Futhermore, the idea of the infinite God, in possession of which man finds himself, is a warrant for his immortality. There cannot be more in an effect than was in its cause, though there may be less. We perceive intelligence, orderly purpose, as well as power, in nature. We find in ourselves all the explicit attributes and treasures of consciousness. Reasoning back by indubitable steps we come to an uncaused, unlimited, infinite Being, the underived and eternal source of all that is. This idea in our minds of a Being of absolute perfection, whose boundless consciousness as being necessarily indivisible must be totally present at every point of infinitude, is the charter of our own divine nature and heirship. For we can become, even here, friends and companions of this omnipresent One, of whose essence and attributes everything below is but a defective transcript or dimmed revelation. This idea of Himself is the gift of God to us. To suppose that we are capable of originating it implies a greater miracle than the one it seeks to account for, and really puts ourselves in the place of God. Can we imagine that we are the creators of God? If the absolute noumenal Power beyond all phenomena be unknowable, it cannot contain less, but must contain more than all the attributes of the material and spiritual creation which has proceeded thence. The noblest and best spirits of all lands and ages have walked in full fellowship with this Being, seeking supremely to serve and love Him in the subjection of self will and in the doing of good. Many a nameless saint, in a pure consecration, has heroically thought and suffered and aspired, worn out life in slow toils or offered it up in sharp sacrifice, for the good of fellow creatures, as a tribute to God, and exhaled the last breath in a prayer of love and trust. Such faithful servants and comrades must be dear to the Infinite Spirit, and it is natural to believe that He will keep them with him forever. When Christ, in self sacrificing love, submitted to death on the cross, saying, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit," he who can believe that the magnanimous sufferer was disappointed, blotted out and extinguished, thus reveals the grade of his own insight, but does not refute the greater hope of nobler seers. It seems as if the idea of God, with loving faith and obedience to its requirements, planted in a soul which had not inherited immortality would straightway begin to develop it there. The atmosphere of eternity alone befits a nature which feels itself living in the companionship of God. Everything subject to decay cowers into oblivion from before the idea of that august, incorruptible presence. The fear of death is but the recoil of the immortal from mortality. When man voluntarily faces death without fear, even courting martyrdom with a radiant joy, it is because there is in him, deeper than consciousness, a mystic knowledge that he is essentially eternal and cannot perish. He who freely sacrifices anything thereby proves himself superior to that which he sacrifices. Man freely sacrifices his life. Therefore he is immortal.

The ancient Semitic philosopher and poet who wrote the book of Job, brooding on the strange problem of life and death, murmured, "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" With each successive generation, for many ages, countless millions have dissolved and vanished into the vast, dumb mystery. Now, the spectator, remembering all this, stands beneath the dome of midnight, imploringly breathes the mystic sigh, "Man giveth up the ghost, and where is he?" The only responses is the same dread silence still maintained as of old. And, in a moment more, he who breathed the wondering inquiry is himself gone. Whither? Into the vacant dark of nothingness? Into the transparent sphere of perfect intelligence? The sublimity of the demand seems to ally the finite questioner with the infinite Creator; and, with a presentiment of marvelous joy, we look beyond the ignorant veil at the close of earth, and hold that eternity itself will not exhaust the possibilities of the soul, whose career shall be kept from stagnation by constant interspersals of death and birth, refreshing disembodiments from worn out forms and reincarnations in new.

If this life on the earth, where man feels himself a stranger, be his all, how superfluously he is equipped with foresights and longings that outrun every conceivable limit! Why is he gifted with powers of reason and demands of love so far beyond his conditions? If there be no future for him, why is he tortured with the inspiring idea of the eternal pursuit of the still flying goal of perfection? Is it possible that the hero and the martyr and the saint, whose experience is laden with painful sacrifices for humanity, are mistaken? and that the slattern and the voluptuary and the sluggard, whose course is one of base self indulgence, are correct? Is it credible that, with no justifying explanation hereafter, it should be ordained that the more gifted and disinterested a man is the more he shall uselessly suffer, from his sympathetic carriage of the greater share in the sin and sorrow of all his race? No, far back in the past there has been some dark mystery which yet flings its dense shadows over our history here; and in the obscurity we cannot read its solution. But there is a solution. And when in some blessed age to come mankind shall outgrow their discords and be reconciled, so that their divinest living member can become the focalizing center of their collective inspiration, through him the truth will be revealed. The most inspired individual can only in a degree anticipate his age. At a certain distance he is tethered by his connections with the race. They must be near the goal before he can deliver the final message. Inspiration and revelation are as real as the sensuous method of outer knowledge. Spirit or consciousness, as that which is its own evidence, has a more than mathematic validity. When men purely love one another, and, with supreme loyalty, seek truth, ignorance and delusion will melt away before the encroaching illumination from God, and the dominion of death will be abolished.

