S6 THE PLACE OF PEACE WHY trouble your hearts and waste your precious time by dwelling on the evil done by those who wish you harm? Know you not that you lie in hands which have the power to hold you safe, and naught can compass you to your eternal hurt, save by your will? A gnat can minister to your discomfort only as you fix your mind upon it or the wound it leaves. Find the "Place of Peace," and friends and enemies alike will be but added blessings, for both will speak to you of God— the one of Love, the other of Forgive- ness. 87 THE PATH GO! Go quickly, to the place prepared for thee, False Fiend of Selfish Lust — disguised in Plea- sure's changeful robes. Wouldst even thou drag down the "little ones" of Christ, into the slimy ooze where thou dost dwell, abhorred of God and man, that thou mayst rob them of all power, all purpose and all strength, and render them fit devotees and ministers to thee? Strike! strike hard and fast — Renunciation, Pain, Ye Angels of the Arch of Heaven! Let loose the Keys fast clasj^ed by hand to breast — Compassion's Keys — to all the heights, to all the starry corridors where dwells our Lord, and where awaiteth He the advent of His chosen. There the work for which past anguish hath prepared them, is pointed out by Him. None other hath the power to mark the way. for none but Christ hath climbed Transfiguration's heights and bridged the gulf of Hades' hate, to open wide "The Path." 88 TO THE DEAD IN LIFE AGAIN and again falls the hammer of tlie Gods, and the throbbing tones of the Anvil ring true on liearts that hear. Blow follows blow on "The Iron Wheel" hot with the blast of the outraged Law. Higher and yet higher rise the flying sparks, tilling the heavens with fiery streams which descend as scourges of pestilence, famine and flame. Pile up your dead, ye dead in life. Hide them from view, lest their mangled forms cry vengeance upon you ; then stand on their shallow graves, if ye can, and crj!^: "Great are we earthborn sons of Desire; Giants of Power, of Finance and Fame. Hasten! ye slaves of our dominant wills, cover the archives, the records, which prove we be passion-bred bastards of lustful de- sire for lands and silver and gold!" The stench of your evil poisons the air, and only blue flames from the hidden fires can render it fit for the breathing of those who come on the wings of the morn- ing light to offer to fallen man the grip of the Lion's Paw. Go on ! Go on to the end, for ye will not hear. In thirst for Power, ye have blinded your eyes and ye can- not perceive ye are objects of scorn — butts for the play and the laughter of fiendish Jinns, who blind and de- ceive, who set wary traps into which ye trip, who glee- fully laugh at the steel-ribbed vaults ye have crossed and recrossed with the currents of doom. Again and again has the message gone forth: again and again doth the ^Master cry: "As a hen doth gather her chickens, and foldeth them under her wings, so would I gather ye, but ye will not heed." 89 COMPASSION IF HUMAN life with all its bitter experiences hath not yet taught you Compassion's first sweet law, hath not yet awakened true discrimination from its long sleep, attaining to knowledge of hidden things will be a curse past telling. 90 THE CROSS OF FIRE WOULD you shut your hearts against me that I may not enter in and bless you? — then turn away from him who seeketh you in time of need. Since Fohat crossed the Circle with his flaming torch hath Life called unto Life for sustenance — sup- port in time of stress. The law which drove that mighty Angel forth to cross one line of life upon another, will drive you back to nothingness, if you persist in flouting it. 91 THINE OWN SEE ST thou not, O son of man, thou dost create the good thou behevest in with thine whole heart, even as thou dost crush the good thou doubtest? How then canst thou cry "unjust" when evil obstructs thine own path to the footstool of the Gods, and good removes all obstructions from thy brother's path? Thine own will some day meet thine eyes as truly as the morrow's sun will grace the heavenly vault. 92 ILLUSION'S FLAMES A CHILD may not play with Rackshasa's flames and go unscathed; the false light of the fires which that Dttmon doth kindle and flash into human eyes, doth hut serve to hide the mouth of a yawn- ing pit. Better far the steady hght of the Sun, though its heams pierce the heart of thine eye, and cause anguish unspeakable. In the one instance, there followeth growth; in the other, destruction. Many bodies, heads, hands and feet, hath the great Temple of Man, but only one heart. Woe to the hand that strikes at that heart ; woe to the foot that tripping, overturns the body. 93 THE SOUL'S OPPORTUNITY MY CHILD, what cause hast thou for wreaking vengeance upon that soul which refuses to gain its experience by means of thy travail? Know- est thou not if thou dost rob that soul of its opportunity to suffer and thereby gain the strength to conquer its enemies, thou dost place thyself irrevocably in its power ? The man thou hast sinned against becomes thy Master, and thou must serve him till the debt is paid in full. The man thou constrainest to travel the ])ath marked out for thee alone, must needs obstruct that path to thine undoing. 94 THE VOICE OF GOD THOU sayest, "God spake to Man in the olden days, man listened and was blessed, but now in the night of Time, God no longer speaks and man is accursed." Foolish man! God never ceases to speak, but man has destroyed his true sense of hearing by listening too intently to the muffled thunders of the sound waves of human passion pounding against his inner ear. Seek the Silence, Beloved, and when thou hast found it thou shalt hear again the tender cadences, the word of command, the Song of Life, for God is the same today as yesterday, and His voice doth reach to the outermost bounds of Time and Space, and sings in the heart of man. 95 JEWELS OF LIGHT UNCUT, unpolished, are the Jewels hid within this casket, which the Lord of Life hath formed from His own heart, and given unto me. I pray for power to hold me still while He doth cut and polish all these gems, that so, one day I may behold His face reflected in their depths, while He is setting them within a crown, to place on mine own head. 96 LOVE AND HATRED ALAS that each human Soul must learn for itself that in trifling with the Emotion of love, its energy is wasted and lost irrevocably; that by bartering that holy birthright for transient pleasure, the most direct path to divine Love and AVisdom is choked by poisonous weeds and thorny brambles, or still worse, is left so empty and desolate that the Snake of Hate alone dares venture there to find a dwelling place. When the fires of Hate awaken and burn in a human heart, all that makes for life and happiness is consumed, and the unhappy Soul, naked and alone, is left gazing at the ashes of a misspent past. Neither can you drive that human love back into the heart, any more than you can drive the sap back into a tree, the blood back into the veins; the heart would break, the tree and veins would burst from pres- sure put upon each molecule. In the wider love, the sap is expelled, the blood distributd. Law is fulfilled. Life is more fully manifested, and The Will of God completed. 97 WHERE IS GOD? WHERE shall I find God? If I search the heavens and the earth and the waters under the earth, shall I find him? No! But if thou wilt search the depths of thine own heart, all that thou findest of Love, of Beauty, of Unselfishness — all that thou knowest of Peace and Joy will open the path to God, and show thee the hidden places wherein thou wilt find all thou canst know and understand. 98 THE PATH IS HARD IN A sense we may say it is the same path that the jNIaster Jesus followed. There is no other Path, no other way to find the true self, save through effort and suffering. When we think of it from an earthly standpoint, it seems pitiful, that poor, weak, human beings should have apparently so little light to guide them on the way, so little of the comfort that it would seem might be theirs; but those of you who have had an opportunity of watching the wealthy or the so-called "well-to-do," those who seem to enjoy all the good things of this life, know^ that they are often "of all men most miserable." They are using the gaudes of earth to dress up their scarred and tainted carcasses, while their souls are often naked and hungry; and that would show you how little the soul can gain from wordly wealth. It is the strain, the stress, the exercise of power, that gives the final victory. "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link." A human being, an angel, a god, is only as strong as he has gained power to endure the stress; and that power can only be gained through suffering. If there were any other way, I would have told you, — for I sorrow in your sorrow, suffer in your suffering; yet I must stand by. even if it be to see you go down into the midst of the flames, and come up again, if it be neces- sary to your growth. You sometimes blame me for not saving you from sorrow, for not keeping suffering 99 THE PATH IS HARD CONTINUED away from you; but my children, I would gladly give you myself, and all that I am, if it would aid you in your development. But you are as I am, of God, — and only tiirough the strength of the God within your- selves and the power that you can gain over these ad- verse conditions will you be enabled to meet and overcome what will be before you in this and in many lives. The effects of suffering are never lost, any more than effort in any direction can be lost. From my soul, 1 wish I could convey to you the love I feel for you, the desire 1 have for your advancement; but every ^lother knows that if her child is to grow strong, it must walk by itself, it must learn all it knows of physi- cal conditions by pain; and this process continues to the end. Any human being who tries to make you believe that you can gain spiritual growth without pass- ing through "Golgotha" is telling you an absolute false- hood. But there is no reason why you should not see tile beauty, the good, the glory there is in life. It is around you on every side, it is yours to take and use as it seems best to you — always in the right spirit. I would not have you look at the liells of life, but at tlie heavens which also lie a])out vou." 100 STAND UP HAVE the ruling powers of the Cosmos forced thee into the path of the storm, stripped thee of courage and streng-th and left thee whirling like a top in the midst of the wreckage of life? With the passing of the storm gather up the fragments of strength and courage, and stand up; keej) thy feet on the ground. If thou hast stumhled into the quagmire ruled by the three demons. Doubt, Despair, Distrust — that miry waste dividing Bondage from Liberty — that fathomless gulf into whicli each soul stumbles when it lets go of the false and reaches out toward the Real; again I say. Stand up. Trouble not thyself about thy rent and miry garments, or that thou seest no hand in sight to drag thee from the mire. Get upon thy feet and stand! then thou shalt see the hand. Have mutual, fair-weather friends nosed a 'trail and set out to chase thy beloved one to cover? Wilt thou join their pack of yelping curs and help to hound him to his death? At the least, thou mayst deaden the trail, if thou canst not stand by his side and thus prove thine own self. If so be thou hast power to separate the evil from the evil doer, and help to bear the burden of the Christ who lives and suffers in a stricken soul, then thou mayst hold at bay the enemy of man until its strength is broken, the striken soul is freed, and find that thou 101 STAND UP CONTINUED art thrice a conqueror. Meet then to take and wear the golden key art thou, for thou hast learned the way to stand upright and open wide the door to greater deeds. Thinkest thou thy JNIaster will by his diviner power, reach forth to pull thee from the mire or from the power of all the hungry pack and set thee down at His right hand by force of arms, to rule o'er those who have come up through all the hells unscathed by fire of Sin? Art thou then such an imbecile as to believe that thine own unbelief, thy fierce repudiation of former faith in Him thou once didst own as ^Master, will obliterate that ^Master from the screen of all thy lives? If so it be, then thou art blind indeed: lost, and helpless, or thou hast bound thine eyes and thrown away the crutch; lame and halt, thou now art caught in the morass with only a poor sodden stick of egotistic ])ride to lean upon; a stick that will surely snap in twain at the first effort to bear thy weight thereon. Stand up, stretch out thine hand toward the fur- ther side of the gulf of thy present delusion, child of the Sun; even if thou canst not yet see that other hand awaiting thine. Bear down on the earth with thine own feet; raise thy head and stand upright. 102 THE GIFT OF GOD HE WHO accepeth Me shall live by Me; he who lives by Me shall dwell with Mine; and in the Light w^here dwelleth Mine the heart of God doth pulse unceasingly. The shade that falls where God doth walk but fills a background drear against which all the light and glory of the Coming Age doth beat in never ceasing rythm. Enter thou that light and fold thy wings and rest, thou Bird of Life; thy pinions are Mine own, My Little Ones, to whom I gave Myself, and giving found My- self. 103 THE BOOK THOU callest it a brain. I call it a })ook, into which thou hast writ at command, the records of many lives. As leaf after leaf of that book is turned, as the cycles come and go, I see exposed the tales inscribed in blood wrung from thine own and other hearts. Short sentences illumined with the transi- tory colors that transient joy hath mixed and given unto thee; whole pages bordered deep with black, o'er w^hich dark shadows seem to flit at will so fast and thick there is no space or chance for written words. Here and there I see a paragraph of careless jest, or record of some kindly deed ; and close upon the page where one day Finis is to be inscribed by other hands than thine, are other pages where the lines no longer traverse straight across the page from side to side. Un- even are they, and the words run one into the other, and every letter shows the work of aged, trembling hands. Xo beauty have those pages to the critic's eye; yet, to the eye of God they are of all most beautiful; for in betw^een those crooked lines and wavering letter strokes, invisible to all but Him, are writ the sum of all the past experience, the mathematics of the soul, that He alone can read and understand. 104 THE HEIGHTS OF LIFE WIIEX thou hast reached the utmost height of louehness — that height so far above the Sun- kissed hills, the softly shaded valleys where once you dreamed away the time in blissful introspec- tion and have left behind you all that sensuous life had folded close, the human love, delights of eye and ear, and tender touch of helpful hand — 'twill seem the very heavens have fallen, the earth rejected and thee cast forth condemned. Thy soul will seem suspended in the depths apart from all created things, dead, as though the icy blast of winter's storm had wrapped it all about; alive, as though volcanic fires were eating into every quickening cell. The formless, soundless pressure of illimitable Space will beat upon your ears, and all the light of all the Suns in Space will sear your eyes; until at last, the debt of sentient life repaid, you yield submissively and cry, "God save me from the desolation, the utter loneliness of all created things, and let me lose myself in Thee alone." No tongue or pen can tell what then befalls that naked Soul, stripped of its gauds — the things which weighed it down, and chained it to a rocky waste; for, losing all it held in memory fond, it finds itself at last, alive with God's own life; a part of every tree and flower, at one with every living thing; a tone of all the melodies the swinging stars give forth — a light which lightens Earth and Sea and Sky, the hosts of Angels and the Cherubim. All, all in thee, and thou in God. 105 FIND THE GOOD DEEP indeed thy poverty, thou son or daughter of the Shadow, when for thine own sustenance thou tilchest from thy })rethren that which they would gladly part with for the asking, — the evil things of long ago that they would kill and hury. Long and hard will he the lesson thou must learn ere Wisdom can enfold thee with her mantle and show thee how much wiser it had been for thee to search for all the Godlike qualities concealed within thy broth- er's heart, that thou might be partaker with him in the ])lessings so revealed, instead of drawing to thyself and giving power to all the demons he hath killed, to fasten their vile fangs within thy quivering flesh, with all the strength that Tanha gives to evil things. If thou wouldst look with half the will thou givest to the search for evil things, to find the good within the heart of every living thing, how great would be thy recompense, thou starved and weary pilgrim of the nether path. Things of darkness seek the darkness, and if by dwelling on the evil thou imputest to thy brother, thou dost darken all thy sphere of being, straight as flies the needle to the magnet will fly the demons of the night to tliee; and most of all to fear will be this trutli that tliou wilt see those demons as the angels of the light, so great will be tlie darkness tliou liast made. 106 THE CALL OF THE FLESH AH, CHILDREN, children that ye are, in your hunoer for tlie old joys, or the unexplored field of some new experience, ye forget that the old joys were the seed of your present woes, that the new field must inevitahly lead you into a morass of similar suffering. The call of the flesh, the intoxication of the new field, cause you to forget the consequences which in your more enlightened hours you know must follow, though do not always admit it to yourselves. So, in- advertently, or through your craving for something, — anything, that will fill the void in your starving hearts, ye reach out for the frothy sweetmeats, the sugared aloes, which bear the semblance of food. If the pain which follows were all, it might be well for you; but alas, it is not all; in tampering with the higher centres of your life you lose your power of spiritual diges- tion, and in losing that, you have also lost your hunger — the call of your Divinity — and your ability to assimi- late the stronger food, which alone could satisfy. 107 GIVE WAY GIVE way, thou stolid, selfish miniature of ease, and let the King pass by, or prone upon the earth his knights will strike thee down! There is no room for thee, no place in all of I^abor's fair domains for such as thou. The King, God's workman, hath no time or will to set thee gently by when on his way to fight the hist long battle for the rights of man, which thou and all thy kind, in sloth, in revelry and lust have forced upon Him and the land which gave thee birth. Give way or die. 108 THE GIFT OF LIFE HOW hard it seemeth, ye who take no note of Nature's lovehest moods — to learn the lesson taught by every curving stem of flower and leaf — to bend, when thou must face the tempest and the storms of life; and so protect that part of thee, thy face, thy features, that which marks thy character, and proves to every seeing eye thy fitness for the gift of Life. The tree which reacheth toward the heavens in straight unbending line is but support for all the foli- age and the seed; while curved and straight lines, stem and tree are needful, the curve which touches close the flower and seed — the finer forms of life — doth give pro- tection and make possible the lives of many, while the straight, unbending line is One, alone. 109 THY CROWN THE Prince is not the King; then how can ye in justice crown the Prince and leave the King uncrowned ? Know ye not the crown doth symboHze all power, and when ye build an image of that power and place it on the brow of Him ye call your Lord, ye rob the King of that which is His due, ye close the path through which all power descends, and make the crown a thing of naught? Give unto God thyself and all thou hast, and He Himself will set His seal within the crown which He will set upon His firstborn's brow, that so in turn it may descend to thee. But think ye well before ye ask for that same crown the Prince doth wear. Its jeweled front doth flash its brilliant beauty forth on all who look thereon, but he who wears it doth not see that beauty rare: the sharp and jagged edges of the underside, the weight of heavy metal, piercing deep into the flesh and press- ing sore the brow; these are His alone, — His part of the inheritance within that crown. 110 THE POWER TO BUILD ^^ \ LL, all I am, my child," the Father saith, "I J^\^ fain would shower on thee. The fulness, maj- esty and power of life, in vast immeasurable streams; the wealth and glory of all suns in space, — the wisdom garnered by the use of all the higher attributes of gods and men; all, all 1 hold in trust, I fain would give to thee; and that which I now ask of thee is that with w^illing heart and in the love which crowiis all service pure, thou wilt take up the little things of life and do them wisely, gladly, — knowing that in giving them to thee to do I give thee power to build and cross the Bridge which must ])e built by effort of thine own to span the stream "twixt me and thee." HI NO RECALL THIXKEST thou that aught the world can offer could buy back the life that thou of thine own will hast given unto God .<' Having given that price- less gift — a life — to the service of thy God, — the serv- ice of thy brethren, — thou canst not take it back. That life has entered into the Soul of all and has become a part of every thing and creature — a part of everything that breathes the breath of life. It is no longer thine to give or take away. It smiles on thee in every rippling brook, in every tender face that lifts itself to thine. It flows from every tear that falls from others' eyes. It throbs in every heart, in every pain of body or of mind. It forms a part of every offered sacrifice. It beats in every measure, every tone, and glows in every sun. Thou mayst befoul the form which holds it, but thou canst not soil the life that is no longer thine, nor rob thy brethren of the gift, for it is theirs, not thine alone, when once accepted by thy God. 112 THE TRIMURTI THOU, the Wonderful, the Trimurti, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, hast now revealed to thy serv- ant a mystery: — The First-born son of the God of War hath passed from his Father's side between the wings of the Great Bird Garuda — the Bird whose talons wield the thunder- bolts of Heaven — to the back of the Eagle of the West- ern mountains. In swift flight shall the Eagle bear the Great Deliverer, for whom our eyes have long waited, to Aryan skies where, standing upright on the Bird's left wing, he shall re-establish the Lunar Dy- nasty and bring peace and plenty to a people oppressed. When the Rivers of the far East and the West meet and commingle, then shall the God of War bury the seven-tipped arrows he now holdeth in hand, be- neath the Ocean so formed, and a mighty Race again rule the Earth. 