The Life Radiant Part 6

Yes, as Canon Holland well says, "Facts have been too much" for those who would cling to the old and the less intelligent ideas of the future life. The ethereal world will even cease to be mysterious before advancing scientific investigation and knowledge. Through the ether, as Canon Holland notes, sounds and motions transmit themselves "under conditions which transform our whole idea of what s.p.a.ce or time may mean." In the realm of present life the same a.s.sertion may be made. Who can contemplate wireless telegraphy without having opened to him a range of activities and conditions undreamed of heretofore? "We become sure,"

continues Canon Holland, "that both above and below our normal consciousness we are in touch with mysteries that travel far, and that we lie open to spiritual acts done unto us from a far distance, that we a.s.similate intimations and intuitions that reach us by inexplicable channels.

"This world of spirit powers and activities has been opened afresh; and now even physical science is compelled to recognize the evidence for it, and a new psychological language is coming into being to describe its phenomena. We are only slowly recovering our hold upon this life of mystic intuition, of exalted spiritual communications; we are only beginning to recognize the abnormal and exceptional spiritual condition with which Saint Paul was familiar, when, whether in the body or out of it, he could not say,--G.o.d only knows,--he was transported to the third Heaven and heard unutterable things."

This remarkable sermon is an initiation of a new era of religious teaching. The light is breaking and the full illumination is only a question of time.

Life is exalted in its purpose and refined in its quality by holding the perpetual consciousness of the two worlds in which we dwell; by the constant realization that

"The spirit world around this world of sense Floats like an atmosphere...."

This atmosphere is all peopled, and it is magnetic with intelligence.

Every spirit-call for aid, for guidance, for support, is answered. If a man fall on a crowded street in the city, how instantaneous is the aid that cares for him. He is lifted and conveyed tenderly to his home, or to a hospital, or to some temporary resting-place if the ill be but a slight one. Strangers or friends, it matters not, rush to his rescue.

This, which occurs in the tangible and visible world, is but a feeble ill.u.s.tration of the more profound tenderness, the clearer understanding, the more potent aid that is given instantly to man from the unseen helpers and friends in this spirit world which floats like an atmosphere around this world of sense. It is all and equally the help of G.o.d; it is the Divine answer to the call; but the Heavenly Father works through ways and means. If a man fall on the street G.o.d does not cause a miracle to be wrought and a bed to descend from the clouds, but He works through the sympathies of the bystanders. Is it not equally conceivable that the appeal for leading and for light sent into spirit spheres meets the response of spirit-aid; that it awakens the interest and the infinite tenderness and care of those who have pa.s.sed from this life into that of the next stage beyond, and that they are, according to their development and powers, co-workers with G.o.d, even as we who are yet on earth aim and pray to be?

Now it is just this faith that is so largely pervading the religious world to-day. Spirituality includes all the convictions that const.i.tute ethics. Spirituality is the unchanging quality in all forms of organized religion. And it is found, in greater or in less degree, in every sect and every creed. Outward forms come and go; they multiply, or they decrease, and the change in the expression of religious faith is a matter largely determined by the trend of general progress; but the essentials of religion, under all organized forms, remain the same, for the essential element is spirituality. In and around Copley Square in Boston, within the radius of one block, are several denominations whose order of wors.h.i.+p varies, the one from another. The Baptist believes in immersion as the outer sign of the inner newness of life; the Episcopalian holds dear his ritual; the Unitarian and the Presbyterian, and perhaps a half-dozen other sects in close proximity (which express the various forms of what they call "new thought"), each and all exist and have their being by virtue of the one essential faith held in common by all,--the one aim to which all are tending,--that of the spiritualization of life. The larger recognition of the spiritual universe includes the recognition of this interpenetration of the life in the Seen and the Unseen. Every thought and decision is like an action on the spiritual side. A thought has the force of a deed, and there is a literal truth in the line,--

"The good, though only thought, has life and breath;"

and in Lowell's words:--

"Ah! let us hope that to our praise Good G.o.d not only reckons The moments when we tread His ways, But when the spirit beckons."

The thought-life is, indeed, the most real of the two lives, and dominates the other. The events and achievements, held in thought and will, precipitate themselves into outer circ.u.mstance and action.

To live in this perfect sympathy of companions.h.i.+p with the forces and the powers of the unseen world is to dwell amid perpetual reinforcement of energy, solace, and sustaining aid, and with faith vitalized by spiritual perception.

All scientific problems are ethical, and even spiritual, problems. They are discoveries in the divine laws. "Can man by searching find out G.o.d?"

Apparently he approaches constantly to this possibility, and finds that

"--through the ages one increasing purpose runs, And the thoughts of men are widened with the process of the suns."

