The pathway of life

II.

Sufferings Stimulate Man's Spiritual Life

1. Man is the spirit of God clothed in a body.

In the beginnii^ of life man is ignorant of this and imagines that his life is in the body. But the longer he lives the more clearly he realizes that his true life is in the spirit and not in the body. Man's whole life is in the increasing recc^nition of this fact. This knowlec^ is most easily and clearly attained through the sufferings of the body, so that such sufferings make our life such as it should be—a spiritual life.

2. The physical growth is merely a storing up of supplies for the spiritual growth which commences as the body begins to decline.

3. A man lives for his body and says: All things are evil. Another hves for his soul and says: No, all things are good. That which you call evil is the very whetstone with-out which my soul—the most precious thing that is in me— would be dulled and rusted.

4. All the misfortunes of mankind as a whole and of individuals lead, thoi^h indirectly, to the same goal which is set before man: the constantly increasing manifestation of the spiritual principle in each individual and in mankind at large.

5. "For I came down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of my Father who asiA тел-, ■»Л'Скл"-«^

the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which be hath given me I should lose nothing." This we read in John VI, 38-39. That is we must preserve, cultivate and develop to the highest possible degree that spark of divinity which was g^ven us, which was entrusted to us as a child is entrusted to its nurse. And what is needful to achieve this purpose ? Not the giatiHcation of passions, not the glory of men, not a life of repose, but on the contrary, abstinence, humility, labor, struggle, privations, sufferings, humiliations and persecutions, even as many times stated in the New Testament. And all these needful visitations are sent us in all sorts of forms, on a small or on a large scale. Oh, that we knew how to receive them as needful and therefore gladsome tasks, instead of as annoyances that trespass upon that animal existence which we mistake for our life and the improvement of which we count happiness.

6. Even if man could escape the fear of death and ignore it, the sufferings alone, to which he is subject, terrible, purposeless, utterly unjustified and inevitable as they are, would sufHce to controvert all rational meanii^ that is ascribed to life—so say some.

I am engaged in a good and indubitably useful occupation, and suddenly I am stricken with disease, my task is interrupted, and I am suffering agonies without any sense or purpose. A screw in the rail is rusty and it happens to slip out just as a train is passing with a loving mother on board and her children are crushed before her very eyes. An earthquake must shake the very spot on which a city is founded, say Lisbon or Vemy, and guiltless people are buried alive and die in terrible agony. Why all these things and thousands of other senseless dreadful accidents and calamities which strike terror into the hearts of pet^le? Where is the sense oi them ?

The answer is that all these arguments are absolutely right for the people who do not acknowledge a sfHritual life. And for such people human life indeed has no sense. But the fact is that the life of people who do not acknowledge a spiritual life can not be otherwise but senseless and calamitous. For if people who do not believe in a sfHritual life only drew the logical conclusions which inevitably follow a merely material view of life, those people who regard life as a merely physical existence would not consent to live a moment longer. What laborer would consent to work for a master who when hiring the laborer would stipulate the right at will to roast the laborer alive or over a slow 6re, or to flay him alive, or to pull out his vans and do all sorts of terrible things, just as he does without any rhyme or reason with his other laborers in full view of the man he would hire? If men really understood life as they claim to do, that is as a mere material existence, not one should consent to live in this world for very fear of these agonizing and inexplicable sufferings which he sees all around and which may befall him at any moment.

Yet they continue to live, complaining and wailii^ over their misfortunes and still keep on living.

There is but one explanation of this strange contradiction: in the depths of their hearts people know that their life is not in the body but in the spirit, and that their sufferings are alvrays needful, are requisite for the happiness of their spiritual life. When men, seeing no sense in human life, revolt against sufferings, but still keep on living, it merely shows that asserting with their mind the materiality of life, they know in their hearts that it is spiritual and that no sufferings can deprive man of his true ha.'^'CNiesft.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

Sufferings Teach Man to Maintain a Rational Attitude to Life

All that which we call ills, all sorrows—if we only understood them as we ought—improve our soul. And in this improvement is our life:

Verily, verily I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the diild, she rememhereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is bom into the world. John XVI, 20-21.

2. The sufferings of irrational life lead us to acknowledge the need of rational life.

3. Just as only the darkness of night reveals the heavenly lights, so only suffering reveals the true purpose of life. Thoreau.

4. Outward obstacles work no injury to the man who is strong in spirit, for injury is all that which disfigures or weakens, though they might cause injury to animals as they are angered or weakened by obstacles; but the man who meets with the strength of the spirit which is given to him finds only added moral beauty and strength in all obstacles. Marcus Aurelius.

5. He who is young and inexperienced does not know that which older men learn by experience, he does not know that all that which we call sorrow is a genuine good, that it /s a trial to prove how firm we are in that which we know

and confess. And tf we are not firm, trials are needed to make us firm.

6. Only after an experience of suffering have I discovered the close kinship of human souls with one another. No sooner have you had your full share of suffering than all those who suffer become intelligible to you. But more than that: your mind clears: circumstances and achievements of people hitherto hidden to you become manifest and you see clearly what is needful to each. Great is God who enlightens us. Enlightens us with what? With the very sorrows from which we would flee and hide. In sorrow and suffering it is given to us to seek out the grains of wisdom that cannot be found in any book. Gogol.

7. If God gave us teachers of whom we Jmew for a certainty that they were sent of God himself, we should obey them freely and gladly.

But we have such instructors in necessity and in all the vicissitudes of life. Pascal.

8. Not only is every visitation of Providence profitable to every creature, but it is profitable at the very time when it is sent. Marcus Aurelius.

9. The man who does not realize the beneficial nature of suffering has not commenced to live the life of reason, the true life.

10. I pray God to free me from suffering which troubles me. But this suffering was sent to me by God to deliver me from evil. The master uses his whip on an animal to drive it from a burning inclosure and to save it, but the animal prays to escape the lash!

U. That which we regard as our misfortune is mostly good which we have not yet comprehended.

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

Sicknesses ire Not a Hindrance But a Help to

True Life

1. Life consists in transforming the animal within us more and more into a spiritual being. And that which we call ills is requisite for this purpose. Only by the things which we call ills—griefs, sicknesses, sufferings^-do we leam to transform our animal self into the spiritual.

The mere fact, well known to us all, that those who succeed in all the things of life, those who are always well and rich, who know no injuries or humiliations, are frequently so weak and mostly so very wicked, shows how necessary are trials to man. And yet we complain when it is our lot to bear them 1

2. We call suffering a misfortune, but if there were no suffering, man would not know where he ends and where that commences which is not himself.

3. When we feel weakest in body, we can be strongest in spirit. Lucy Mallory.

4. There is no sickness which could prevent us from fulfilling the duty of man. If you catmot serve your neighbor by toiling serve him by the example of bearing your suffering with love.

5. Illness attacks every man and he must take heed not so much how to cure himself as how to live best in the circumstances in which he finds himself.

6. There is a story about a man who was punished for his sins by being denied death. It may be boldly stated that if man were punished by beii^ incapable of suffering, this punishment would be still more severe.

7. It is wrong to conceal from a sick man that he may die of his sickness. On the contrary, he should be reminded

of it. By concealing this fact from him, we deprive him of that blessing which illness can give him in stimulating him through the consciousness of approaching death to an increased effort towards the apprehension of spiritual life.

8. Fire destroys and gives comfort through warmth. Even so it is with sickness. When a man in good health tries to live well, he does so with an effort. But in the case of a sick man the burden of worldly temptations is lightened, and the task is made easy, and it is even awesome to think how this burden will return in fullness and will oppress us again as soon as the sickness is past.

9. The worse a man feels in his body, the better off he is in spirit. And therefore man can not be badly off. The spiritual and the physical are like a pair of scales: the heavier the physical, the higher rises the spiritual and the better it is with the soul, and vice versa.

10. "Senility, second childhood, is the decay of consciousness and of the life of man"—so say some.

I call to my mind the picture of St. John the Divine, who, according to the tradition, passed into a state of senility, into second childhood. Tradition relates that he only repeated these words: "Brethren, love one another!"

A centenarian, barely able to creep about, with watering eyes, mumbling forever these three words: "Love one another!" In such a man physical existence is the faintest glimmer, it is all swallowed up by a new attitude to the world, by a new living creature that no longer can be bound in the envelope of the existence of carnal man.

The man who knows life for what it truly is cannot speak of a decrease in life through sickness or old age, cannot grieve over it, any more than the man who approaches the light can grieve over the lessening of his shadow in proportion to his approach to the light.

V. So-called lib are Only Our Own Eirors

1. If anything disagreeable occurs to us, we mostly blame either our fate or other people. We do not realize that if either fate or other people can cause us any ill, then there is something wrong with us. He who lives for his soul cannot suffer any ill from any person or any thing: persecutions, injuries, poverty and sickness are as nothing to such a man. Epictetus.

2. Sufferings are particularly hard to bear for him who having set himself apart from the world fails to see the sms through which he brought suffering into the world and therefore considers himself blameless.

3. Ills exist only within us, that is they exist in a place whence they can be removed,

4. Frequently a superficial man meditating over the calamities which so oppress the human race loses hope in the possibility of improvement in life and experiences a feeling of dissatisfaction with Providence which rules the world. This is a grievous error. To be satisfied with Providence (though it set before us right now the most difficult path in life) is in the highest degree important not only that we may not lose courage amid the difficulties of life, but principally that we may not,, shi fting the blame upon fate, lose sight of our own guilt, which is the sole cause of all ills.

Kant,

5. Hopeless is the state of the man who in his misfortunes reproaches his fate instead of himself, affirming thereby his own self-satisfaction.

"We should be kind and gentle, if we were not irritated. We should be pious, if we were not so busy, I should be

patient, if I were well. I should astonish the world, if I were only known."

If we cannot improve and sanctify the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we shall not improve and sanctify any other circumstances.

The difficulties of our state are given us in order that we may smooth them over and overcome them with our goodness and firmness; the darkness of our state is given us in order that we may lighten it with the divine light of inner spiritual labors; griefs, in order that we may patiently and trustingly bear them; danger, that we may manifest our courage; temptations, that we may overcome them with our faith. Martineau.

6. Man may escape the calamities which are the visita-tion^ of God, but there is no escape from those calamities which he visits upon himself through his evil life.

VI.

The Recognition of the Beneficial Nature of Sufferings

Destroys Their Oppressiveness

1. What are we to do when all things leave us: health, joy, affections, freshness of feelings, memory, capacity for work, when it seems to us that the sun is growing chill and life loses all its charms? What are we to do when hope seems lost? Shall we stupefy ourselves or grow hardened? The answer is always the same: live the life of the spirit without arresting its growth. Let come what may, if you but feel that your conscience is calm, that you are doing that which your spirituality demands. Be what you should be, leave the rest to God. And even if there were no good and holy God, spiritual life would still be the solution of mys-

teries and the pole star for the progress of hmnanity, for it alone gives true happiness. AmieL

2. Seek in sufferings their significance for the growth of your soul and bitterness of sufferings will vanish.

3. Only know and believe that whatever happens to you leads you to your true spiritual happiness, and you will meet sickness, poverty, disgrace—^all that which people regard as misfortunes—^not as misfortunes, but as things necessary for your wellbeing, just as the fanner accepts the rain of which his fields are in need though it drench him to the skin, or as the patient swallows a bitter medicine.

