listen to its teachings. If you have ever felt a sense of uplift through the influence of a healer, or through gazing on some grand and beautiful scenery, or contemplating some noble or heroic act, know that in that feeling you came near to God— yes, felt His very presence and the beauty of His holiness. If you want to come near to Him again, try to recall those feelings and make them vivid before you. When the soul stands, with upturned face and outstretched arms towards God, then is it ready to receive the blessing, and not when in mistaken prostrations it bows itself to the earth from which it fain would rise. "He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." It is the Christ within, the "power not ourselves that makes for righteousness," of which we must become aware, and with which we may become so closely identified in consciousness that we may say reverently, with Jesus, "I and the Father are one." The union is not yet fully realized, we must remember that, and hold ourselves in a teachable, child-like attitude, so full of eagerness to be taught that we will seek often that inner sanetuary where we may hold communion with our dearest Friend. If it were possible to express in words this consciousness of the Divine Presence, there would be no need of teaching to bring everyone into a realization of its blessedness and power. But it cannot be expressed. The only outward proof of it is its influence upon the life, especially the physical life. The only way to learn it is to desire it intensely, and to seize upon the first glimmering of the new consciousness with a determi nation to prove its utmost possibilities. The testimony of those who have proved it should be sufficient to assure anyone that the same experience is possible for him; that he, too, may learn to feel God always near, a strong support always at hand, a defense and shield and an exceeding great reward. No more striking proof could be given of the universality of this power to know God than the Psalms of David, which, written in the childhood of the race, among a people just emerging from barbarism, are yet the most perfect expression that we have of this consciousness of dependence on divine help, except, indeed, the words of Jesus. Reading the Psalms in the light of modern metaphysics, one cannot fail to be struck with the depth of knowledge that they reveal on this one subject. Blessed indeed is the soul that can know God as David knew Him.

This knowledge of God is not an awe-struck feeling of the

immensity of a power outside us; it is rather the recognition of power within. It does not tend to melancholy or simply to a sense of the sublime. It tends towards an exuberant, abounding life: a freedom, a vitality that nothing else can give. In this way also we are to become as children. When we recog nize all life as God, we see that he is most manifested where life is strongest. Children and young animals are full of God's life, and we, in returning to the child-like state of mind, become filled with sympathy in their rejoicing. All nature seems exultant, vital with God.

The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands." "Sing praises unto the Lord, sing praises," is the most natural expression through the lips of this new consciousness of God in the soul. Prayer becomes an exaltation, a simple, joyful recognition of blessings already ours through the very act of lifting up our eyes to see them. "For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

This joyful state of mind is not dependent upon outside circumstances. When Jesus, knowing that he must soon leave his disciples, gave them his parting instructions, he told them, "These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full." He told them plainly of the persecutions that awaited them, of the apparent defeat of all their efforts, of martyrdom and suffering, and yet he assured them, "My peace I leave with you." In the midst of persecution and hatred the Apostolic Church justified his words. They declared themselves "ready to be offered" whenever martyrdom should be required of them, and through all their trials they could still "rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." This state of mind is almost inconceivable to many of us, with our modern nervons dread of suffering and our habitual dwelling upon physical sensation. "Anto-hypuo sis" is the misleading name now applied when any one triumphs over sensation by simply fixing the thought somewhere else and refusing to listen to the communication of the nerves. The fact that we can give the process a scientific name does not make the act less a victory of the spirit over the flesh. To realize fully our spiritual prerogative would be to possess this power in its perfection, to triumph over pain and fear, and ultimately, as many think, over death itself.