113 THE DEAD IN LIFE FIT food are ye for the Astral vultures that feed upon you, for dead ye are, while yet ye live. Swollen, besotted with pride, accursed of God, the fiends ye have called from the depths look on you with horror. Fattened by the blood of the human hearts ye break, ye loll at ease, and not only refuse to enter the light of life yourselves, but bar the way to that light, that others may fall in the darkness ye cre- ate. Your lying tongues and deceitful ways cause the weak to stumble and go down to death. Fools that ye are, do vou think in vour blindness the law is dead? 114 THE PRICE OF LOVE TO THE soul with the capacity for a great love there will some time come a moment of illumina- tion, a moment of divine intuition when the veil between spirit and matter is temporarily lifted and that soul catches a glimpse of the tragedy which lies concealed behind the present rapture and dimly senses the icy chill of its approach. So it must ever he, for exevy great love bears the seed of a deep ti'agedy. Such love is seldom under- stood or appreciated at its full value, and still more seldom is it returned in kind. In the moment of illumination the soul realizes be- yond all doubt that the shadow of vicarious atonement, of sacrifice past telling, awaits it also as it has awaited every divinely inspired soul since time for man began. But the veil drops quickly, the momentary revolt against undeserved suffering is stilled. Love sheds its radiant beams over all common things, dazzling the in- tellect, and magically endowing the heloved one with all the attrihutes of a God. And so self-crowned with the diadem of sacrifice, the soul passes on to its Geth- semane and Golgotha to pay the price demanded by divine law for hestowing upon a mortal that which he- longs alone to God. 115 JUSTICE REIGNS " A LL'Swell! All's well!" loudly calls the watch- J^\_ man at the gate. "Sleep on, sleep on! ye kmgs, and lords, and princes all, and take your rest. "Huzza! Huzza! Fill up your glasses to the brim. Drink deep of pleasure's draught, ye sons and daugh- ters of my lords, nor fail to satisfy each lust of eye and mind. "No need of care have ye, for am not I, your slave, erstwhile in bond to want, now watchman at the gate, and watcher over you? "Ye fools, and blind of soul, ye saw no thirst for vengeance in mine eye. Ye heard no cry for justice from my lips so stiff with pain, on that foul day when first ye brought me under thrall to you. "Nov/, even while ye sleej^ or revel, I j'our watch- man and your slave, will lay the train and light the fuse of righteousness for man. "I, even I, will open wide the gate and let the people in — the broken, spoiled, enslaved and sore tried common people of the slums whom ye have kept with- out the gate. Ye could not spoil them of their love of life, though all tilings else worth while lay in your grasp; and love of life hath opened wide the eyes once sealed by want, to see the writing on the wall. The day of weigliing cometh nigh, and ye must stand upon the scales. 116 JUSTICE REIGNS "All's well! All's well! Sleep on, my lords and princes, or revel as ye will. I, the slave whom ye by indolence or wrong have robbed of virtue, manhood, innocence, am given ward o'er you. "Sleep on and revel, fathers, sons and daughters now within the gates, till strikes the hour before the dawn. Then shall ye wake, in deed and in truth, to learn that justice reigns." 117 LISTEN SOUL of iSIy Soul, Heart of My Heart, bend down thine ear, and listen thou well. Listen, as listens a mother, who, with smile on her lips and light in her eyes, lists to the beat of the fast coming feet that are bringing her loved ones, her husband or children, back to their hearthstone — back to her arms. Listen! and know that the heart-throb thou feelest, the life-pulse thou hearest, is but the extension, the rytlimic revealing of heart-throb and life-pulse ai-is- ing in me, escaping fast from me, and finding a shelter in thy willing heart, till thou sendest them forth on their mission of service, it may be to people a woi-ld through the love they invoke, or empty a world through the hatred they bear. I am the Ultimo, thou the revealer, and also dis- penser. In thee lies the power to turn into channels of Good, or to poison with Kvil the love-stream that flows from my soul to thine own. Child of Eternity! Seek well and listen! List till the rhythmic vibration, tlie life-beat of God, strikes thine ear. 118 THUS SAITH THE LORD THUS saith the Lord — my Lord to me: Open thine eyes and hehold my face. Thou hast looked too long at my bleeding feet and rememberest not the smile on my face. Thou hast looked too long at the dire effects, and not enough at the causes of sin. Thou hast wept and jDrayed o'er and fondled and cher- ished the long secret sins thou wilt not let go. Thou fearest the Law, that Law which is mine, which is me and is thee, and in fearing, thou losest the light of my love, that love which o'ertops and enhances the Law, as this one little sphere is o'ertopped and en- hanced by the heavens which surround it — ^by limitless space. Look up, my child, from my feet to my face. 119 THE CHRIST-BORN SCARRED and broken on the wheel of the Dark Star, beset by all the wiles of man, and tried by- demons fierce, — the Dragon's blood ye drank to quench the Tanha thirst hath now been turned to living water in your breast, and all who come to you in faith shall drink and live. Rejoice that ye have kept your troth with Christ — for He will turn that water into precious wine when comes the last great change, and clothe you with a gar- ment white as wool, that ne'er hath borne a stain. 120 THY TRUST ROYxVL prince of the Iviiigdom of Cxod, Sou of tliy Father, the Thrice Eorii! (xreat indeed is thy station, ininieasureahle the power that waits upon thy crowning — thy foot upon the dais of thy Father's Throne. In the shadow of Infinity thou standest, Son of Suns, unknowing of thy future, all thy past unknown to thee. Thy serfs and vassals — thy passions and desires — now press thee close and plead for grace that thou hast power to grant or hinder. Yet, notw^ithstanding rank and station, there is not a slave or minion in thy Father's Kingdom so poor as now thou art, if thou art recreant to thy trust. Xo thief locked in thy castle dungeon can be so hideous in thy sight as thou wilt be if thou art traitor in the sight of those to wdiom thy heart, in faith, was turned, when all the world was young to thee — when purity of motive, purpose, soul looked squarely out from eyes that never wavered when they met the eyes of those who loved and trusted them. A little thing it seemed, when, midst the glamour, clanging bells and great rejoicing on that day which ushered in maturity for thee, thy Father gave His lance and signet ring to thee, and bade thee hold the outer Temple Gate, that so no enemy might gain the inner Wall — that Guardian Wall, each stone of which is 121 THY TRUST CONTINUED chiseled and cemented by tlie brawn and l)lood of count- less races of mankind — that AVall which guards the greatest treasure of His Kingdom, the holiest of Holy Things — the Sacred Fire, which, lit by (xod's own Hand, has never since been quenched. Art thou a traitor, thou, the Son of Kings? Is thine the hand that pierced the Wall and led the foe within? If so it be, thrice traitor then art thou. Thy Fath- er's signet ring, thy ^Mother's bed, the Holy Fire — all jeopardized by thee. Each stone that fell through cause of thine will cry for vengeance from tlie ground it touched. By king or beggar, prince or slave, a trust betrayed is all the same, and bringeth recompense in full. Art tliou thy Father's first-born. His beloved Son? Then stand behind His Throne. Sharpen thy sword if it hath rusty grown, and keep it drawn. That Throne is thine, and thou must liold it in the days to come. As tliou defendest it, so shall it be thine own defense, when kingdoms fall hke rain, and men in ter- ror flee. 122 THE WORKSHOP <<y^():ME apart with me, thou child of my beget- \i ting. Come apart from all the noisy crowd. Come from under the weight of man's infirm- ities and sins. Come away from the path of the flood of women's tears, the pressure of helpless children's cries, those cries which beat unceasingly upon the ears of tender souls. "Come thou with ]Me into the cleft of yonder rock; lie down and rest, and I will show thee wondrous things which thou mayest ])ring to pass on earth, if so thou wilt." Thus spake the Christ. "Behold the city of a thousand hills — a city white and glorious, and in the midst thereof see thou the poor in spirit, the lame, the halt, the blind, the castaways of all the earths the cyclic SAveep of Time hatli gath- ered up. And over all the mighty throng, like out- spread wings above a nest, see thou the peace of God, the glory shining from His face and sweeping o'er and o'er each w^orn and battered form, until that form is lost within the glory to appear again like unto God. "Then see thou One in simple majesty of form who saith unto the throng about Him: 'Listen, children of my soul! Lo! ye have suffered, labored, danced and played these many years on earth, w^hence ye are now released. While under glamour of the Jinns ye have believed tliat ve were laboring hard and sore bestead, — 123 THE WORKSHOP CONTINUED but now with JNIe get ye unto your work — the work of Gods and Angels. " 'The glory and the peace that ye have won with Me must be transferred to earth and we must do the mighty work. Breathe deep and fill your hearts, and by the strands of Love we weave thereof, descend to earth swiftly, silently seek out the rich, the powerful, the great, the sorely tempted, blind and halt and lame of soul who know not yet how poor they are, and, throw- ing off our breastplates, set free the streams of Love and Peace and Glory within our hearts, for sore indeed is now their need. "'The earth will change. There will be no more sea. Heaven will be brought to earth, the t^vain be merged in one, and then at last Love will l)e justified, its will be done when we have lossed the chains which bind the souls of men.' "All this will I show thee when thou comest apart with Me, for know ye now that Heaven is the Work- shop of the Gods, and earth the playground of the Jinns. "Man must make his Heaven, if he would dwell therein, and he can only make it as he worketh day by day with Me, apart from all, yet one with all." Thus spake the Christ. 124 THE INTERVALS OF LIFE LOOK for the secrets contained in the intervals. The sounded notes plainly tell their stories to the listening ear, hut what man hath sounded the deeply hidden mysteries of the rests hetween those notes ^ Bury the past. Open the door of the future that the resurrected may improve the present opportunity. Life's mvsteries are only mysterious to the deaf and bhnd. The mind of God is mirrored in the mind of man, and he who would know God must first know man. Individual man is the tool. Life is the JSIaster work- man now building the LTniversal Temple. The stones for its building are the divine principles carved by the hand of God, and the mortar for their laying is wet ])y the tears of the human race. Xot until the Temple is complete will stone and tool attain to consciousness of the glory to be revealed in them. In all the literature of the world there is naught so supremely selfish, in the highest acceptance of the term, as are the exhortations of the Beatitudes. In praying for those who despitefully use you and persecute you, you are praying for yourself, for the sinner and the sinned against are one in the Christ to whom appeal is made. The merciful, the pure in heart, are each your- self; you are the blessed, yours the reward. You can- not separate yourself from your brother self. You can neither pray for, bless or curse one witliout the other. Yet must you pray and bless and work, or die tlie deatli of the unregenerate. 125 "I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH" BEATS there a lieart so callous, so iuiresi)onsive as to feel no thrill of courage, no feeling of grati- tude that it belongs to the same grade of sub- stance, beats to the same measure as that which envel- oped the man and prompted the words of the dying Paul: "I have kept the faith"? What would be the result if the Higher Self of each one called upon us to make a similar assertion in the hearing of a waiting multitude, after years of such trial as Paul endured for his "faith's sake"? And what is this faith which Paul once defined as "the substance of things hoped for" ? The answer comes from the heart of all things and wells up from our own hearts to our lips, "It is the life of our life — the one attribute — the basic principle of all our hopes, fears, longings and possibilities. With- out it we were the most forlorn, helpless and hopeless creatures in the wide universe." When all we have loved, trusted, worked for, prayed for, endured for, leaves us some day in the midst of one of the fiercest storms of trial; when it seems as though the very foundations of the world were giving away and we were plunging into the depth of Hades; out from some inner shrine, some holy place, where God is dwelling in fulness for the time being, there comes a soft whisper to our inner ear, bringing in its wake a wave of hope and courage which stirs some stagnant, 126 "I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH" CONTINUED long-neglected deep of our fiature and sets it into ra])- idly pulsating motion: and then into our hearts and heads is wafted the message: "Be of good cheer, I have overcome." Overcome what^ and hy what? questions the lower mind. Clear cut and sliarp comes tlie answer: "Overcome the world and all tliat is in it that is antagonistic to the highest good and overcome it by the power of Faith." Faith sees the first step of the long ladder we must climb, and then glances along the other ste])s and says to us: "Take that first step and the rest will be easy:" faith tliat looks into the heavens of a starlit night and says: "Even as the hand of Infinity holds those worlds in equilibrium, as century after century they traverse unending spaces, so will that same hand hold this little world which constitutes my individual self, so I have no occasion to fear. All I need is power to will and work — the Infinite Father will do the rest. Faith walks by one's side, even if its face be veiled, as we stumble down the dark valley of death and through hells be- neath — those hells that have quenclied the fires of hope, of love, of mercy, of even desire for existence — and says: "Look up, beloved, this is not all of life: take me, use me as a shield against the darts of the devils that haunt this place, and fight thy way out." And. 127 "I HAVE KEPT THE FAITH" CONTINUED listening to that plea and obeying it, we find the way opening before us; we find the devils were either power- less to injure us or that they were unsubstantial, tran- sitory, dream figures which melt away before our eyes, as step by step we advance, covered by that shield of Faith. Aye, Faith is indeed the life of our life, the impulse to every w^orthy action; the basis of every invention, every scientific discovery, every advance in all fields of life; and more than all else to the longing, soul- starved human being hopeless of ever being understood by or ever gaining a place in the hearts of those it loves and serves, and overcome with a horrible fear of death, and even worse fear of continued life. What words can picture the return of a lost faith to such an one? Dwelling on all these truths, can we not imagine with what wholesome pride came the words: "I have kept the faith," from the lips of that old, wornout, dying man; worn out in the service of his fellowmen and the Christ he loved? Who would not reverently repeat the same words to himself and pray that he too might be able to utter them in a like hour of supreme trial, in the same spirit and with the same power? The greatest Initiate, the Iiumblest slave may have a right to utter tliem; and in the utterance the two would be made one in the heart of Infinite Love. 128 OPEN THINE EYES OPEN thine eyes, — the eyes of thy Soul, — poor, fickle, changeable atom of man that thou art, lest thou blindly enter again and again the flames of the nether fires, when the free, glad fields of Elysian bliss are thine for thy Willing and Seeking. Knowest thou not that the loyal service of thy friend to even that which seemeth error unto thee, will bring that friend, and thee with him, (if so be that thou art true), unswervingly to righteous principle; for loyalty to aught that God hath made, whatever be the name that man bestows upon it, will bring thee surely, safely to the heart of God, though dark and devious be the paths thy feet doth tread to reach that heart. Never canst thou reach thy goal, the goal where God in Christ doth dwell eternally, if false to thine own soul. And false thou art if false unto thy brethren. Even though a seeming Christ in form shouldst come to thee and say, "Come unto me and sit henceforth on my right hand, though in the coming, I must bid thee crush the hearts of these thy brethren underfoot," I say to thee. Beware! Not so doth come the Christ. But Satan in the guise of Christ might well deceive thee, if it be that thou hast never known that God cannot belie Himself. God in Truth, is Truth sublime, and Truth is Loyalty, before, above, beyond, all other attributes. 129 OPEN THINE EYES If thou dost deem thy brother sore deceived, be brave enough to walk upright, unwavering, by that brother's side till thou hast led him into what is Light to thee, or through the paths of pain that thou hast walked with him, perchance thou shalt learn that he held the Light and thou wert in the shadow. Only so can Christ the INIaster come to thee and offer thee in truth a place at his right hand. 130 THE LIVING CHRIST POOR, striken soul, that needs must lay thy cru- cified — thy Christ — within a sepulchre and seal the door, while yet some other soul hath sought and found the Christ alive. Alive in every tree and flower, in heast and bird as well as in the human heart, where, in thine ignorance, thou now wouldst fain con- fine Him, in fear that Christ might })e degraded by too close a contact with the lesser souls wliich truly He alone could ever bring to life and l)eing. Stricken sore indeed is he who in his selfish sorrow for the Christ who died, his worship of all funeral trap- pings, doth fail to see the living Christ in every thing and creature, as well as in the heart of every earnest seeker for the truth, who undertakes his search to still the yearning cry within his soul for sight or sound of that wdiich, from the inmost recesses of human life, is ever drawing all Its own to recognition of Itself. There is no rest, no peace for such a stricken one until the great reality beyond all seeming comes to birth within himself, and sets him free to seek wherever Truth doth lead, e'en though it he through all the fires of Hell or to the very gates of Heaven. For where the Christ hath gone, all men may go, upheld and com- forted by the same love that hath sustained and com- forted each seeker for the Grail since time for man began. 131 JUSTICE THE Stars are now rocking with the tread of the vast army of Souls who are coming from far-off fields of Hadean darkness to demand of you, of me, of all the races of mankind, speedy release from the weight of the fiery chains they have been loaded with; surcease from the anguish they are now enduring be- cause of our refusal or neglect to profit by their mar- tyrdom, when they, in love, have lain their torn and mangled bodies down upon the earth that we might step thereon to reach with ease a higher round of the Cosmic ladder, and so open the gates which now shut them out of Heaven. Vengeance for outraged love has been the burden of the loud wail that has shaken the foundations of the earth for ages gone. "Vengeance is mine," answers the Lord our God, "And I am love." Out from the midst of the great White Throne comes the command, "Open wide the Star strewn vaults of the Heavens, ye Angels of the Gates, and let the victims of man's inhumanity pass through to behold the administration of long defeated justice." 132 'MY FATHER " WHEN the storm center of thy life is stirred to its focal point and thy whole being is dissolved in the mighty thought waves which sweep un- checked to the boundaries set by thine own soul; when from amidst the roar and tumult of thy clashing thoughts, there comes a low, gasping, shuddering, "Father, hear me, save me," thinkest thou thy Father will fail to recognize the tones of thy voice amidst the myriad voices assailing His ears and so will pass thee by unheeding? Ah, thou little knowest: Couldst thy Mother's ear be deceived in the voice of her child? Would it matter to her what name thou gavest her? Whether thou cryest in pain or in joy? Would not soul reach soul unhampered by other earthly sounds at the first sound of thy voice? Then why shouldst thou doubt that thy Father is more able to hear the voice of His child, whether thou callest Him Jehovah or God, Zeus or Jupiter? The name thou now bearest will die with thee, but thine own name, thy true name, is graven on the hands and in the heart of thy Father in Heaven, and though thy Father's name has never passed the lips of mortal man, that name is graven in thine own heart, and that heart, unconsciously mayhap to thee, cries out that name when it prompts thee to say, "My Father." 133 THE WEAPONS OF THE SELF BORN AH, "little one," thou child of the long travail of the Christs, how weak thy struggle, how unfitted art thou for the battle with the powers of evil now arrayed against thee! Unwitting of the methods of thy forbears, — they who fought the Dragon with its own sharp claws and slew it past all hope of resurrection, — thou hast yet but learned to grasp such weapons as they used to crush the crawling worm. Arouse thyself and seek to slay that Dragon's pro- geny, — the Dragon's teeth sown over all the earth, — tenfold more the spawn of Evil than the power which gave them birth. Wilt thou stand by supine and let them slay the good, the pure, the holy, — yea, slay thyself, in this most cruel of the cruel wars that ever devastated dwelling place of man, — the w^ar of self 'gainst self? When all Illusions sensuous coils are wound about thine eyes thine enemy doth seize thy strength to turn the face of Truth, of Holiness and Wisdom to the wall of Sense, and places in their stead the well disguised, the cold and passionless, the craven faces of thy foes, while they would force thee to thy knees in slavish wor- ship of the dead in life. Arouse thee, child though now thou art, unbind thine eyes, and even in the time a sunbeam takes to strike the earth, the weapons of the Self-born shall de- scend to thee and thou shalt tear those evil faces from the wall and bring again to light the hidden faces of the Gods of Truth, of Justice, Love and Wisdom. 