These do not intrude upon the domain of study, nor make study unnecessary. To neglect to train the mind by careful regular exercise is to allow it to become weak and inactive and unfit to receive or make good use of its inspirations when they come. As for the application of these principles in business life, the secret involved is none other than that known to all successful business men, i. e., concentration upon the object in view and perfect self-poise in action.

Carried to an extreme, this application of mental power may result in the accumulation of a vast fortune at the expense of another's welfare, or in utter disregard of the laws of honesty. Such a success is worse than failure, for it contaminates the soul, and cannot fail to bring with it a just retribution of suffering. The evil resulting is sure to be great in proportion as the highest powers of mind and soul were prostituted to so ignoble a use.

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What, then, should we seek and expect to accomplish by the development of our souls' latent capabilities? Briefly this: the gradual cleansing of our hearts and minds, and the building up of healthy and beautiful bodies corresponding to the thoughts within. "Seek "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." We are all conscious of evil thoughts with which we would gladly part company forever. We can do it. We long for more frequent seasons of the happiness that comes from conscious communion with the Highest. We can have it, daily increasing in depth and intensity, and bringing with it the peace that passeth all understanding. It will also bring with repose of manner, control over the nerves and all physical conditions, conscious command of every desire, and a gradual development of psychic power along perfectly normal lines. We need not wait until our mortal bodies are laid in the grave to be clothed upon with the new beauty that is of God. Gradually but surely our bodies will be transformed by the power of His life within us. Neither here nor hereafter shall we ever have bodies that are not built by our thought. Here and now we must begin to develop the spiritual body, transmuting, as it were, the material into the spiritual, putting in practice whatever of understanding we have acquired, and asking for guidance from step to step, and for a clearer vision of the truth which we already dimly see. The life of every one is a

secret between himself and his God. No one's else experience will avail, no set formulas can give enlightenment; each must work out his own problem in silence and in patience, "hoping all things, believing all things," never discouraged, but looking continually to the Christ within, trusting Him when all seems dark, and content to wait for conscious power until He who dwelleth in us shall find us worthy to receive His wisdom.

HOW STEEL GETS TIRED.

"When first I read of that steel truss in the Brooklyn Bridge buckling," said a civil engineer and bridge builder, "I thought it might have been due to fatigue as much as to the expansion of the cable.

"Fatigue? Why, certainly. The capacity for becoming fa tigued by exertion does not entirely belong to bodies animate. There are many inanimate things, including iron and steel, which grow fatigued (temporarily sapped of vitality, the same as yourself after a hard bit of work), and lose much of their strength and elasticity through long continuous subjection to stress or vibration. But if they are allowed to rest for a while these metals recuperate and recover their original strength and dependent virtues.

"Tests conducted with great care and accuracy, with fullsized bridge members and various other commercial forms of steel and iron, have been made, and have so thoroughly proved this observation of fatigue in inanimate things that it is generally accepted by members of my profession as a positive and well understood law. The effect of constant vibration upon steel and iron is to cause fatigue and weakening of the metal. An English engineer of high authority years ago called attention to the fact that iron wires kept in torsional oscillation during the week behaved very differently after their Sunday's rest." San Francisco Chronicle.

THE ATTAINMENTS.

The idea of attainment is the one thought that occupies the attention of all men and women who have within them anything of the spirit of enterprise and energy which should characterize every one. True, the majority of people seek the attainment of wealth, honor, position, etc.; yet during the last ten years the desire for occult attainment seems to have been spreading with great rapidity. And since the Chinese have been coming to this country in such numbers, the mental atmosphere of the land seems to have become impregnated with the spirit of the Buddhist religion. However, India being more accessible, more reputable, and also dealing more directly with the principle of magic, has become the avenue through which we have received these Buddhist doctrines; and thus the Hindu, or Indian religion has been coming to us under many different names and through various organizations. But when we carefully analyze the groundwork of this religion, we find that it takes us back to the infancy of the race, and that the attainments it has to offer are purely selfish, if not sensuous. Its chief incentive to attainment is either the acquisition of power or an escape from the vicissitudes of an earth life. Such objects are an exact inversion of the true objects of our existence, as taught by the prophets of Israel and by the Lord's Christ. Jesus said of his people, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." Again he said, "Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. lievest thou this?" The whole burden of the Gospel of Christ and that of the true Christian religion is of added and continuous life, while the burden of the Buddhist and Brahman religions is self-abnegation, and shall we not say self-effacement, self-destruction?

