If we believe ourselves subject to weakness, decay, infirmity, when we should be "whole," the subconscious mind seizes upon the pattern that is sent it and builds cell structure accordingly. This is one great reason why one who is, as we say, chronically thinking and talking of his ailments and symptoms, who is complaining and fearing, is never well.

To see one's self, to believe, and therefore to picture one's self in mind as strong, healthy, active, well, is to furnish a pattern, is to give suggestion and therefore direction to the subconscious so that it will build cell tissue having the stamp and the force of healthy, vital, active life, which in turn means abounding health and strength.

So, likewise, at about the time that "old age" is supposed ordinarily to begin, when it is believed in and looked for by those about us and those who act in accordance with this thought, if we fall into this same mental drift, we furnish the subconscious the pattern that it will inevitably build bodily conditions in accordance with. We will then find the ordinarily understood marks and conditions of old age creeping upon us, and we will become subject to their influences in every department of our being. Whatever is thus pictured in the mind and lived in, the Life Force will produce.

To remain young in mind, in spirit, in feeling, is to remain young in body. Growing old at the period or age at which so many grow old, is to a great extent a matter of habit.

To think health and strength, to see ourselves continually growing in this condition, is to set into operation the subtlest dynamic force for the externalisation of these conditions in the body that can be even conceived of. If one's bodily condition, through abnormal, false mental and emotional habits, has become abnormal and diseased, this same attitude of mind, of spirit, of imagery, is to set into operation a subtle and powerful corrective agency that, if persisted in, will inevitably tend to bring normal, healthy conditions to the front again.

True, if these abnormal, diseased conditions have been helped on or have been induced by wrong physical habits, by the violation of physical laws, this violation must cease. But combine the two, and then give the body the care that it requires in a moderate amount of simple, wholesome food, regular cleansing to assist it in the elimination of impurities and of used cell structure that is being regularly cast off, an abundance of pure air and of moderate exercise, and a change amounting almost to a miracle can be wrought—it may be, indeed, what many people of olden time would have termed a miracle.

The mind thus becomes "a silent, transforming, sanative energy" of great potency and power. That it can be so used is attested by the fact of the large numbers, and the rapidly increasing numbers, all about us who are so using it. This is what many people all over our country are doing today, with the results that, by a great elemental law—Divine Law if you choose—many are curing themselves of various diseases, many are exchanging weakness and impotence for strength and power, many are ceasing, comparatively speaking, are politely refusing, to grow old.

Thought is a force, subtle and powerful, and it tends inevitably to produce of its kind.

In forestalling "old age," at least old age of the decrepit type, it is the period of middle life where the greatest care is to be employed. If, at about the time "old age" is supposed ordinarily to begin, the "turn" at middle life or a little later, we would stop to consider what this period really means, that it means with both men and women a period of life where some simple readjustments are to be made, a period of a little rest, a little letting up, a temporary getting back to the playtime of earlier years and a bringing of these characteristics back into life again, then a complete letting-up would not be demanded by nature a little later, as it is demanded in such a lamentably large number of cases at the present time.

So in a definite, deliberate way, youth should be blended into the middle life, and the resultant should be a force that will stretch middle life for an indefinite period into the future.

And what an opportunity is here for mothers, at about the time that the children have grown, and some or all even have "flown"! Of course, Mother shouldn't go and get foolish, she shouldn't go cavorting around in a sixteen-year-old hat, when the hat of the thirty-five-year-old would undoubtedly suit her better; but she should rejoice that the golden period of life is still before her. Now she has leisure to do many of those things that she has so long wanted to do.

The world's rich field of literature is before her; the line of study or work she has longed to pursue, she bringing to it a better equipped mind and experience than she has ever had before. There is also an interest in the life and welfare of her community, in civic, public welfare lines that the present and the quick-coming time before us along women's enfranchisement lines, along women's commonsense equality lines, is making her a responsible and full sharer in. And how much more valuable she makes herself, also, to her children, as well as to her community, inspiring in them greater confidence, respect, and admiration than if she allows herself to be pushed into the background by her own weak and false thoughts of herself, or by the equally foolish thoughts of her children in that she is now, or is at any time, to become a back number.

Life, as long as we are here, should mean continuous unfoldment, advancement, and this is undoubtedly the purpose of life; but age-producing forces and agencies mean deterioration, as opposed to growth and unfoldment. They ossify, weaken, stiffen, deaden, both mentally and physically. For him or her who yearns to stay young, the coming of the years does not mean or bring abandonment of hope or of happiness or of activity. It means comparative vigour combined with continually larger experience, and therefore even more usefulness, and hence pleasure and happiness.

Praise also to those who do not allow any one or any number of occurrences in life to sour their nature, rob them of their faith, or cripple their energies for the enjoyment of the fullest in life while here. It's those people who never allow themselves in spirit to be downed, no matter what their individual problems, surroundings, or conditions may be, but who chronically bob up serenely who, after all, are the masters of life, and who are likewise the strength-givers and the helpers of others. There are multitudes in the world today, there are readers of this volume, who could add a dozen or a score of years—teeming, healthy years—to their lives by a process of self-examination, a mental housecleaning, and a reconstructed, positive, commanding type of thought.

Tennyson was prophet when he sang:

V

THOUGHT AS A FORCE IN DAILY LIVING

As a young man he had left home, and during a portion of his first year away he had found employment on a Mississippi steamboat. One day in going down the river, while he was crossing the deck, a sudden stinging sensation seized him in the head, and instantly vivid thoughts of his mother, back at the old home, flashed into his mind. This was followed by a feeling of depression during the remainder of the day. The occurrence was so unusual and the impression of it was so strong that he made an account of it in his diary.