134 THE GREATEST IS CHARITY ^*T3 UT the greatest of these is Charity." Charity |j which covers a multitude of sins, the charity which recognizes and accepts responsihiHty for the man or woman in the depths of degradation, as at least partly due to the vileness of his own imaginings, and the imaginings of every other person who has im- puted evil to such an one; for know, ye who prate of possession of the power of suggestion, of hypnotism, of psychic jjower, that you — you, my hrother — if guilty, will answer in the great day of settlement for the con- dition of that fallen one. If he goes to Hell, you will go with him. Owning to the possession of the power that would have lifted him from the depths into which he had sunk, or had been pushed, mayhap, by the phar- isee who now passes by on the other side, you have let that power lie idle. You — you, my sister, will face the inquisitor ])y the side of the sister you have despised, the child you have left orphaned, desolate, to the care of the "beasts of the jungles" — "the beasts of mam- mon," — because its mother and father had not been united by another man's ceremony. You — you, my sister, my brother, who strip every thread of reputation from a weaker brother or sister; you who bring the wolves and jackals of society to tear the flesh — the good name — from the bones of another human being, when in letters of living fire the one word CHARITY looms up before your inner eyes. You see it on altar, transept, and over the entrances of your great temples and churches. The arches or the naves of those temples are trembling from the volume of rich sound from organ and from voice, as they breathe out in song — the theme of Charity. 135 THE GREATEST IS CHARITY CONTINUED You who reach out a hand, in your pov^erty and wretchedness to a sister, a brother, to be fed; and when your craving for material food is satisfied, when the riches of sj^iritual teachings have poured out upon you in their fulness, turn and bite the hand that fed you, or pour out the vitals of long suppressed jealousy and rage. "Charity for me," cry such poor souls, "but the tor- ments of Hell for thee," if thou hast given them charity, and they are not big enough to rest under the weight of kindness. There is a river broad and deep enough to cover the path of a solar system, the waters of which are pure and sweet and cleansing enough to give life and healing and joy surpassing aught we know; and the name of that river is color carven and jeweled in the sky above, and over all its length and breadth. We call it Con- sciousness. Out from its etheric counterpart, in strains past hu- man teUing, sounds eternally the echoes of the song of Life. Enter that river, lie down on its bosom, let its wa- ters pour over and through your soiled and weary bodies. Drink of it, laugh with it, weep with it; then rise up and go out into the world and hunt for the thirsty, the soiled, the weary, and bring them, too, to the banks of that river. There on its banks shalt thou find a diadem await- ing thee, and carven deep on the golden circlet, em- blazoned with iewels of attainment, shalt thou find the word— Charity— LOVE. 136 TO MINE OWN A TRUST I gave to thee, the Escutcheon of thy Father's House, the honor of a hue of brave de- fenders, warriors of old, who hated hfe if it hut interfered a jot with Truth and Justice; \yho gave their lives without a pang, at the demand of Right. I bade thee keep that Trust secure from all thy Father's foes and thine. I bade thee seek and find thy brethren in those spheres whence they were driven by the powers of darkness when closed the last fierce strug- gle 'twixt the White and the Black. I bade thee see to it, no stain should rest upon thine armor, no rust upon thy sword. I come again to thee to ask that thou shouldst draw that sword, to test its metal, throw off the cloak that hides thine armor that I may judge how thou hast kept the Faith. I bid thee open\vide thy vestments that I may feast mine eyes upon the brightness of thy breastplate. The day of USE draws nigh, and I must try my weapons. Shall I find thine honor in the dust, thy brethren still in bondage, the glory of thy House departed, through thy faithlessness or weakness? Or shall I find thee staunch and true, one of the unconquerable; find thee still the stainless peer of all thy forbears? Deep now loudly calls to greater deeps across the waves of human woe. The long expected day of Sepa- ration draweth nigh. Those who are mine will answer "Here" when sounds the rallying cry. Those who have faithlessly given their troth to another must go to that other. The Gage of the mighty in power of today has been flung in the faces of the Warriors of Light, and the battle of Right against Might is on. 137 PRAYER REACH down, lost soul though thou be, thou who deniest the source of thy life, thou who hast for- gotten thine ancestry, thou who hast flung thy younger brotlier into the pit thine own desire hath dug, and filched from him his heritage for thine own glory. Thou who hast made a playground of thy Father's heart, and watered the seeds of thine own decay with thy Mother's tears. Thou who thinkest there is no eye of God to see the bastard forms thou hast created; no ear of God to hear the blasphemous ribaldry with which thou hast polluted the air thou must breathe. Reach down, lost soul though thou be, beneath the trough of the rolling w^ave of thine earthly passion, and search for the light of the Christ which even yet shines in thee. 'Make sl path through that wave by Faith, that the light may pass through to search out thine heart, and — fall on thy knees! To him who saith to thee, "There is no God to listen to thy mouthings," do thou as I bid thee, fling back the foul lie in his face, for lie it is. No soul hath ever lifted its voice in prayer for suc- cor in its hour of peril that hath been turned back upon itself. The foulest wrong one soul may do unto another is to rob it of its faith in God. 138 PRAYER CONTINUED Pray unceasingly, but not as one without hope. Pray in praise, in certainty that there are ears to hear, e'en though they be not molded on the pattern of thine own, e'en though the answer to thy prayer doth tarry till the water from the well of life hath overflowed its rim and once more filled the shrunken tissues of thy soul, and washed away all stain of sin, that so the fiery streams of Love Divine now held in leash by that one Christly gleam within thy soul, may egress find to ut- terly destroy all that lies between thy God and thee, between thee and the Ocean of all Life. 139 ASK AND RECEIVE THOU who knowest that all life is ceaseless, puls- ing motion, knowest that a sun must rise and set each day, that every heart-beat is in perfect time and rhythm; thou, who knowest well that food of yes- terday will not sustain thy body for the morrow's toil, thinkest thou, the law divine will be repealed when only once a cry for Christly bread hath passed thy lips and that forever more a full supply will be before thine eyes, unasked by thee? Ah, no! a full supply awaits thine asking, but thou must ask each day or suffer in thy soul from want, as now thy body suffers from the lack of food when thou dost not provide. 140 HEARKEN TO ME HEARKEN, ye children of the New Dispensa- tion! The time is near at hand when He who is to come will reappear among men for the uni- fication of the races of the earth. Open your eyes that they may see. Open your ears that they may hear. And open your hearts that the Son of Man may have place to lay his head, lest He pass you by and ye know him not. 141 LIFT UP THINE EYES LIFT up thine eyes, O man, O little man. Lift up thine eyes that so thou mayest behold the Angels of the spheres; the Holy Ones who rode the crest of fiery billows set in motion by the Sons of Flame long ere a thought of thee had crossed the mind of God. Look up, that so perchance thou mayest catch the pitying glances cast on this dark star in passing, by those angel hosts. Tied to the same wheel of life as thou, yet tied by their own will, midway between the heavens and earth they circle round to hold in equilibrium the lesser worlds which otherwise would be unbalanced. Xo need have they to veil their eyes. Full in the faces of the glorious suns they look, their eyes untroubled, unashamed by aught that meets those mirrored depths. Messengers are they 'twixt Gods and men and this the message now they bring to thee : "Lift up thy face, O man, to whom the gods gave hands in place of paws ; the gods who set thee on thy feet and lifted up thy head, the gods who loosed the cords that bound thv face to earth." "Lift up thy face, and even shouldst thou read re- buke in those most holy eyes when they shall meet thine own, there also wilt thou find the promise of release when in the days to come thy feet shall also be unbound, and nought have power to hold thee longer to the earth." 142 THE GUERDON OR THE LOSS HAVE the Demons of Cowardice, Indolence and Self-aggrandizement seized and bound thee fast, thou child of the Dawn? Art thou held in thrall by the children of Night — and fain would now escape? Then would I bid thee loudly call upon the Brothers of the fire mist to burn the cords that bind thee fast and set thee free to take thy place amidst the Warriors of the Light. Full well thou knoweth that the guerdon of a bat- tle nobly fought can never fall to renegade or leech, so hold thee still until thy bonds are burned if thou wouldst fight to win. No soldier — chela — of the ^lysteries will leave his comrades to the beasts of prey which lurk amidst the shadows of the army's rear he hath been set to guard, and run for safety to the demons of those shadowy wilds. The proven chela seeks the thickest of the fight and there remains, within his Captain's call, till victory comes. He who would eat the bread and drink the water portioned to his army corps in time of peace, then climb to safety o'er the dead he had betrayed while still the battle cry was sounding in his ears could never win the crown of life: the Sword of Power. 143 SING SOFT AND LOW SING soft and low, ye happy, hopeful, helpful hearts — ye hearts that feel the first faint throb of that strong life-beat pulsing through the unborn child — the new humanity. Sing soft and low. Not yet the time for swelling notes of victory. Sing, for sing ye must, and never cease from singing. The child is now conceived; the birth pangs even now are surging through the Mother Soul, and tho' the travail be most hard and long, the end is even now in sight. Unto God and thee another Son, another King will come to rule in majesty and power. Creep away into the dens the underworld doth hold, ye drawers of the waters from the wells of wom- en's eyes, ye who dig deep furrows in the faces of the men who suffer for your sins ; for there will be no place for those who weep in that new age, and ye must weep the measure of the tears ye now are drawing from the eyes of those who love and serve you well. Speak to your hearts, speak low the words of peace and patience, ye who suffer now, and gain endurance through your pain. Ye well may leave all judgments to the law, for yours will be the prize, yours the honor of the banner bearer through the march of centuries to come. 144 THE LATCH LIFT up the latch, child of my love, the latch to the door of thy Father's heart: the door of that home thou hast left in rebellion to wander afar into darkness and squalor, in want and in sorrow: left it to seek, yet always to miss, the peace of fulfilment, the joy of attainment. Dost thou remember, son of my sun, when thy thoughts wander homeward, that only in seeming that latch closed the door; remember that inside the door was no latch and no fastening, and he who would enter had only to stoop to the latch hanging downward, lift it and enter the door of his home? If a child willed to enter a touch of his finger would lift high the latch, the door would swing open, a face there would meet him; wide open arms would enfold him, and bring him perforce ])ack again to his own. So now hangs the latcli to the door of my heart, but of thine own free will must thou lift it to enter. 145 THOU HAST DONE WELL CLOSE the door, my child, shut out the sin, the shame and sorrow. Close the door, for all who enter here touch holy ground. All sad todays and yesterdays are lost in the tomor- rows of the souls that enter here, and all the brightness of the days between is here before thee, waiting here for thee. All of good that thou hast ever lost, all recom- pense for pain, is here; so close the door, my child, and come into thine own. Close the door. I would not bid thee come to me and close the way to thy return, did I not know thy (hity done — the prize of all fulfilment won by thee. That which now remains, between thee and the goal thou long hast sought is just the open door, thy pity and thy fear forbids thee now to close. Why lingerest thou? The wail of human woe now falling on thine ear comes not from child of thine, or friend. 'Tis but the wail, the torturing screams of hosts of souls imprisoned by their higher selves for sins 'gainst thee and me and all the human race. Thou wilt not? Thou desirest still to stay amidst the lost when joy and peace are thine just for the tak- ing? Thou sayest Heaven would not be Heaven for thee if memory of the cries of the condemned remained with thee. 146 THOU HAST DONE WELL CONTINUED So be it! Thou hast chosen well; for all the aisles of Heaven, through all eternity, would echo and re- echo all its cries, if but a single soul were left in Hell, on that great day when are recalled by God, the sons He once sent forth to do his bidding. And it is best for thee that thou hast chosen to remain in chains of flesh if so be thou mayest hasten that great day by help- ing up some weaker soul than thine ; some soul that fell and could not rise alone, and by its fall had blocked the way for all who followed in its train. Aye, thou hast done well, mv child! 147 THE CENTRAL FLAME THE nearer the disciple approaches to the Central Flame of the great Initiation Chamber, the keen- er grows his sensitiveness to the heat of the fire, the stronger is his realization of its power over him. As the tongues of flame search out the tender places of his flesh he sinks back in terror and fain would turn and flee from the face of the Are that has hitherto been his God, even must he fly to the uttermost parts of the universe. If he have the power to stand still while the dross of his lower self be burned away and he sees his heart's blood splashing the pavement at his feet, all life is changed for him; his former fear and shrinking are lost in an overwhelming love which embraces even the flames whereby he has suffered. With face transfigured and his once gross body now a centre of radiating light, he steps from the base of the flame into the great Circle of Conservation— Universal Love. He is no longer a stake for demons to fight over, but a man among men, a God among Gods. 148 FAITHFULNESS SAY thou to my Children: Faithfuhiess to each individual Ideal of the Soul of all Things and to Us, as representatives of the Great Lodge, will bring them close to us. But, if they would come still nearer, they must not forget that he who would drink of our cup must needs find it a cup of renunciation and sorrow, as well as of joy unspeakable. Only by kneeling in the dust of this Scarred old Star can we press our lips to the hem of the Christ-gar- ment — that garment whence cometh the healing, life- giving streams, which alone can wash away the tears from our eyes, the bitterness from our hearts. We can but grope around in the darkness of ma- terial life in our search for that gracious garment — Compassion. But, haply in our groping, our weary hands may suddenly touch the hand of God — the hand that with a wave may throw back the curtain shrouding Infinity, and show us not only the hem, but the whole garment, and our souls shining forth from its pure white folds. 149 SEARCH AH! starved and starving souls, held in leash by fear, while just beyond your present vision is a table set that even Christ might find delight in serving, crying out or smothering the cry for one dear JNIother Heart to lay thy head upon ! Riven hearts that pulse with longing for "the feel" of some dear little child! In agony unspeakable, pain and fever, lie countless stricken ones, hopeless of relief, looking only to the deep, dark stream beyond to drown their suffering, while just above their heads a hand is feeling for their feeble wavering hands to lead them to release. If thou art one of these, hold still, that so that hand may clasp thine own. Feast and Mother, Child and Healing, Life and Death, all doth lie within the Father's heart, that beats through thine. Search, and thou shalt find! I who tell thee, tell the true. 150 "HE COMES " HO! Outposts, "Light the signal fires." From Mountain top along the chain of Hearts which girdle all the world, flash brightly out the long awaited message — the message which till now hath only flickered softly in all lowly j^laces, in the coulees and the quiet valleys where all Xature cries are hushed be- fore the couch of the great World-Mother in the partu- rition pains which bringeth a Christ to birth. Stretch out thy hand, O man, on either side of thee and take thy brother's hand, in hut, in palace, home or street, and form a close wrought chain through which no jot of all the Love, the Righteousness, the Justice of a new, a greater age may pass and thou wilt find that all the light and glory of the new-born sun will be reflected in thine own glad face. 151 LIFE IN DEATH THOU who bearest Death's dark visage, reach out and draw the creatures of Thy will still closer to Thy side, and let them search Thy face, and place their hands within Thy Heart, that so they come upon the secrets of Thy purposes. No fear of Thee have I, for Thou and I have oft clasped hands in peace, and now I know Thee well for That Thou art — the friend of man. But these, my children, know Thee not, and I would plead that Thou draw near that they may learn that Life in all its fulness lies within the fastnesses of Thy mysterious Being. 152 COMPASSION^S VEIL THK ^lerciful Law, Compassion's selfless, hath veiled thine eye, that while thou walkest in the darkness of this nether world thy sight should not be blasted by the glory shining forth from that great soul who bears my message to the dead in life as well as to the dying and the still-born souls which throng the portal of the inner sphere, and walk unhindered midst the crowds that gather in the paths and byways of all sentient life— the crowds which thou and thine do help to swell. A robe of common flesh, ungainly form, and coun- tenance that callest not for lust of eye; no beauty hath my Messenger, that thou desirest it. Nor canst thou see until thine inner eye is opened and with reverent hand thou tearest down the evil which hides that soul from thee ; and this thou mayest not do, until the Sun of Life be shining bright within thy heart, for in the dark- ness, sudden light of fadiant soul would blind thine eyes. In thy sorrow for thy wasted opportunities, thy cruelty, the needless anguish borne in thy behalf, my Messenger would also suffer in thy suffering as ne'er in all its flight from Heaven to earth it hath been called to suffer for other cause than that which tries thy soul; the cause of universal woe, — man's disobedi- ence to the law of God. 153 SHIFT THY LOAD DOES the load press hard? Is thy shoulder grazed^ Thy back bent low? Are thy nerves and muscles tense and strained by the stress of the burden borne? Doth the world woe press thy heart till it seem to burst its leash? Then, child of my sorrow, shift the load from shoulder to back, from nerve to heart, from heart to shoulder. The weight is needful, the close bound burden doth hold the ransom and crown of thy soul. Remember! 'tis always in darkness and silence — in the heavy pressure of our human w^oe, that the Light of God conceives and brings its own to birth. So shift thy load, my child, and wait in patience for release until the Law shall set thee free. At least the shift will give relief, and at the most it may uncover one of Life's most precious mysteries. 