That the human mind shall be the victim of death is incongruous with its rank. The atheistic scientist who imagines that the energy of the stellar creation is gradually dissipating, so that the whole scheme must at last perish; and who sees the soul, then, like a belated butterfly, fall frozen on the boundary of a dead universe, refutes his own dismal creed by the grandeur of the power shown in thinking it. The might of love, the faculty of thought, the instinct of curiosity, are insatiable; and that which remains wooing them to grasp it, is infinite. And, after all is said, it seems certain that we are either discerpted emanations and avatars of God suffering transient incarnations for a purpose, and then to be resumed, immortal in his immortality; or else we are separate and inherent entities, immortal in ourselves. The former faith ought to satisfy the proudest ambition. The latter faith yields every motive for contentment and aspiring obedience. Man, forever feeding on the unknown, is the mysterious guest of God in the universe. We cannot believe that, the hospitality of the infinite Housekeeper becoming exhausted, He will ever blow out the lights and quench the guests.

CHAPTER VI.

THE TRANSIENT AND THE PERMANENT IN THE DESTINY OF MAN.

A COMPANION of Solomon once said to him, "Give me, O king of wisdom, a maxim equally applicable on all occasions, that I may fortify myself with it against the caprices of fortune." Solomon reflected a moment, then gave him, in these words, the maxim he sought: "This, too, shall pass away." The courtier at first felt disappointed, but, meditating awhile, perceived the pertinent and profound meaning hidden in the transparent simplicity of the words. Are you afflicted? Be not despondent or rash, This, too, shall pass away. Are you blessed? Be not elated or careless, This too shall pass away. Are you in danger? in temptation? in glory? Still, for your proper guidance, in relation to each one, remember; This too shall pass away. And so on, under every diversity of situation in which man can be placed. Whatever restraint, whatever encouragement, whatever consolation he needs, it is all contained in the profound thought, This too shall pass away.

This maxim for all times needs to be supplemented by a corresponding maxim for all persons. There is a truth constantly suited for the variety of immortal souls, as the foregoing one is for the variety of temporal changes. Let us see what that truth is and set it in a fitting aphorism.

The desires of the human soul are boundless. Nothing can satisfy its wishes by fulfilling them and circumscribing there a fixed limit. It would devour the whole creation, and hungrily cry for more. Whatever extension of power or fruition it can conceive, it wants for its own, and frets if deprived of it. Now, if the spirit of the Creator is in the creature, this illimitable passion of acquisition cannot be a mere mockery. It must be a hint of the will of God and of the destiny of his child in whom He has implanted it. It is prophetic of something awaiting fulfillment. But what is the prophecy, and how is it to be fulfilled? The answer to this question will give us that maxim of eternal humanity which accords with the maxim of transient fortune. And thus it reads: Over all the things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe! Be not baffled by the appearance of transcendental mysticism in this maxim, as the ancient inquirer was by the appearance of commonplace in his, but seek its significance.

A son is an heir of his father. All men are sons of God, though only a few, and that in varying degree, are distinctly conscious as yet of their sonship. But, despite their ignorance, all are tending, more or less swiftly, toward the goal of their nature and inheritance.

There are exclusive prizes which men can monopolize: and they fight with one another for these, because the more some have the less others can obtain. There are also inclusive prizes, or modes of holding and enjoying property which do not interfere with universal participation, with universal, undivided ownership. In these no one need have any the less because every one has all. This is the region of reason, imagination, affection, the empire of the soul. The more one knows of mathematical truth, poetic beauty or moral good, the easier it is, not the harder, for others to know and enjoy as much or more. In this divine domain no monopoly or conflict is possible, because the outward moving fence of each consciousness, retreating and vanishing before its conquests of experience, is a vacuum with respect to that of every other. They overlap and penetrate one another as if they were mutually nonexistent. For example, the pleasure any one takes in a picture, or in a play, does not lessen the pleasure which remains for the other spectators; but, on the contrary, adds to it if they have sympathy.

Now, the all inclusive prize of desire, the very secret of the Godhead namely, the power of taking a full pure joy in every form of being, in every substance and phenomenon of the creation is forever wooing every soul; and every soul, in proportion to its advancement, is forever embracing it just as freely as if no other soul existed, yet has the zest of its enjoyments endlessly varied and heightened by mutual contemplations and reflections of those of all the rest. Such is the superiority of the disinterested spirit over the selfish flesh, of the inner world over the outer world, of good over evil.