Some time later, on returning home, he was met in the yard by his mother. She was wearing a thin cap on her head which he had never seen her wear before. He remarked in regard to it. She raised the cap and doing so revealed the remains of a long ugly gash on the side of her head. She then said that some months before, naming the time, she had gone into the back yard and had picked up a heavy crooked stick having a sharp end, to throw it out of the way, and in throwing it, it had struck a wire clothesline immediately above her head and had rebounded with such force that it had given her the deep scalp wound of which she was speaking. On unpacking his bag he looked into his diary and found that the time she had mentioned corresponded exactly with the strange and unusual occurrence to himself as they were floating down the Mississippi.

The mother and son were very near one to the other, close in their sympathies, and there can be but little doubt that the thoughts of the mother as she was struck went out, and perhaps went strongly out, to her boy who was now away from home. He, being sensitively organised and intimately related to her in thought, and alone at the time, undoubtedly got, if not her thought, at least the effects of her thought, as it went out to him under these peculiar and tense conditions.

There are scores if not hundreds of occurrences of a more or less similar nature that have occurred in the lives of others, many of them well authenticated. How many of us, even, have had the experience of suddenly thinking of a friend of whom we have not thought for weeks or months, and then entirely unexpectedly meeting or hearing from this same friend. How many have had the experience of writing a friend, one who has not been written to or heard from for a long time, and within a day or two getting a letter from that friend—the letters "crossing," as we are accustomed to say. There are many other experiences or facts of a similar nature, and many of them exceedingly interesting, that could be related did space permit. These all indicate to me that thoughts are not mere indefinite things but that thoughts are forces, that they go out, and that every distinct, clear-cut thought has, or may have, an influence of some type.

Thought transference, which is now unquestionably an established fact, notwithstanding much chicanery that is still to be found in connection with it, is undoubtedly to be explained through the fact that thoughts are forces. A positive mind through practice, at first with very simple beginnings, gives form to a thought that another mind open and receptive to it—and sufficiently attuned to the other mind—is able to receive.

Wireless telegraphy, as a science, has been known but a comparatively short time. The laws underlying it have been in the universe perhaps, or undoubtedly, always. It is only lately that the mind of man has been able to apprehend them, and has been able to construct instruments in accordance with these laws. We are now able, through a knowledge of the laws of vibration and by using the right sending and receiving instruments, to send actual messages many hundreds of miles directly through the ether and without the more clumsy accessories of poles and wires. This much of it we know—there is perhaps even more yet to be known.

We may find, as I am inclined to think we shall find, that thought is a form of vibration. When a thought is born in the brain, it goes out just as a sound wave goes out, and transmits itself through the ether, making its impressions upon other minds that are in a sufficiently sensitive state to receive it; this in addition to the effects that various types of thoughts have upon the various bodily functions of the one with whom they take origin.

We are, by virtue of the laws of evolution, constantly apprehending the finer forces of nature—the tallow-dip, the candle, the oil lamp, years later a more refined type of oil, gas, electricity, the latest tungsten lights, radium—and we may be still only at the beginnings. Our finest electric lights of today may seem—will seem—crude and the quality of their light even more crude, twenty years hence, even less. Many other examples of our gradual passing from the coarser to the finer in connection with the laws and forces of nature occur readily to the minds of us all.

The present great interest on the part of thinking men and women everywhere, in addition to the more particular studies, experiments, and observations of men such as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir William Ramsay, and others, in the powers and forces pertaining to the inner life is an indication that we have reached a time when we are making great strides along these lines. Some of our greatest scientists are thinking that we are on the eve of some almost startling glimpses into these finer realms. My own belief is that we are likewise on the eve of apprehending the more precise nature of thought as a force, the methods of its workings, and the law underlying its more intimate and everyday uses.

Of one thing we can rest assured; nothing in the universe, nothing in connection with human life is outside of the Realm of Law. The elemental law of Cause and Effect is absolute in its workings. One of the great laws pertaining to human life is: As is the inner, so always and inevitably is the outer—Cause, Effect. Our thoughts and emotions are the silent, subtle forces that are constantly externalising themselves in kindred forms in our outward material world. Like creates like, and like attracts like. As is our prevailing type of thought, so is our prevailing type and our condition of life.

The type of thought we entertain has its effect upon our energies and to a great extent upon our bodily conditions and states. Strong, clear-cut, positive, hopeful thought has a stimulating and life-giving effect upon one's outlook, energies, and activities; and upon all bodily functions and powers. A falling state of the mind induces a chronically gloomy outlook and produces inevitably a falling condition of the body. The mind grows, moreover, into the likeness of the thoughts one most habitually entertains and lives with. Every thought reproduces of its kind.

Says an authoritative writer in dealing more particularly with the effects of certain types of thoughts and emotions upon bodily conditions: "Out of our own experience we know that anger, fear, worry, hate, revenge, avarice, grief, in fact all negative and low emotions, produce weakness and disturbance not only in the mind but in the body as well. It has been proved that they actually generate poisons in the body, they depress the circulation; they change the quality of the blood, making it less vital; they affect the great nerve centres and thus partially paralyse the very seat of the bodily activities. On the other hand, faith, hope, love, forgiveness, joy, and peace, all such emotions are positive and uplifting, and so act on the body as to restore and maintain harmony and actually to stimulate the circulation and nutrition."

The one who does not allow himself to be influenced or controlled by fears or forebodings is the one who ordinarily does not yield to discouragements. He it is who is using the positive, success-bringing types of thought that are continually working for him for the accomplishment of his ends. The things that he sees in the ideal, his strong, positive, and therefore creative type of thought, is continually helping to actualise in the realm of the real.

We sometimes speak lightly of ideas, but this world would be indeed a sorry place in which to live were it not for ideas—and were it not for ideals. Every piece of mechanism that has ever been built, if we trace back far enough, was first merely an idea in some man's or woman's mind. Every structure or edifice that has ever been reared had form first in this same immaterial realm. So every great undertaking of whatever nature had its inception, its origin, in the realm of the immaterial—at least as we at present call it—before it was embodied and stood forth in material form.