Every succeeding century brings humanity to a somewhat clearer perception of the nature of the Divine Creation. However slowly, yet none the less surely, does the comprehension of man and his place in the universe and his oneness with the Divine life increase with every century. Jonathan Edwards taught that while Nature might reflect the Divine image, man could not, as he was in a "fallen" state, until he was regenerated. Putting aside the mere dogma involved in the "fall" of man, the other matter--that of regeneration, of redemption--is undeniable, even though we may interpret this process in a different manner from that of the great eighteenth-century theologian. The redemption, the regeneration of man, lies in faith. In that is the _substance_ through which and by means of which man comes into conscious communion with G.o.d.

It is by the intense activity possible to this mental att.i.tude that he conquers the problems of the universe, that he advances in knowledge, and advances in the increasing capacity to receive the Divine messages and to follow the Divine leadings.

[Sidenote: A New Force.]

Of late years a new force has been discovered in the line of ethico-spiritual aid in the higher order of hypnotism, as discovered and practiced by Doctor Quackenbos, who may, indeed, without exaggeration, be called the discoverer of this higher phase of applied suggestion. "I have been brought," he says, "into closest touch with the human soul.

First objectively; subsequently in the realm of subliminal life, where, practically liberated in the hypnotic slumber from its entanglement with a perishable body, it has been open to approach by the objective mind in which it elected to confide, dynamically absorptive of creative stimulation by that mind, and lavish in dispensing to the personality in _rapport_ the suddenly apprehended riches of its own higher spiritual nature."

Of the nature of this power, we again find Doctor Quackenbos saying: "Hypnotic suggestion is a summoning into ascendancy of the true man; an accentuation of insight into life and its procedures; a revealing, in all its beauty and strength and significance, of absolute, universal, and necessary truth; and a portraiture of happiness as the a.s.sured outcome of living in consonance with this truth." The learned doctor regards hypnotism, indeed, as "a transfusion of personality."

The truth is that there lies in every nature forces which, if recognized and developed, would lift one to higher planes and induce in him such an accession of activities and energies as to fairly transform his entire being and achievement. This would be effected, too, on an absolutely normal plane. The development of the spiritual faculties is just as normal as is that of the intellectual. And it is to this development that we must look for the true communion with those who have pa.s.sed into the Unseen. The objective life must be spiritualized. The soul can come into a deeper realization of its own dignity and the worth of its higher nature; can discern the spiritual efficiency, the energy commensurate to every draft upon it.

All, however, that is done by the highest phase of hypnotism, as exerted by Doctor Quackenbos, can be done by auto-suggestion. The soul has only to call upon its own higher forces. It has only to act from love and compa.s.sion,--from sympathy and generous aims, and all the infinite power of the Divine world is at its service.

[Sidenote: The Service of the G.o.ds.]

"We had letters to send; couriers could not go fast enough, not far enough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in spring, snowdrifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the horses out of a walk.

"But we found out that the air and earth were full of Electricity, and always going our way--just the way we wanted to send. _Would he take a message?_ Just as lief as not; had nothing else to do; would carry it in no time. Only one doubt occurred one staggering objection--he had no carpet bag, no visible pockets, no hands, not so much as a mouth, to carry a letter. But, after much thought and many experiments, we managed to meet the conditions, and to fold up the letter in such invisible, compact form as he could carry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by needle and thread--and it went like a charm.

"Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his ch.o.r.es done by the G.o.ds themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing."

With his wonderful insight into conditions, Emerson thus expresses a provision of conditions that are now being realized to an even greater degree than he consciously knew, although he unconsciously foretold them. Now it is wireless telegraphy that is the ultimate fulfilment of what he saw,--the method that will reduce to practical realization his counsel to hitch one's wagon to a star, and "see his ch.o.r.es done by the G.o.ds themselves."

It is not only humanity--civilization--the onward sweep and march by the progress of the world, but the individual life also that can take advantage of "the might of the elements." The one irresistible element is the power of will, the power that results from the perfect uniting of the human will with the divine will. People talk of fate, and conditions, and burdens, and limitations. They are all merely negative, and are easily and instantly subject to the infinite and irresistible potency of the will brought to bear upon them.

On the threshold of any endeavor when one takes account of his possessions and conditions,--material and immaterial; when he again, from a new vantage ground, surveys his future, it is his salvation and success to realize the depth and height of his own personal power over his own life.

"There are points from which we may command our life, When the soul sweeps the future like a gla.s.s, And coming things, full freighted with our fate, Jut out on the dark offing of the mind."

But when these points appear they must be taken advantage of at the moment. They are the result of an occultation of events that may never occur again within the limits of a lifetime. The swift intuition that leaps over all conceivable processes is the heaven-appointed monitor. It is the divine voice speaking. It is the word which must be obeyed. When one

"... by the Vision splendid Is on his way attended,"

he must give heed to the vision or it vanishes and returns no more.