4. Remember that it is the distinguishing characteristic of rational beings to submit to their fate of a free will, but the shameful revolt against it is a characteristic of beasts.

Marcus Aurelius,

5. The very thing that aggrieves us and appears to us as a hindrance to our accomplishing the task of our life, is in itself the task of our life. You are beset with poverty, slanders, humiliation. You need only pity yourself a little, and you will be the most wretched of men. And you need only realize that the task of life to which you are called is to live the best life.possible in spite of poverty, sickness and humiliations, and you will immediately gather courage and confidence in place of despondence and despair.

6. Each one of us has his cross and his yoke, not in the sense of a burden, but in the sense of a purpose in life, and if we do not look upon our cross as a burden, we find it easy to bear; we find it easy to bear of we are meek, obedient, humble of heart. And still more easy if we deny ourselves ; and still more easy if we bear this cross every hour as Qirist teaches us; and still more and more easy if we forget ourselves in spiritual labor, even as people forget themselves

in the cares of the world. The cross that is given to us to bear is the one thing on which we must labor. If the cross be sickness, bear it obediently; if it be the insults of people, know how to render good for evil; if it be humiliation, humble thyself; if it be death, receive it thankfully.

7. The more you repel your cross, the heavier it becomes. Amiel

8. It IS beyond dispute more important how a man receives his fate than what it really is. Humboldt.

9. No sorrow IS as great as the fear of it.

10. An obstreperous horse, instead of pulling the vehicle to which it is harnessed, balks and struggles and is whipped into the bargain, and in the end must do as the driver directs. Even so with man if he declines to bear sorrows as trials and regards them as superfluous ills and balks against them.

11. If you have an enemy and can take advantage of him in order to learn on him how to love your enemies, that which you r^ard an evil will become a great blessing to you.

12. Sickness, loss of limbs, severe disappointments, loss of property, loss of friends—^all these seem at first irreparable losses. But the lapse of years reveals the depth of healing power which lies in such losses.

13. When you regard yourself unhappy, remember the misfortunes of others and also the fact that things might be worse. Also remember the things of which you were guilty in the past and are guilty now; remember also that the things which you call misfortunes were sent you as a trial in order that you might humbly and lovingly bear misfortunes and thus, thanks to misfortunes, become better. And in this growing better is the whole business of life.

14. In the difficult time of sickness, loss and other sor-

rows, more than at any other time, you are in need o£ prayer: not prayer for deliverance, but in recognition of your dependence upon a higher will. "Not my will, but Thine be done, not what I will, but what Thou wilt, nor as I will, but as Thou wilt. My business in the circumstances wherein Thou didst place me is to fulfill Thy will." In difficult times it is most needful to remember that if things be hard, this difficulty is the task which is given me, and that it is just the one opportunity—which may not repeat itself—in which I may show that I really mean to do Thy will and not mine.

15. All that is great in humanity is accomplished only with suffering. Jesus knew that even He had to expect it, and he foresaw all things: the hatred of those whose power he came to destroy, their secret conspiracy and their violence and the ungrateful treason of the very people whose sickness He had healed and whom He had fed with the heavenly bread of His word. He foresaw the cross, and the death, and that His own flock would abandon Him, which was even more grievous than death itself. And this thought never forsakes him, nor for an instant arrests Him. It his physical nature repels the cup. His firmer will receives it unflinchingly. And therein he gives an example that must be forever memorable to all those who would continue His work, to all those who, like Himself, will come to labor for the salvation of the people and for their deliverance from the burden of delusions and ills. If people would reach the goal towards which Christ is leading, they must follow tb same path. Only at such cost can men serve men. Y( would have people truly brotherly, you summon them obey the laws of their common nature, you fight against : oppression, all lawlessness, all hypocrisy. You clamor f the kingdom of justice, duty, truth and love to desce

upon earth, how then should those whose strength is based on things of a contrary nature fail to rise against you? Can they let you, without a struggle, destroy their temple and build another—unlike theirs, not made by the hands of man, but an eternal temple the foundation of which is Truth?

Abandon this hope if you ever have been frivolous enough to cherish it. You will drain the cup to the last drop. You will be seized like thieves; false testimony will be sought against you, and against your own testimony they will rise up with the cry: He blasphemeth I And the judges will say: He is worthy of death. When this happens, rejoice. This last sign is the sign that you have performed the true and needful task. Lamenau.

VII.

Sufferings Cannot Hinder the Fulfilment of the WiU of God

1. Man is never closer to God than when he is in trouble. Take advantage of this in order not to miss this opportunity of approaching that which is the sole source of immutable blessedness.

2. How good is the ancient proverb that God sends sufferings to him whom He loves. For him who believes in this, suffering is no suffering bttt blessedness.

3. A rational man who has reached advanced years and feels that he cannot perform by his physical strength even an hundreth part of what he could, say, thirty years earlier, has little cause to grieve, even as he felt no grief or even took any notice at the age of thirty of being unable to do the things which he could do in the days of his childhood. He knows only one thing that all of him, healthy or ill, strong or barely able to move on, then and now,

exists only for the purpose of serving God. And he knows that he can serve God equally well whether he be capable of lifting several hundred pounds with one arm, or have strength barely to nod his head. He now knows that it is only the service of his body which requires more health and strength, and that bodily strength is unnecessary in the service of God, and that on the contrary a feeble state of the body only stimulates the service of God,

The moment man diverts the meaning of his life from a striving after external blessings to the service of the Father, be no longer knows any difference between that which in worldly life is called good fortune and misfortune.

4. Only say to yourself that all things that happen are the will of God, and have faith that the will of God is always good, and you will fear nothing, and your life will be forever a life of blessedness.

DEATH

DEATH

If a man views life as th« life of the body, his life ends with the death of the body. But if man views his life as the life of the spirit he can not even imagine an en to his life.

I.

The Life of Man Does Not Cease With the Death of His Body

1. The whole life of man, from his birth even unto bis death, is like unto one day in his life from the moment of his awaking unto the moment of hts falling into slumber.

2. Remember how sometimes after a heavy sleep you . awake in the morning and fail to realize where you are, or to recognize someone at your bedside who is endeavoring to arouse you from sleep, and you hate to get up, as though you had not the power to do so. Then gradually you come to your senses, begin to realize who you are and where you are, and thoughts commence to get busy in your head, you get up and go about your business. Even so it is with man as he enters into life, gathers strength and reason and begins to do his work.

The only difference is that in the case of a man who was asleep and woke up, the process is a brief one, the thing of one morning, but in the case of the man who is born and grows up the process takes months and years.

There is also another resemblance between the life of one day and the life of man as a whole: When man awakes he settles down to work and is busy and as the day progresses he gathers more and more enet^ until noon, but after that he is no longer as еп«^е,\.\с %.^ VtV-4.^'4«»s*.

during the morning. And towards evening he is still more tired and desires to rest. It is quite so in the life of man.

In his youth man is full of vim and lives merrily, in middle age he lacks the same vigor, but with old age comes weariness, and he longs more and more for rest. And just as night follows day, and man lies down to rest, and the thoughts in his head grow confused, and falling asleep he no tanger realizes himself with his senses and goes off somewhere into the unknown, even so it is with the man who dieth.

Thus the awakening of man in the morning is a sort of a birth, the course of his day from morning until night a little picture of life, and sleep is death in miniature.

We know when we hear thunder that the lightning has already struck and that therefore thunder can not kill and yet we tremble at a peal of thunder. It is even so with death.

He who does not understand life imapnes that with death all is lost, he fears death and hides from it just as itic foolish person seeks to hide from the pealing of thunder, although thunder can not kill him at all. ,

3. If a man start from a place which I can see on a march towards a place where I can not see him any пюге, but another reach this latter place more speedily, I have no reason to assume that he who walked slowly has lived more than he who walked briskly. I only know one thing: that if one man walk past ray window slowly and another hurriedly, they both existed before t saw them and will be after they pass out of my sight. Even so with the life of others before their death which comes to my notice, whether the life was brief or long,

4. Faith in immortality cannot be received from any one. You can not make yourself believe in immortality.

In order to have faith in immortality you must view yoor life in those things wherein it is immortal.

5. Death is a change of the envelope to which our spirit is joined. We must not confuse the envelope with that which is put into it.

6. Remember that you are not standing but passing on, that you are not in a house but on a train which is taking you do death. Remember that your body either crawls or speeds towards death, but it is only the spirit within yott that truly lives.

7. Although I may be unable to prove it, I nevertheless know that the rational, free and incorporeal principle which dwelleth in me cannot die.

8. Even if I were mistaken in the belief that souls are immortal, I should still be happy and content with my error; and while I live no man has the power to rob me of this confidence. This assurance gives me peace and perfect contentment Cicero.

П.

True Life is Apart From Time, and Therefore True Life Has No Future

1. Death is the dissolution of all those oi^ans of association with the world which give us an idea of time. And therefore the question of the future has no meaning in relation to death.

2. Time conceals death. He who lives in time cannot imagine its cessation.

3. The reason why the thought of death does not produce the effect which it might is in that we being by our very nature active creatures ought not really even to think of death. KwA,

4. The question whether there is a life beyond the grave or not is the question whether time is the product of our method of thinking—limited as it is by our body—or a necessary condition of all that exists.

That time cannot be a necessary condition of all that exists is proven by the fact that we are conscious of something within us which is not subject to time. And therefore the question whether there is a life beyond the grave or not IS really a question which of the two is real: our idea of time or the consciousness of our life in the present.

5. If a man sees his life in the present, there can not be for him a question of his life in the future.

III.

Death Cannot Terrify a Man Who Lives the Life

of the Spirit

1. Death so easily delivers us from all difficulties and misfortunes that those who do not believe in immortality should greatly desire death. But those who believe in immortality and hope for a new life should still more ardently desire it. But why is it that the majon'ty of people do not desire it? Because the majority of the people live the life of the body and not the life of the spirit.

2. Suffering and death appear only then as ills to a man if he accepts the law of his carnal, animal existence as the law of his life. Only when, though a human being, he descends to the level of the animal, only then suffering and death stare at him from all sides like bogies, and drive him from the only path of life which is open to him, which is subject to reason and finds its expression in love. Suffering and death are only the violation by man of the law of his life. If man lived a fully spiritual life, there would be neither suffering nor death in store for him.

3. Here is a crowd of men in chains. They are all condemned to death, and every day a few of them are led forth to be killed in the sight of their fellow-convicts. And these why remain watch these executions and await their own turn with dread. Such is life for those who do not realize the meaning of their life. But if man realizes that the spirit of God dwelleth in him and that he can become one with it, there can be no death for such a man and therefore there can be no tear of death for him.