It is well, then, that we have our ideas and our ideals. It is well, even, to build castles in the air, if we follow these up and give them material clothing or structure, so that they become castles on the ground. Occasionally it is true that these may shrink or, rather, may change their form and become cabins; but many times we find that an expanded vision and an expanded experience lead us to a knowledge of the fact that, so far as happiness and satisfaction are concerned, the contents of a cabin may outweigh many times those of the castle.

Successful men and women are almost invariably those possessing to a supreme degree the element of faith. Faith, absolute, unconquerable faith, is one of the essential concomitants, therefore one of the great secrets of success. We must realise, and especially valuable is it for young men and women to realise, that one carries his success or his failure with him, that it does not depend upon outside conditions. There are some that no circumstances or combinations of circumstances can thwart or keep down. Let circumstance seem to thwart or circumvent them in one direction, and almost instantly they are going forward along another direction. Circumstance is kept busy keeping up with them. When she meets such, after a few trials, she apparently decides to give up and turn her attention to those of the less positive, the less forceful, therefore the less determined, types of mind and of life. Circumstance has received some hard knocks from men and women of this type. She has grown naturally timid and will always back down whenever she recognises a mind, and therefore a life, of sufficient force.

To make the best of whatever present conditions are, to form and clearly to see one's ideal, though it may seem far distant and almost impossible, to believe in it, and to believe in one's ability to actualise it—this is the first essential. Not, then, to sit and idly fold the hands, expecting it to actualise itself, but to take hold of the first thing that offers itself to do,—that lies sufficiently along the way,—to do this faithfully, believing, knowing, that it is but the step that will lead to the next best thing, and this to the next; this is the second and the completing stage of all accomplishment.

We speak of fate many times as if it were something foreign to or outside of ourselves, forgetting that fate awaits always our own conditions. A man decides his own fate through the types of thoughts he entertains and gives a dominating influence in his life. He sits at the helm of his thought world and, guiding, decides his own fate, or, through negative, vacillating, and therefore weakening thought, he drifts, and fate decides him. Fate is not something that takes form and dominates us irrespective of any say on our own part. Through a knowledge and an intelligent and determined use of the silent but ever-working power of thought we either condition circumstances, or, lacking this knowledge or failing to apply it, we accept the rôle of a conditioned circumstance. It is a help sometimes to realise and to voice with Henley:

The thoughts that we entertain not only determine the conditions of our own immediate lives, but they influence, perhaps in a much more subtle manner than most of us realise, our relations with and our influence upon those with whom we associate or even come into contact. All are influenced, even though unconsciously, by them.

Thoughts of good will, sympathy, magnanimity, good cheer—in brief, all thoughts emanating from a spirit of love—are felt in their positive, warming, and stimulating influences by others; they inspire in turn the same types of thoughts and feelings in them, and they come back to us laden with their ennobling, stimulating, pleasure-bringing influences.

Thoughts of envy, or malice, or hatred, or ill will are likewise felt by others. They are influenced adversely by them. They inspire either the same types of thoughts and emotions in them; or they produce in them a certain type of antagonistic feeling that has the tendency to neutralise and, if continued for a sufficient length of time, deaden sympathy and thereby all friendly relations.

We have heard much of "personal magnetism." Careful analysis will, I think, reveal the fact that the one who has to any marked degree the element of personal magnetism is one of the large-hearted, magnanimous, cheer-bringing, unself-centred types, whose positive thought forces are being continually felt by others, and are continually inspiring and calling forth from others these same splendid attributes. I have yet to find any one, man or woman, of the opposite habits and, therefore, trend of mind and heart who has had or who has even to the slightest perceptible degree the quality that we ordinarily think of when we use the term "personal magnetism."

If one would have friends he or she must be a friend, must radiate habitually friendly, helpful thoughts, good will, love. The one who doesn't cultivate the hopeful, cheerful, uncomplaining, good-will attitude toward life and toward others becomes a drag, making life harder for others as well as for one's self.

Ordinarily we find in people the qualities we are mostly looking for, or the qualities that our own prevailing characteristics call forth. The larger the nature, the less critical and cynical it is, the more it is given to looking for the best and the highest in others, and the less, therefore, is it given to gossip.

It was Jeremy Bentham who said: "In order to love mankind, we must not expect too much of them." And Goethe had a still deeper vision when he said: "Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own."

The chief characteristic of the gossip is that he or she prefers to live in the low-lying miasmic strata of life, revelling in the negatives of life and taking joy in finding and peddling about the findings that he or she naturally makes there. The larger natures see the good and sympathise with the weaknesses and the frailties of others. They realise also that it is so consummately inconsistent—many times even humorously inconsistent—for one also with weaknesses, frailties, and faults, though perhaps of a little different character, to sit in judgment of another. Gossip concerning the errors or shortcomings of another is judging another. The one who is himself perfect is the one who has the right to judge another. By a strange law, however, though by a natural law, we find, as we understand life in its fundamentals better, such a person is seldom if ever given to judging, much less to gossip.

Life becomes rich and expansive through sympathy, good will, and good cheer; not through cynicism or criticism. That splendid little poem of but a single stanza by Edwin Markham, "Outwitted," points after all to one of life's fundamentals:

VI

JESUS THE SUPREME EXPONENT OF THE INNER FORCES AND POWERS: HIS PEOPLE'S RELIGION AND THEIR CONDITION

To any one who has even a rudimentary knowledge of the former, it becomes apparent at once that no single saying or statement of Jesus can be taken to indicate either his revelation or his purpose. These must be made to depend upon not any single statement or saying of his own, much less anything reported about him by another; but it must be made to depend rather upon the whole tenor of his teachings.

Jesus put nothing in writing. There was no one immediately at hand to make a record of any of his teachings or any of his acts. It is now well known that no one of the gospels was written by an immediate hearer, by an eye-witness.

