Every man is prone to lean on some particular side and on that side requires special support. Every man has particular fears and troubles, and it is against these and not against the fears and troubles of others that he must provide remedies. A religion is but a general direction, and the real working Thirty-nine Articles or Assembly’s Catechism each one of us has to construct on his own behalf.

A not insignificant advantage of loyalty to our Divine Director will be a more correct and generally a more lenient criticism of our fellow-creatures. We shall cease to judge them by standards which are not applicable to them. Much that we might erroneously consider wrong we shall discern to be a necessary effort to secure stability or even to preserve sanity. We shall pardon deviation from the obvious path. The boat which crosses the river may traverse obliquely the direct line to the point for which it is making, and if we reflect that perhaps a strong current besets it we shall not call the steersman a fool.

THE RIDDLE

MEN had sinned against the gods, and had even denied their existence. Zeus had a mind to destroy them, but at last resolved to inflict on them a punishment worse than death. He sent Hermes to one of the chief cities with a scroll on which a few magic letters were written, and the wise men declared they contained a riddle. Its solution would bring immortal happiness. The whole human race, neglecting all ordinary pursuits, applied itself ceaselessly to the solution of the mystery. Professors were appointed to lecture on it, it was attacked on all sides by induction, deduction, and by flights of inspiration, but nobody was able to unravel it. At last a child, seeing the perplexity in which her father and mother were, took one of the copies of the scroll which were hung in all the public buildings of the city, and secretly set off to consult a distant oracle of Phoebus Apollo of which

she had heard. She had to traverse thirsty deserts, and not till she was nearly dead did she reach the shrine. She told her story and handed in her scroll to a priestess, who disappeared in an inner chamber. In a few minutes the temple of the Sun-god was filled with blazing light, the child prostrated herself on the floor, and she heard the words, There is no riddle. She lifted herself up, and, fortified with some food given her by the priestess, began her journey home. She was just able to struggle through the city gates and deliver the message before she fell down lifeless. It was not believed; the Secret, the Secret, everybody upheld it, the professors lectured, the mad inquisition and guesses continued, and the vengeance of Zeus is not yet satisfied.

AN EPOCH

I WAS no longer young: in fact I was well over sixty. The winter had been dark and tedious. For some reason or other I had not been able to read much, and I began to think there were signs of the coming end. Suddenly, with hardly any warning, spring burst upon us. Day after day we had clear, warm sunshine which deepened every contrast of colour, and at intervals we were blessed with refreshing rains. I spent most of my time out of doors on the edge of a favourite wood. All my life I had been a lover of the country, and had believed, if this is the right word, that the same thought, spirit, life, God, which was in everything I beheld, was also in me. But my creed had been taken over

from books; it was accepted as an in181

tellectual proposition. Most of us are satisfied with this kind of belief, and even call it religion. We are more content the more definite the object becomes, no matter whether or not it is in any intimate relationship with us, and we do not see that the moment God Can be named he ceases to be God.

One morning when I was in the wood something happened which was nothing less than a transformation of myself and the world, although I ‘believed’ nothing new. I was looking at a great, spreading, bursting oak. The first tinge from the greenish-yellow buds was just visible. It seemed to be no longer a tree away from me and apart from me. The enclosing barriers of consciousness were removed and the text came into my mind, Thou in me and I in thee. The distinction of self and not-self was an illusion. I could feel the rising sap; in me also sprang the fountain of life uprushing from its roots, and the joy of its outbreak at the extremity of each twig right up to the summit was my own: that which kept me apart was nothing. I do not argue; I cannot explain; it