Mental ownership is sympathetic and universal, physical appropriation antagonistic and individual. We hate and oppose our fellows that with hand and foot we may monopolize some wretched grains of good, while God is inviting every one of us with our mind and heart to accept as fast as we can his whole undivided infinitude of good. The universe is the house of the Father; the true spirit of the family is disinterested, and consequently every child is heir of the whole even as the apostle Paul said, joint heir with Christ. Register, then, deeply in memory, side by side with the historic maxim for all times, This too shall pass away! the religious maxim for all souls. Over those things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which belongs indivisibly to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe! Then, should you ever feel vexed or disheartened by the irritations and failures you meet in your journey through the evanescent masquerade of this world, pause and say to yourself, Is it worthy of me, while the entire realm of existence asks me to appropriate it in ever expansive possession, to be angry or sad because some infinitesimal speck of it does not grant me as much of itself as I crave?

The more things we love the richer we are. The fewer things we care for the freer we are. O blessed wealth and wretched freedom, how shall we perfect and reconcile them? This is the secret: If we love the divine and eternal in everything, and care not for the limiting and perishable evil connected with it, then we shall at once be both rich and free. The former practice educates our powers; the latter emancipates them. The true use of renunciation is as a means for larger fulfillment. Detach from lower and lesser objects in order to attach to higher and greater ones. Be always ready to renounce the meaner at the invitation of the nobler. The soul, like a grand frigate, may be loosely tied by a thousand separate strings, but should be held firm by one cable. Our relations to fellow creatures are those threads; our supreme relation to God, that cable. Those are the gossamer of time; this the adamant of eternity.

The lame man cries, O, that I could walk! He who can walk says, O, that I could fly! If he could soar, he would sigh, O, that I were omnipresent, and therefore had no need to move! The end of one wish is but the beginning of another; and the craving of every human soul, let loose in sincere expression, is absolutely illimitable. It always comes, in the last analysis, to this; every one really longs to be God. Therefore, unless the rational creation is mendacious, to be deified, is, in some mystical but true sense, the final destiny of all souls. Every one, in its consciousness fully developed and harmonized, shall become a focus of universal being, a finite reflex of God, the infinite God himself remaining eternally the same unescapable and incomprehensible mystery as ever.

There are, therefore, two supreme maxims for souls conditioned in time and space but destined for eternity and infinity a maxim of comfort for those who suffer, and a maxim of impulse for those who aspire. The one, to be used in view of every fear, every evil or limit. This, too, shall pass away! The other, to be used in view of every insatiable desire, Over all those things for which men struggle with each other, there is one thing, out of the sphere of struggle, which indivisibly belongs to every man, and that one thing is the whole universe!

Nothing but the Absolute Good is everlasting: and that must belong to all who, being essential personalities, are superior to death. Blessed, blessed, then, are they who hunger and thirst after God; for, by a real transubstantiation assimilating Him, they shall as divinely live forevermore. They shall cease to say any more of anything, This, too, shall pass away! because the infinite God shall have said to each of them, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine!

If the view above marked out, a view in many respects so sublime and satisfactory, a view which goes so far to explain the mysteries, reconcile the contradictions, and transfigure the evils of our transient life and lot below be not true, it must either be because some other higher and better view is the truth in which case we certainly ought to be contented or else the creative and providential plan of God is inferior to the thought of one of his creatures. It is not possible for me to suppose that a speculative theory of my brain can transcend in harmony and beneficence the design of the infinite God. Could it do so, then, in reality, I should be a higher being than He. I should veritably have dethroned Him and vaulted into his place. Is not that a pitch of impiety and absurdity too great even for the pride of man, insurgent atom of criticising assumption, set, baffled at every point, amidst the awful immensity of existence? Here, then, is rest. Either our highest view is the truth, or the truth is higher and better than that. For to think that his thought is superior to the purpose of God, thus making himself the real God, is too much for the extremist human egotist within the limits of sanity.

Therefore, until a better theory is propounded, we hold that the destiny of the soul is to become, through the progressive actualization of its potential consciousness, a free thinking center of the universe, an infinitesimal mirror of God. The adventures of the different souls, full of inexhaustible curiosity and relish in the mutually revealing contacts of their degrees of development and originalities of personal character and treasure, constitute the endless drama of spiritual existence within the phenomenal theater of the material creation. And still the infinite One serenely smiles on the troubled play of the eternal Many; because the psychological kaleidoscope of their experience is a continuous improvisation of justice, weaving the fate of Each with the fates of All, and transfusing the monotonous unity of the Same with the zestful variety of the Other.