We need a new, a deeper, a far more practical realization that the ideals and visions which flash before us are the real mechanism of life; that they are the working model by which one is to pattern his experience, in outward selection and in grouping by means of his own force of will. Somewhere has Emerson said,--

"All is waste and worthless till Arrives the wise selecting will,"

which is, to the potential circ.u.mstances, like a magnet introduced among filings that suddenly attracts to itself and draws all into related and orderly groups. Circ.u.mstances are thus amenable to the power of will brought to bear that selects, arranges, combines, after the pattern of the revealed ideal held in view.

Each individual life may "borrow the might of the elements." Man is created, not only in the image of G.o.d, but with G.o.d-like faculties and potency, which, if he but truly relate them to the divine potency, if he unite his will with G.o.d's will, there is then no limit, no bound to that which he may achieve.

In one of the most wonderful creations of Vedder, the artist shows us the figure of a woman whose eyes are closed, and whose hands, lying in her lap, are inextricably entangled amid crewels and threads that bind and hold them. But one sees, also, that she has but to open her eyes, and lift her hands, and all the entanglement would fall off of itself.

The picture offers the most typical lesson of life. All imprisonment of conditions is dissolved into thin air the instant one impresses his own will-power on the affairs and circ.u.mstances of his life. He _can_ do that which he _desires_ to do. The desire has only to be intensified into conscious, intelligent choice, into absolute will,--and all the minor barriers melt away and are no more. Every life may hitch its wagon to a star. It may borrow the might of the elements. It has but to resolve to hold its ideal firmly and clearly in mind, and it will then be realized as the sculptor's dream in clay is realized in the marble.

"All things are yours," said Saint Paul. One has but to take his own; to wisely and clearly select the elements and combine them by that irresistible potency of mental magnetism and energy.

THE POWER OF THE EXALTED MOMENT.

"The salvation of Christ is the complete occupation of the human life by the divine life."

_It is in our best moments, not in our worst moments, that we are most truly ourselves. Oh believe in your n.o.blest impulses, in your purest instincts, in your most unworldly and spiritual thoughts!

You see man most truly when he seems to you to be made for the best things. You see your true self when you believe that the best and purest and devoutest moment which ever came to you is only the suggestion of what you were meant to be and might be all the time.

Believe that, O children of G.o.d! This is the way in which a soul lives forever in the light which first began to burn around it when it was with Jesus in the Holy Mount._--PHILLIPS BROOKS.

The power of the exalted moment is the very motor of human life. The exalted moment is the dynamo that generates the working energy. The moment itself fades; it pa.s.ses into the region of memory where its true service is to s.h.i.+ne, with the unfailing continuance of radium, as a perpetual illumination of life. It is the greatest, the saddest, the most hopelessly fatal error that can be made,--to cast away from one the exalted moment because it has not fulfilled itself in outer condition and circ.u.mstance. Vision and prophecy are given by G.o.d for a working model, which the long patient days--days of monotony, of trial, of commonplace work under commonplace conditions, amid commonplace people and events--are yet to fas.h.i.+on and fulfil. These are the material,--the ordinary events, the commonplace daily duty. The perplexity of problems rather than the clear grasping of their significance; the misunderstanding and the misconstruction of motive that make the tragedy of life; the interpretation of evil where one only meant all that was true, and sympathetic, and appreciative, and holy; the torture and trial, where should be only sweetness of spirit and true recognition,--of all these are the days made; all these are a part of "the flowing conditions of life," which it is the business, the responsibility, the personal duty, to trans.m.u.te into n.o.ble living, into poetry and ecstasy and exaltation, and into that perfect faith in G.o.d that can truly say, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him." Though He slay all that made life seem worth the living; the enchantment, the response of sympathy; recognition rather than misconstruction,--though all these be obscured in what may seem a total eclipse,--still let one not forget "The Gleam;" still let one keep faith with the power of the exalted moment. It came from G.o.d and held its deep significance. It laid upon its beholder consecration of divinest aspiration and unfaltering effort. "If I could uncover the hearts of you who are listening to me this morning," said Phillips Brooks, in a memorable sermon, "I should find in almost all--perhaps in all--of them a sacred chamber where burns the bright memory of some loftiest moment, some supreme experience, which is your transfiguration time. Once on a certain morning you felt the glory of living, and the misery of life has never since that been able quite to take possession of your soul. Once for a few days you knew the delight of a perfect friends.h.i.+p. Once you saw for an inspired instant the idea of your profession blaze out of the midst of its dull drudgery. Once, just for a glorious moment, you saw the very truth, and believed it, without the shadow of a cloud. And so the question comes,--What do they mean? What value shall I give to those transformation experiences?"

On the personal answer to that question depends all the success or the failure; all the n.o.bleness or the unworthiness of the individual life.

No one can estimate too ardently, or too earnestly, the spiritual salvation of keeping faith with the exalted moment,--