The Gospel of Mark, the oldest gospel, or in other words the one written nearest to Jesus' time, was written some forty years after he had finished his work. Matthew and Luke, taken to a great extent from the Gospel of Mark, supplemented by one or two additional sources, were written many years after. The Gospel of John was not written until after the beginning of the second century after Christ. These four sets of chronicles, called the Gospels, written independently one of another, were then collected many years after their authors were dead, and still a great deal later were brought together into a single book.

The following concise statement by Professor Henry Drummond throws much light upon the way the New Testament portions of our Bible took form: "The Bible is not a book; it is a library. It consists of sixty-six books. It is a great convenience, but in some respects a great misfortune, that these books have always been bound up together and given out as one book to the world, when they are not; because that has led to endless mistakes in theology and practical life. These books, which make up this library, written at intervals of hundreds of years, were collected after the last of the writers was dead—long after—by human hands. Where were the books? Take the New Testament. There were four lives of Christ. One was in Rome; one was in Southern Italy; one was in Palestine; one in Asia Minor. There were twenty-one letters. Five were in Greece and Macedonia; five in Asia; one in Rome. The rest were in the pockets of private individuals. Theophilus had Acts. They were collected undesignedly. In the third century the New Testament consisted of the following books: The four Gospels, Acts, thirteen letters of Paul, I John, I Peter; and, in addition, the Epistles of Barnabas and Hermas. This was not called the New Testament, but the Christian Library. Then these last books were discarded. They ceased to be regarded as upon the same level as the others. In the fourth century the canon was closed—that is to say, a list was made up of the books which were to be regarded as canonical. And then long after that they were stitched together and made up into one book—hundreds of years after that. Who made up the complete list? It was never formally made up. The bishops of the different churches would draw up a list each of the books that they thought ought to be put into this Testament. The churches also would give their opinions. Sometimes councils would meet and talk it over—discuss it. Scholars like Jerome would investigate the authenticity of the different documents, and there came to be a general consensus of the churches on the matter."

Jesus spoke in his own native language, the Aramaic. His sayings were then rendered into Greek, and, as is well known by all well-versed Biblical scholars, it was not an especially high order of Greek. The New Testament scriptures including the four gospels, were then many hundreds of years afterwards translated from the Greek into our modern languages—English, German, French, Swedish, or whatever the language of the particular translation may be. Those who know anything of the matter of translation know how difficult it is to render the exact meanings of any statements or writing into another language. The rendering of a single word may sometimes mean, or rather may make a great difference in the thought of the one giving the utterance. How much greater is this liability when the thing thus rendered is twice removed from its original source and form!

The original manuscripts had no punctuation and no verse divisions; these were all arbitrarily supplied by the translators later on. It is also a well-established fact on the part of leading Biblical scholars that through the centuries there have been various interpolations in the New Testament scriptures, both by way of omissions and additions.

Reference is made to these various facts in connection with the sayings and the teachings of Jesus and the methods and the media through which they have come down to us, to show how impossible it would be to base Jesus' revelation or purpose upon any single utterance made or purported to be made by him—to indicate, in other words, that to get at his real message, his real teachings, and his real purpose, we must find the binding thread if possible, the reiterated statement, the repeated purpose that makes them throb with the living element.

Again, no intelligent understanding of Jesus' revelation or ministry can be had without a knowledge of the conditions of the time, and of the people to whom his revelation was made, among whom he lived and worked; for his ministry had in connection with it both a time element and an eternal element. There are two things that must be noted, the moral and religious condition of the people; and, again, their economic and political status.

The Jewish people had been preeminently a religious people. But a great change had taken place. Religion was at its lowest ebb. Its spirit was well-nigh dead, and in its place there had gradually come into being a Pharisaic legalism—a religion of form, ceremony. An extensive system of ecclesiastical tradition, ecclesiastical law and observances, which had gradually robbed the people of all their former spirit of religion, had been gradually built up by those in ecclesiastical authority.

The voice of that illustrious line of Hebrew prophets had ceased to speak. It was close to two hundred years since the voice of a living prophet had been heard. Tradition had taken its place. It took the form: Moses hath said; It has been said of old; The prophet hath said. The scribe was the keeper of the ecclesiastical law. The lawyer was its interpreter.

The Pharisees had gradually elevated themselves into an ecclesiastical hierarchy who were the custodians of the law and religion. They had come to regard themselves as especially favoured, a privileged class—not only the custodians but the dispensers of all religious knowledge—and therefore of religion. The people, in their estimation, were of a lower intellectual and religious order, possessing no capabilities in connection with religion or morals, dependent therefore upon their superiors in these matters.

This state of affairs that had gradually come about was productive of two noticeable results: a religious starvation and stagnation on the part of the great mass of the people on the one hand, and the creation of a haughty, self-righteous and domineering ecclesiastical hierarchy on the other. In order for a clear understanding of some of Jesus' sayings and teachings, some of which constitute a very vital part of his ministry, it is necessary to understand clearly what this condition was.

Another important fact that sheds much light upon the nature of the ministry of Jesus is to be found, as has already been intimated, in the political and the economic condition of the people of the time. The Jewish nation had been subjugated and were under the domination of Rome. Rome in connection with Israel, as in connection with all conquered peoples, was a hard master. Taxes and tribute, tribute and taxes, could almost be said to be descriptive of her administration of affairs.

She was already in her degenerate stage. Never perhaps in the history of the world had men been so ruled by selfishness, greed, military power and domination, and the pomp and display of material wealth. Luxury, indulgence, over-indulgence, vice. The inevitable concomitant followed—a continually increasing moral and physical degeneration. An increasing luxury and indulgence called for an increasing means to satisfy them. Messengers were sent and additional tribute was levied. Pontius Pilate was the Roman administrative head or governor in Judea at the time. Tiberius Cæsar was the Roman Emperor.