Thus we see that the realization of God which gives us

power is not alone to realize His greatness, but to realize His greatness in us: not alone to believe that He has done great things for other people, but to believe that he dwells in our own souls with equal power, so that there is nothing too high for us to ask of Him. Our kinship to Him is so close that His greatness is our greatness, so close that to think of Him is to feel His love and call into activity more of His life within us. When we find that we can do this consciously, is it possible to say that our God is an unknown God? Is it possible to resist the attraction of love that draws us to lift our souls to Him in prayer? When we have learned to know Him in this way, we surely can never feel alone again. The consciousness must grow deeper and deeper, the development of life within us and of sympathy with the life all about us must go on until we have realized the Christ-consciousness, or a perfect, conscious oneness with the Father. We need not be discouraged because this earth-life is short or because we have begun to learn these truths after our best days are over. Other heights in other lives, God willing." We have all eternity before us, and the lessons once learned will never have to be learned over again. Evolution does not go backward, however appearances may sometimes seem to point that way. The soul's development must be continuous towards the perfect ideal that is latent within itself. Every victory we win shall be ours to all eternity: the God whom we are learning to know must become ever more real and more glorious within us, and ever more manifest to our senses in the world without. The more we feel this, the more rapid will be our development and the more perfect our poise and conscious strength; all negative conditions will be overcome and we shall stand, a positive force consciously working together with God.

Time changes grim obstructions

Into opportunity;

For disintegration crumbles

All that is not Unity,

And the path of life but measures
Inches of Eternity.

-S. G. Chase.

THE PURSUIT OF PEACE.

"Great peace have they which love thy law." Psalms cxIx. 165.

It is a question whether there has ever lived a man who did not at times long for peace. He may be surrounded by every evidence of peace,-wealth, health, love, all the good things of earth, may be his, yet how often there comes into the heart the desire for peace!

When the prophet exclaimed "Great peace have they which love thy law," he evidently gave voice to a realization which was based upon experience. As far as circumstances permit, we do that which we love to do, and if we love a law we will keep it; from a realization of this truth arose the words of the text.

While we know that all of nature's laws are God's laws, yet we find that those particular ones that affect man's relation to, and consciousness of, God, are embodied in what is termed "The Law," the ten commandments which God gave to the children of Israel and through them to us.

A study of those commands conveying methods, a compliance with which brings a consciousness of God as a near and loving intelligence, and a life in harmony with them, are undoubtedly the path to peace. And, at the same time, all law must be obeyed, for there is no such thing as escaping, or rising above, the laws active in one's own sphere of existence.

It is true that man may gain such mastery over certain forces as to make him appear independent of many laws; as, for example, the power manifested in the miracles of Christ.

Yet the mystic saying, "As below, so above," is undoubtedly as applicable in this connection as elsewhere. There is no phase of existence, no realm, no kingdom, in which obedience to law is not the way of peace. The civil and military governments of this world appoint officers of justice who execute judgment upon offenders, those who disregard the laws; and so it is in relation to nature and nature's God,-peace can only be obtained by obedience to law.

THE EARTHLY KINGDOM OF HEAVEN.

Among a certain class of religionists there is much talk about the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Heaven, and their idea-and indeed that of all classes-as to what would constitute the kingdom of God is as vague and impractical as the rest of their thought upon such subjects. In fact, I think I have never heard an individual express a thought as to what constitutes the kingdom of God.

It is not difficult to define what is meant by an earthly kingdom, and Biblical language uses an earthly kingdom as a symbol to convey to the understanding of men a conception of the heavenly kingdom. We all know that a kingdom is composed of a king and subjects, a law-maker and a law-abiding people. A man who is a subject of Queen Victoria's kingdom is so because he is obedient to, lives in consonance with, the laws made or indorsed by Queen Victoria. When one of her people is disobedient to her laws, he ceases to be a subject and becomes an outlaw. Again, a man becomes king as soon as he makes laws and has subjects obedient to those laws. Moreover, the term subject in itself implies one who is liable to, amenable to, another's will, plans, or purposes. At the present time the subjects of the Queen of Spain are in great numbers giving their lives in obedience to the command of their monarch. In like manner, the existence of a kingdom of God, or a kingdom of Heaven on earth implies the presence of a person or persons who have declared their allegiance to the laws of God, or of Heaven, and who have determined to be, and are, under all circumstances, obedient to those laws. Now, the Esoteric Fraternity has, in the first place, entered into a covenant between God and their own souls, and have in themselves the consciousness that they are accepted of him; and, second, they have taken the verbal covenant, so that the business of their lives is to study, to know, and to be absolutely obedient to, the laws of God and of Heaven. This constitutes the kingdom of Heaven on earth-certainly so in so far as these people have a