CHAPTER XIV

We will now as briefly as possible summarize what has been stated in this book and embraced in the new interpretations of religion, backed up, as we have seen, by science, philosophy, and the teachings of the Bible.

Everything is one thing and that thing is God; and man is the highest manifestation of God on earth. He has all God's powers together with his glorious future, and happiness beyond human conception is his heritage when he has earned it by hard work and compliance with the law. He is here for the development of eternal values which we call character, which has ever been hammered out on the anvil of adversity,* and to bring out the God within and thus obtain mastery over surrounding conditions and so glorify the Father who ever seeks expression through him. We are part of God, and therefore the spirit within is the in

* Character is evolved only through suffering, labor and education, which must in time eradicate anger, worry and selfishness, ere the goal is reached and the man acts in unison with his Maker.

dwelling God, ever present and ready to answer our call and to give more than we ask.*

If part of God, then our destiny is God's, so why worry and take on care if we try hard to comply with his laws, for ultimately we must realize the happiness of the Supreme-be supremely happy. God does not expect us to do our best, for that exists only in the ideal, but to make honest, persistent efforts to do better and better as the years roll by. Only by following out his will, can we secure happiness, for if God and Good are synonyms we can only attain it by developing the Good (God) within. The part must, under the law, agree with the whole or there is friction.

It is this friction that creates a hellish state, whereas harmony arising from proper adjustment; creates in the individual a heavenly condition.† Therefore Heaven and Hell are not locations but states of mind, the results of compliance or noncompliance with the law. God and his works being good, he has no occasion for a localized hell.

If we would be happy, we must seek out the law and follow it, and this law is the law of love; ‡

*"But the trailing clouds of glory do we come. From God who is our Home." Wadsworth.

How smoothly the machinery of a great Atlantic liner runs; how quiet, yet were a small spike to be dropped in a certain part of it, what discord, damage, and danger would instantly ensue.

So many of us are eminently respectable here, yet I

therefore, we must seek out God and give ourselves We can find Him by conscience, which is the

wholly to good (God).* listening to the voice of divine urge from within. This may be a very imperfect guide at first, especially to the selfish man but it will grow more accurate with user. You are immortal; also you have to progress there, why not now? The past has gone forever; the future you will never see, now, the eternal now stares you in the face and demands immediate action. Submit to the inevitable and move on, for there only lies happiness, the spiritual is the only asset worth while.

The definition of God in Hebrew is good and as everything is God or Good, there can be no devil, for it would be absurd in God to create a force simply to oppose Himself. Evil is simply a state of friction growing out of the antagonism arising between self love and our duty to others taking place in a higher stage of evolution, a condition merely, and will pass away when the law is complied with, and harmony restored through a proper adjustment. Man, therefore, being of God, is inherently good,

am afraid in heaven will turn out to be but whitened sepulchres.

*Love all of us have, far more than we think for, for we are of God and God is love. But so many lack the power or will to give expression to it. The sins of omission far exceed those of commission.

and the evil that he works will disappear in time, and the true man, the God man, will stand forth. As God is perfect, and as His laws allowed sin and suffering, it must be for some wise purpose.

I repeat, all morality, all religion, is a growth, and in the earliest stages of mankind we find that self-preservation at any cost was the law of nature; that under the workings of this law man did things which from our present higher plane of development we call sin and must suppress, but that it was really a lower form of good originally and now has become anti-social, or bad as we call it, relatively, we having advanced beyond it. For man, having become a social being, must recognize what is best for the whole and comply with the laws governing his changed conditions. The time has come now when we must substitute fraternity for antagonism in our relations with our fellow-man.

Even the so-called criminal* is acquiring valuable experience and his life is not a failure, for God can create no failure; but under the law of contrast, having gone into the depths, he will better appreciate the higher planes of evolution when he reaches them. "John and Peter, Robert and Paul; God in his wisdom created them all." It is in

* Remember there is a potential ancestry in us all, with its strain of monkey, tiger, and lamb. So most boys have their cruel age, and most girls their spiteful catlike period.

"Art thou a pigmy? courage, soul! For thee, as all, the Kingly goal. “F. C. Haddock.

conceivable that an all-wise, all-powerful God should create an imperfect object and place him here to suffer for a condition for which he is responsible. It is far simpler for us to take a broader view than this present life submits to us, to look down the ages, and, beholding the steady advancement, realize that all His handiwork is a success.

Since our source is in God, God is our Father, and He being Spirit, we are spirit, and man is our brother, and we must recognize and fulfil our obligations as son and brother. Man, however low in the criminal stage, (so-called), is still our brother and is of God and Good, and it is our duty to develop this good in him.

Suffering is a remedial agent and necessary on certain planes only, for it warns of violation of the law, whether through ignorance or intent, and it begets such a disagreeable condition that we desire to end it, and so seek out the remedy, which is compliance with the law. Under the law of contrast, it also produces a far greater capacity for future happiness. We pray that this or that cross be removed from over weary shoulders, and so by emphasizing it increase the burden of it, instead of asking for strength to bear and overcome it. Yet, if wise, we send our children to school and later on out into the world to rough it and so acquire valuable experience, without which there is no character. What can the molly coddled child ever learn