154 DEBTORS TO LIFE MY SOX why callest thou on me for Succour, why i3lead for Wisdom's gifts, while all un- recognized, forgotten or neglected, lie all the gifts bestowed on thee in answer to thy calls of long past days. To rid thy conscience of thy debtors' load thou claimest inalienable right to all the Universe holds of good, and base thy claim upon thy kinship with the source of thy frail life. But Life is Law, and Law gives naught for naught. He is a thief who takes from Life all that he may and then refuses payment of the debt in kind. 155 THE SPEECH OF CHRIST HE WHO would tell thee that the Christ doth speak to him in words, deceives himself and thee. Xot so doth speak the Christ. By deeds of Love and Justice the Christ must utter Thought if he would speak to man while man is man. By deeds must give the key the ^lorning Star sounds forth to constellations bright, the hosts of Heaven who sing the Cosmic Symphonies age after age. Words are impotent to express or voice the thoughts of God, and only man of all created things hath scorned the thoughts expressed in deeds and in their stead hath chosen sound of his own voice in speech to satisfv his soul. 156 LOYALTY SPEAK the word soft and low — let the vibrations of each letter of the word sink into the depths of your consciousness. What mental pictures you will find gathering upon the mirror of your soul! Countless precious lives yielded in sacrifice for Christ's sake, on the fiery altars raised to the black demons of human selfishness by the disloyal. Pictures of friends, families, homes, laid on the Holy altars of sacrifice, for Truth's sake, by those who could see naught but a long, lonely path stretching far, far out into a hopeless future; a path which their footsore feet must tread ere they could catch a glimpse of their promised reward. Pictures of gibbets, scaffolds, the rack, fiery fur- naces and the torture chamber; and acres upon acres of unmarked graves — the sepulchres of those who once trod the earth you are treading today, with heads up- lifted to the heavens in the hope of the visible descent of the Holy Spirit; with hearts attuned to the keynote struck by God when He called His people at the break of a new day. Pictures of army after army, in never ending pro- cession marching on to the doom prepared for them by their country's traitors, yet glad to yield up their lives to preserve their nation's honor. Broken-hearted but yet faithful mothers, wives, sis- ters, sinking into poverty and evil rather than betray a recreant father, husband or brother to the wild beasts of human law. 157 LOYALTY Loyalty ! Is it surprising that the word falls heavy on our hearts, yet rises in power and volume to im- measureable heights when it reaches the ears of our souls ? When you think of that vast concourse of souls, to any one of which the word Loyal may be fittingly applied, is it surprising that the word stands for all that is courageous, noble, great, when used as a prefix in designating man or woman? In view of all that this one word pictures to our inner sight, can we wonder that we shrink appalled from the vicinity of one whom the words "disloyal," "traitor," rightly indicate? Ah, no! for "Loyal" is graven on the banner that covers multitudes of redeemed. It is graven on the foun- dation stones of a universe. The suns and stars flash it forth in glorious light as they move in their orbits, true to the hand that flung them into space. Think you that any human being ever won and wore the honor of its bestowal, by a single act? Not so. It is woven as threads are woven in cloth of gold, into the essential fabric of the garment of the soul; and when that fabric is complete the soul need never ask itself a question as to whether it be right or wrong, when action is to be taken in any event, for "It knows;" It could not be false to Itself. The dark places of the earth, the depths of the Eighth Sphere, are fit habitations for the traitor, the disloyal. The mental and moral effluvia which rises from the dead soul, the soul murdered by disloyalty, permits 158 LOYALTY CONTINUED no one to be long deceived as to the nature of its simulacrum — the body — no matter how fair the body, how subtle the mind, to which that dead soul is attached. If you cannot be true to the principles you have chosen to guide your lives, if you cannot be true to father or mother, wife or husband, nation or home; how can you be true to your own souls? How can you be true to your God — to your Higher Self? If you' find within yourself a lack of power to be loyal to all the duties that you have undertaken, begin now to spin the golden threads that you will need for that C bristly fabric I have mentioned, by being true in little things'; true to your obligations to your comrades; true to the trust placed in you, when you are left un- watched to sweep a floor or plow a field. The threads will broaden and strengthen and multiply, and one day you will all unexpectedly find there are enough to weave the fabric for the garment of the soul. You cannot be true to yourself and false to your friend at the same time ; the singing bird and the snake cannot live together in one field. You cannot be true to God and false to your neigh- bor, for God and your neighbor are one. "Truth" does "indeed "lie at the bottom of a well," and you must look long and steadily if you would find it to star a diadem 'gainst your crown. But falsehood ever lies close at hand, spreading a net for unwary feet, and, like all easy things, — all illusions — murderous at its base. Loyalty is the first-born Son of Truth; disloyalty the bastard offspring of falsehood. 159 ASK EACH DAY THOU who knowest that all life is ever ceaseless pulsing motion! Thou who knowest that the sun must rise and set each day, and that everj^ heart-beat is in perfect time and rhythm! Thou who knowest that the food of yesterday will not sustain thy body for the morrow's toil! Thinkest thou the cyclic law, immutable, will be repealed for thee, in that each day will bring thee nour- ishment for soul, unasked for and unsought by thee, or asked amiss? Ah, No! A full supply of Christly bread awaits thine asking, but thou must ask each day, and ask in faith, or suffer in thy Soul as now thy body suffers from the lack of food when thou dost not provide. 160 LOOK WITHIN HATH a miry slough opened 'neath thy straying feet and a storm cloud burst above thy head? Then hold thee still and look within. There shalt thou find a place of refuge, a point of observation from which thou mayst sight the distant hills and the clear sky. There, too, shalt thou find thy Guide and an open path. 161 THE NORTHERN WINDOWS OPEN the Xorthern windows of thy soul, weak, unstahle mortal. Let in the bracing wind, the crystal genii of the ice, that they may rouse thee from the sodden sleep in which the Southern winds have bound thee. Long hast thou lain inert and pulseless 'neath the spell, powerless to strike a blow in thy defense. Thou canst not stand erect and wrestle with the Northern blasts, and so regain the strength and courage needful for thy battle with the hosts that throng the underworld. Cast off the glamour. Bare thy breast to all the icy winds that sweep the Storm King's realms. Though beaten to the earth again, and yet again, yet shall thou rise each time the stronger, and at length thou shalt be master of thvself, and therefore of thy fate. 162 DARKNESS FOR eons now hath Evil stolen guise of darkness and dimmed thine inner eye, till it hath lost its power to pierce those shadowy depths, to find therein the rarest treasures life doth hold. Thy little ones now enter life accursed with fear of darkness, as thou hast come accursed by thine own parent's fear, and so man doth perpetuate the curse from age to age. And yet, all peace, all rest, Death's brightest face, all germination and all growth — the holiest mysteries of life — are held within the folds of darkness. When thou hast silenced all thy fears, and with thine ear attuned to her low murmurings, then shalt thou hear the softest melodies, the cradle songs, of the Great ^lother as she sings her wearied children into sweetest sleep at setting of the day that they may gain the strength to greet the morrow's sun, and in her song will be revealed the mysteries of Xight so long concealed. 163 MAKE ROOM FOR ME MAKE room for me, while yet an hour remains before the Sands of Time have run their course in this dark Iron Age! Make room, ye bhnd and sore of heart, ye who are smitten with the plagues of all the centuries past! Make room, ye heedless revellers in transitory Pleasure Halls! Make room all ye who fail to see the writing on the wall, who read no message in the stars whose cyclic sweeps are marking plain the coming of my day! A little hour is left thee to tear down the bars 'twixt thee and me, my child; to widen out the spaces in thine heart and make room, ere falls the day I come with Scales of Justice in my hands. I, who cry to thee must leave the wand of mercy far behind when weighted with the heavy scales I bear, and in that day the choice will be no longer thine or mine, but His who sends me and who rules alike o'er all. 164 THE SHADOW BE PATIENT with the shadows— thou cHmber of the heights — not only with thine own but with the shadows of all others. Remember! thou seest only shadows with thy de- ceptive sense of sight; the real man, the real woman is hidden from thy view. Only with thy soul sight canst thou glimpse be- yond the haunting shadowy caricature of thy true Self — that caricature which, like unto automata, may sing and dance or sob and cry according to the will controll- ing it, the hand which holds the string. So be patient with thy shadow for, when its little day is ended, its purpose all fulfilled, it will disappear, and in its place thou wilt behold the Self — that Self which, since the dawn of thy creation, has been stand- ing back in the Silence of Eternity, watching the antics of its shadows and "pulling the strings." 165 ANSWER ME 1LED thee to the gate, and fain would keep thy hand and lead thee on till thou hadst reached the Central Flame, and entered in, and all thy dross were purged away. Then couldst thou stand alone, freed from oMaya's curse, in likeness unto Me. I pray thee tell ISIe, was the gate too small for thy bent back or did the Flames affright thee so thou couldst not see the glory just beyond? Or did the demons of the underworld lay hold on thee and drag thee back and loose thy hold on Me? Canst thou make answer truthfully when thou with ]Me hast entered the Great Silence? For so, mayhap, the path may open once again, and thou be stronger grown. For know thee well, thou, who art ]Mine own, thou canst not reach the Temple Gate save with My hand in thine, for we are one. 166 ENDURANCE IN YOUR last extremity, when heedless of all else save the ever deepening, despairing cry of your soul then being smothered on your drawn hps; when your whole being seems submerged in one intense longing for surcease from the anguish of the fitful fever that has consumed your courage, your will, your desires, — then I bid you strive to reach out and hold on to the jutting rock on the bank of life's stream, the rock we name Endurance — the rock which rises above and beyond all others on those banks, and upon which is graven the message: "However hard, however dis- tasteful and exacting the temporalities of the day, with the dawn of a new day, a change will come as surely as that new sun has gilded the East. However dark and swirling the waters of that Life Stream may be, at the close of the day of your despair, there must come another day, when the whispered 'Peace, be still!' will quiet the waves and so permit you to swim safely and peacefully into the haven of j^our hopes, if you have hold of that one Invincible Rock." 167 THE SCOFFER HAST thou chosen then? thou pitiful scoffer at Holy Things! Chosen in Pride and Ignorance, only to awaken one day to sorrow unspeakable! The earth rises to greet the falling sun w4ien its day is done, even as the Soul rises to greet its descend- ing God when its little day is done. Night cometh; the night when no man may work; and thou, like unto a bird, must needs seek a resting place; but unlike the bird, which seeks wisely and well the toji-most branches of its chosen tree, thou, the fruit of all past ages ! thou, built in the image of a God, taught by the Devas of the higher spheres, thou buildest thy resting place on the shifting sands of life's most fitful Ocean; the sands which that Ocean in its wrath will surely overflow, and whose outgoing tide will bear thee swiftly downward, outward to extinction. None can give thee help for thou hast despised the rocks to which thy kind hath clung since Time began for man. Thou hast closed thine ears to the voice of thy heart. Thou hast made of the Gods a mock and of their messenger a butt. Thou hast chosen thy lot when thine was the choice and must abide therein. Thou hast bartered thy birthright for a bauble and the })auble is broken. 168 THE STRICKEN SOUL RIGHT joyfully doth all the heavenly host give welcome unto him who strikes the load of evil from an over burdened soul, to save that soul alive; for he who hath been worsted in the fight with all the powers of darkness hath never strength to free himself unaided. And he who lifts the burden from a stricken soul by sacrifice of self, will find the virtues of the Diamond Soul concealed therein. Right royally doth Hell's low minions welcome him who casts the mirrored image of his own foul nature o'er the one, who, trusting in the vaunted honor, purity, and power of him he called by all the sacred names man gives to friend, hath placed no shield before his naked soul, for such a demon in the guise of man doth lead the van in those foul depths where devils congre- gate. 169 LET GO LET Go! let go! ye fearful, cowering souls! Let go the form, half God, half fiend, which primitive and mindless man made in his own crude image, and other men less crude have foisted on a throne, and forced their fellow men to worship! If thou wouldst picture God unto thyself — limit the eternally limitless ere thine own soul can rest and understand — then picture to thyself an image far transcending human love and wisdom, power and jus- tice, nor be content with less. A God so pure that no created thing could sully it, so clean that every un- clean thought of man must die a-borning ere it reached Its Presence. A God who could not build a Hell for human kind till all the nascent fires had first consumed His own diviner essence, and from the residue thereof create the great Redeemer of mankind, One, Inseparable — purifying by His touch the vilest thing created. Only such a God is worthy of the reverence of the Sons of God. Let go of other Gods, and seek thy God according to thy strength and power of search. 170 IT MAYHAP you name It Sacrifice, or Joy, or All- fulfilment. Perchance you picture It in mind as that which lights the Sun, or as the law which holds intact the whirling stars in space. Or you may clothe It in a garment pure, enfolding man and maid, when sound of wedding bell falls on the ear. What'er the name bestowed, what form the thought has taken, or the fancy subtly wrought, It always bears the sign and visage of the God-head, that radiant energy, creator and preserver, which man has designated LOVE. Love the leveler; the all pervading principle of Life; the Light that lighteth every man. The wielder of all power in heaven and earth. The Unifier wise and strong, which joins all worlds, all sys- tems, sky and earth, the rootlets of the tiniest blade of grass, the hearts of men, in one eternal band. Love washes out all bitterness, all fear and hate, and makes a place of peace where once was only strife. It streams from every mother's eyes and fires the pride in very father's heart. It downward turns the sordid side of toil and brings to light the side of recompense. A mystery of mysteries. A worker of life's mir- acles is Love, the purest and most precious jewel in God's treasure house. 171 THE THREEFOLD WARNING OXCE at the breaking of his vow; twice, if un- der exceptionally great pressure the soul yields; thrice it may be in a last vital extremity — may a warning note be struck from the seats of the Mighty, to fall on the ears of the Twice-begotten, — the Neo- phyte, — thenceforward, the stillness of the Great Si- lences. The glamour cast by the Jinn of the underworld, once a betrayer of his trust, will drift away like the mist before the sun, when the light from the torch of seminal Truth, held in the hand of the Mighty, is turned upon it. Naught but glamour could turn the heart of the Twice-born from the seat of power, and send him adrift. "Great is glamour!" — "Great is the King!" cry the hapless victims of its power, until the light of Truth is turned thereon. 172 THE PEACE OF GOD GATHER up in one bouquet as thou wouldst gather roses rare, the loves of all the creatures of all worlds, of man, of animal, of plant, of whirling planet, sun and nebulae — the loves that rise as perfumes to the skies. Add to these all shades, and combinations of all shades that Light hath flashed to color. Then bind them with the force of everj^ note and tone which ever gushed from throat of man, and bird, and beast, in song and praise — the chords of that sweet song, the morning stars have sung since dawn of life, the rustle of the winds, the moanings of the waves; and if thou hast no name for such a marvel, thou mayest call it God. Then, if thou canst see and know the spirit of those loves, those rays of color, per- fumes, notes, and chords, and feel it fold thee close when one short day of time is closed, as, at the setting of the sun, the mother folds her little one and hushes it to sleep and only lays herself to rest when the great Bird of Life hath folded close its wings, then and only then, shalt thou — the offspring of that God — feel and know the peace of God. 173 THE TEMPLE PLAN NO MAN, no host of men, laid hand upon or wrought God's Temple plan, nor can a man or host of men destroy or mar that plan. High in the heavens unfurled it hangs for eyes un- clouded, clarified of self, to see. Blest indeed is he, who seeing, builds upon the screen of mind a replica of that great plan which is eternal in the soul of time. Thrice blest is he who lays a stone upon the breast of earth and lays so true to line that other hands may build upon it, that other men may lay their all upon it, and so may raise a simulacrum of that first, most wond- rous plan of all, each precious gem of which, cemented by the sacrificial blood shed drop by drop from human hearts will last for aye. A Temple made by human hands indeed shall man yet build; a Temple worthy of the presence and the peace of God. 174 THE GRAVE OF SIN CAREFULLY, tenderly, bury thou the faults of thy brethren, for in their graves will lie the em- bryonic forms which later will rise regenerated as virtues. If thou refusest burial, and leavest them at large to gather substance from the vile corroding thoughts of those who think to kill, then wilt thou become in part the slayer of thy brethren. On the grave of dead sins may rise the soul purified, and if thou hast helped to dig the grave which held those sins, then shalt thou be partaker in the resurrec- tion of that soul. 175 YE TOO ^*TT riLL ye, too, leave me, best beloved of all?" y y So cries the Christ as in the garden of Geth- semane — the world — again he stands un- armed, unterrified, yet lonely with a loneliness no child of Earth can understand. "Will ye, too, leave me. Ye whom I have loved with love surpassing that of earthly kin?" "Will ye too leave me to the wrath of foes, the tiger claws of human passion, the sneers, contempt, betrayal of the mob which in its ignorance hath yielded to the demon Hate which now would lay me low?" "Will ye too leave me, ye whom in your infancy I fed and healed and saved from foes unnumbered?" "Will ye too leave me, going where mine enemies have gone, to raise a cross that I may die upon for loving ye too well?" 176 OPPORTUNITY GOLDEN opportunity comes once to every man, twice to a selfless man, but never thrice to the same man in the same life-cycle. Happy is he who hath seized the first; twice blest is he who reaps the reward of his first in his second; despair alone is the portion of him who idly awaits the coming of a third. The two-leaved door of life's mysteries will shut close on the last, and will no more open for him until they fly back to let his purged soul through at the be- ginning of a new life-cycle. 177 THE DIAMOND SOUL WHAT boots it, the pain, the longing, the weari- ness of the moment — the single moment out of the Eternities — to him who sees each trial as a gage of the great battle he is fighting for the crown of self-recognition, and who knows that with every con- quest a white stone is added to the Crown of the Dia- mond Soul. The moment with its burden will pass, but the Diamond Soul will hail the dawn of every new age, 'till Time is lost in Eternity. 178 THE RICH OF ALL the poverty bestead, this brutal age doth hold in clanking chain, — the naked savage in the winter's storm, — the skulking outcast in the city's street — none are so poor, none so want-betrayed as he who lays his all upon some self-made game, and winning, LOSES his own soul. Of all the rich, the powerful of earth,— the mon- arch on his throne; the holder of a thousand slaves, of lands, of mines, and golden store untold, — none are so rich, so measurelessly rich in all that constitutes true wealth, as he who knows and loves his fellow man so well, the treasure chest of God's great love hath opened unto him. 179 BIRDS OF PREY HO — YE servitors of the Thrice-born! ye jinns of the underworld! By the power with which ye are invested, by the mission with which ye are intrusted, go ye to the betrayers of our trust, the foresworn traitors of the battle's eve, the forked tongued of the dark star-earth, and blind ye their eyes that they may not see the glory; hold ye their ears that they may not hear the call of the blessed. Birds of prey are they that have befouled their own nests, outraged the mother who bore them, and un- covered the nakedness of the father who gave them form. What place is there for such as these in the new age and among the true-hearted ? So, do ye to them as ye are bidden. Blind their eyes and deafen their ears, lest they see and hear that which they have not earned, and that w^iich is forfeit to them; lest they take the bread of life from between the lips of the worthy, and give it unto the dogs of war and confusion. 180 SORROW LET sorrow do its perfect work in thee, my child, that so it raise thee to the heights where dwell the Gods. Failing this, take care lest from the dark recesses of thine own sick mind thou bringest forth the poison seething there and spew it out of thy mouth, to infect the weak. When sorrow does not cleanse and purify the heart, it sinks into some dark recess therein, inflames and suppurates, then reinfects both heart and mind. A victim of such foul disease becomes as doth the leper, a source of dread and danger to all who cross his path. He casts reflections from his sin-sick soul on those who in compassion would minister to him, and sees his own depraved, erupted likeness in their faces, as he would see it in a mirror. He knows not love nor pity, mercy nor forgiveness, and only lives to blast or kill, rebellious to the last. Then truly, sin and sorrow are but two opposing poles of one of life's deep mysteries. The victim of the one may fall and sink e'en to the lowest level, or he may rise to the greatest heights attained to by the other. 181 THE HIGHWAY LO! I stand and cry for help to build the highway over which myriad footsteps may pass— the foot- steps of the hosts so long oppressed, the little ones now trodden under foot of man. Even while my cry rings forth thou turnest far away thy gaze upon some short and narrow trail, and sit thee down to wait another call — or sayest to thy- self, "the highway he would build would be too wide, and far too long for me to tread, the paving stones not such as I would choose." "He plans no shade on either side, no mound where I might sit me down to rest. If I could choose the workmen, lay the pave- ment, fix the compensation for the toil, and build a gate at either end to bar mine enemy — then would I answer, and give myself in service true." Alas! that while thou heedest not my cry, my little ones — thy little ones — the poor, the halt and blind are stumbling, falling back, or being thrown by press of those behind. No highway has been made for them, or thee; nor can it be without thy help. 182 TRUTH WOULDST thou know the Truth— the pure, the undefiled, — the sacred Truth, by means of which man is made free and strong? AVouldst thou know the Truth, thou shrinking, stricken, smitten victim of thine own untruth, thou bhnd, and lame, and halt of body or of soul, who pleads for mercy to the powers thou hast defied? Wouldst thou NOW know the Truth? Then bend thine ear to me. Like calls to like throughout the bounds of Time and space. From amoeba to man, and thence to angel host the call rings strong and clear, and ever doth the answer come in kind; then, how couldst thou behold and know the Truth if lips of thine are dank with false- hood, if lure of mind and body doth beguile thy fellow man to his undoing, if foul deceit and treachery to friend and foe alike hath cast deep shadows o'er thy path of life and hid the face of Truth from thee? Wouldst thou NOW know the Truth?