4. To fear death is to fear ghosts, that is to fear something which does not exist. <

5. I love my garden, I love to read books, I love to caress children. When I die, I am deprived of these things, and therefore I hate to die and I fear death.

It may be that the whole of my life is composed of such worldly desires and their gratification. If this be so I can not do otherwise than fear that which puts a stop to the pleasure derived from the gratification of such desires. But if these desires are transformed within me, being replaced by another desire—to fulfill the will of God, to give myself to Him in the form in which I now exist, and in all sorts of forms which I may assume—then to the extent that my physical desires are replaced by spiritual desires death appears to me no longer terrifying'. But when my wordly desires are altogether supplanred by the one desire to give myself to God, nothing but life Is left to me, and there is no death.

To substitute that which is eternal for that which is wordly and temporal—this is the path of life, the path to its blessedness.

6. The man who lives for his soul sees in the dissolution of the body only a release, and in suffering the necessary prerequisite of this release, В\Л "«Va.X K'i "^t ^"«s*.

of man who builds his life on his body when he sees that the one thing by which he lives, his body, is being destroyed and painfully at that?

7. The animal dies without seeing death and almost without experiencing any fear of it. But why is it given to man to foresee the end that awaits him, and why does it seem to him so terrible, why does it so rend his soul that men have been known to commit suicide for fear of death ? I cannot answer why, but Г know for what purpose: so that the conscious and rational man might betake his life from the domain of bodily life into that of spiritual life. This not only destroys the fear of death, but renders the expectation of death akin to the feeling of a wanderer who IS returning to his home.

8. Life has nothing in common with death. Therefore perhaps there is always bom in us the absurd hope which obscures our reason and compels us to doubt the certainty of our knowledge of the inevitableness of death. The life of the body strives to persist in being. Like a parrot in the fable it repeats even when being strangled: "That's nothing."

Amiel

9. The body is like unto walls which confine the spirit and obstruct its freedom. The spirit unceasingly strives to sunder these walls, and the whole life of rational man is in pushing these walls apart, in releasing the spirit from the captivity of the body. Death is its final complete release. And therefore death is not only not terrible, but is a joy to man who lives the true life.

10. Man resists death, even as the animal, but thanks to his reason he can always substitute for this resistance not only submission but even assent.

11. If death is terrifying, the cause is in us and not

in death. The better a man is the less he fears death. To a man of holiness there is no death.

12. You fear death, but think what would become of you if you were to live fo^-ever just as you are?

13. It is as unreasonable to wish for death as to fear it.

14. If a man lives after being cured from mortal illness he is like a truck which has just been pulled out of a mudhole and left on the wrong side of it. It can not escape the mudhole as it must go past it again.

15. Rational life is like unto a man who bears a lantern attached to a long pole. He can never reach the end of the illumined portion of his path, for it always goes on ahead of him. Such is rational life, and only such life knows no death, for the lantern does not cease lighting the path until the last moment, and you follow it to the end as calmly as all through the journey.

IV.

Man Must Live by that Which is Immortal

Within Him

1. The son lives permanently in his father's house, but the hired laborer for a season only. Therefore the son will not live like the hired man, but will take care of his father's house nor think only of his daily hire as the hired man will. If a man thinks that his life does not end with death he will live like the son in his father's house. But if life be just what it is in this world, he will live like the hired man seeking to make use of anything he can in this life.

And every man must first solve this question for himself —is he his father's son or only a hired laborer, whether he dies completely or only partly with the dissolution of his body. But if man realizes that though there is something in him that is mortal, there is also sotX№XVaw% >Jc«X 4^ \sx\.-

mortal, It IS clear that he will also pay more heed in life to that which is immortal than to that which is mortal, that he will live not as a hired man, but as a son in his father's house.

2. Only he can believe in a future life who has established in his consciousness a new relationship to the world for which there is no room in this life.

3. Whether life ends with the dissolution of our body is a most important question to which we can not escape devoting thought. According to whether we believe or do not believe in immortality our actions will be either rational or irrational.

Therefore our principal care must be to solve the problem whether we do or do not completely die with the dissolution of our flesh, and if not, what is it In us that is immortal. But if we realize that there is in us something that is immortal, it will be clear to us that in this life we must care more for that which is immortal than for that which is mortal.

The voice that tells us that we are immortal is the voice of God who dwelleth in us. Pascal.

4. Experience teaches us that many people familiar with the theory of a life beyond the grave and convinced of its truth nevertheless are given to vices and commit mean actions, inventing devices in order to escape through cunning the consequences of their actions which threaten them in the future. Yet there has hardly ever been a moral man who could reconcile himself to the thought that death ends all and whose noble mode of thinking did not attain a loftier elevation through the hope of future life. Therefore it seems to me that it would be more in harmony with human nature and good morals to base the faith in a future

life on the sentiments of a noble soul than vice versa to b«^e its noble conduct on the hope of a future life. Kant,

5. There is only one thing we know surely—that death awaits us. Like unto a swallow that flies across a room is the life of man. We come no one knows whence, we go no one knows whither. Impenetrable darkness behind us, dense shadows ahead of us. When our time comes what will it mean to us whether we ate delicate foods or not, wore soft raiment or not, left a large estate or none, bore laurels or suffered scorn, were considered learned or ignorant, compared with the question how we employed the talent entrusted to us by the Master?

What will be the value of all these things when our eyes grow dim and our ears grow dull? In that hour we shall know peace only if we not merely have unceasingly guarded the talent of spiritual life entrusted to out care, but ever increased it to such a degree that the dissolution of the body has lost its terrors. Henry George.

6. From the testament of a Mexican ruler:

All things on earth have their limit, the most powerful and the most joyful fall from their majesty and from their joy and turn into dust. The whole earthly sphere is merely a huge grave and there is nothing on its surface that shall not hide in the grave beneath the sod. Waters, rivers and stream strive to their destination and never return to their blessed source. All hurry forward to bury themselves in the depths of the infinite ocean. That which was yesterday is to-day no more. And that which is to-day will be no more to-morrow. The graveyard is full of the dust of those who were animated with life, reigned as kings, ruled nations, presided in assemblies, led armies to battles, conquered new

lands, exacted obeisance, were puffed up with vanity, pomp and glory.

But their glory passed like black smoke issuing from a crater and left nothing behind but a mention on the page of the chronicler.

The great, the wise, the brave, the beautiful—where are they alas? They have all mingled with the clay, and that which overtook them will overtake us also: and it will overtake those that shall come after us.

But take courage, all ye famous chiefs and true friends and faithful subjects, let us strive toward that Heaven where all is eternal and where is no corruption nor dissolution.

The darkness is the cradle of the sun, and the splendor of the stars needs the. gloom of the night.

Teizkuko Nezagual Copotl. (About fourteen centuries before the birth of Christ.)

7. Death is inevitable for all that is bom even as birth is inevitable for all that is to die. Therefore we do not sorrow because of that which is inevitable. The former state of living creatures is unknown to us, their present state is manifest, and their future state can not be known— why then worry or be agitated? Some people look upon the soul as upon a marvel, others hear and speak about it with astonishment, but no one knows anything certain about it.

The portals of Heaven are opened to you just as far as you need. Free yourself from cares and anxieties and direct your soul to the spiritual. Let your actions be guided by yourself and not by events. Be not of those whose purpose in action is the hope of a reward. Be attentive, do your duty, abandon all thoughts of consequences, so that

it be a matter of indifference to you whether things end agreeably to you or disagreeably Bahawad Hita,

8. You would be delivered from sins, and life by enfeebling your body and its passions assists you. This always gives you a longing to go ahead, to leave the body, a longing for separateness. Set your life upon deliverance from sins, and your ailments, all your bodilj ills and death itself will be blessed.

You are growing feeble and old, your body is dying, but you are gaining spiritual vigor, growth and birth.

9. We are like the passengers upon some gigantic ship, whose master has a passenger list that is unknown to us and contains the destination of the passengers. Until we are put ashore what else can we do but obey the laws of the ship, live in peace, concord and love with our fellow travelers and thus spend the time allotted to us?

10. Does transformation terrify you ? Nothing is accomplished without change. Water can not be heated without a transformation of fuel. Nourishment is impossible without a transformation of food. The whole of earthly existence is a transformation. Understand that the transformation which awaits you has the same meaning, that it also is necessary in the very nature of things. Take heed of only one thing—that you do not commit any act contrary to the true nature of man, but it is always necessary to act in all things in accordance with the indications of nature. Marcus Aurelius,

11. This would be a terrible world if suffering did not result in good. It would be a monstrous device designed for the sole purpose of tormenting people physically and spiritually. If this were so, this world that brings forth evil for no good future purpose, but idly and aimlessly, would

be inexpressibly immoral. It would seem to entice people designedly for the purpose of inflicting sufferings upon them. It chastises you from birth, it mixes bitterness with every cup of joy and renders death an unceasing threatening horror. And of course, if there be no God and immortality, the loathing of life shown by people would be perfectly intelligible. It is evoked in their hearts by the existing order, or rather disorder, by the horrible moral chaos, as we might properly name it.

But if there only is a God and an eternity ahead of us, all things are changed. We discern good in evil, light in darkness and hope dispels despair.

Which of the two suppositions has more verisimilitude: can we admit that moral creatures—human beings— could be put into the position of justly cursing the existing order of the world, while a way is open to them that would solve the contradiction? They are bound to curse the world and the day of their birth if there be no God or future life. But, if on the contrary, both exist, life becomes a blessing and the world a place of moral perfecting and of a boundless increase of happiness and holiness.

Erasmus.

12. Pascal says that if we saw ourselves when dreaming always in one position, but in waking hours in different positions, we should learn to regard dreams as a reality and reality as a dream. This is not quite accurate. Reality differs from dreams in the fact that in life we possess the capacity of acting in accordance with the demands of our morality; but in dreams we know that we frequently commit repulsive and immoral actions that are not characteristic of us and we cannot restrain them. Thus we might rather say that if we did not know a life in which we had more power of gratifying the demands of our moral na-

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE \77

ture than in our dreams, we should consider dreams as the true life, nor should we doubt that this is not the real life. Now is not all of our life, from the day of our birth until the moment of death, even with its dreams, in its turn a dream vision which we merely mistake for reality and for real life, and merely fail to doubt its reality because we do not know the life in which our freedom to follow the moral demands of our soul would be even greater than that which we enjoy now ?

13. If this tiny fragment of life is your all, take heed to make of it all you can. Said Ben Hamid.

14. "How can we live not knowing what awaits us?" say some. And yet only when we live without thinking of what awaits us, merely for the manifestation of the love within us, only then the true life begins.

15. It is frequently said: "What is the good of this to me, it is time for me to die." Whatever is no good to us because it is time for us to die, is no good to us anyway and should not be done at any time. But there is one concern which is always of importance, and the nearer we are to death, the more needful it is: it is the concern of our soul. And this concern is to bring betterment into your soul.