Rome at this time consisted of a few thousand nobles and people of station—freemen—and hundreds of thousands of slaves. Even her campaigns in time became virtual raids for plunder. She conquered—and she plundered those whom she conquered. Great numbers from among the conquered peoples were regularly taken to Rome and sold into slavery. Judea had not escaped this. Thousands of her best people had been transported to Rome and sold into slavery. It was never known where the blow would fall next; what homes would be desolated and both sons and daughters sent away into slavery. No section, no family could feel any sense of security. A feeling of fear, a sense of desolation pervaded everywhere.

There was a tradition, which had grown into a well-defined belief, that a Deliverer would be sent them, that they would be delivered out of the hands of their enemies and that their oppressors would in turn be brought to grief. There was also in the section round about Judæa a belief, which had grown until it had become well-nigh universal, that the end of the world, or the end of the age, was speedily coming, that then there would be an end of all earthly government and that the reign of Jehovah—the kingdom of God—would be established. These two beliefs went hand in hand. They were kept continually before the people, and now and then received a fresh impetus by the appearance of a new prophet or a new teacher, whom the people went gladly out to hear. Of this kind was John, the son of a priest, later called John the Baptist.

After his period of preparation, he came out of the wilderness of Judæa, and in the region about the Jordan with great power and persuasiveness, according to the accounts, he gave utterance to the message: Repent ye, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Forsake all earthly things; they will be of avail but a very short time now, turn ye from them and prepare yourselves for the coming of the Kingdom of God. The old things will speedily pass away; all things will become new. Many went out to hear him and were powerfully appealed to by the earnest, rugged utterances of this new preacher of righteousness and repentance.

His name and his message spread through all the land of Judea and the country around the Jordan. Many were baptised by him there, he making use of this symbolic service which had been long in use by certain branches of the Jewish people, especially the order of the Essenes.

Among those who went out to hear John and who accepted baptism at his hands was Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, whose home was at Nazareth. It marks also the beginning of his own public ministry, for which he evidently had been in preparation for a considerable time.

It seems strange that we know so little of the early life of one destined to exert such a powerful influence upon the thought and the life of the world. In the gospel of Mark, probably the most reliable, because the nearest to his time, there is no mention whatever of his early life. The first account is where he appears at John's meetings. Almost immediately thereafter begins his own public ministry.

In the gospel of Luke we have a very meagre account of him. It is at the age of twelve. The brief account gives us a glimpse into the lives of his father and his mother, Joseph and Mary; showing that at that time they were not looked upon as in any way different from all of the inhabitants of their little community, Nazareth, the little town in Galilee—having a family of several sons and daughters, and that Jesus, the eldest of the family, grew in stature and in knowledge, as all the neighbouring children grew; but that he, even at an early age, showed that he had a wonderful aptitude for the things of the spirit. I reproduce Luke's brief account here:

"Now, his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem, after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem: and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

"And when they saw him they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them, How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them. And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them: but his mother kept all these sayings in her heart. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man."

Nothing could be more interesting than to know the early life of Jesus. There are various theories as to how this was spent, that is, as to what his preparation was—the facts of his life, in addition to his working with his father at his trade, that of a carpenter; but we know nothing that has the stamp of historical accuracy upon it. Of his entire life, indeed, including the period of his active ministry, from thirty to nearly thirty-three, it is but fair to presume that we have at best but a fragmentary account in the Gospel narratives. It is probable that many things connected with his ministry, and many of his sayings and teachings, we have no record of at all.

It is probable that in connection with his preparation he spent a great deal of time alone, in the quiet, in communion with his Divine Source, or as the term came so naturally to him, with God, his Father—God, our Father, for that was his teaching—my God and your God. The many times that we are told in the narratives that he went to the mountain alone, would seem to justify us in this conclusion. Anyway, it would be absolutely impossible for anyone to have such a vivid realisation of his essential oneness with the Divine, without much time spent in such a manner that the real life could evolve into its Divine likeness, and then mould the outer life according to this ideal or pattern.

VII

THE DIVINE RULE IN THE MIND AND HEART: THE UNESSENTIALS WE DROP—THE SPIRIT ABIDES

And even the very last acts and words of his life proclaim this constant sense of dependence for guidance, for strength, and even for succour. With all his Divine self-realisation there was always, moreover, that sense of humility that is always a predominating characteristic of the really great. "Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one—that is God."

It is not at all strange, therefore, that the very first utterance of his public ministry, according to the chronicler Mark was: The Kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel. And while this was the beginning utterance, it was the keynote that ran through his entire ministry. It is the basic fact of all his teachings. The realisation of his own life he sought to make the realisation of all others. It was, it is, a call to righteousness, and a call to righteousness through the only channel that any such call can be effective—through a realisation of the essential righteousness and goodness of the human soul.

An unbiased study of Jesus' own words will reveal the fact that he taught only what he himself had first realised. It is this, moreover, that makes him the supreme teacher of all time—Counsellor, Friend, Saviour. It is the saving of men from their lower conceptions and selves, a lifting of them up to their higher selves, which, as he taught, is eternally one with God, the Father, and which, when realised, will inevitably, reflexly, one might say, lift a man's thoughts, acts, conduct—the entire life—up to that standard or pattern. It is thus that the Divine ideal, that the Christ becomes enthroned within. The Christ-consciousness is the universal Divine nature in us. It is the state of God-consciousness. It is the recognition of the indwelling Divine life as the source, and therefore the essence of our own lives.

Jesus came as the revealer of a new truth, a new conception of man. Indeed, the Messiah. He came as the revealer of the only truth that could lead his people out of their trials and troubles—out of their bondage. They were looking for their Deliverer to come in the person of a worldly king and to set up his rule as such. He came in the person of a humble teacher, the revealer of a mighty truth, the revealer of the Way, the only way whereby real freedom and deliverance can come. For those who would receive him, he was indeed the Messiah. For those who would not, he was not, and the same holds today.