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We know that in its blindness the Church has built around the doctrine of the immortality of the body-so emphatically taught by our Lord-such a mass of rubbish, that the real

meanings of the Scriptures relative to this important subject are perverted and entirely covered up. But if there is one thing more evident than another in the teachings of the New Testament and of the Old as well, it is not only a continuation of life in the body, but that it is a life filled with joy, peace, and the fullness of all things that make existence worth retaining. From earliest Biblical record down to the last great teacher of Nazareth, accounts come to us of men who had power over death-not some imaginary death, but death as we know it, the dissolution of the physical body. We read of the translation of Enoch. Elijah, and of Christ, and Josephus tells us that Moses was translated.

But although these things are regarded by some as allegorical or as fables, yet the fact remains that the teaching of Jesus is that of added and more desirable life in contradistinction to the exactly opposite doctrine of the Buddhist religion; and not only is Buddhism being taught as a means of attainment, but a great number of so-called occult societies are springing up amongst us in which are found reflections of the Buddhistic faith. However, it is not our desire to condemn but to hold the true light, that all who have the inclination may find the path that will lead them back to unity with God, the Creator of all things. This THE ESOTERIC has striven to do during the eleven years of its work; and the seven years of the Fraternity's existence have given us repeated and continuous confirmation of the fact that only those will attain the high goal who have deep down within the soul-consciousness a love to God and an earnest desire to know and do his will. Unless this is the governing feature of one's life and the impetus to all action, sooner or later they leave the Fraternity, turn their backs upon the methods, and either go in pursuit of magic powers by means of psychic studies and drills in their various phases, or plunge down into the self-destruction of sensuality.

A certain spirit of devotion found among the people of the Church seems to lay the foundation of true soul-growth and attainment. The principle expressed by the phrase “love to God"-a favorite expression of the Church people-seems to be born in the individual. It is a spirit of self-consecration,

in which, to use the language of the Church, one lays himself upon the altar as a willing sacrifice to be used by the Spirit of God. Perhaps the condition indicated by this symbolic language would be more acceptably described as being earnest desire, prayer, and a quality of self-sacrifice, which causes the individual to seek the highest morality, to so live as to have the consciousness in his own soul that he pleases God and that he is accepted of him.

There are thousands of people in the churches who have reached this condition, and when, through right living, one has obtained this consciousness within himself, that he is doing the things that please God, he will know what it is to have the guidance of the Spirit. If by word or act such a one places himself out of harmony with the divine purpose,—with the true methods of his own growth and attainments, he finds within himself something that immediately checks him and makes him conscious that he has erred. This the Church calls conscience, but this matter of conscience is so little understood by her, that her teachings in relation thereto are perverted and in many instances have become a source of error.

From past experience we are prepared to say that no one can have this inner monitor, this spiritual guidance, this socalled conscience, but those who have dedicated their lives to God, and who are daily and hourly guarding their thoughts, their words, and their deeds, who are carefully watching that they do nothing that is not in harmony with the Spirit of God. They must absolutely obey that inner impulse to do or not to do, for the slightest deviation from perfect obedience will silence it as a mentor. When this conscious junction of the inner consciousness of man with the Spirit of God is obtained and maintained, the individual may safely believe that he has the guidance of the Spirit. One of our modern authors has likened it to a little bird given to the neophyte, which he carries in his bosom, and which constantly warns and guides him.

The one who desires this guidance must know that it can only be obtained by a most careful and righteous life. When this foundation is laid, the individual is perfectly safe in fol lowing the guidance; but without it there is no guidance worthy of the name. There are many who heartily enter into what