16. Love eliminates not only the dread of death, but even the thought of it. An old peasant woman remarked to her daughter how happy she was that she was dying in the summer time. And when the girl asked why, the dying woman answered that she was glad because it is so hard to dig a grave in the winter time and much easier to do so in the summer time. Death was easy for this old woman because to the last dying moment she was thinking of others and not of herself. Do the works of love, and there will be no death for you.

pared to drop it at any moment. Gai^ yourself to see whether you can detach yourself. Only then can you do well whatever you are doing.

The expectation of death teaches us so to act.

18. When you came to this world you wept, and all around you rejoiced. So live that when you come to leave the world all around you shall weep, white you alone are smiling.

V.

. Being Mindful of Death is a Help to Spiritual Life

1. Since man has given time to'meditation it has always been recognized that nothing so stimulates moral life as much as being mindful of physical death. But falsely directed medical skill has for its aim the deliverance of people from death, teaching them to hope for an escape from death, to banish all thoughts of physical death and thus depriving them of an important stimulus to moral life.

2. In order to induce yourself to do good give frequent thought to the fact that you must soon die. Picture to yourself vividly that you are on the eve of death, and you surely will not dissemble, deceive, lie, condemn, censure, feel malice or take the property of others. On the eve of death you perform only the simplest of good deeds: Help, comfort, and show love to others. And such acts are just those that are needed most and give most joy. For this reason it is well always to be mindful of death, particularly if entangled in the affairs of life.

3. When people realize that death has come, they pray and repent of their sins in order to come before God with a pure soul. But do we not daily die a little and are we not every moment on the brink of death ? Therefore we ought not to wait for the hour of death, but be ready all the time.

And to be ready for death means to live right.

This is just the reason that death always hangs over men so that they may be at all times prepared to die, and preparing for 4^th may live right.

4. There is nothing more certain than death, nothing more positive than that it will come for us all. Death is more certain than the morrow, than night following day, than winter following summer. Why is it then that we prepare for the night and for the winter time, but do not prepare for death. We must prepare for death. But there is only one way to prepare for death—^and that is to live well. The better the life which we live, the less is the fear of death, and the easier is death itself. For the man of holiness there is no death.

5. How soon must we die! And still we can not rid ourselves of dissimulation and passions, still we cling to the old prejudice that the external things of the world have the power to harm us, still we fail to be gentle with all men.

Marcus Aurelius.

6. If you are in doubt and do not know how to act, picture to yourself that you will have to die before evening, and your doubts are dissolved: you see at once with perfect clearness what is the call of duty and what is mere personal desire.

7. In the sight of death all life becomes solemn, significant and truly fruitful and joyous. In the sight of death we can not shirk the task assigned to us in this life, because in the sight of death it is impossible to attend zealously to anything else. And when thus engaged, we find life a joy, and are freed from that fear of death which vitiates the life of those people who are not living in the sight of death.

8. Live as though you are about to ^vj l^x^s:^^^ 4s^

life, and as though whatever time remains to you is an unexpected gift. Marcus Aurelius.

9. Live for an age and for a day. Labor as though you had an eternity to live, and act towards others as though you were on the brink of death.

10. The consciousness of approaching death teaches men to know how to bring their affairs to completion. And of all human affairs there is one only which is always fully perfected: it is present love.

11. Living oblivious of death and living in the full consciousness of approaching it closer every hour are two entirely distinct modes of existence. The former is akin to the animal, the latter to the divine.

12. In order to live without anguish we must have the hope of joys ahead of us. But what joys can be hoped for if ahead of us is only old age and death? What then should we do? Set the object of our life not in the blessings of the body, but in spiritual blessings, not in acquiring more learning, wealth, glory, but in acquiring more and more goodness, more and more love, more and more freedom from the body—and then old age and death will cease to be bogies and agony, but will become the very thing you long for.

VL

Dying

1. We understand under death both the dissolution of life and the minutes or hours of the process of dying. The first, the dissolution of life, does not depend upon us, but the second, the process of dying, is in our power. Our dying may be good, or it may be bad. We must strive to die right. This is needful for those who survive.

2. In the dying moments of man the candle by the

light of which he turned the leaves in his book of anxieties, illusions, sorrows and ills, flares up more brightly than ever, illuminating all that had previously been obscure, then it flickers awhile, grows dimmer and goes out forever.

3. The dying man understands the living with difficulty, but you feel that this difficulty of understanding that which is living is not due to the weakening of his mental forces, but to his beginning to comprehend something else, something that the living do not, can not understand, and this absorbs all his powers.

4. It is generally thought that the life of the very aged is of no consequence, that they are merely winding up their days. This is untrue: the most precious activities of life, most needful to themselves and to others, are carried on in the closing years of the very aged. The value of life is in inverse ratio to the square of distance from death. It would be well if all understood this, both the aged and those around them. But most precious of all is the last dying moment.

5. Before reaching old age I endeavored to live right. Having reached old age I endeaver to die right. In order to die right, one must die willingly. Seneca.

6. Do I fear death ? I think I do not, but with its approach, or when meditating upon it, I cannot but experience a feeling of agitation akin to that experienced by the traveler who nears the spot where his train is to drop from some lofty height into the depths of the sea, or be taken up in a balloon to some dizzy height. The dying man knows that nothing unusual is happening to him, but only that which has happened to millions of others, that he is merely about to change his mode of travel, but he can not avoid a flutter of excitement when nearing the place where the change is to be made.

7. All things in li(« seem very simple; all things are connected with one another, are of one order and explain one another. But death appears something exceptional, some break in the chain of that which is simple, clear and intelligible in life. Therefore men for the most part try to give no thought to death. This is a grave error. On the contrary, life must be so harmonized with death as to give to life something of the solemnity and mystery of death, and to death something of the clearness, simplicity and obviousness of Ufe.

AFTER DEATH

AFTER DEATH

We are asked: "What will be after death?" There 18 only one answer to this question: The body will decay and turn into dust, this we know for a certainty. But what will become of that which we call our soul? To this we can give no answer, because the question "what will become" relates to time. But the soul is not of time. A soul was not nor will be. It only is. Without it, nothing would be.

I.

The Death of the Flesh is Not the Termination of Life,

But Only a Transformation

1. When we die, only one of two things can happen to us: either that which we regard as our self will pass into another being or we shall cease to be separate beings and shall merge with God. Whichever happens, we have nothing to fear.

2. Death is a change of our body, the greatest, the final change. We have passed through bodily changes continuously, and we are forever passing through them: once we were naked fragments of flesh, then babes at the mother's breast, then we grew hair and teeth, then we lost some teeth and acquired others, then our beard grew, still later we turned bald and grey, but we have never feared any of these changes.

Why then do we fear this last final change?

Because no one has told us convincingly what will happen to us after this change. But if a man leaves us to go on a journey and fails to write to us, who can tell how he fares when he finally arrives at his destination? We can merely say that we have no news of him. It vs. чксс>гк

also with the dead. We know that they are no longer with us, but we have no reason to think that they have been destroyed or that they are worse off than they were before they left us. Even so the fact that we can not know what will be with us after death or what we were before wc had life, proves only that it is not given to us to know these things, and that therefore it is needless for us to know them. We know only one thing—^that our life is not in the changes of the body, but in that which dwells in our body, in our soul. And in the soul there can be no beginning or end, because it alone is,

3. "One or the other: either death is complete annihilation and disappearance of consciousness, or in accordance with tradition only a change and a migration of the soul from one place to another. If death is a complete destruction and consciousness and is like unto a deep sleep without dreams, then death is an indubitable blessing, for we have only to compare a night of such dreamless sleep in our own experience with those other nights and days filled with terror, anxieties and unsatisfied desire which we experience in sleep or waking, I am convinced few will find days and nights more blessed than the nights of dream-lessness. So that if death be such a sleep, I for one consider it a blessing. But if death be the passing from this world into another, and it is correctly related that we shall find there those wise men and holy who died before us, can there be a greater blessing than to live there in the company of these beings? I would long to die not once but a hundred times merely to be with them.

"Therefore I think that you, О judges, and all people, should not fear death but remember one thing: for a good man there is no evil either in life or in death."

Socrates,

4. He who sees the sense of life in striving after spiritual perfection can not believe in death, in the interruption of the striving after perfection. That which is on the way to perfection can not be destroyed, it can only be transformed.

5. Death is the cessation of that consciousness of life by which I now live. The consciousness of life ceases, this I see in the case of those who die. But what becomes of that which was conscious? I do not know, I can not know.

6. People fear death and desire to live as long as possible. But if death be a misfortune, is it not the same to die in thirty as in three hundred years? What joy can there be for the man condemned to die, if his execution is put off for thirty days, while his comrades are put to death in three days. A life that must terminate with death would be death itself. Scovoroda.

7. It is the feeling of everyone that he is not a mere nothing called into life at a certain moment by some other thing. Therefore the universal confidence that death may terminate life, but not by any means existence.

Schopenhauer.

8. Aged men lose the remembrance of recent events. But memory is that which binds all the things which occur in time into one "I." And in the case of the aged man this earthly "I" is done with, and a new "I" has commenced.

9. The more profoundly conscious you are of life, the less you believe in its destruction in death.

10. I do not believe in any of the existing religions, and for this reason I can not be suspected of blindly following any tradition or the influences of education. But

all through life I have thought as deeply as I could on the subject of the law of our life. I searched into it in the history of mankind and in my own consciousness and I have come to the unshakable conviction that there is no death; that life can not be other than eternal; that infinite perfection is the law of life, that every faculty, every thought, every striving implanted in me must have its practical development; that we have ideas and tendencies which far exceed the possibilities of earthly life; that the very fact that we possess them and can not trace their source to our feelings, proves that they proceed in us from a domain beyond this earth and may be realized only beyond it; that nothing perishes on earth but the appearance, and to think that we die because our body is dying is to think that the workman is dead because his tools have worn out. Mazzini.

11. If the hope of immortality be a delusion it is clear who are those who are deluded. Not those vulgar and darkened minds who had never approached this majestic thought, not the sleepy and frivolous people who are content with a sensual dream in this life and with the dream of oblivion in the future life, not those lovers of self, narrow of conscience and petty of thought and still more petty in love, no, not they. They would be right, and the gain would be theirs. The deluded would be all those great men and holy who have been and are venerated of all men. The deluded would be all those who have lived for something better than their own happiness and who have laid down their life to make others happy.

All these men deluded! Then even Christ must have suffered in vain yielding up his spirit to an imaginary father, and thought in vain that he manifested him in his life. The tragedy of Golgotha would then have been only

a mistake, and the truth in those days would have been on the side of those who then mocked him and cried for his death, and now on the side of those who are perfectly indifferent to that accord with human nature which is represented by this alleged piece of fiction. Whom are we to worship, whom shall we trust if the inspiration of the highest minds be a mere jtunble of cunningly devised fables? Parker.

II.

The Nature of the Change in Existence Which Occurs with the Death of the Body is Unfathomable to

the Mind of Man

1. We frequently endeavor to picture death as a passing into something, but such an endeavor leads us nowhere. It is just as impossible to picture death as to picture God. All that we can know of death is that death, even as everything else that proceeds from God, is a blessing.