He came as the revealer of a truth which had been glimpsed by many inspired teachers among the Jewish race and among those of other races. The time waited, however, for one to come who would first embody this truth and then be able effectively to teach it. This was done in a supreme degree by the Judæan Teacher. He came not as the doer-away with the Law and the Prophets, but rather to regain and then to supplement them. Such was his own statement.

It is time to ascend another round. I reveal God to you, not in the Tabernacle, but in the human heart—then in the Tabernacle in the degree that He is in the hearts of those who frequent the Tabernacle. Otherwise the Tabernacle becomes a whited sepulchre. The Church is not a building, an organisation, not a creed. The Church is the Spirit of Truth. It must have one supreme object and purpose—to lead men to the truth. I reveal what I have found—I in the Father and the Father in me. I seek not to do mine own will, but the will of the Father who sent me.

Everything was subordinated to this Divine realisation and to his Divine purpose.

The great purpose at which he laboured so incessantly was the teaching of the realisation of the Divine will in the hearts and minds, and through these in the lives of men—the finding and the realisation of the Kingdom of God. This is the supreme fact of life. Get right at the centre and the circumference will then care for itself. As is the inner, so always and invariably will be the outer. There is an inner guide that regulates the life when this inner guide is allowed to assume authority. Why be disconcerted, why in a heat concerning so many things? It is not the natural and the normal life. Life at its best is something infinitely beyond this. "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." And if there is any doubt in regard to his real meaning in this here is his answer: "Neither shall they say, 'Lo here' or 'Lo there' for behold the Kingdom of God is within you."

Again and again this is his call. Again and again this is his revelation. In the first three gospels alone he uses the expression "the Kingdom of God," or "the Kingdom of Heaven," upwards of thirty times. Any possible reference to any organisation that he might have had in mind, can be found in the entire four gospels but twice.

It would almost seem that it would not be difficult to judge as to what was uppermost in his mind. I have made this revelation to you; you must raise yourselves, you must become in reality what in essence you really are. I in the Father, and the Father in me. I reveal only what I myself know. As I am, ye shall be. God is your Father. In your real nature you are Divine. Drop your ideas of the depravity of the human soul. To believe it depraves. To teach it depraves the one who teaches it, and the one who accepts it. Follow not the traditions of men. I reveal to you your Divine birthright. Accept it. It is best. Behold all things are become new. The Kingdom of God is the one all-inclusive thing. Find it and all else will follow.

"Whereunto shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what comparison shall we compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in the earth; but when it is sown, it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it." "Whereunto shall I liken the kingdom of God? Is it like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, till the whole was leavened?" Seek ye first the Kingdom, and the Holy Spirit, the channel of communion between God your source, and yourselves, will lead you, and will lead you into all truth. It will become as a lamp to your feet, a guide that is always reliable.

To refuse allegiance to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, is the real sin, the only sin that cannot be forgiven. Violation of all moral and natural law may be forgiven. It will bring its penalty, for the violation of law carries in itself its own penalty, its own punishment—it is a part of law; but cease the violation and the penalty ceases. The violation registers its ill effects in the illness, the sickness, of body and spirit. If the violation has been long continued, these effects may remain for some time; but the instant the violation ceases the repair will begin, and things will go the other way.

Learn from this experience, however, that there can be no deliberate violation of, or blaspheming against any moral or natural law. But deliberately to refuse obedience to the inner guide, the Holy Spirit, constitutes a defiance that eventually puts out the lamp of life, and that can result only in confusion and darkness. It severs the ordained relationship, the connecting, the binding cord, between the soul—the self—and its Source. Stagnation, degeneracy, and eventual death is merely the natural sequence.

With this Divine self-realisation the Spirit assumes control and mastery, and you are saved from the follies of error, and from the consequences of error. Repent ye—turn from your trespasses and sins, from your lower conceptions of life, of pleasure and of pain, and walk in this way. The lower propensities and desires will lose their hold and will in time fall away. You will be at first surprised, and then dumfounded, at what you formerly took for pleasure. True pleasure and satisfaction go hand in hand,—nor are there any bad after results.

All genuine pleasures should lead to more perfect health, a greater accretion of power, a continually expanding sense of life and service. When God is uppermost in the heart, when the Divine rule under the direction of the Holy Spirit becomes the ruling power in the life of the individual, then the body and its senses are subordinated to this rule; the passions become functions to be used; license and perverted use give way to moderation and wise use; and there are then no penalties that outraged law exacts; satiety gives place to satisfaction. It was Edward Carpenter who said: "In order to enjoy life one must be a master of life—for to be a slave to its inconsistencies can only mean torment; and in order to enjoy the senses one must be master of them. To dominate the actual world you must, like Archimedes, base your fulcrum somewhere beyond."

It is not the use, but the abuse of anything good in itself that brings satiety, disease, suffering, dissatisfaction. Nor is asceticism a true road of life. All things are for use; but all must be wisely, in most cases, moderately used, for true enjoyment. All functions and powers are for use; but all must be brought under the domination of the Spirit—the God-illumined spirit. This is the road that leads to heaven here and heaven hereafter—and we can rest assured that we will never find a heaven hereafter that we do not make while here. Through everything runs this teaching of the Master.

How wonderfully and how masterfully and simply he sets forth his whole teaching of sin and the sinner and his relation to the Father in that marvellous parable, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. To bring it clearly to mind again it runs:

"A certain man had two sons: and the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey to a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father.

"But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell upon his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: and bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry. Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. And he was angry and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and entreated him, and he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment; and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: but as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf. And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found."

It does away forever in all thinking minds with any participation of Jesus in that perverted and perverting doctrine that man is by nature essentially depraved, degraded, fallen, in the sense as was given to the world long, long after his time in the doctrine of the Fall of Man, and the need of redemption through some external source outside of himself, in distinction from the truth that he revealed that was to make men free—the truth of their Divine nature, and this love of man by the Heavenly Father, and the love of the Heavenly Father by His children.