— THEN THINK AND SPEAK THE TRUTH so far as now thou knowest it and Truth herself, unclothed, in all her fulness, beauty, strength, will come to dwell with thee. Unabashed, thine eyes shall seek her face, and seeking there shalt find "the Peace that passeth understanding," the key to all the mysteries of life. 183 FROM GOD TO MAN I SENT thee forth alone, unbound, in the morning of thy life, into a wide, wide world wherein no foot of man had strayed. I sent thee forth with the heart of a child, and a clean white mind wherein was writ no record of sin or shame, or prophecy of pain. I gave thee the Stars for thy toys, and the Sky for a place to play ; and I bade thee grow 'till thy head o'er-topped the highest arch of Heaven. I only bade thee bring to me at the close of thy Day of Time a pure mans heart and a childlike mind in return for my trust in thee. 184 THE HEART OF GOD THOU homeless wanderer in trackless wastes, knowest thou not that the door in the garden of thy heart opens into the garden of the Heart of God, where the flowers of Love, Wisdom, and Power bud, blossom and bear fruit for thy plucking? Open that door and enter into thine own divinity. The Heart of God is the container of the divine in all things and creatures, and therefore of the divine in thee. Only within that Heart canst thou find thy true self, and all things that are thine own. 185 HOLD HIGH THY TRUST FAR more doth it injure thee than it doth thy friend when thou hurlest a poison tipped shaft of sus- picion at him. A pure white page of thine own book of life is splashed with the black ooze of the Eighth Sphere if such a shaft from thy hand doth hit thy friend. The stain of that ooze is indelible. Little by little it would seep through every succeeding page of that book upon which the name of thy friend was writ and one day thou wouldst find thou hadst lost thy friend, — thy most priceless possession. Then, hold high thy trust. Far better is it that thou sufferest injury through thy trust, if needs be, than that thou shouldst betray thy friend, even to thine own heart. 186 THY GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY CAST the sunlight of the Self obliquely on the cares of daily life, and they will swiftly turn to golden opportunities, e'en as now doth Dag- ma's beams, at close of day, glorify the bubbles on the ocean's waves. The bubbles break, their glory vanishes, but mem- ory of their beauty clings about and satisfies the heart, when life is sad. Even so the cares will pass, but opportunities for love and service pure remain to raise the frailest of the sons of man to stature of the Gods. 187 GROW WINGS AND FLY HIGH GROW wings, my child, wings of pure tliought, aspiration and high courage; wings strong and virile enough to bear thee to the heights of life, where safe placed thou mayest glimj^se the pit now hid- den from thy view by murky clouds. The wind from the heights, fanned into motion by thy wings, will blow away the ashes from its mouth and give thee sight of lurid flames and hosts of de- mons spawned by Hatred, Greed and Avarice of man. Full of guile are they and wise enough to seek and find the entrance to the soul which gave them birth for food and nourishment on which to grow 'til strong enough to drive that soul from its own place and take possession full. Then grow wings, my child, and fly high; there is naught between thee and the stars but thine own will. 188 THE WORD ETERNAL OMAX of many words, who knoweth not The Word thy noise doth hide from thee; thou rev- eler within and squanderer of God's most pre- cious gift ; thou who f eeleth no regret for wasted lesser lives, and in thy mad extravagance doth often drench the sphere with which thou art encompassed with streams of energy so wide, so powerful for good or ill, that thou wouldst stand abashed but for thj^ igno- rance, thy foolish exaltation of the shadow to the throne of Wisdom, thereby rendering thee a piteous object of compassion in the eyes of those — thine Elder Broth- ers — who stand and wait beside the inner gate. They will not enter lest mankind be left alone, a guideless, oarless vessel on the shoreless ocean of eternal life. The gate which they have won the right to open as they will, and pass to endless bliss and union with the God they have long sought. But, ah, how little understood by man, this sacri- fice divine! How oft doth puny man fling back into their faces all the gifts laid on the sacrificial fires, and cry, "I will have none of thee, thou God or Christ, or manikin, whate'er thou art! I will choose and go my way without thy guidance or the aid of those who wor- ship such as Thou." Alas! he knows not that long ere now he had sunk to nothingness were it not for those he now contemns. He knows not that he holds 189 THE WORD ETERNAL within his feeble clasp the instrument to sound the key to all the greater mysteries now in suspension held within that shoreless ocean; the key which sets the bounds or breaks them, to all forms, all lesser lives. But if that key is sounded, he must yield his lower life in rite of sacrifice; that life of sense to which he clings tenaciously, beside which other forms of life seem cold and dead. He cannot see as yet that in thus yielding he will find himself, the Self he long since lost. Only he who gives his life shall find and keep his life eternally. 190 NEW BIRTHS DIVINE Love, — Life — Law, brings to new birth and opportunity each gladsome new spring, new life for all the myriad lesser lives created through past cycles. It clothes them with new garments bright and beautiful, and says to each in turn with tender touches warm and moist, "Take thou the gifts I bring to thee and use them for thy glory and thy growth." Of all the countless hordes of living things which love creates, man alone dare fling those gifts disdain- fully aside and say unto the giver, "I will not grant myself, nor yet my fellow-man, the glory of new births, — the springtimes of recurring cycles; for only age and death await my kind when youth is past;" and saying so he binds his soul in bonds he will not break, and wearily plods on to pain and dissolution, blind to the lessons Love hath showered on him, heedless to the end. 191 WILL DIVINE IF THOU wouldst waken from thy sleep of igno- rance and sloth to knowledge of the destiny de- creed for him who yields obedience in the faith, then make of thine own self a channel wide and straight that so the Will of God — a living stream — may flow direct, unchallenged on its course. All the refuse of thy many lives that stream will bear away to be transmuted to its depths, and on its breast will float thy new-cleansed bark of life, its pure white sails unfurled to all the world. Manned by courage, decked with Purpose, anchored by a AVill set in a prow of Wisdom, who or what could change the course of such a bark save God and thee? 192 SEEK THE CAUSE IF THOU wouldst seek the primal cause of thine unfaith in God or man or thing, and seek that cause with all thy soul unmindful of the heights or depths where it now lies, determined only to accept the truth when found, regardless of the wound to self that knowledge may inflict,— then seek within thine heart for time and place and purpose when thou didst injure, grieve or wound the God, the man, the thing wherein thy faith now lieth dead. For as the arrow flieth straight toward a mark, so flies the cause of wrongful deed or thought straight to the mark of its effect — thy present faithlessness. It may be but a seed of thought or word by which the wound was made, but being sown and watered by the stream of circumstances, its growth and blossom- ing, its fruit and seeding, are as sure as darkness after light. Faith is a tender plant. It will not bear the storms of Hate, Suspicion or Neglect. Its very tenderness is of the Love and tenderness of God. 193 THE VEIL SWIFTLY turn thy face toward me, my child. Be thou not content with any shade or fleeting form made in my likeness. I have fixed m}^ face within thine heart. See to it that thou tear away the veils the Fates by thee have woven 'twixt that face and thee, e'en though thine heart should bleed afresh with every outdrawn thread. When there be naught 'twixt thee and ]\IE, then shalt thou know MY glory and MY power for thine. Seek thou ]ME, my child, and not another in my guise, for I have chosen thee and thou art Mine. From out the figments of the mind, from threads spun from the woof of reason and the warp of lower will, man weaves veil after veil between himself and God. He names them Intellect and Purpose, Self- assertion, Independent-action, and never knows that Love and Wisdom in their parturition pains are cry- ing out for birth within his heart 'till sore beset, choking, strangling, panting in their folds, he strips away each veil and frees his prisoned heart. Then alone doth he behold his Father's Face. 194 THE PERFECT ONE WHEX every unit of mankind can vision to itself the same ideal of That which now each one doth form in separate guise and name the "Perfect One," then will Humanity approach its long sought goal. Perfection to the mind of one is imper- fection to the minds of others, and many Gods of many minds will never satisfy for long the soul which sprang full grown from One. "The Perfect One" yet stands alone, serene, su- preme, awaiting the glad day when man en masse shall see his beauty, holiness and power, and seeing, shall stretch forth its myriad arms and cry, "Enough! Now have we seen the end of all travail. Xow have we found ourselves, in Thee— The One Eternal Self." 195 THE COMMON CHORD WHEN Father— Mother— Son, the Triune God is once more seated on the long vacated throne within the human heart, to rule again that heart in majesty and love, then man will rise to sovereignty o'er all the lesser lives which now obstruct the path to power. Man may not tear apart the common Chord of C, — the Chord of Life, and Love, and Law, to strike a single tone of that vast Trinity alone, without sustain- ing loss immeasureable. For in the spaces left between, the minor tones will silent lie, — those tones which wake "the Angels of the Voice" to guard the path to Power. 196 THE LIGHT WITHIN THOU who art as a star to some unselfish, tender heart which beats alone for thee, how great thy task, how sore thy punishment if thou dost fail to sense within thyself that which first called forth adoring love within the heart which set thee high above all else on earth. He who saith that love is bhnd doth utter a foul travesty on truth, for love is keen of vision, and love hath seen a ray of the divine in thee behind the dark- ened windows of thy soul, though it be all unseen by other eyes than love's. Deep calls to deep alway. Divinity doth seek Di- vinity where e'er it may be found. And if some other soul hath sought and found a ray of the Divine in thee, how humble shouldst thou be, how thankful that there yet is time to cleanse those darkened windows that the light within may seek its source and in its passing reach and Iiless the one who first uncovered it and brighten all the world for thee and thine. 197 THE WEB WRAPPED in Illusion's web thou liest now be- reft of power to tear that web apart and ghmpse the Real — the Christ — the Only Son, the First Begotten of the One Unmanifest — the One in whom all Truth, all Joy, all fruit of Sorrow borne in patience and submission, hath met and blended in the Kalpas j^ast, and still must meet in Kalpas yet to come — the One who stands supreme and dauntless in the midst of that Illusion thou hast deemed thyself. There is but One. The countless suns in space could hold no Second, Third or Fourth. AVhen Truth unveils herself all error, pain and longing vanish as doth the dew before the morning sun. When man is more than man he stands revealed as Christ to those who having eyes may see. Yet other men in ignorance still stone the man, unseeing Christ. 198 DEATH FR03I the conception and the travail of the Gods is born the soul of man. Then shall the frag- ments of that soul be scattered as the dust of earth when once the power that sent it forth is inward turned to other spheres. Ah! ye who fear that Death may follow on the closing of the last short chapter of the book of Hfe that thou shalt read with mortal eyes; ye knoweth naught of life in essence or its power to search into the fields of space, — the utmost reaches of the inner spheres, — to clothe itself in garb more subtle, tenuous and last- ing, than is the coarse, unbeautiful and transient rai- ment worn by it in mortal guise. As clothes the soul of rose or violet in garb of sweetest perfume as its body withers, dies, so clothes the soul of man in sweeter perfume still, arising from the kindly deed, the sacrifice, unselfish service for man- kind, when wearied, worn with toil and torn with pain, at length it leaves its mortal form to mingle with the dust from which it sprang. 199 FEAR IF YOU misuse the divine afflatus of genius by pros- tituting it for your own selfish use or pleasure you will be consumed in its fires. It belongs to the whole universe, and when in your pitiable self-conceit you would attempt to make of it a reflector of your own egotistic personality, it draws you into its flames and consumes you utterly. To you as well as to every human being there will some day stalk a live fiend of fear quivering with un- certainty, and always thereafter it will walk by your side. You may sometimes close your eyes to its grin- ning face and lull yourself into a feeling of security for a little w^hile, but deep down in your soul you will know it is always there; waiting for you to open your eyes to its presence again; waiting for some sign of physical or mental weakness that will render you less capable of self-protection, in order to spring forward, leer into your face and say, "You are my slave." Full enlightenment will never come to mortal man while he is treading the path outlined by all the mile- stones he has set and marked with the blood shed by his victims. Only as he enters that path will satisfaction come to him. Only as he leaves that path may he behold the radiant liglit of the sun of rigliteousness wliich alone can vanquish the demons of fear. Knowing this, prepare to win endurance and power to walk in darkness, unafraid. 200 THE UNFINISHED IF YOU but knew the little seed you set today, may- hap in carelessness, in pride or subtlety, would grow on through the coming years, mature and bear its fruit for you to eat in sorrow on another day; if you but knew the tale which you commenced to tell today, the task which you began, would not be finished until all their consequences faced you in your hour of test and proved to be the drops which ran the measure of your trial over on the farther side, would you not leave the seed unplanted, the tale untold? Would you not hold your hand from execution? Remember! fulfilment ever cometh otherwhere. No act or word is finished on the day it was begun or spo- ken. No man hath ever lived so long that he completed any task begun; and "on the path" the unfinished parts of every thought, word and deed, in all their latent grace, their crudeness or their loathsomeness, will start up unexpectedly to help or hinder as the case may be. Then would it not be well to carefully consider seed or word or act ere it hath passed forever from thy keeping? 201 THE RIGHT TO SEEK WOULDST thou seek the King of the dazzHng face, the Master of men and things? Then take from thy back the heavy load that bends thy face to the ground. Free the viscid mud from thy bleeding feet; change thy rotten staff for a conqueror's sword. Smother the moan that comes to thy lips; change the cry of pain to a ptean of praise. Lift up thy head ; fix thine eyes on the sun and fight for the right to seek. The right to seek on the selfsame path that the God-men of old have Avalked; the right to die without shame of men as the ancient heroes died : The coward who feareth death or life can never walk that path. Its thorns and bruises, its sharpened rocks, pierce heart and feet alike. If thou wouldst seek aright and find the object of thy search, that glorious King of the dazzling face, then fight for the right to seek. 202 EMOTION THERE comes an hour in the hfe of every awak- ened disciple when the cold, merciless scalpel of mind searches each emotion, each feeling, to its center of being and forces the Self, which stands be- tween the mentality and the senses, into the position of judge and executioner combined. In seeming cruelty it cuts away every vestige of the comfortable, comforting, excuse-provoking wrap- pings which have bound the Self, and leave that Self naked and inconceivably desolate for the time being; yet it is only in such hours that the great destiny, the purpose of being, is revealed to the individual Self, Not that there is necessarily an underestimation of the divine purpose in the creation of the emotions as a result of such revelation, but that they may be rightly placed and thenceforth rightly used, instead of being permitted to rule where they should only serve, as is generally the case with undeveloped man. When acute feeling overwhelms the sense of right- eousness and justice in a given instance, wrong is in- evitably the result. If the emotions, the feelings, can be used to counteract the harsher acts of the retribution which justice demands, thus preventing justice from descending to cruelty and injustice, they are then in their right provinces and put to right uses. 203 THY CHOICE OX ONE side, the bare mountain, wind swept, sun beaten, stripped of all verdure, desolate to the human eye, wearisome to the muscle-tortured limbs of the climber, straining his panting heart till it bursts its sheath and pours forth its contents in a liv- ing stream over the torn and tortured feet which are bearing it upward. On the other side, the deeply wooded valley with its trickling streams, its moss covered banks, its tender clinging vines and ravishingly beautiful flowers. A valley wherein the tired, footsore pilgrim may lay him down to rest, and with his eyes fixed lingeringly on the quivering leaves, the soft shadows thrown by the ten- der glances of a summer sun, sink into oblivion, forget- ful of all the past, careless of all that the future may bring to him. Ah! 'tis a strong, brave and unselfish soul that can withstand the charms of the valley, and deliberately choose the bare mountain side, while yet unknowing what the beating winds are bearing to him from other, inner worlds; while yet unconscious of the hidden life and glory in that unshaded sun, unseeing the great Angel of the Gates who, poised upon the mountain top, awaits his last faint footfall. If one might know; if one might see or even dream of the final results of his unaided, toilsome journey up 204 THY CHOICE CONTINUED through the steep mountain and through the world of shadows, then 'twere easy to make choice between the paths. Then all pain would pleasure be, and every bare, drear stretch of desert or of mountain side within his soul would blossom as the rose and lily bloom in sunny places in his earthly garden. But in the dark, when not a ray of light from the great sun of life is shed to point to danger or to near- ing death; when facing him or at his own right hand are all the delights and joys of life, and soft, melodious voices plead with him to give his soul to pleasure and to ease. And on the other side is Silence, vast, unbroken Silence, save when moan or cry of pain falls on his straining ear from one hard pressed; one who travels that same way; one whose lips are crushed into the earth on which he lies, to still their trembling and force back the cry so near escaping them, the cry that would rob him of strength to rise again and press still far- ther on. Ah! this would try the mettle of the bravest soul, and yet, My Child, thou must make thy choice and make it for all Time and Eternity, when thou art called to choose. Then would it not be well for thee that thou ■ shouldst even now prepare thyself for choice by seeking for the hidden things within thine heart, these things which lie beneath the outer seemings of thy daily life, 205 THY CHOICE CONTINUED thy stolen joys, thy pains and sacrifices; instead of waiting for the day when, unprepared for it, the call shall come to thee and thou shalt find thou hast no wis- dom for the choice, no strength to follow where thy soul would lead if lead it might, because the power of choosing rightly had long been buried in thy pleasure seeking, or in thy pride, thine avarice or thine am- bition. Mark well my words! they will occur to thee again and yet again in the days to come. Thou hast demanded power of choice, demanded it in aspiration, prayer and act, and near at hand that choice lies now to thee. 206 LOVE'S OFFICES IT IS not by the love it inspires that the individual soul attains to bliss and satisfaction, but by the love it gives unselfishly, seeking no return. Love un- desired, unasked, is worthless in the eyes of the beloved and feeds on the heart it dwells within. God — Divine Love — desires and asks for human love, therefore prizes that love and pours forth Divine love on all creatures, thus satisfying his own heart. A woman may hate and betray one of her own sex to gain the love of man, while man despises and betrays the woman for love of ambition; thus the law of com- pensation strives to strike a balance when Love is de- graded in unworthy shrines. The cruse of the bereft,— the widowed heart, is filled with wine and oil of life — Divine Love — as often as its contents are emptied. Widowed by loss of hu- man love once lain in the grave of earthly desire, that heart is filled to overflowing with Divine Love. 207 1 THE WORLD PAIN r|^HE pain of the world beats hard on the heart a-throb with sympathy. The answer to the "why" of that pain comes home to the "open-eyed" with every recurring stroke like unto the stroke of the ham- mer as it falls on the anvil. The gnawing demons of ignorance, vice and greed first stupefy the mind, then throttle and crush the body back into the soil whence it came, to refertilize that soil for another crop, — an- other race of men. Again the birth pang, again the childhood, middle life and age, a repetition of the same old story. Al- ways the world pain beats on the tender heart; always the eternal "why?" — the protest against suffering. Al- ways the strangling, stifling rebellion against the im- potence, the powerlessness of man to compel his brother man to seek the God who is ever close at hand, ever waiting for the beast in man to die and the angel to be born. "Cui bono?" cry the careless, the indifferent; "let us dance and sing and leave the pain to those who love it." "How long, O Lord, how long?" moan the martyr and the saint, "how long ere cometh Thy salvation?" "More, more, give me more," screams the wastrel, the libertine, in the depths of his stag-like passion or drunken frenzy; "more, more," always, "more." From on high, the Christ on the Cross where man has hung Him, on which He suffers, from which at times He smiles, wafts down into the aching, sympa- thetic heart the incense of patient waiting, a breath of the peace ever flowing from the soul of pain, and that heart grows still. And once again the Christ smiles. 