2. Some ask: What will become of the soul after death? We do not know, we can not know. Only one thing is certain, that if you are going anywhere, you must have proceeded from somewhere. Even so in life. If you came into life, you must have proceeded from somewhere. From wherever or whomever you have proceeded, there and to him you will return.

3. I do not remember anything of myself before my birth, and therefore I think that I shall not remember after death anything of my present life. If there will be a life after death, it will be such as I am unable to picture to myself.

4. The entire life of man is a series of changes incomprehensible to an observer, yet perceptible to him. But the b^finning of these changes as culminating in birth,

and the end of these changes as culminatine in death, arc not even perceptible to obserration.

5. Only one thing is important for me: to know what God would fiave me do. And this is clearly manifested not only in all religions but also in my conscience, and therefore my concern is to learn to fulfill it all and to direct all my powers towards that end, knowing full well that if I devote all my strength to the fulfillment of the Master's will, he will not leave me, and that only that will happen to me which ought, and that it will be well with me,

6. No one knows what death is, yet all fear it, regarding it as the direst evil, although it may be the greatest blessing. Plato.

7. If we believe that all that has happened to us in our life has happened for our blessit^, we can not fail to believe that that which happens to us when we die will abo redound to our blessing.

8. No one can boast that he knows that there is a God and a future life. I can not say that I know beyond doubt that there is a God and that there is immortality, but I must say that I feel both that there is a God and that my "/" is immortal. This means that the faith in God and another world is so closely knit with my nature that this faith can not be severed from me. Kant.

9. People ask: "What will be after death?" The answer must be this: if you truly say in your heart, and not merely with your tongue, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," that is in this temporal life as well as in life beyond time, and know that His will is love, you need give no thought to what will be after death.

10. The dying Christ cried out; "Falher, into Thy

hands I commend my spirit." If He utters these words not with his tongue merely, but with his whole heart, what can man need more? If my spirit returns to Him from whom it has proceeded, nothing can happen to my spirit but that which is best.

III.

Death—A Release

1. Death is the destruction of the vessel in which our spirit was contained. We must not confuse the vessel with that which is put into it.

2. When we are bom, our souls are placed into the cofiin of our body. This coffin—our body—is gradually destroyed, and our soul is more and more freed. But when the body dies, in accordance with the will of Him who joined body and soul, the soul attain its complete release. Heraclitus.

3. Even as the tallow of the candle melts from the fire, so the life of the body is destroyed through the life of the soul. The body bums in the fire of the spirit and is entirely consumed when death comes. Death destroys the body even as the builders take down the scaffolding when the structure is completed.

The stmcture is the life of the spirit, the scaffolding is the body. And he who has reared up the stmcture of his spiritual life rejoices, when dying, because the scaffolding of his bodily life is removed.

4. We think that life ends with death because we account as life only the period from birth until death. Thus to think of life is to think of a stream that the stream is not the water therein but consists of the shores.

5. Everything in the world grows, bloQira& ^яА. xfc^

turns to its root. To return to the root is rest in accordance with nature. That which is in accordance with nature is eternal; therefore the dissolution of the body hides no perils. Lao-Tse.

6. When in the last dying moments the spiritual principle leaves the body we know for a certainty the body is being abandoned by that which has animated it and ceasing to be a thing separate from the material world combined with it. But whether the spiritual principle passes into a new form of life, with new limitations, or unites with that timeless and spaceless principle which gave it life, we do not know, we can not know.

7. He who has striven all his life to subjugate his passions, being hindered therein by his body, can not but rejoice to be released from it. And death is but a release. The process of self-perfecting of which we have spoken so much consists in the striving to dissociate as far as possible the soul from the body, and to teach it to collect itself and to concentrate within itself and independently of the body; and death gives this very release. Is it not strange that he who has been preparing all through his life to live as free as possible from the dominion of the body should be discontented at the very moment when this deliverance is about to be accomplished? Therefore, as much as I regret to leave y0u and to cause you grief, I can not but welcome death as the realization of all that I have striven for all my life.

Socrates* Farewell Address to His Disciples

8. Only he does not believe in immortality who has never truly thought of life.

If man be only a corporal being then death is the end of something so insignificant that it is not worth while to

r^ret it. But if man be a spiritual creature, and the soul live in the body only ifor a season, then death is merely a change.

9. We fear death only because we mistake for our true self the mere instrument with which we are wont to labor—our body. But if we only accustom ourselves to regard that as our self which directs the instrument, namely our spirit, then there can be no fear? He who regards his body as an instrument given him to work with, experiences at the moment of death only the consciousness of awkwardness which the workingman experiences when his accustomed tool is taken from him while the new one has not yet been given him.

10. Man observes how plants and animals spring into life, grow, strengthen and multiply, then weaken, deteriorate, grow old and die.

He observes the same process in other people, and he knows that the same will happen in his own body; he knows that it will grow old, deteriorate and die even as all things that are bom and live in this world.

But besides these things which the man observes in himself and other creatures, he also knows something within himself that does not deteriorate and grow old, but grows stronger and better the longer it*lives; every man is conscious of his own soul within him which can not fare as does his body. Therefore death is a terror only to him who lives with the body and not with the soul.

11. A wise man who affirmed the immortality of the soul was asked: "But how about the end of the world?" He replied: "In order that my soul may live, no world is required.*'

12. The soul does not dwell in the body as though tt were at home, but as a wanderer in a strange refuge.

Hindu wisdom.

13. The life of man may be pictured thus: progress along a corridor or a cylinder, first free and easy, then due to self-expansion more and more crowded and difficult; as he moves onward he sees in the distance, but gradually coming nearer, the brightness of the free space beyond, and he observes those who precede him disappearing into the beyond.

How then feeling all the strain and pressure and impediment of his progress should he not long to reach the open space ahead of him? And how then should he, instead of desiring it, fear to approach this freedom ?

14. The more spiritual our life becomes, the more we believe in immortality. As our nature departs from the uncouthness of the animal, our very doubts are gradually destroyed.

The veil is lifted from the future, the darkness is dissipated, and we feel our immorality right here.

Martweau.

15. He who has a false view of life has also a false view of death.

16. He who knows others is well-informed, he who knows himself is enlightened.

He who overcomes others is strong, he who overcomes himself is powerful. But he who dying knows that he is not destroyed is eternal. Lao-Tse.

IV.

Birth and Death are the Boundaries Beyond Which Our

Life is Unknown to Us

1. Birth and death are the boundaries in two directions. Beyond either there is an equal mystery.

2. Death is the same as birth. With his birth the infant enters into a new world, begins an entirely diflFerent life from the one in his mother's womb. If the infant could tell us what he had experienced while departing from his former existence, he would relate an experience similar to that of the man who is passing out of life.

3. I can not rid myself of the idea that I had died before I was bom, and that in death I shall again return into the same state. To die and to come back to life with the memory of former existence we call a swoon; to awaken with new organs which must be developed anew we call birth. Lichtenberg,

4. We can look upon life as upon a dream, and upon death as upon an awakening.

5. When people die—^where do they go? Probably there whence people come when they are bom. People come from God, the Father of our life; all life has ever been, is now, and ever will be from Him. And all men retum to Him likewise. So that in death man merely returns to Him from whom he issued. The man leaves his home, labors, rests, eats and amuses himself, labors again, and when he feels tired returns home.

Even so with human life: man proceeds from God, labors, suffers, is comforted, rejoices and rests, and after all his vicissitudes, returns home whence he came.

6. Did we not experience one resurrection from a state wherein we had known less of the present than va tb«.

present we know of the future? As our former state is in relation to the present, so is the relation of our present state to the future. Lichtenberg.

7, You came into this world not knowing how, but you know that you came into this world the possessor of that specific "I" which you are; then you walked along the path of life, and suddenly midway, half in joy, half in fear, you balk and refuse to budge because you can not see what is "there." But you had not seen even this world into which you came, and still you came. You entered through the entrance gate, but refuse to pass through the exit gate. All your life consisted of going onward and onward in bodily life. And you marched on, hurriedly at times, and now you grieve because that is happening which you have been doing right along. You are appalled by the dreadful change which will take place in your body at death. But as great a change occurred to you also when you were bom, and it showed no ill effects—in fact it turned out so well that you hate to part from your state.

V.

Death Frees the Soul from the Confines of

Personality

1. Death is a release from the onesidedness of personality.

To this doubtless is due the appearance of peace and serenity on the faces of the deceased. Calm and peaceful is as a rule the death of a good man. But to die readily, willingly, joyfully is the prerogative of him who has renounced himself, of him who has renounced the life of personality, who abnegates it. For only such a man really and

not seemingly desires death and therefore neither requires nor demands a further existence of his personality.

Schopenhauer.

2. The consciousness of all that is confined within the body of the individual strives to expand its boimdaries. . Herein is the first half of human life. Man in the first half of his life manifests an increasing love of objects and persons; that is exceeding his own boundaries, he transfers his consciousness to other beings.

But love as he may, he can not leave his boundaries and only in death sees the possibility of their obliteration. How then should he in view of this fear death? The process is somewhat similar to that of the metamorphosis of a butterfly from a caterpillar. We are as caterpillars; we are first born, then fall into the sleep of a chrysalis. But we know ourselves as butterflies in the life to come.

3. Our body confines within its boundaries that divine principle which we call our soul. And these boundaries, like a vessel giving form to the liquid or the gas contained therein, gives this divine principle its outward form. When the vessel is broken that which is contained therein ceases to have the form which it had and escapes. Does it combine with other substances? Does it receive a new form? We know nothing of that, but we know for a certainty that it loses the form which it had in its former confinement, because that which confined it has been destroyed. This we know, but we can not know what happens to that which has been confined. We only know that the soul after death becomes something else, but what—^this we have no means in the present life of judging.

4. Some say: "True immortality is only such wherein my personality is retained." But my personality is the very

thing that is most loathsome to me in this world, and from which alt through life I have sought to be delivered,

5. If life is a dream, and death an awakening, then the fact that I see myself separated from everything in matter is a dream from which I hope to awake in dying.

6. It is only then a joy to die when you weary of jrour separateness from the world, when you realize the whole horror of separateness and the joy if not of uniting with all, then at least of escape from the prison house of separateness in this life, where you only rarely commune with others through the passing sparks of love.

One so longs to say: "Enough of this cage. Give me another relationship to the world, more appropriate to my soul. And I know that death will give it to me. And yet they try to comfort me with the assurance that even there I shall remain a personality."