To connect Jesus with any such thought or teaching would be to take the heart out of his supreme revelation. For his whole conception of God the Father, given in all his utterances, was that of a Heavenly Father of love, of care, longing to exercise His protecting care and to give good gifts to His children—and this because it is the essential nature of God to be fatherly. His Fatherhood is not, therefore, accidental, not dependent upon any conditions or circumstances; it is essential.

If it is the nature of a father to give good gifts to his children, so in a still greater degree is it the nature of the Heavenly Father to give good gifts to those who ask Him. As His words are recorded by Matthew: "Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?" So in the parable as presented by Jesus, the father's love was such that as soon as it was made known to him that his son who had been lost to him had returned, he went out to meet him; he granted him full pardon—and there were no conditions.

Speaking of the fundamental teaching of the Master, and also in connection with this same parable, another has said: "It thus appears from this story, as elsewhere in the teaching of Jesus, that he did not call God our father because He created us, or because He rules over us, or because He made a covenant with Abraham, but simply and only because He loves us. This parable individualises the divine love, as did also the missionary activity of Jesus. The gospels know nothing of a national fatherhood, of a God whose love is confined to a particular people. It is the individual man who has a heavenly Father, and this individualised fatherhood is the only one of which Jesus speaks. As he had realised his own moral and spiritual life in the consciousness that God was his father, so he sought to give life to the world by a living revelation of the truth that God loves each separate soul. This is a prime factor in the religion and ethics of Jesus. It is seldom or vaguely apprehended in the Old Testament teaching; but in the teaching of Jesus it is central and normative." Again in the two allied parables of Jesus—the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and the Parable of the Lost Coin—it is his purpose to teach the great love of the Father for all, including those lost in their trespasses and sins, and His rejoicing in their return.

This leads to Jesus' conception and teaching of sin and repentance. Although God is the Father, He demands filial obedience in the hearts and the minds of His children. Men by following the devices and desires of their own hearts, are not true to their real nature, their Divine pattern. By following their selfish desires they have brought sin, and thereby suffering, on themselves and others. The unclean, the selfish desires of mind and heart, keep them from their higher moral and spiritual ideal—although not necessarily giving themselves to gross sin. Therefore, they must become sons of God by repenting—by turning from the evil inclinations of their hearts and seeking to follow the higher inclinations of the heart as becomes children of God and those who are dwellers in the Heavenly Kingdom. Therefore, his opening utterance: "The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye, and believe the gospel."

Love of God with the whole heart, and love of the neighbour, leading to the higher peace and fulfilment, must take the place of these more selfish desires that lead to antagonisms and dissatisfactions both within and without. All men are to pray: Forgive us our sins. All men are to repent of their sins which are the results of following their own selfish desires,—those of the body, or their own selfish desires to the detriment of the welfare of the neighbour.

All men are to seek the Divine rule, the rule of God in the heart, and thereby have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, which is the Divine spirit of wisdom that tabernacles with man when through desire and through will he makes the conditions whereby it can make its abode with him. It is a manifestation of the force that is above man—it is the eternal heritage of the soul. "Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." And therein lies salvation. It follows the seeking and the finding of the Kingdom of God and His righteousness that Jesus revealed to a waiting world.

And so it was the spirit of religion that Jesus came to reveal—the real Fatherhood of God and the Divine Sonship of man. A better righteousness than that of the scribes and the Pharisees—not a slavish adherence to the Law, with its supposed profits and rewards. Get the motive of life right. Get the heart right and these things become of secondary importance. As his supreme revelation was the personal fatherhood of God, from which follows necessarily the Divine sonship of man, so there was a corollary to it, a portion of it almost as essential as the main truth itself—namely, that all men are brothers. Not merely those of one little group, or tribe or nation; not merely those of any one little set or religion; not merely those of this or that little compartment that we build and arbitrarily separate ourselves into—but all men the world over. If this is not true then Jesus' supreme revelation is false.

In connection with this great truth he brought a new standard by virtue of the logic of his revelation. "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." Struggling for recognition all through the Old Testament scriptures, and breaking through partially at least in places, was this conception which is at the very basis of all man's relationship with man.

And finally through this supreme Master of life it did break through, with a wonderful newborn consciousness.

The old dispensation, with its legal formalism, was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The new dispensation was—"But I say unto you, Love your enemies." Enmity begets enmity. It is as senseless as it is godless. It runs through all his teachings and through every act of his life. If fundamentally you do not have the love of your fellow-man in your hearts, you do not have the love of God in your hearts and you cannot have.

And that this fundamental revelation be not misunderstood, near the close of his life he said: "A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another." No man could be, can be his disciple, his follower, and fail in the realisation of this fundamental teaching. "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." And going back again to his ministry we find that it breathes through every teaching that he gave. It breathes through that short memorable prayer which we call the Lord's Prayer. It permeates the Sermon on the Mount. It is the very essence of his summing up of this discourse. We call it the Golden Rule. "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." Not that it was original with Jesus; other teachers sent of God had given it before to other peoples—God's other children; but he gave it a new emphasis, a new setting. He made it fundamental.

So a man who is gripped at all vitally by Jesus' teaching of the personal fatherhood of God, and the personal brotherhood of man, simply can't help but make this the basic rule of his life—and moreover find joy in so making it. A man who really comprehends this fundamental teaching can't be crafty, sneaking, dishonest, or dishonourable, in his business, or in any phase of his personal life. He never hogs the penny—in other words, he never seeks to gain his own advantage to the disadvantage of another. He may be long-headed; he may be able to size up and seize conditions; but he seeks no advantage for himself to the detriment of his fellow, to the detriment of his community, or to the detriment of his extended community, the nation or the world. He is thoughtful, considerate, open, frank; and, moreover, he finds great joy in being so.