208 THE NEXT STEP HAVE you been stalled on that last step you took? Are you now looking into the gulf of despair? Does your sinking heart refuse you energy for another push? Are your eyes blinded to everything save the bottomless pit into which you have cast the hopes of your young manhood, the finely wrought fab- ric of your girlish dreams? Have you marked the hid- eous word, "failure," on your life screen, believing the end of all things has come for you? Then, force that heavy heart to another upward push; raise your eyes to the step which is just faintly appearing on the horizon of your mind and then raise your foot, and lo! before you can realize it that next step has been taken and you are on a wide stretch of new country, the gulfs and pits have disappeared, hopes and dreams are in process of realization, a new day has dawned, a new lease of life entered upon. Have you thought of the other men, the other wom- en, — those men and women whom you now look up to with unbridled admiration, but whose hearts failed them as yours has failed you; — have you thought of those who sank in utter helplessness and weariness upon the stones which covered the last tread they had gained, when they thought of the heights yet to climb ere they could reach their goal and which overwhelmed and cast them into the gulf of despair? Would you know how 209 THE NEXT STEP CONTINUED these men and women climbed out of that gulf; how they conquered the demons who would have pushed them into the pit? There was only one way for them, as there is only one way for you to accomplish that great feat. It is a very simple way; just raise your eyes to the sun and jjush on to the nea't step. Do not weary your heart and brain by thinking of the heights or the dejjths; think only of the one short step which when gained may be the open sesame to a greater height. Bind the word PERSISTENCE over your fore- head, and the word ENDURANCE over your heart, and not all the demons in Hades nor all your enemies on earth can prevent the final attainment of your ideal. It is always "the next step" of life's ladder that daunts you when with faltering limbs and wearied brain you have reached the halfway tread; not the thought of the perils behind or far ahead of you. 210 THE OBSTRUCTION HE WHO fails to perceive the nature of the ob- struction which dams up the mouth of any stream of his hfe will uselessly waste all effort to re- move the obstruction, and only give the elementary forces of nature more power to increase its dimensions. If the huge logs of a denuded forest are set free on the bosom of a stream, turning its currents and blocking its mouth, the wise man will not lose time in using a tool with which he would remove a sandbar from the same stream. He will use the tool made for such a purpose. The fool saith in his heart, I will build a still higher obstruction on the crest of the lesser and so revenge myself upon the stream. He takes no thought of the nature of the waters which swiftly and silently will un- dermine his structure and carry both his work and him- self out to the ocean into which they empty. 211 THE NINE STEPS GOD, Nature, Law, (call it what you will), the same beneficent, all-powerful energy that evolves a God from a stone, decrees that the spiritual eyes of the self-born shall be blinded for nine cycles, owing to his desire for liberty, as the material eyes of lower animals are blinded for nine days after birth by the pre-natal influence of the mother, and so decrees in order to restrict overweening desire for full liberty of action, which is one of the first desires to manifest in the animal as well as in man. As the young animal is mercifully blinded to pro- tect itself from material dangers, so man is blinded to the possible dangers that confront him on the path he is climbing, until a fixed measure of the power of en- durance is won during each of the minor cycles, — nine steps, which lead to the mountain-top, — the greatest height of attainment for him. If he should look down into the depths from some midway step, he would become so confused, so dizzy and powerless, that he could not save himself. So the Great Law blinds him to the sheer fall from the mount- ain-top, until he has reached the highest point and won the power to look unabashed and indifferently down and over the path he has come. The eyes of the Diamond Soul must fall equally upon the Light from above and upon the shadow cast by the bitumen which lines that path. 212 THE STREAM OF SACRIFICE ONLY he who hath eyes to behold and a heart to feel hath power to see beneath the surface of the stream of sacrifice which gushes from the open gate of the seven worlds and gathers volume and momentum with every moan of pain and sorrow wrung from human lips. That stream whose source is in the heart of God and which flows into the ocean of Infinity. The crest of each smiling wave is dotted with the bruised leaves of the Tree of Life; each leaf of that tree of life to crush in the maw of the great Wheel of Time, until there is no longer semblance of form and only its aroma remains to sweeten the fields of Space. But who can sound its depths or bring therefrom ^he treasures wrought by every sacrificial rite, — to be the marriage portion of the Soul for whom the bride- groom waits, — the Christ who knows the end from the beginning and sees his blood-stained face on every bruised and broken leaf? He claims His own when Time, the great illusion, is no more. 213 THE NEED OF PAIN WOULDST thou banish pain and sorrow from thy hfe, ne'er to feel again the stab, the crunch, the grind of tender flesh, the sick despair of soul when sorrow's clutch lays hold? Wouldst thou resign the right to feel the tender beat of angel's wings when Pain hath done its perfect work ? Then know that with its passing from thy fleld of life, if driven thence ])y desire and will, goes all thy fitness for release. Every line upon thy face or heart, the graving stylus of thy sorrow and thy pain hath limned thereon, hath marked the lintel of an oj^en door through which thou hast the power to pass to freedom if thou wilt — freedom from the dungeons which thou hast dug by means of broken law. 214 THE STONES OF SACRIFICE AS THY forbears of another race and age did bear their aged and weak and sore beset up to the mountain-top and fling them to the stones be- neath to perish, so now thou bearest others of thy for- bears to the mountain-top of Prayer and Hope, that they may plead for thee, — then dash them to the val- ley of despair, the floor of which is covered with the stones of sacrifice and grief. So dead art thou to all but love of self thou dost not see that thou hast also fallen with thy victims and nevermore shalt rise 'till every sacrificial stone which holds thy prey shall enter sentient life and cry to Heav- en to help thee rise. Long, long the teons are, and yet thou hast not learned to treasure any gift the gods have made, and suffered sore in giving. Long, long the ages. Still thou throwest Love's most precious gifts upon the stones of sacrifice, — 'twixt whiles thou raisest hands to heaven and pleadingly doth beg for more and greater gifts. 215 THE VICTOR THINK not to gird the laurel leaves of earthly fame upon the brow of him whom countless hosts of light hail "Victor" in life's lists. What careth such as he for "Things," — for sense illusions? Alone, unheralded, a neophyte he comes upon the screen of time. Alone he lives and dies. Purified by fire, bereft of pride, alone he must ascend the steps strewn with the vanquished and the slain of long past days. Each hard-fought vantage ground he wins gives footing to another soul, who, hard beset, doth follow him. Each plunge into the stream which gushes from the fountain head doth shower with cleansing drops some weary one too weak to reach their source. The homage of thine heart will strengthen him for future battles with the hostile dwellers on the path who fain would stop him on the way. Thy love may give him courage to endure unto the end. For, know ye now, he may not lay his arms aside to crown himself until you, too, have reached the goal; a conqueror in truth. 216 YOUR HOURS ^^fTTMlE hours behind thee are God's hours, the J[_ liours before thee are His secrets. This hour alone is thine. Waste not your hour." So cries the Persian Muezzin at dawn. Are the hours behind thee hours of procrastination and self-indulgence? If so, the hours before thee will be those of sighing for lost opportunity. Wilt thou, then, let the present hour slip by in futile planning, over-confidence or indecision? Happy he who sees and grasps the chances life and effort bring to him and weaves them in a chaplet for his brow. 217 THE CYCLIC ROUNDS IF THOU lovest thyself, then art thou slave to thy- self. If thou lovest thy brother, then art thou slave to thy brother, — but through thy slavery to thy brother shalt thou find release from thy slavery to self. For, loving thy brother, thou lovest God, and only in love of God canst thou find eternal freedom from bond- age to self. Out of the Darkness cometh Light. Out of Light Cometh Life. Out of Life cometh Death. Out of Death cometh Darkness, and out of Darkness cometh Light. So, out of slavery to self cometh freedom to thy brother. Out of thy brother's freedom cometh slavery to thee. Out of that slavery cometh eternal freedom for both thee and thy brother. Life and Death, Darkness and Light, Freedom and Slavery, Love and Hate; Round after Round, Cycle after Cycle, even as the spokes of a wheel fl}^ round from night unto day and from day unto night. 218 THE UMBILICUS THE path between Gods and men is the umbilicus which once connected God and man. The navel, the Central Spiritual Sun, is the point of sepa- ration between Spirit and flatter. The umbilicus con- nection was severed when the Elohim said, let us make man in our own image, and having so made man they set him down in the Garden of Eden. ^lan himself cut the cord between him and the great Father-mother, therefore man must reunite the two severed ends of the cord. This is the real occult secret behind the use of the navel in concentration by some of the ancient teach- ers. Symbolically it is the lower end of the Path. The gateway, so to speak; and if the gateway is choked by weeds (sensuous desires and gratifications), the soul cannot pass through it to reach the path of true knowledge and power. 219 LIFE'S DEMAND THE power of the Seventh sphere Gods; the con- centrated rays of a golden sun formed into disks and marked with a sign. The jewels of a star- decked sky; the lamps which light a world at dusk; the common use of the life streams which are great enough to whirl the planets in sj^ace. All these thou demandest of life, thou puny man of a single hour out of the eternities of time. "But the price to be paid is too high," ye shame- facedly whine, though all that life demands of thee in return is — respect for thy creators; recognition of the rights of the weak; loving service for thy kind. Truly, much may be given for little. 220 THE CROWN SINCE dawned the first new day, — the day when woman stood beside her mate and for his glory parted with the crown of her supremacy, has woman sacrificed her life, her all, upon the altars raised by man. And always, to the end of time, will woman light the fires and lay her sacrifices down to be consumed upon those man-made altars. It is the law, the law in- voked by yielding crown for chain. It is her glory and her shame. It is the price she pays for love, and love is the last offering she lays on the sacrificial pile. But time will cease and life be lost in Love eternal, ^lan and woman both — the two in one — shall wear the crown of immortality when dawns the next new day. 221 JUST SO FAR WHEN man can find no word of good to say of fellow-men; when sun and stars are darkened to his inward sight and all the world seems but a charnel house to him; when to his sick and morbid mind every woman is a wanton and every man a cheat, and little children shrink, soul-warned, away from him, — then art thou justified in placing all the earth 'twixt him and thee. Deadlier far is he to thee than any un- tamed beast. When woman, formed of finest attributes of God, can stoop to bare a sister's sorrow or her shame to sat- isfy her thirst for vengeance, jealousy or rage; when envy or ambition blinds her inner eye and places in her breast a stone where there should beat a heart ; when passion overcomes comi:)assion and plots to gain desire by slaying friendship, gratitude and loyalty to kith and kin, — then climb the skies or seek the ocean's bed if no- where else is hiding place for thee. The very breath thou drawest in such presence is foul and tainted. A scorpion's sting may be withdrawn, but naught can draw the poison from the wounds an evil woman makes. So far as every true and loving heart of woman- kind may reach toward God, so far as every Christlike, noble man may follow her, — e'en just so far doth every faithless, poison-tainted woman fall toward the depths of non-existence, and every demon-driven man skulk in her footsteps. THE FATHER'S CARE LOXG ere father, mother, wife or hushand folded thee in love or bound thee with the ties of duty, I have watched o'er thee and led thee through the paths of sky and underworld ; oft waited on the thresh- old of some den where thieves had spread a net and caught and held thee until thy voice in anguish fell upon my ear ; then plucked thee forth as man doth pluck a brand from fire; oft snatched thee back from crater's mouth and serpent's fangs, and held thee safe against my breast 'til strength and courage came again to thee. Yet thou canst idly stand and see the vandal hand tear down the home that sheltered thee when homeless, the arms left empty which had held thee close when thou wert lone and friendless ; canst see my body thrown into the tiger's jaws, or hold my hands the while an enemy doth snatch the poison from the viper's fangs, and thrust it in the wounds made in my flesh while guard- ing thee. Poor, tried and feeble offspring of a poorer race! There comes a day when thou wilt learn of higher Mother-Fatherhood, of purer, stronger love than that of wife or husband, friend or lover: a claim upon your fealty far more exacting than any claim now made on thee. When comes that day, then thou wilt see that thou wert false to all that held thy love, by being false to love's own self, and must retrace thy steps if thou wouldst find the long lost path which leads to the abode of Love, — the place of Recognition, Service, and Di- vine Compassion. 223 THE LOAD NOT all the Devas of the upper worlds can force the child of the underworlds against its will to face the Asuras at the gates of the path. If he be frighted at the flames, swept to one side by the waters, if he make answer, "'Tis my brother's sin; I am guiltless," when the thunders of the voice proclaim his own offense, then surely will the flames enwrap him, the waters overwhelm him. Only through that brother shall the gate again be opened to him, for he has not borne the burden taken up by him when both he and his brother lay in the womb of duration; in leaving that brother to bear it alone he has shifted the load onto his own shoulders. 224 WOULDST THOU WIN? IS THINE own heart so pure and free from stain that thy brother's sin looms darkly on its white sur- face when reflected thereon? If so thou thinkest, then art thou under Maya's sway. Wouldst thou win to mastery? Then write thy brother's offenses in water and thine own in fire. The water will extinguish the fire, the fire will raise the water to vapor, and both thine own offenses and thy brother's also will disappear. 225 THE FEAST MAX'S usurpation of the prerogatives of God, and indifference to his own when they are re- lated to his kinship with that of God, holds him to a steady diet of the husks of life which are only fit for swine. He lifts up his eyes to his Father from afar, but makes no self-conscious effort to cross the barrier he himself has created between his Father and himself or to reach the table on which the holy Feast is spread for him alone, awaiting his coming, until, driven from his retreat by the very swine he has robbed, he stands face to face with utter starvation. Then, naked and ashamed, he makes one last su- ])reme effort to tear down the barrier and reach the heavenly food, and learns that there is no barrier: that it was long since raised by the hand of God and all tliat was re(]uired of him was to seat himself on the divan and dip his hand in the dish. 226 THY BONDS THINKEST thou to forge a chain to bind thy brother's hfe to thine and yet go free from any act of his? If so, a sad surprise awaits thee at the end. Every act of man with good or ill intent, doth form a link in the long chain of consequences which binds the human race in bonds of Time. Not e'en a shadow cast by thee de^^arts for aye. And if it falls athwart the vision of thy brother it will return in some far distant day to cloud thy vision, as thou didst cloud thy })rother's. And if thou bind thy brother purposely to thee with ill intent, no further act of thine can loose the bond. Unseen, unfelt by thee, it may remain for long, but one day fate will draw it taut, and struggle as thou wilt, thou canst not loose thyself. The bond alone may break the chain with which he hath been ])ound. 227 YOUR RESPONSIBILITY THERE is some one person next in line to you upon the evolutionary ladder on which you stand, who is waiting for you to give the hand which will lift him to your side, and you will be held accountable to some degree if he fall from his present position to a low^er round. Knowing this, how dare you rest supinely on your supporting step and make no effort to bring that one into the Temple light? No amount of reason or logic will help you to locate that one. You will not know who and what he is until he stands by your side in some initiation. The law which controls the influence lines also gov- erns nature's method of combination and correlation of minuti^ and mass. Your voice maj^ not reach the ears and affect the conduct of many people at once, but it will reach the ears and turn the heart of the one who is waiting, if you voice the message you yourself have received from some agent of the Great White Lodge. 228 LIFE KNOTS IF THOU wouldst attain to Wisdom's heights, then turn thy face toward that Sun whose rays are fas- tened in the hearts of Hving things, as knots are fastened at the end of threads, which serve to make or mend the garments worn by man. No cunning finger ever can unloose the knots which God has tied. The garment made of flesh may fall away, but ever doth the knot remain to fasten newer, fresher garments as they form in turn. For in the knots so tied doth lie the root from which all sentient life proceeds. 229 FULFILMENT BY FAITH WHEN Faith waits patiently on Fulfilment, Fulfilment well justifies Faith. Douht madly rushes unbelief and unbelief kills Faith a-born- ing. Believe in your God, yourself, your ideals, and live forever. Doubt your God, yourself, your ideals, and die to Truth. Doubt arrogantly turns it back on Faith and loses itself in a maelstrom of despair. Truth glimpses a star, aims direct and reaches that star. Xo man can believe a lie, though he may deceive himself as to his belief in that lie. Belief lives only in Truth. Faith and Belief are lovers; Doubt and Unbelief are rivals for the hand of Despair. 230 MY GIFTS TO THEE I GAVE thee thy heart's desire, brought from afar and laid at thy door; I gave thee wine and oil of spiritual life to build up the waste and barren places of thy Soul that it might live and bring thee compen- sation for the past. Unmindful of the opportunity to share whate'er of value came to thee in recompense, as ever hath been done by all Earth's tried and tested ones, thou, having eaten of the fruit now fling the refuse to the skies. 