Part 8 (1/2)

My inmost self--the self I trust and try to a.s.sist--is sure that the world is growing better, whatever the hampered intellect may from time to time aver.

For one thing, I FEEL that the world's mind is slowly yet swiftly changing its adjustment to one supreme reality--Truth.

Always have men believed that they desired only the truth, and always have they sought and found it in part. But then they have immediately wrapped it in packages and stowed it in boxes with elaborate labels. Our nature craves reality, not wrappings and tables of contents. Therefore every age has torn off some of the ancient outer things, and insisted at last on truth alone. More than during all the centuries before, men today demand reality-- just the essential reality a human soul craves, and can recognize, and can use in the building of its life.

Henry Drummond spoke of the adjustment which a great telescope needs for photographing the stars. Let us think of one fixed star.

”No adjustment is ever required on behalf of the star. That is one great fixed point in this s.h.i.+fting universe. But the WORLD MOVES.

And each day, each hour, demands a further motion and adjustment of the soul. A telescope in an observatory follows a star by clock-work, but the clock-work of the soul is the WILL.” The world and the man must WILL TO ADJUST TO TRUTH if they would really find and know Truth.

THE WORLD ADJUSTING TO TRUTH.

I hold that the world to-day, more perfectly than ever before, is urging an accurate adjustment of the human soul to truth--that which alone the body demands for health, the mind for development, the deeper self for peace and power.

The old adjustments no longer satisfy. Truth is, indeed, eternal, but our relation must keep pace with it as we swing through the vast heavens of time. The photographs of yesterday do not speak correctly for to-day. We do not deny the stars; we only deny the science that is past.

This adjustment is a huge PRAYER. It is a request for truth, in a sense, but for truth only. And it is an a.s.sURANCE. It expects the truth. Now, that is the best kind of praying I know--Expectation in Adjustment.

When you plant your seed or properly place your telescope, you have created adjustment, and you expect harvest and picture.

EXPECTATION IN ADJUSTMENT IS a.s.sUMPTION.

The world no longer merely ASKS for truth; it harmonizes with Nature and Life, and so, APPROPRIATES.

The World's New Dawn.

You are invited to make this thought a lifelong affirmation: IN HARMONY _I_ APPROPRIATE ALL GOOD.

Such is one of my reasons for believing that the world is growing better. This att.i.tude toward Truth has influenced for the better every legitimate activity of man. The results are seen in Benevolence, Business, Education, Government, Religion. A new day of splendid, unhampered, happy and growing spiritual life is bursting over the earth. Souls are coming free. Hearts are thrilling with courage. In minds has begun the swing and heave of the sea.

I ask you to take the following lines as a symbol of the world's wonderful sense of appropriation that is everywhere evident.

The sea, the pine, the stars, the forest deep, Bequeath to me at will their subtle wealth.

Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep, Mine is the buoyant earth-man's vibrant health: All things for love of me their vigils keep-- I am the soul of health, of wealth.

Run, sea, in my heart!

Pine, sing in my heart!

Stars, glow in my heart!

For ye are mine, and my soul, Like ye, is a part Of the Marvelous Whole.

There's no thing dear to me is not my wealth, And none that sees me I would distant keep; For swift possession is my earth-man's health, Or still days brood, or rough winds round me sweep: All things for love of me their vigils keep-- I am the soul of health, of wealth.

You are invited, now, to seize and use the spirit of this att.i.tude of appropriation for your own welfare and power.

COURAGE ABROAD.

And I hold that our life is growing better for the reason that I discover, in all this new adjustment to truth, this expectation and a.s.sumption that Good will not withhold itself, and BECAUSE of these things, a new era of courage sweeping the heart of humanity from sea to sea. There is abroad a Universal Breath, manifest of Life. This breath consists of two general activities, that of Denial and that of Affirmation. Courage is a denial of fear and of the reality of fear's cause. But denial is only the beginning; the really vital thing is confidence in self and in the huge friendly Universe in which we live. Kindly remember this. You are not making progress merely because you turn your back on the Night.