7. Beneath my feet is solid ground, frozen with the cold of the winter, around me are trees of gigantic growth, above me an overcast sky; I feel my body; thoughts surge through my mind, hut I know, I feel in every fibre of my being that all of these things—the solid and frozen ground, the trees and the sky, my body and my thoughts—are but accidents, that they are all the product of my five senses, of my imagination—a world created by myself, and all of this is because I form this and not a different particle of the world, because such is the form of my separateness from the world. I know that I have but to die, and all of these things will not vanish but change their form, like a change of scene in a theatre, where out of bushes and stones palaces and towers are formed. Such will be the trans-formation wrought in me by death, if I only am not totally destroyed, but pass into another being differently separated from the world. And then the whole world, remaining un-

\

changed for those who are left to live in it, will yet be changed for me. The whole world is such and not different because I consider myself to be just such a creature and not a different one, just so separated from the world and not differently. And there is no end to the number of forms of separation of creatures from the world.

VI.

Death Reveals that Which Had Been Unfathomable

1. The longer a man lives, the more life reveals itself to him. That which had been unknown, becomes known. And so until death. But in death all is revealed that man can know.

2. Something reveals itself to the dying man in the moment of death. "Is that it?" This is the expression which we nearly always seem to read in the features of the dying man. But we who remain can not see that which has been revealed to him. It will be revealed to us also when the time comes.

3. All things are revealed, while you live, in the manner of a uniform ascent to higher and higher levels by regular steps. But when death comes, that which was formerly revealed suddenly ceased to reveal itself, or he who received the revelations ceases to see that which was for-merely revealed, because he sees something new, something entirely different.

4. That which is dying is in part already a partaker of eternity. It seems as though the dying man speaks to us from beyond the tomb.

That which he says seems to us a commandment. We picture him almost as a prophet. It is evident that for him who feels life ebbing away and the tomb opening up be-

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

fore him the time of portentous speech has arrived. The essence of his nature must manifest itself. The divine principle that is within him can no longer remain in hiding.

Amiel.

5. All misfortunes reveal to us that divine, immortal, self-contained principle which forms the basis of our life. But the paramount misfortune—^as people judge it to be— death—reveals to us fully our true "I."

The life of man and its blessedness consist in the ever closer union of the soul, which is through its body separated from other souls and from God, with that from which it is separated. This union is effected by the soul as it manifests itself through love and ever more frees itself from the body. And therefore if man realizes that in this release of the soul from the body lies his life and its blessedness, his life in spite of all misfortunes, sufferings or ailments can not be anything else but a state of uninterrupted blessedness.

I.

Life is the Highest Blessing Attainable to Man

1. Life, whatever its course, is a blessing than which there is no higher. If we say at all that life is an evil we only say so in comparison with another, an imaginary and better life. But we know no other or better life, nor can we know it, and therefore life, whatever its course, is the highest blessing for us.

2. We frequently despise the blessing of this life, anticipating a higher blessing somewhere else. But no such higher blessing can exist anywhere, for in our life we have been granted so great a blessing—^the blessing of life—than which nothing is, nothing can be higher.

3. This world is no mockery, nor a vale of sorrows or transition into a better, eternal world, but this world, the world wherein we now live, is one of those eternal worlds which is beautiful and full of joy, and which we not only can, but must through our efforts make still more

beautiful and filled with joy for the sake of those who live with us and for the sake of all those who will live after us.

4. To make every moment of life the best possible, no matter whether it fall to our share from either hand of fate, dispensing favor or dispensing disfavor, therein is the art of living and the true superiority of a rational being. Lichtenberg.

5. Man is unhappy, because he does not know that he is happy. Dosioyevsky.

6. It can not be said that serving God comprised the whole destination of man. The destination of man is always and always must be his blessedness. But as God desired to give blessedness to people, they must, in striving for their blessedness, do that which God desires of them, and therefore obey His will.

II.

True Blessedness is in the Present Life and Not in the Life Beyond the Tomb

1. According to the false teaching the life in this world is an evil, but blessedness is attained only in the life to come.

According to the true Christian teaching, the aim of life is blessedness, and this blessedness is attained here.

True blessedness is always in our hands. Like a shadow it follows in the wake of a good life.

2. If paradise is not in your own self you will never enter it. Angelus.

3. Do not believe that this life is but a transition into another world, and our happiness lies only in that This is untrue. We should be happy in this world right here.

And in order that we may be happy here in this world, we must only live as He desires who sent us. Nor must you say that in order that you may live well, everybody else should live well, should live according to God. This is wrong, live yourself according to God, make efforts of your own, and you will be happy, and others will also be better off rather than worse off.

4. The most common and the most harmful delusion among men is to think that they can not in this life attain all the blessedness which they desire.

5. Those who maintain that this world is a vale of sorrows, a place of trial, etc., and the other world is a world of blessedness, might as well maintain that the whole infinite world of God is beautiful, and that life in the whole world of God is beautiful, with the sole exception of the one spot and the one period of time, namely where and when we now live. That would be a strange phenomenon. Is this an3rthing else but an obvious misunderstanding of the meaning and the calling of one's life?

6. Live the true life and you will have many adversaries, but even your adversaries will love you. Life will bring you many misfortunes, but you will be happy even in them and will bless life and cause others to bless it. Dostoyevsky.

7. How odd and ridiculous to plead with God! Not begging of Him is needful, but to fulfill His law, to be as He is. The only rational attitude towards God is to be thankful to Him for the blessing which He bestowed upon me by animating me with His breath.

A master has placed his laborers into such a state that fulfilling the things he showed them they attain the highest blessing which their mind can conceive (the blessing of spiritual joy), and yet they beg things of Him.

By begging they show that they do not do that which was assigned to them.

III.

True Blessedness You Can Find Only Within

Youreelf

1. God entered into me and through mc seeks His blessedness. What then can be the blessedness of God? Only to be Himself. Angelus.

2. Л wise man remarked: I have covered the earth in my travels seeking blessedness. I searched for it day and night without ceasing. Once when I had despaired of finding this blessedness an inner voice told me: blessedness is in thyself. I obeyed the voice and found true and unchangeable blessedness.

3. What other blessedness would you, if God and the whole world be within you? Angelus.

4. Happy are the people if they call nothing their own but their soul. Happy are they even if they Hve among covetous and evil and hateful people, for none can take their happiness away from them. Buddhist teaching.

5. The better the people live the less they complain about others. And the worse a man lives the less content is he with himself and with others.

6. The wise man seeks all within himself, the madman all in others. Confucius.

IV. The True Life is the Spiritual Life 1. That which we call happiness or unhappiness of our animal "I" is outside of our will; but the blessedness

of our spiritual "I" depends only upon us, on our obedience to God.

2. All that the people regard as misfortunes or ills is due to the fact that they consider only their material personality as truly existing: John, Peter, Mary, Natalie; whereas the material personality represents merely the boundaries in which has manifested itself the really existing eternal All. This is a delusion in the nature of the puzzle pictures in which figures are traced out of nothing between the contours of tress and branches. Man may r^;ard that which is bounded by the body as himself or that All which in him is not bounded by the body. In the first instance he is a slave, powerless and subject to all sorts of misfortunes; in the second case he is free, all-powerful and knows no ills.

3. He who set the aim of his life on releasing his spiritual "I" from the body can not be discontented, because that which he desires is always accomplished.

4. The life of man, full of physical sufferings, liable to be interrupted at any instant, this life to avoid being the most cruel of mockeries must have such a significance that neither sufferings nor its duration—short or long— could affect the aim of life.

And such a significance pertains to human life. This significance is the ever increasing consciousness of God in self.

5. "My yoke is blessed.'* Men don a yoke that is un-suited to them and attempt to pull a load beyond their strength. An unsuitable yoke and an excessive load,—such is the life looking to the happiness of the body or to the material blessings for others. True blessedness is in the increasing consciousness of God in self. Only such a yoke is made to fit the strength of men and it is the one Jesus

speaks of. Try and see how pleasant and easy it is. He who would know whether I speak the truth let him try and do as I say, said Jesus.

6. Human life is a never ceasing reunion of the spiritual which is isolated by the body with that with which it is conscious of oneness. Whether man understands it or not, whether he wills it or not, this reunion is being unceasingly accomplished through the condition which we call human life. The difference between the people who do not understand their calling and do not wish to fulfill it, and those who understand it and wish to live in accordance with it, is in this: the life of those who do not understand it is a continuous suffering, but the life of those who understand their calling and are fulfilling it, is unceasing and increasing blessedness.

The former are like stubborn animals whom the master must drag by a rope attached to the neck into that refuge where the animal will find food and shelter. It is futile on the part of the animal to struggle and to choke itself in its efforts to resist the master: it will be taken to the place to which all must come.

And the latter are like the animal which having comprehended the master's will goes willingly and gladly where the master leads, knowing that nothing but good can result from obeying the will of the master.

7. Nothing proves so patently that the business of life is to perfect oneself as the fact that whatever you may crave besides perfecting yourself, be your desire ever so fully satisfied, the moment it is satisfied, the fascination of the desire is immediately destroyed.

Only one thing never loses its joyful purport: the consciousness of your striving towards perfection.

This incessant self-perfecting yields true, unceasing

and ever increasing joy. Every step forward along this path carries with it its own reward, and this reward is received immediately. Nor can anything snatch it away.

8. He who has set his life on spiritual perfecting of self, can not be discontented, for that which he desires, is always in his power. Pascal.

9. To be blessed, to have eternal life, to abide in Grod, to be saved—it all amounts to the same thing: it is the solution of the problem of life. And this blessing grows, man feels an ever stronger and deeper mastery of heavenly joy. And this blessing knows no limits, for it is liberty, omnipotence and the fulness of the realization of all desires.

Amiel.

V.

Wherein is True Blessedness?

1. There are few genuine blessings. Only that is a genuine blessing and good which is a blessing and good for all.

Therefore it is needful to desire only that which is in accord with the common good.

He who directs his activity towards such an aim will acquire blessing for himself. Marcus Aurelius.

2. In the circumstances of people there is a combination of good and evil, but in their aims there is no such mixture: the aim can be evil—in the fulfilment of the will of one's animal nature, or good—in the fulfilment of the will of God. Let man yield to the first aim, and he can not but be unhappy; let him yield to the second, and there can be no unhappiness for him—all things are blessed.

3. No one can do genuine good to another. Genuine

good a man can do only to himself. And genuine good is only in this: living for the soul and not for the body.

4. To do good—this is one occupation of which it may be said that it will assuredly benefit us.

5. A man asks aid of people or of God. But no one can help him, unless it be himself, for nothing but his good life can help him. And only he alone can do it.

6. They say that he who is doing good needs no recompense. True enough when you think of a recompense outside of yourself, of a future and not of an immediate reward. But without obtaining a recompense, without the good yielding joy to man, man simply could not accomplish any good. It is only essential to understand what constitutes a true recompense. True recompense is neither in external things nor in the future, but in the inner things and in the present; in the betterment of the soul. This is both the recompense and the incentive of doing good.

7. One man of holy life prayed thus to God: "O Lord, be merciful to the wicked, for to the good Thou hast shown mercy already. They are blest in that they are good."

VI. In Love is Blessedness

1. In order to be truly happy only one thing is needful: love—to love all, the good and the bad. Love unceasingly, and unceasingly you will be happy.