231 CAUSE AND EFFECT CAN man enter again his mother's womb, to be born again into physical life? Can man enter the womb of spiritual life for a new birth, if he hath destroyed the fertility of the seed from which that life unfolds? Neither ignorance nor carnal desire can alter the law of cause and effect. He who throws away his sus- tenance of body or of soul must starve and die. He who conserves and cherishes that sustenance hath al- ways a full supply which, like the widow's cruse, the gods replenish day by day. 232 THE GREAT MOMENT TO THE soul who is capable of a great love there comes a moment of illumination when the veil between spirit and matter is lifted and it catches a glimpse of the tragedy which lies beyond the present time and dimly feels its approach. Every great love bears the seed of a deep tragedy. It is seldom understood or appreciated by its recipient and seldom returned. In that moment of illumination the soul knows be- yond any shadow of doubt that the great tragedy of vicarious atonement, of sacrifice beyond power of ex- pression, awaits it also as it has awaited all other souls at some period of their manifestation. But the veil falls quickly, the shadows flee, and again the great light sheds its beams over all common things, dazzling the intellect and magically endowing the beloved one with the attributes of a god. And so the soul passes on to its Gethsemane and Golgotha to pay the price demanded by Divine Law. 233 COME A VOICE said "Come!" and out from the dark- ness of unbelief, the shadow of death, I passed to glory like unto the sun, to the peace of the de- livered. But I passed through waters wild and deep, I was beset by foes on every side; I stumbled, fell and rose again, still pressing on. Far away upon the path the whispered "come" echoed and re-echoed. When I stumbled or fell, its power surrounded, held and raised me to my feet ; when the shadows deepened and I could not see my way, in fiery letters just before my face I saw the word "come," and followed on. The end is yet far off, but fear has gone, and ever and anon I hear a whisper soft and clear which bids me "come," and though I weary and grow exceeding faint I cannot stop, I must go on until I no more hear that word, for then I shall have reached its source — my Home. 234 THE BEAUTIFUL MESSAGE A PURE soul stood on the sliore of the Ocean of ^Manifested Life waiting the final plunge tliat must hring oblivion of past glory, — yet thrilling with ra^jture as memory recalled the message of glad tidings of which it was to be the bearer to the prisoned souls on the far distant shore. The Lord of Life and Death drew near — and as the Soul lifted its arms for the last plunge, He threw over it a stainless mantle of purity. As the waves of that ocean rolled back, and the Soul finally stood on the nether shore, the shimmering light of that radiant garment caught the eyes of the waiting souls, and the contrast between it and the vile robes in which they w^ere bound, maddened them. Jealousy, — cruel, deadly, as the poisoned fangs of a serpent, awoke in their hearts ; they could not wrest the garment from its wearer, but one by one they stooped and gathered handful after handful of slimy mud, and with vengeful spite hurled it over the garment, regardless of the fact that their own hands and robes had become soiled and filthy from contact wnth that mud. Hounded on from one spot to another, its wings broken, its garment in shreds, and vile past telling, — striving to give the beautiful message it bore to those whose shrieks of laughter and despair drowned the words ere they passed the trembling lips, the one white 235 THE BEAUTIFUL MESSAGE CONTINUED soul crept back to the waters whence it came, and as it sank on the sands, the same wave that brought it thither hfted it up and bore it back to the Lord of Life and Death. Lifting it to His breast, the Lord said — "Thou, water, which hast cleansed my garment, take back the mud thou bearest, to that nether shore. The prisoned souls shall be drenched with that mud until such time as they shall have caught my message with their own ears." 236 HIS BIRTHRIGHT POOR soul-starved, heart-liungry children, huddled as sheep in a pasture, in some corner of a great city where never a glimpse of Nature's beautiful face meets your eye, where never a sound of the grand undertones of the billow-tossed ocean falls upon your ear. The silence and peace of our brooding mother Night throws open to longing eyes, dim visions of spangled folds of that sable garment in which she was clothed her- self while she whispers to the restless, storm tossed soul, "Be still, my child, and learn of me; lay your weary head burdened with care, maddened by pain, upon my breast, while I murmur the lullaby which has hushed you to sleep again and again in the long past ages." Those strange, cold stars with their shadowy gleams of light thrill us b}^ their mystery ; they seem as the eyes of the Infinite searching our hearts for hidden evils, yet calming, steadying, strengthening every good impulse and bringing us into tune with the great major chord of Eternal Love; — imparting a sense of courage and hope that not even the carking care of the work-a-day world can rob us of entirely. Sometimes our agony is too deep, too real, for words; we have reached our Golgotha and can only lie on that great Mother-heart and moan, while she 237 HIS BIRTH RIGHT CONTINUED presses her lingers upon our eyes and gradually draws us into a presence far greater than her own — a Presence, the light of which floods us with glory unspeakable — a glory in which we are finally lost as is a drop of water in an ocean, and only awaken to know that our agony and pain were angels sent to bring us eternal blessed- ness. O could you but realize what you lose when you permit the j^resent mad rush for city life to engulf you, soul and body, and set you down where the clang and clatter of machinery, the babel of human noises, allow you never a moment for the silence which is as neces- sary to the soul as is food to the body. Surely there is a great undercurrent of wisdom in the words now finding an echo in the hearts of the peo- ple, in the words, "Back to the soil;" fit refrain for an army of toilers returning to claim their own. For when mankind deserts the land to crowd into the cities, it gives up its birth-right for the husks of life. 238 LOVE IS GOD IF THE lips, now sealed by the xVngel of Death, might unclose and permit the spirit now hovering near to speak in earthly tones, it would say, — "Be- hold, I that was dead am alive forevermore. The gates of Hell are closed behind me, and I have entered into mine inheritance. Wherefore do ye weep for me? "There is no death, my beloved, nothing but life, life, life, everywhere and forever. "What matters it that ye lay down my body, a wornout shell, an empty chrysalis, that so my fliglit be not impeded? For I go to the place prepared for me, radiant with joy, full of that peace that ])asseth under- standing. Be patient with me yet awhile that I leave thee in loneliness, and let not the delusion of space blind thee to the truth that thou art with me, though thou knowest it not, — for nothing can separate souls bound by love. They are entwined by the force of that love with bonds far stronger than those of earth, — for Love is God. "Blessed are ye that mourn, for ye shall be comforted." Lift up your gates, and the King of Glory shall come in!" Those gates of the body which close the portals of the soul before all weary eyes, eyes that will not unclose for the King of Glory to enter until their lids are raised by the ]iower of intuition, or beaten down by the Angel of Death. "Show me a dead thing," said a Sage, "and I will destroy the whole doctrine of immortality.' Is this a vain boast, or a promise of eternal joy? 239 COME FORTH THOU CHRIST CO^IE forth, O thou who livest as does Thought in the eternal heart of God ; — thou Christ of God, come forth to bless this Star we call our home, for yet thou art not manifest to holden human eyes. My spirit broods in ecstasy of pain o'er that ideal of Thee which is my life, my hope, my all. Springing from the fathomless, the mystery of life and love, again shalt Thou in power and glory stand upon the threshold of this world and beckon to Thee. And quickly will I kneel before Thy Grace, Thy Truth and Beauty, beseeching that Thy hand may for a moment rest on my bowed head to still the longing of my soul, which, smothered in agony of yearning love, can now but beat its wrings against this earthly cage, unable to escape or patiently endure. Through all the world my weary feet have strayed — on highest mountain top, in vale and in clefts of rock, in deepest caverns underneath the earth, searching, ever searching, for a clue to guide me unto Thee — until I have grown old and feeble in the quest. But God can never die, and Thou art God and God is Love, and in the deepest recesses of soul I feel that I shall yet be- hold Thee with mine eyes. For love like mine must meet response from I^ove like Thine, and Thou shalt bid this thought of mine w^hich dwelleth yet within Thy heart — this great ideal of all the human race — to leave its hid- ing for a space and come to us, to all that wait and pray. 240 THE SONG OF LIFE SOUL of my soul, do you hear it? Listen! Do you hear the mad music of clarion and flute, of fife and drum — the pounding on pavement of marching steps — the cry, "To Arms!" through the city streets — the bugle-call through by-way and lane? Do you hear the wild gallop of horses' hoofs, the shriek of the smitten, the dirges of death? Do you hear the mad revel of wine and song, the tripping and sliding of dancing feet — the maniacal screams of frenzied men? Do you hear them, those echoes of hell on earth? Do you hear it, soul of my soul — hear the sweet song of the Bird of Life, as it swells and soars, and pierces that loathsome night, calling you, thrilling, sad- dening, yet gladdening you; inciting to joy so near akin to pain — the ever growing mystery appalls you! Do you hear it cleave the vibrant waves of hell's do- main, as the arms of a strong man cleave the waters engulfing him, flecking with radiant light all hearts at- tuned to its low measure, as foam from the ocean flecks the open face of day? All the waters of all the earths cannot drown it: all the fires of all the hells cannot separate it from you. You alone of all earth's myriad creatures can muffle that sweet song, can interpose a single obstacle to its passage to and from the ears of your own heart. 241 THE MESSAGE A TERRIFIC crash of thunder rent the midnight air, sending great waves of sound reverberating from one end of the heavens to the other. A great pulsating globe of fire, much like a sun, appeared in the far distance. From it, in every direction, were darting broad, zigzag streams of lightning, which seemed to pierce the very ends of the universe. From the globe of fire there issued a voice that at first sounded like the low mutterings of thunder, but on closely listening could be distinguished in slow, deep, penetrat- ing tones the words: "Write to the still-born sons of Earth." Then came the message given below: "Dwarfed are ye, ye sons of Earth who once were great enough to tread the burning sands of Teapi-nui, and with your own bared hands pile up the statues of the Gods, — ye whose minds conceived the Holy Temples lying now full forty fathoms 'neath old ocean's waves. Ah, but ye have fallen low, and when mine eyes })ehold yoiu' ])uny forms, your sordid minds, I see how great the fall, how slow the rising from the depths of your disgrace and punishment. Can nothing rouse ye from your sleep to knowledge of the truth that ye are Sons of God, as well as earthen vessels? Must hoary cycle tread upon the heels of cycles past, and ye lie still and make no move to climb the heights where once ye had a dwelling place with Devas fair and wise? 242 THE MESSAGE CONTINUED Will neither sad entreaty nor scornful lashings of a pointed tongue goad you on to grasp once more the heritage which alien hands have wrested from your grasp ? Day crieth unto Day and Night moans unto Night, and ye lie wrapt in Lethe's false embrace, or for a golden chain, a Ruby rare and precious to your clouded sight, relinquish all the power and wealth which lieth now unclaimed amidst the treasures of your Father's house. Waken! Waken! Waken! Slothful child of earth, stretch out thy palsied arm and strive to grasp the hand outstretched to thee. Straighten the limbs now stiff and curled beneath thy form, and strive to reach the path which leads to the great Eye upon the Mountain top ; for night is coming on, in which no man may work, and if thou canst not work, there is no place for thee upon the earth where Service is the law of life, the chief- est blessing left to fallen man, the Pledge of final union 'twixt thy God and thee, which thou hast bartered now and must reclaim ere thou canst Wisdom find and know." 243 THE TASK MY CHILD — If thou wouldst bear the colors of the Lodge, then stand alone. Search thine own heart, lay bare its hidden motives, follow thou the dictates of its will. Take care lest any thing or creature bind thy course of action, j^et make thou sure that thing or creature occupies its rightful place in all thy plans where it is equally concerned with thee. No human soul hath earned the right to bind an- other soul, yet every soul must bind itself to serve the soul that rightfully demands its help. We fear to trust the guiding power of Love — the God within — lest being haled before the Judgment seat, we stand rebuked for failure to perform aright the task imposed by Love, and in that failure sink the right to say — "I only did what thou commandedst me." 244 THE LITTLE THINGS WOULDST thou know the secret of a happy life? Then come aside with me into the great white Silence and I will show thee strange things. Strange to thee in that thou hast passed them by openly day by day and year by year, yet hast never paused to look upon their faces. When thou hast come anigh them thou hast trampled them under foot, in ignorance of their worth, or covered them with refuse. They did not appear seemly in thine eyes, for truly their forms were unsightly, their eyes cast down, and their tiny bodies, like stinging insects, came between thee and the light of the sun. Thou couldst not see that they brought thee rare treasure, great opportunities, to add to thy store of riches till thou shouldst become of all men most to be envied. The small worries, the trifling cares, the quick, harsh word of a neighbor, all the little things which much thought and anxiety enlarge to portentous sizes. It is these that eat into thy life, that line thy face, that sear and callous thy heart. The great sorrows, great tril)u- lations and losses sweeten and strengthen thee, yet can do so no more than may the little things, if thou wouldst but stop, lift up their heads and gaze into their beautiful, downcast eyes; downcast, for they hold a message for thee none other may read. 245 THE PRICE SO LONG as fear of poverty, of death or suffering can influence you to withhold the whole or even a part of the price demanded by the law for your perfect development, you will never cross the threshold of the Great Initiation Chamber. So long as you re- tain any part or feature of the great renunciation ichen of c red by you to the Lodge of Life, that part or feat- ure will chain you to the Cosmic Wheel, a victim of your own selflshness and dishonesty. As Ananias and Saphira lost life and belongings through willful per- version of the law, so every Chela of the Lodge who has demanded the service, love and devotion of the INIasters in exchange for the service, obedience and love they offer, and who then undertake to withhold a part of the offering, must inevitably return to the diet of husks, the swine — selfish elements — are nourished upon. So long as your demands remain unanswered, and your desire for the husks is unappeased, if you will be content to remain with the swineherd, the higher law will not reach you; but you cannot wallow in the filth of the pen and treasure the husks, and at the same time stand before the bright flash of the Sword of the Spirit without being cloven in two. The choice is yours; but, having made the choice, you must bear the results. God will have no divided hearts. It is quite possible that Karmic Law will not 246 THE PRICE CONTINUED accept a full relinquishment of all you hold dear, even when cheerfully offered, but so long as attachment to any thing or creature prevents you from freely offer- ing up that thing or creature upon the altar of devo- tion, the Holy Fire cannot descend and touch that offer- ing, and thereby render it of use. And the lower fires which form such attachments must eventually consume the things to which you are attached, and leave you desolate and comfortless. Make no offer to the Law which you are not fully prepared to have accepted. Keep all you have and are if such be your desire, but in keeping it, remain on the outside of your own di- vinity. 247 THE POWER OF LOVING WHAT matters it that form and face of tin' beloved grow feeble, old and wrinkled? What matters it that the shell which held thy love shall be in time a feeding place for worms, or even that lust and all iincleanness shall leave their imprint on the face that thou hast pressed against thine own in ecstasy of pain? The soul that thus expressed itself in form, that part of thee and me which drew and called to active life the sleeping Love of Life dwells not in form or face of any living thing, though in thy blindness thou -wouldst so confine it. Look o'er the pages of thy life — the pages of the open book writ by the hand of God, and thou shalt find that like as thou hast grown to man's estate by slowly filling in the heavenly pattern of thyself, day by day, so hath thy power of loving grown, and yet may grow to compass all the spheres of life. That thing or creature thou didst love witli all the power thou hadst when but a child, no longer charms thine eye, though in that charm didst truly manifest a soul that after many years again shone through a fleshly form and face which drew and held thee fast ; and so again shall love increase and search the heavens to find itself. When all the lower fires of ])ersonal possession shall burn themselves away, then thou wilt find in every hu- man face, in flower and tree, in wind and water, in all things and creatures, and finding never lose again, the flawless soul that thou hast always loved, and find it waiting the glad hour when every note of all the won- drous Song of Life shall sound forth pure and sweet for all who list to heai-. 248 TWILIGHT AND DAWN WHEN thy fellow-pilgrims turn from fulsome praise and adulation to harshest criticism and vilification of the bearer of the torch who is blazing a trail through the dense growth of the under- world, that he may find the Path, if thou wilt not be turned from thine allegiance, look well that the moss entwined stump of selfish desire o'er which thy brotlier has stumbled doth not trip thee also. Walk warily, lest the half-buried rocks of ambition or jealous rage catch thy feet and hold thee captive by his side. One extreme of life always calls to the other, and it must respond. If thou wouldst travel the trail of safety, keep well in the middle of that trail. The light of the torch borne before thee throws flickering shad- ows on either side of the trail, but burns clear and bright on the central line. Twilight must follow day. Xight doth not drop its sable curtain in an instant. Dawn doth silver the darkness of night e'er the Sun doth turn that darkness into gold. So always, Twilight and Dawn, silvered darkness and golden light, are hours of consecration — are always places of Peace wherein the soul may pause in the midst of clamor to catch a note of the Song of Life and clear its point of vision if it but walk in the line of unwaver- ing Truth. 249 YOU MUST CHOOSE LOVE'S little ones, and therefore mine, I pray you open wide the closed and bolted doors behind which now you sit in apathy, and let my words of tenderness gain access to your hearts; those doors that you have girded round about with iron bands and locked with golden locks, and panelled with the dross of baser metals. Let me in, that I may serve to help you drive the demons forth which you unwittingly en- throne in places which the gods alone should hold — the demons of your pride of intellect, contempt and love of adulation. Fear not that I shall seize upon the treasures of the Soul, for are you not mine own? and shall I rob myself? I long to lead you from the paths of loneliness, of poverty and weakness — INIaya's gifts, which you, all unwitting of their nature, now so eagerly accept. With arms outstretched I cry to you and stand aghast at your indifference to the cry, and at my lack of power to pierce the aura of the world's delusions in which you are encased. The demons of unholy lire, of water and of air, aroused to fury now, and fed by man's inhuman acts, are piling up their barriers of brands 'twixt you and those who fain would serve you, e'en while you meekly bring your quota of the brands and throw them, wearily, upon the pile. The crackling of the flames, the muttering of the distant storm, fall 250 YOU MUST CHOOSE on your deadened ears, while here and there a great red drop falls from low lying clouds and splashes on the earth or drenches some poor heart with life's woe. The disembodied fiends so long restrained, have broken loose, and now are seizing upon the new-born vehicles of weak, impotent souls, thus gaining instru- ments for use in the great conflict, and yet you fail to know them even when yourselves have furnished them with vehicles — you are so taken up with some side issue, some secondary thing, which of necessity must fall in its own place when once the primal, the com- posite issue is fully recognized and holds its own. The war is on 'twixt right and wrong, 'twixt heaven and hell, and you must choose your side. 251 THE WILL TO LIVE AS BREAKS the long, low rumble of the surf- bound shore upon the outer ear, and so accus- toms it to Nature's lowest register of tone that it is dulled to all the sweeter, softer notes of rippling brook and hum of busy insect, so the loud tliunder of the unbound passions, the shrieks of mad, unsatisfied Desire doth dull the inner ear of man, and Mill not let him hear the Soul's low cry for help to find its own, its triple chord, now lost amidst the myriad sounds which beat the ether into waves that break upon the shores of sentient life in ever widening curves, carrying on their crests or in the silent depths beneath, the miss- ing tones which wait the sounding of the key; that key which only can be heard when all the discords, all the liarsher sounds of life are stilled. All naked and alone, bereft of hope and plunged into abysmal depths where light nor sound may pene- trate, that lonely soid must wander incomplete, its smothered wail the only outlet for its woe. Xo power it hath to sound the key, recalling the lost notes, and so completing the sweet chord which with its volume, strength and power w^ould clothe that Soul with light and hope divine. For, losing those sw^eet tones in Pas- sion's drear domains, o'er which insatiable Desire hath rule, it loses e'en the power to make a plea for help, and so unceasingly it wanders on alone till myriad cycles pass, when once again it mingles with the maze of un- ])orn Souls that wait the sounding of a higher key than that which rung its birth, and wliich will call to active life the dead and sleeping, and the embryos, the other victims of the greater Self, — the Will to live. 252 LOOSE HIM ^^T OOSE him and let him go." Unwind the swad- 1. dhngs which you have wrapped ahout your brother man. Your dogmas, creeds and penances, — your selfish love as well as hate, are chains which bind you to the "Wheel of Woe." Forgive the debts, undo the chains you bound your brother with in duty's guise. Loose him and let him go, and thou shalt ftnd, not all the chains, the debts, the bonds with which you hold your friend in thrall will draw and hold him fast to you as will the knowledge he is free. Free to wander w^here he will, free to come and go, free togiveyou love for love,ortorefusee'en friendship's trove. Each thread of every cord you use to bind another soul will bind you back, w^ill hold from you the love you crave, the service you require. In Freedom lies thy strength, and Freedom is the Law of Life ; not liberty to hurt or crush another part of God's own life, but liberty to render service pure, and learn to find in strict obedience to law the goal of perfect life. Obedience to law, through love of law and order, gives highest freedom to the soul; but man has put the bond of fear upon his brother man and so enslaved him to Illusion, and fear breeds naught but most abject subjection, and freezes into nothingness the slave, as well as he who doth enslave. Obey implicitly the law of Love and thou slialt not be called upon to sacrifice aught save the thing thou needest not; but first be sure thou knowest Love, and hast not clothed it in the slimy garb of self-indulgence, thus paving wide the way for self-annihilation. 