I have never seen any finer statement of the essential reasonableness, therefore, of the essential truth of the value and the practice of the Golden Rule than that given by a modern disciple of Jesus who left us but a few years ago. A poor boy, a successful business man, straight, square, considerate in all his dealings,—a power among his fellows, a lamp indeed to the feet of many—was Samuel Milton Jones, thrice mayor of Toledo. Simple, unassuming, friend of all, rich as well as poor, poor as well as rich, friend of the outcast, the thief, the criminal, looking beyond the exterior, he saw as did Jesus, the human soul always intact, though it erred in its judgment—as we all err in our judgments, each in his own peculiar way—and that by forbearance, consideration, and love, it could be touched and the life redeemed—redeemed to happiness, to usefulness, to service. Notwithstanding his many duties, business and political, he thought much and he loved to talk of the things we are considering.

His brief statement of the fundamental reasons and the comprehensive results of the actual practice of the Golden Rule are shot through with such fine insight, such abounding comprehension, that they deserve to become immortal. He was my friend and I would not see them die. I reproduce them here: "As I view it, the Golden Rule is the supreme law of life. It may be paraphrased this way: As you do unto others, others will do unto you. What I give, I get. If I love you, really and truly and actively love you, you are as sure to love me in return as the earth is sure to be warmed by the rays of the midsummer sun. If I hate you, ill-treat you and abuse you, I am equally certain to arouse the same kind of antagonism towards me, unless the Divine nature is so developed that it is dominant in you, and you have learned to love your enemies. What can be plainer? The Golden Rule is the law of action and reaction in the field of morals, just as definite, just as certain here as the law is definite and certain in the domain of physics.

"I think the confusion with respect to the Golden Rule arises from the different conceptions that we have of the word love. I use the word love as synonymous with reason, and when I speak of doing the loving thing, I mean the reasonable thing. When I speak of dealing with my fellow-men in an unreasonable way, I mean an unloving way. The terms are interchangeable, absolutely. The reason why we know so little about the Golden Rule is because we have not practised it."

Was Mayor Jones a Christian? you ask. He was a follower of the Christ—for it was he who said: "By this shall all men know ye are my disciples, if ye love one another." Was he a member of a religious organisation? I don't know—it never occurred to me to ask him. Thinking men the world over are making a sharp distinction in these days between organised Christianity and essential Christianity.

The element of fear has lost its hold on the part of thinking men and women. It never opened up, it never can open up the springs of righteousness in the human heart. He believed and he acted upon the belief that it was the spirit that the Master taught—that God is a God of love and that He reveals Himself in terms of love to those who really know Him. He believed that there is joy to the human soul in following this inner guide and translating its impulses into deeds of love and service for one's fellow-men. If we could, if we would thus translate religion into terms of life, it would become a source of perennial joy.

It is not with observation, said Jesus, that the supreme thing that he taught—the seeking and finding of the Kingdom of God—will come. Do not seek it at some other place, some other time. It is within, and if within it will show forth. Make no mistake about that,—it will show forth. It touches and it sensitises the inner springs of action in a man's or a woman's life. When a man realises his Divine sonship that Jesus taught, he will act as a son of God. Out of the heart spring either good or evil actions. Self-love, me, mine; let me get all I can for myself, or, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself—the Divine law of service, of mutuality—the highest source of ethics.

You can trust any man whose heart is right. He will be straight, clean, reliable. His word will be as good as his bond. Personally you can't trust a man who is brought into any line of action, or into any institution through fear. The sore is there, liable to break out in corruption at any time. This opening up of the springs of the inner life frees him also from the letter of the law, which after all consists of the traditions of men, and makes him subject to that higher moral guide within. How clearly Jesus illustrated this in his conversations regarding the observance of the Sabbath—how the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath, and how it was always right to do good on the Sabbath.

I remember some years ago a friend in my native state telling me the following interesting incident in connection with his grandmother. It was in northern Illinois—it might have been in New England. "As a boy," said he, "I used to visit her on the farm. She loved her cup of coffee for breakfast. Ordinarily she would grind it fresh each morning in the kitchen; but when Sunday morning came she would take her coffee-grinder down into the far end of the cellar, where no one could see and no one could hear her grind it." He could never quite tell, he said, whether it was to ease her own conscience, or in order to give no offence to her neighbours.

Now, I can imagine Jesus passing by and stopping at that home—it was a home known for its native kindly hospitality—and meeting her just as she was coming out of the cellar with her coffee-grinder—his quick and unerring perception enabling him to take in the whole situation at once, and saying: "In the name of the Father, Aunt Susan, what were you doing with your coffee-grinder down in the cellar on this beautiful Sabbath morning? You like your cup of coffee, and I also like the coffee that you make; thank God that you have it, and thank God that you have the good health to enjoy it. We can give praise to the Father through eating and drinking, if, as in everything else, these are done in moderation and we give value received for all the things that we use. So don't take your grinder down into the cellar on the Sabbath morning; but grind your coffee up here in God's sunshine, with a thankful heart that you have it to grind."

And I can imagine him, as he passes out of the little front gate, turning and waving another good-bye and saying: "When I come again, Aunt Susan, be it week-day or Sabbath, remember God's sunshine and keep out of the cellar." And turning again in a half-joking manner: "And when you take those baskets of eggs to town, Aunt Susan, don't pick out too many of the large ones to keep for yourself, but take them just as the hens lay them. And, Aunt Susan, give good weight in your butter. This will do your soul infinitely more good than the few extra coins you would gain by too carefully calculating"—Aunt Susan with all her lovable qualities, had a little tendency to close dealing.

I think we do incalculable harm by separating Jesus so completely from the more homely, commonplace affairs of our daily lives. If we had a more adequate account of his discourses with the people and his associations with the people, we would perhaps find that he was not, after all, so busy in saving the world that he didn't have time for the simple, homely enjoyments and affairs of the everyday life. The little glimpses that we have of him along these lines indicate to me that he had. Unless we get his truths right into this phase of our lives, the chances are that we will miss them entirely.