2. We do not know, we can not know what we are living for. And therefore it would be impossible for us to know what to do and what not to do, if it were not for our longing for blessedness. This longing unerrii^ly points out to us what to do, if we only view our life not as an animal life but as a soul dwelling in a body. And

this very blessedness for which our soul longs is given us in love.

3. No one has ever wearied of doing good unto himself. But the supreme good is to do that which the soul desires, and the soul desires only one thing: to love and to be loved. Make the object of your life to increase this love, and you will find that your happiness will be always in your power.

4. If there is a God of goodness and if He created the world, He must have created it so as to insure the welfare of all, consequently including also the welfare of us—^human beings.

And if there be no God, let us of our own accord live so as to insure our well-being. And in order that it be well with us, we must love one another, there must be love. And God being love, this brings us back again to God.

5. My life is not my own, and therefore my own happiness can not be its aim; only that can be its aim which He desires who sent me into life. And He desires that all manifest love towards all others, which is the very thing wherein consists happiness, both my happiness and the happiness of all.

6. Man from the day of his birth to the moment of his death craves his own good, and that which he craves is granted him if he but seek it there where it is: in the love for God and for others.

7. Some say: "Why love disagreeable people?" Because there is joy therein. Try it and see whether it be true or not.

8. Nothing but death before us, nothing but duty in the present. How seemingly depressing and dreadful! Yet if you but seek the object of your life only in this: to strive for ever greater immediate communion in love with

others and with God, that which had seemed dreadful becomes supreme and inviolable blessedness.

The More a Man Lives for His Body, the More Surely He Misses True Blessedness

1. Some people seek happiness in power, others in thirst for knowledge—in science, still others in pleasures. These three ambitions have given birth to three distinct schools of thought, and all philosophers have always followed one of these three trends. But those who came closest to trae philosophy realized that universal happiness—^the goal of universal striving—must not be contained in any particular things which may be possessed by some few only, and which after being divided rather grieve their possessors because of the portion which has been denied them, than yield them joy in the portion which they possess. They realized that true blessedness must be such that all may possess it at one and the same time, without lack and without envy, and such as none may lose against their will. And such ha^^iness exists: it is love. Pascal.

2. Why art thou scurrying hither and thither, О wretched man ? Thou seekest happiness and hurriest somewhere, while happiness is in thy own self. Why seek for it at the door of others? If happiness be not within thee, thou wilt find it nowhere else. Ha[^iness is within thee, in that thou canst love all, love all not because of anything, not for the sake of anything, but in order to live the life of all people, instead of living merely thine own. To seek happiness in the world and not to avail thyself of the happiness that dwells in thy soul is the same as to seek water

k^^U

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 213

ia some distant muddy puddle, while by thy side a healing spring of pure water spurts from the mountain side.

Angelus.

3. If you long for true happiness, do not seek it in distant lands, in riches or in honors, do not importune others, do not cringe before them or contend with them in order to attain happiness. By such means you might attain properties, or rank and all sorts of unnecessary things, but true happiness which is needful to all can not be bought, can not be attained by importuning, but is given freely. Know that all that which you can not take freely is not yours, is superfluous to you. That which you need you can always take freely—by your own good life.

Yes, indeed, happiness does not depend either upon heaven or upon earth, but solely upon yourselves.

There is but one blessedness in the world, and that alone we need. What is this blessedness? A life of love. And to attain this blessedness is easy. Scovoroda.

4. Thanks be to God because He has made so easy the things that are needful to men, and so difficult the things that are needless. That which men need most of all is happiness, and to be happy is the easiest thing of all. Thanks be to God.

The kingdom of God is within us. Happiness dwells in our heart, if it is filled with love. How would it be if that happiness which all men need were the gift of some particular place, a period of time, of some position, of health or of physical strength? How would it be if happiness were to be found alone in America or in Jerusalem ? In the times of Solomon ? Or in a royal palace ? In wealth, in honors, in a desert? In science, in health or in beauty?

Could the people live all in America or in Jerusalem?

Could all live in the same period? If happiness were in riches, in health or in beauty, how unhappy would be the lot of all the poor, the aged, the sick and the homely. Could God deprive all these of happiness ? No, thanks be to God. He has made the difficult things superfluous. He has arranged it so that there is no happiness In riches, or in honors, or in beauty of the body. Happiness is in one thing only—in the goodness of life, and that is in every nun's power.

5. Men pray to God to help them in the thii^ that are outside of them, and God is always ready to help them in the things that are within them. Or else they would have Him help them as they desire, and not as He would help them.

6. To importune God for blessings in this ilfe is the same as to sit by the side of a spring of water and to pray to it for deliverance from thirst. Bend down and drink. The fulness of blessings has been granted us. We must only know how to make use of it.

7. \l you will reckon that a blessing which is outside of yourself, you will be unhappy always. Realize that a blessing is only that which is in your power, and no (Hie will be able to rob you of your happiness.

VHI.

Man is Only then Unconscious of the Blessedness of lafe if He Fails to Fulfil the Law of Life

1. If you ask: "Why does evil exist?" I answer with the question: "Why does life exist?" The evil exists so that there may be life. Life is manifested ш emancipation from evil.

2, If lite does not appear to you a great and unmerited joy it is only because your reason is wroi^fly directed.

3. If the life of the people is not full of joy, it is because they fail to do that which is needful in order to make life a constant joy.

4. If we say that our life is not blessedness, we inevitably allow it to be understood thereby that we know of a higher blessing than life. And yet we do not know, nor indeed can we know any higher blessing than life. And therefore if life does not appear to us to be a blessing, it is not life which is in any way to blame for it, but we ourselves.

5. If any man says that though doing good he feels unhappy, it merely proves that what he considers good is not good. ,

6. Know and remember that if a man is unhappy, it is his own fault. People are only then unhappy when they desire something that they can not have; but they are happy then when they desire something that they can have.

What is it that the people can not always have though they desire it, and what is it that they can always have when they desire it?

People can not always have, though they desire them, the things that are not in their power, things that do not belong to them, things that others can take away from them—^all these things are not in the power of men. But only those things are in the power of men which neither any man nor anything in the world can interfere with.

Among the first are all worldly boons—riches, honors and health. And the other thing is our soul, our spiritual perfecting. And just those things are in our power which are more needful than anything else for our happiness, because no worldly boons can give true happiness but merely always deceive. But true happiness comes Irom our efforts

to come closer to spiritual perfection, and these efforts are always in our power.

We have been treated as a kindly father treats his children: Only those things have been withheld from us which can not give us happiness. But all things that are needful to us have been granted us. Epiclctus.

7. A man spoils his stomach and complains of his dinner. Even so with the ресф1е who are dissatisfied with life.

We have no right to be dissatisfied with this life. If it seems to us that we are dissatisfied with it, it merely proves that we have good grounds to be dissatisfied with ourselves.

8. A man loses his way and comes to a river which obstructs his path, and he complains that he who sent him on his journey had deceived him; he wrings his hands in despair, leaps into the river cursing him that sent him and is destroyed, but he refuses to understand that on the road from which he had strayed there were bridges and all conveniences for traveling. Even so with the people who stray from the one true path of life. They are dissatisfied with life and frequently destroy themselves, because having strayed from the right path they refuse to acknowledge their mistake.

9. Do not think that failure to comprehend the meaning of human life and being perplexed thereby is either lofty or tragical. Such perplexity is akin to the perplexity of a man who drops into a company of people eng^^d in the reading of a good book. The perplexity of this man who neither will listen nor understand that which is being read but insists on annoying with his fidgeting people who are worthily engaged has nothing lofty or tragical in it, but is ridiculous, absurd and pitiable.

JO. A man who is unused to luxury and accidentally

ШШШ

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 217

finds himself in luxurious surroundings may pretend in order to raise himself in the estimation of others that he is so accustomed to luxury as not only not to marvel at it, but even treat it with disdain: even so a man who pretends to have a lofty view of the world and to disdain the joys of life, acts as though he is bored with life and can imagine something far superior to it.

11. There was once a benefactor who sought to do as much good to the people as possible and began to think how he could arrange it so as not to offend anyone and yet to benefit all. To give things to people direct would make it difficult to judge what to give to this and that one, who is worthy above his fellow, and how to even up things. Those who got less would complain, saying: "Why did you give to him, and not to me?"

And he conceived the idea of establishing an inn in some place where multitudes of people were wont to congregate. And in this inn he gathered all sorts of things that pertained to human necessity and pleasure. He arranged comfortable rooms, with convenient fireplaces, fuel, light, spacious bams full of all sorts of grain, vaults filled with vegetables, various fruits and beverages, beds and bedding, raiment and linen and footwear, enough for a vast multitude. This did the benefactor and departed, waiting to see what would happen.

And there came to the inn sundry good people who ate and drank and lodged, some a day or two, others a week or more, taking now a little raiment, or footwear, as they had need. And on departing they would bring all things in order just as they had found them, so that other strangers might use the conveniences, and passing on they only knew enough to give thanks to their unknown benefactor.

But before long bold, insolent and unkind men entered the inn. They looted the supplies and began to quarrel among themselves because of their loot. First they merely argued, then they fought and began to take things one from the other hy force, destroying much property with malice, merely in order to deprive others of its use. And when they got so far as to ruin everything in sight they began to freeze and starve, suffering hurt one from the other, and before long they blamed the master of the inn for his poor arrangements, for failing to provide watchmen, or to store enough supplies, and for admitting bad people. But stil! others claimed that there never had been a landlord and that the inn had come about of itself.

And these men departed from the inn hungry, cold and wrathful, and all they knew was to curse one another and the inn and him who had built it.

Even as they who living for their body instead of living for their soul, despoil their lives and the lives of others, and condemn one another instead of themselves, or God, if they acknowledge Him, or the world, if they do not acknowledge God and suppose that the world came about of itself.

IX.

Only the Fulfilment of the Law of Life Yields Blessing to Man

1. It is necessary to be always rejoicing. If your joy ceases, seek wherein you have erred.

2. If a man is dissatisfied with his state he can alter it in one of two ways: either by improving the circumstances of his life or by improving the state of his soul. The first b not always in his power, but the second always is.

Emerson.

3. It seems to me that a man must make it his first rule to be happy and contented. He must be ashamed of his discontent as though of an evil action, and know that if something is wrong with him or in him, he should not tell others about it or complain, but rather correct that which is wrong.

4. The fulfilment of the law of God, the law of love which yields supreme blessing, is possible in every condition of life.

5. In this life we are all like horses that are being broken in and harnessed to a cart between shafts. First we struggle, longing to live to ourselves, we break the shafts and tear the harness, but we fail to escape and merely exhaust ourselves. And only after exhausting ourselves we forget our own will and submit to a higher will and start on our way, and then we find peace and happiness.

6. The will of God will be fulfilled in any event, whether I will or will not obey it. But it is in my power either to oppose this will and to deprive myself of the blessedness of participating in it, or to be its instrument, to make it a part of myself as far as it can find room in me in the form of love, to live by it and to have the experience of unceasing blessedness.