253 THE MILESTONES THUS saith the Father to me, His child: As the stars in their courses fought against Sisera, even so will I, the Lord thy God, fight against the stars if so be they lead mine own into the stronghold of the Great Shadow. Even the stars are the work of my hands, and thou shalt not put the work of my hands in the seat of my power. Thou art long in learning that the fierceness of my jealousy is the fierceness of the world mother who would protect her young from the poisonous fangs of the ser- pent; the fierceness of the jealousy of the father who refuses to deliver his only son to the maw of the hungry tiger, yet would gladly yield that son to satisfy the Higher Law; the fierceness of the jealousy which would sweep the dark stars from the skies did they bar the way to the heart of the least of my little ones. Truly is it said, "All things work together for good to those who love God," but e'er thou canst interpret the promise aright, thou must learn to know the nature of such love as is demanded by thy God. What seemeth good to fhec may l)e the settling of some shadow of a higher good, and in thy haste it may be thou wilt seize the shadow, wrap it closely round about thee, and so cut off the light by which alone the higher good may manifest to thee. 254 THE MILESTONES CONTINUED If e'en an angel host should bid thee turn from what thou knowest is the path of right, bid them turn about and seek the Father once again and so make sure they have not erred. Far down that beautiful broad path the perfected have made 'twixt thee and me, doth also creep the wayward and the erring; and not all the words which fall upon thine ear, — not all the sights which meet thine eyes, are for thy quick unfolding. The pitcher which today is filled with pure and sparkling water from a living spring may ere another sun be set be filled with poisoned wine, and all who drink thereof may meet an agonizing death. The mile- stones on the Path are plainly marked. The contents of the pitcher indicate their character. Why, then, be de- ceived, and let thy lack of patience, or thy greediness for power or place, or things of spirit or of body, lead thee into byways, or quench thy thirst with that which breeds a greater thirst and ends in death? 255 THE PEACE OF ALL FULFILMENTS YE RESTLESS wanderers of the worlds, who find no place on Earth or Sea or Sky on which to plant a foot and anchor there, those rapidly pul- sating vehicles of the Soul you pamper or abuse at will, while seeking surcease from the stress and strain the Jinns have laid upon you. Know ye not, when first you yielded to the driving power of Fohat which sent j^ou forth on an unceasing search for Lethe's streams, or for the apples of Hes- perides, you opened wide the door which led into the closed and secret place of the soul; you wrenched apart the close-bound strands of that golden cord which held your Souls in leash that they might learn the lessons which a single point in space can teach as well and bet- ter far than all the leagues of Earth and Sea and Sky that you have traveled o'er? Heedlessly ye have in- voked the restless elementals of the lower spheres to make their homes within your Souls. And they have now seized the reins of power and drive you round about according to their whims, that they may minister to their desire for ceaseless motion. Day by day your power of seeking Silence, Peace, and all that Wisdom born of consecrated effort, slowly wanes and leaves you tenfold more the slave you were. Your eyes are blind- ed by the dust satiety has flung therein, and like a ship with rudder gone and anchor buried fathoms deep be- 256 THE PEACE OF ALL FULFILMENTS CONTINUED neath the ocean's wave, you drift about with ne'er a port in sight, in total ignorance of the truth that ye are but the sport of creatures you would cast derision on, if once your eyes were opened to the light of your di- vinity and hidden power o'er lower forms of life. Wake up, tear off the bandage from your eyes, find your niche, and labor for your fellow-man, close fast those wide- flung; doors, and seek the Silence and the Peace of all fulfilment. 257 YOUR DEFEATS YOU gauge the value of what you deem your great- est achievements by the measure of success which has followed your strongest efforts, but in the days to come, when the mists have fallen from your eyes, and you sum up the results of your life work, you will find to your great surprise that the defeats which you have suffered, the blows which have bowed your heads the lowest, have always held the real values. Your suc- cesses may have taken you nearly to the JNIount of Transfiguration, but your defeats will have carried you up and over the top of that mount. 258 THE SOUL REDEEMED SWEETER than any song of thrush, softer than the wood-dove's coo to its mate, tender as the touch of dawn on the eyes of a sleep-bound child, falls the voice and touch of the Over-soul on the weary Pil- grim of Days. Many times and oft in the night of the past hath he closed his eyes and said, "Surely my Lord will awaken me from this awful nightmare of Life ere another sun shall greet mine eyes. I am bound and helpless in the morass of the the world's worst woe, and, alas! there are none to hear if I call, or drag me forth, for all of my kin are bound as am I, and smothered in viscid mud, while I alone of human kind am left w^ith head above its slimy ooze." But e'en as he cried, lo! the dark clouds parted, his feet were loosed, and with lightning speed an Angel came down and bade him rise and follow on, to the feet of the Lord of Life and Death. At last fall the scales from the blinded eyes. In the glory of Soul redeemed stands he forth, poised on the eartii like a bird on the wing. He asks of the sea, the sky and the earth, "Is it worth it all? Is it worth the anguish, the pain, the loss, to hear that voice, to feel that touch?" And from every fibre, from all live things, from the heavens and hells, in melody sweet, again and again, rises and echoes in vibrant tones, as with one great voice, the words of the saved: "Aye, it is worth all earth can give, all sun and moon and stars can offer." 259 LIGHT OF THE SOUL THINKEST thou to win discrimination when, like a weathercock, thou veerest to one side or an- other according as the wind hsteth? Force thine unwilhng feet, weighted with the mud of sense, to walk straightly in thy chosen path, that thou mayest quicker reach the golden light upon the mountain-top, and bathe thy soul in its pure radiance. 260 TO THE WORLD DEGENERATE Scions of a dying Age!— As a man freeth corruption from his nostrils, so will I cast you forth by the wind of my dis- content. Back shall ye return to the darkness whence ye came — rebellious, quarrelsome, inhuman spawn of an evil age, — abortions of my soul's travail, who will neither heed the moan of your own sad hearts or the thunderous waves of a nation's woe, lest greedy lust for place and power remain unsatisfied ; lest your bodies — the feeding place of worms — be less daintily fed and clothed upon with fine raiment. Long aeons have I reached out to you in beseeching, and ye pass me by unheeding. As breaketh forth the sweat o'er the straining mus- cles of the strong man, so outpour I the dew of my longing, and ye will not see nor listen. Ye force the action of the Great Law upon your heads, and I, its minister, must needs serve, to your undoing. 261 LIFT THOU THINE EYES TO GOD CHILD of The Eternal— listen! Know that though scorched by the sun of desert sands; lashed back by the furious ocean's waves; struck motionless by the power of the Ice-Angel, with the wings of thy soul as the wings of a bird when the Storm- King has beaten them close to its breast; know, son of the sun, even yet thou art not vanquished. Thou art more than conqueror through the illimitable love of that compassionate heart upon which thy head is pillowed. Cover thou thy breast with the shield of patience. Re- member — the burning heat of the noontide glides slow- ly, imperceptibly, into the cool of evening. The mount- ain glaciers melt in the warmth of Spring and, drop by drop, water the thirsty valley below. Earth and sky meet and kiss in a blaze of unspeakable glory. And thou, son of my heart, though cast in the depths of de- pravity, weakness, or weariness, may rise to immeas- ureable heights, by lifting thine eyes to God. Say not, "I am but a leaf in the wind." Say, rath- er, "I am of God— in God." 262 THE ETERNAL WARFARE AH, mystery of Life, mystery of Death, mystery of Evil! Only Infinite Love can sound your depths. Only Faith can impart the power by which a glimpse of that Love may be seen. ]Man is always at war with himself. He unfolds a flag of truce now and then when the battle becomes so fierce that mind, sense or physical power is on the verge of col- lapse, till he regains his breath and starts in again. And this continual battle is an absolute necessity, for only through it can he win his crown of power and en- durance. ]Man could not live with himself on any other terms. 263 THE WHEEL OF SUFFERING THE wrongs done to or against you by others may be made stepping stones for you, if you have the courage to lift your feet high enough from the ground to reach them. So long as a wrong can embitter you, and so long as you attract the commission of such wrongs, either by wronging others, or by personal lim- itations of any character, the invincible power of love will hold you to the wheel of suffering. It takes poor, struggling humanity long, long ages to learn that divine Justice will never suffer a wrong to be done which is not at the same time a punishment for a similar wrong, and a vast opportunitv to wipe out a debt. The stronger, the better equipped for service is the Neophyte, the greater will be his or her tests of patience, endurance and compassion. The very attributes which make him useful and valuable to the Temple work, and therefore to the w^orld, at the same time must bring long seasons of heart hunger, trial and mental strain, until he, like all those who tread the same path, can lay his burden in the lap of the Great INIother, and say from his heart, "It matters not what my brother, my sister may do to me, only give me more love for them, and I am content." "I can safely leave the punishment of any offense done to me to the Divine Law, but woe is me, if I dwell with delight upon the nature, and application of that punishment, for by so doing I lift my head from the Mother's la]), and gaze into the eyes of the avenger of mine own offense." 264 THE PAIN OF PROGRESS FORCE not the hand of Nature, lest you stir to action such antagonistic forces as now lie inert or sleeping, and so deliberately draw down upon your head that which as yet is but a formless fear and dread of coming evil. Grasp with firm and steady hand devotion's sieve that holdeth thy life's happiness aloft ; a single careless, trembling touch and lo! the finest grains are shaken through the meshes, and blown hither and yon by the first fierce wind of selfish longing, leaving naught but the coarse and weighty sands of satiated pleasure. Xo man ascends towards the stars without arousing the ire of the yelping curs of earth. 265 THE GARDEN OF THE SOUL STOP! weary, sun-smitten traveler o'er the desert sands of ages jDast. Rest ye awhile where the broad leaves of the trees that grow in the Garden of the Soul may fan thy fevered brow. List to the Song of Life, rising and falling, cleaving the air, trilling in ec- stasy, melting in sweetness, as it ripples from the swell- ing throat of the Bird of Hope. Heed not the words of the Spirit of Death, re-echoing along thy backward track, where "Hope lay dead and Life was not worth the living." Only the dead in Life, the heartless devotees of the Calf of Gold, which standeth knee deep in thine own and thy Brother's blood, may say in truth that Hope for them is dead. Thou — beloved — who art only aweary, come with Me into the Garden of the Soul and rest, till thine eyes canst behold and bear the Light of I^ife. 266 RELIGHT THY TORCH KNOW ye not, weary, disappointed, rebellious child of the Master, — thou in whose heart, faith, hope and ambition languish and die through thy Brother's sin or failure, — that thou alone art respon- sible for the effect of that failure upon thyself? For thou alone didst impart it power to hurt thee by ac- cepting that which was but a means to the accomplish- ment of a great purpose, for the purpose itself. Thine alone is the fault if thou dost not compel even that failure to assist thee in mounting the step be- yond. None other can harm thee, none other can hinder thy progress. Thou alone art the way to thy true self. Rise up from the mire into which thou art thrown and travel onward. ^layhap thou shalt overtake thy Lord. 267 LIFE'S SHINE AND SHADOW IF THE Path seem long and dark to you who look back on life's lessons from such a narrow point of consciousness, how think you it appears to us who, from the altitude of centuries of ceaseless labor, of hope deferred, still work on with the Law even when no light be visible? For know the radiant light of fulfilled purpose may not dawn for us until it dawns for you we are all bound to the same wheel of change. I, who would comfort you with my own comfort can only bid you love more, hope more, trust more work more, — for, see! the first trembling rays from the newly risen Sun of Life even now gild the mountain top, and the shifting shadows at its base ])artially re veal the glory to be made manifest when cyclic law has done its work. Cast forth, then, the demon of discontent; it can undo in one day many years of toil; and, my children, do not forget that you yourselves have invoked your Karmic shadows, so be patient — even with the shad- ows. 268 THE ANGEL OF THE PATH ONE day the earthly sun will darken before thine eyes. Xaked and alone the Angel of the Path will thrust thee forth from the haunts of men to seek and find thine own, or to wander in dark places evermore in thralldom unto things. Thyself a shadow, thou shalt come to Hades' shad- owy vistas and with soft footfall glide from place to place, until thy soul's awakened eyes behold the blazing Arch of Triumph which separates that hell from heaven. Then the stern Guardian standing there will say: "What bringest thou to me that I should let thee pass?" Xone other gift than Love will he accept; all else he spurns as worthless chaff. So, gather thou each day the seeds from which Love sprouts — the kindly deed, the tender touch, or thou wilt be left standing on the farther side with only thy lost opportunities to think upon, thyself a shadow to the end. 269 THE LENS OF THE SOUL BE NOT deceived. Only the pure in heart see God. Thou canst not defile the lens of thy soul by im- pure and selfish thought and behold the divine through such a medium. For the deceptive lights and shadows cast thereon do but hinder the reflections of aught higher than the false images pictured in thine heart, and thou art lost to all but the self-created mirage of false and fleeting vision where darkness seemeth as light, — the darkness of Self in which no ray of the Di- vine Sun of Life can manifest its presence. As a lily raiseth its head to the sun, so raise thou thy soul to God, that the dew of Divine Love may search out and help to uncover its hidden Heart of Gold. 270 THE LAW FULFILED BELIEVEST thou, O son of Earth's travail, that while the meanest serf remains a serf, thou canst be free? that while one child's low moan of pain ascends the spheres, pure joy may be thy portion? Water seeks its level by a law divine. No less di- vine — unalterable, the law that makes thy brother's joy thy joy, that so the level of human bliss and agony be found, and wisdom justified. If thou wouldst reach perfection, lift the stone that crushes to earth a tiny violet, a blade of grass. Bear with thy brother — share his weight of woe; pour of thine own abundance into his lap if he be needy. Bind up the wound thine enemy received in strife with thee, and so aid in the final great adjustment of mortal man and things. The Law fulfiled will open up the path to God, now closed and barred by self. 271 JUDGE NOT WHO — what art thou, delusion of evil, in the guise of man, that darest persecution of the Eternal, that rendereth false judgment upon the Absolute? God and Christ dwelleth in every atom of Substance, Force and Consciousness. Thou canst not lay a feather's weight of condemnation on another and let God and Christ go free. Hidden within thine own heart is every evil thou imputest to tliy brother. Destroy it in thyself and thou shalt never more behold it in thv brother. 272 UNSELFISH LOVE MY CHILD: — Canst thou not strive to consider the daily martyrdom of thy friend, thy wife, thy husband — the one that loves thee most unselfishly, the one to whom thou art as a star, how- ever unworthy, however cold, careless and unloving in deed and truth — the one whose heart sings a song of sweetness throughout a hard day's toil — at a single kind or tender word from thee? O, blind and foolish one — thou who strivest with all thy power to lay up earthly treasures — all unthinking that the unselfish love of a human being for thee is thy opportunity for laying up priceless treasures throughout the ages to come. 273 THE INNER TEMPLE IF ALL about thee seem to sj^eak of sorrow, and the face of God is turned away from thee; if nowhere on the earth there seems to be a refuge for breaking hearts or minds unhinged by longing; if httle children's cries awake the echoes in thine heart of long dead ages when the cries of other little ones ascended to the skies through sacrificial flames; if rest and peace have taken wings and flown away from thee and from thy kind; if music hath no longer charm, and art no solace, and the way to love seems closed to thee; if fear of death is swallowed up in fear of living, and all thy labor seems to be in vain; — then come with me, my child. Keep close to me until thy search is ended, and thou hast reached the place of silence — place of peace — the Tem- ple in thine inmost heart. When thou shalt reach that Temple's door and knock ariglit, then shalt thou find it opening wide into the heart of every other living thing; and in some one of all those wondrous spaces shalt thou find the answers to thy hardest questions, and surcease from thy deepest woes. Nowhere else upon the earth or in the heavens can the key be found that will unlock God's Jewel case; but on its burnished sides in deeply carven letters are the clues to that which lies within, — and they are hid- den in the words. Faith, Hope, Service. 274 CEASE, AND SING CEASE your moaning" and your wailing, ye en- listed soldiers of the Army of your God. Did ever soldier win his spurs, win command of bat- tling legions, who at sight of guns and sabers, battle- fields and wounds, fell out of line or cringed in terror and despair? Beat it into dull and sodden minds if ye needs nuist, that never was a just and righteous cause left undefended, nor was it lost for aye. Nay, not even if it sank from sight of man for days or years ; not even if the last defender perished in the final battle fought; like a buried seed, in time, it sprang into a newer, higher life, tenfold the stronger, tenfold the surer of success for all the bloodshed, all the tears that watered its first growth. What right have you to ride serenely on above the heads of those who fight, and never strike a blow your- self in your defense? Or that you should escape the common lot of men and soldiers fighting for a cause on which now rests the fate of nations yet unborn? Or that your limbs, the air you breathe, the flesh you bear, escape the rej^tile's coils and breath and fangs, — the rank abuse, the slanderous tongues, the crushing of your hearts by coward's blows? Can you not bear what weaker men have bravely borne, — the burden of their fellowmen, — and hold your heads on high, and smile and sing? Aye, sing so loud and strong that not a note of all the discord on the field below may strike your ear? Ah, if you can but do my bidding, then are you children of the King, soldiers of the cross of Christ — the symbol of eternal life for all the World.— Then are you on the road that leads to where the Hosts of Light now^ stand and beckon you, the road to ^Mastery. 275 A CLARION CALL FIGHT! for fight you must, you Children of the Covenant, or shirk the task set hy your own Di- vine Self. Look where you may, in all life's domains, no sjDot or place will meet your eye where battle doth not rage. Would you, of all the myriad lives on earth, in cowardice cast down your shield, remove your armor, lie supinely down, and claim the fruits of all the labor, all the strife between the Sons of Light and the Broth- ers of the Shadow? between TJie Perfected and all the Lethe-drunken scions of a dying age? and never strike a blow to prove yourself a worthy foe, or aid in the de- fense of all the right and privilege so hardly won! Can you refuse to guard the fortress and protect the over- wearied, scarred and broken veterans whose right to longer fight has been denied, or guide the footsteps of the feeble and faint-hearted — the helpless "little ones"? The hardest fight of all the ages past is on, and fight you must if you would pave the way for the return of those who fought in a lost cause and gave their lives that you might live and win the martyr's crown that they now^ wear — that crown which is an open-sesame to all the Thrones— the Powers — of Heaven and Earth. Gird tightly on your loose-worn weapons. Buckle fast your yet unsteady headpiece, and strike, while strike you may, at all the enemies entrenched in that frail 276 A CLARION CALL CONTINUED heart of yours, and die, if die you must, with face turned toward the foe, content that hfe has given you a chance to fight, instead of swathing you with bands that hopelessly ensnare and hold the human soul. Be great, because of that your greatness hath the power to overcome, and fight till victory is yours, and yours the right to stand erect and unabashed before the very face of God. 277 WARRIORS OF LIGHT <^TT r ARRIORS of Light, Warriors of Truth, I Y y salute you, in the name of the Great White Brotherhood. Go forth to battle, with the Powers of Darkness, armed with the Sword of the Spirit of God, the Breastplate of Righteousness, the Helmet of Eternal Truth. See to it, then, that no stain rest on that armor, no rust on that sword, that ye may become one with us, on that Great Day; 'Be With Us.' " 278 Copyright, 1914 THE TEMPLE OF THE PEOPLE Halcyon, Cal. Press of M. A. Donohue & Co., Chicago The foregoing messages were received by The Temple of the People, Halcyon, Califor- nia, and published in their magazine, The Temple Artizan. 399504 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY From the Mountain Top ERRATA In third paragraph, for "covered," read uncovered. Page 30, second paragraph, for "helplessly," read hope- lessly. Page 39, second paragraph, for "bertrayer," read be- trayer. Page 55, first paragraph, for "selfishness," read self- lessness. Page 56, for "lights," read lightens. Page 89, first paragraph, for "hearts," read ears. Page 124, second paragraph, for "losses" read loosed. Page 153, first paragraph, for "selfless," read self. Page 159, fifth paragraph, for "crown," read crowning. Page 171, third paragraph, for "band," read bond. Page 171, fourth paragraph, for "very," read every. Page 172, second paragraph, for "once," read over. Page 202, second paragraph, for "bruises" read briers. Page 205, first paragraph, for "through the steep moun- tain," read up through the mountain side.