7. "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light," says the teaching of Christ. The meaning of these words is that however troubled a man may be, however beset with griefs and misfortunes, he only need realize and receive in his heart the true teaching that life and its blessedness consists in the union of the soul with that from which it is separated by the body: with the souls of others and with God, and all the apparent ills

THE PATHWAY OF UFB

will vanish at once. If a man but set the object of his life upon uniting in love with all that is living and with God, his life immediately is changed from agony into blessedness.

DOING HIS WILL

ь^ИИМш

DOING HIS WILL

God gave us His spirit. He gave us love and reason s6 that we might serve Him; but we make use of this spirit in order to serve ourselves, which is same as using the blade of an axe to destroy the handle.

The meaning of our life—its only rational and joyous meaning—is in serving God in His work, which is the establishment of His Kingdom, and in feeling that we serve Him. It may happen at times that we do not feel that we are serving, and we begin to imagine that we have slipped out from beneath the yoke, or that the traces have weakened, or this may be due to the fact that we have grown accustomed to the yoke, have worked ourselves in, as it were, and do not feel the work. At any rate though we may not feel that we are serving Him from any external sensations, if we but know in the depths of our soul that we have not refused to serve, that we have not cast off the yoke, we may rest assured that we are serving, and either our task for the time being is easy or our Master has granted us a brief respite.

To me the meaning of life is exclusively in serving God by delivering people from sin and from suffering.

There is but one fear—to try and guess the way which God may desire that we accomplish this, or to make a wrong guess or to anticipate, and as the result, instead of helping the work, to hinder or to delay it.

There is but one way to avoid such an error: not to undertake things, but to await the call of God — such a situation in which we cannot fail to act one way or another: either for God or against God. And in such cases to strain every effort of the soul in order to do the first.

Man strains his reason in order to ask "Why?" and

"For what purpose?" He applies the questions to his own life and to the life of the world. And his reason shows him that there can be no answer to them. These questions lead to mental dizziness and nausea. The Hindus give this reply to the question "Why?"—Maia had tempted Brahma, who had existed within himself, to create the world. But to the question "For what purpose?" they even fail to invent an answer as absurd as that No religion has invented an answer to this question, nor can the mind of man conceive any answer.

What does it mean, then? Why it means that reason was not given to man to answer such questions; that the mere asking of such questions constitutes an error of reason. Reason finds an answer only to the basic question "How?" And in order to know "How?" reason, within the limits of the finite, also answers the questions "Why?" and "For what purpose?" But what do you mean by "How?" How to live. And how are we to live? Blessedly. All that is living needs this, including myself. And this possibility is open to all that is living, including myself. And this solution excludes the questions "Why ?" and "For what purpose?"

But why and wherefore is blessedness not immediately granted to all? Another error of reason. Blessedness is in the working out of your blessedness, there is no other.

"But how can one live without knowing what will be; without knowing what form life will take?"

True life commences only when we do not know what wilt be. Only then can we do the work of life and accomplish the will of God. Me knows. Only such activity is a testimony of faith in God and in His law. Freedom and life are possible only then.

The teaching of Christ became clearest to me, took the

greatest hold on me, when I realized that my life is not mine but His who gave it to me, and that the aim of life is not in me, but in His will, and that I must learn it and do it. This upset all my notions.

Picture to yourself that the woman you love promised to meet you in the evening. How shall you pass the day, how shall you prepare yourself for that meeting? Shall you not tremble lest you die, lest the world come to an end before that meeting takes place "i Let but that meeting take place, and after that come what may.

This IS what it means, "to desire." And it is in this way I should like to "desire" to do the will of God. So passionately to desire one thing, and one alone—^its accomplishment. Is it possible?

Is it possible ? Yes, it is possible. The only thing needful is to know clearly, to work consciously, to sacrifice.

May God help us never to cease rejoicing in the fact that nothing can ever or under any circumstances hinder our joy in the fulfilment of the will of God, if we only fulfill It in purity, humility and in love.

The true bread of life is to do the will of Him who sent us here and to accomplish His work. The will of Him who sent us and His work is in the first instance to do good works—^as a slight tribute for the life that was granted us; and good works are such works as increase love in the hearts of men; and His work is to increase and to cause to grow that talent which was given us, which is our soul. And one cannot be accomplished without the other. It is impossible to do good works which increase love without increasing our talent, which is our soul, without increasing the treasure of love in it. And it is impossible to increase our talent, to increase the treasure of love in our soul, without doing good to people, without increasing love in them.

One depends on the other, one proves the other. If you are doing a work which seems good to you, but do not feel an increase of k>ve in your soul, if the doing of it brings no joy to your heart, you may know that the work which you are doing is not good. And if you are doing something for your own soul, but the good for other people is not increased thereby, you may know that whatever you are doing for your soul is wasted effort.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and its truth, and the rest will be added unto you. Seek ye to be doers of the will of God, and outside of that nothing, nothing else. And all wilt be added: righteousness, and joy, and life, not to speak of food and raiment which are needless. There is but one thing needful—the daily bread, the food of life, that food of which Christ said: "my meat is to do the will of Him who sent me."

The doing of the will of God is the task of life; but wherein is the will of God? Is it necessary Ю do this thing or that thing in order to fulfill the law of God? To place yourself in this condition or in that? To give up your goods ? To forsake your family ? To expose people ? To go to Nineveh or to Jerusalem? etc., etc. And there is no answer.

Neither the one, nor the other, nor indeed anything else is needful, no conditions, no actions correspond to the fulfilment of the will of God; not only do tiiey not correspond to it, but they hinder it, for evety act of your own will, every change of condition is a disobedience to the will of God. But the fulfilment of the will of God, and His Kingd

But you might say: The demands of life may be con-

trary to the conscience, or may be contradictory, or there may be no demands at all.

Only meet the demands, if they are contrary to your conscience, in meekness and lowliness, that is without boast-fulness or anger, but in meekness and lowliness decline to fulfill them, or treat the demands which seem contradictory likewise in meekness and lowliness, turning your back upon your own will, facing God only, and the contradictions will be solved. But to say that there may be no demands at all—^that is impossible. Though they be the merest needs of the body, these are also demands, and you can eat and sleep and house yourself in meekness and lowliness.

Indeed, the will of God is not in what you do, but in how you do it (what to do, our life points out to us), but how to do, that is which builds the true life of the spirit.

Thinking recently on the true business of a Christian, I saw it in doing the will of the Father. But what is the will of the Father? How to know it without making a mistake? For when you begin to think, "Is the will of God that I preach? or that I live in this or that fashion? or that I live with or without a family?" Once you begin to ask yourself these questions, you will never find out the will of the Father, you will only fall into doubt and confusion: why are we commanded to do the will of the Father and are not shown wherein is the will of the Father ?

This is how I think on this question: the will of the Father is shown to us very clearly, only we do not seek it where it is shown to us.

We always fancy that the will of the Father is in doing external things,—Abraham going to a foreign country, etc., but the will of фе Father is for us to be meek

and lowly while we yet have strength in the yoke in which we are harnessed, to go without asking whither and why we are going, to stop when we are commanded, to start again when we are commanded, to turn when we are commanded, without asking where and why. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and lowly of heart."

Be meek and lowly at heart, be content with all, assent to any condition, and you will fulfill the will of the Father. So in order to fulfill the will of the Father, it is not necessary to learn what to do, but to leam how to do that which you are called upon to do.

In order to fulfill the will of God, we must do His work. In order to do His trork, two things are needful, and both of them together, not either one or the other separately: we need reason and love, we need truth and goodness. Reason must be loving, that is its activity must have love for its aim, and love must be rational, that is love must not be opposed to reason.

To illustrate the first, take the endeavors of sdence, the investigation of the Milky Way, the fine points of metaphysics, natural sciences, art for art's sake; to illustrate the second,—love for one woman only, or for one's . own children or nation, which ts love that has for its aim animal and not spiritual blessings.

The fruit of the activity of reason is truth, the fruit of the activity of love is goodness. But that there may be fruit, both forms of activity must coincide. Goodness will result only from rational love that is controlled by truth, and truth from a loving activity that has for its aim rational goodness.

I have not invented this, but I have seen it in life.

We all think that our duty, our calling is to do different things, to bring up children, or to make a fortune,

or to write a book, or to discover a scientific law; but only one thing is needful—that our life be one complete, good, rational work; not a work before men, leaving behind a memory of a good life, but a work before God: offering yourself, your soul to Him in a better state than it has been before, closer to Him, more obedient to Him, more in accord with Him. It is very difficult to think this, even more difficult to feel this. One is so apt to stray towards desire for human glory, but it is possible, and it is needful. God help me, I have felt so at times, I feel so now.

One feature of the teaching of Christ which is closely allied with all the rest of His teaching, a basic principle in fact of His teaching that was entirely obscured, even lost sight of in His deification, is the teaching of His ambassadorship. Remember how often, from how many angles He refers to His doing the will of Him who sent Him, saying that He is nothing of Himself, that He is an ambassador, merging His life with Him who sent Him, that His life, the meaning of His whole life is in the fulfilment of his mission. Only the recognition of Christ as a peculiar being and not a man such as we are could conceal from us this basis of His teaching.

If my whole life consists in letting that light shine which is within me, that is if my life is in the light, then death is not only free from terror, but is a joy, because the personality of each one of us obscures that light which we bear. And physical death frequently brightens that light in which is centered our life.

The practical application of this is that every one of us must put all interests of his life into the task of bearing truth all through life, and into establishing it in others, and then we shall have no doubt or suffering, nor any idle

leisure. Every one of us is surrounded by people and can. always fulfill the business of his life.

And to be always mindful of our dignity as ambassadors of God to whom is entrusted the accomplishment of His will! If I were the Tsar's ambassador to Turkey, how I should watch myself! And now being God's ambassador in the world—is that nothing? And a Tsar might be fooled, but nothing can be hidden from God.

Man is an ambassador, as Christ told us, yes, indeed, an ambassador. His only concern is to carry out his instructions, let them think of him what they will. Let them think evil of him: sometimes even this is necessary in order to carry out instructions.

My life is not mine own, it cannot have my wellbeing for its aim, it is His who sent me, and its aim is the fulfilment of His will. And only in fulfilling His will can I be blessed.

You know it; but it is so significant to me, so joyful to think of it, that I rejoice in every opportunity I have of repeating it.

The purpose of life is no more in the reproduction after our own kind—the continuation of the race—than in the service of man, nor is it in the service of God.

To reproduce after our own kind? What for? To serve men? And those whom we are to serve, what are Ш^ they to do ? To serve God ? Can He not do that which He needs without us? Why, He cannot need anything.

If He tells us to serve Him, then it is only for our own blessing. Life cannot have any other purpose but blessedness and joy. Joy is the sole aim worth living for.

Renunciation, the cross, the sacrifice of life— аП this is for the sake of joy.

And joy is and must be inviolate and constant.

And death is passing to a new, un fathomed, entirely novel, a different and a greater joy.

There are innumerable sources of joy: beauty of nature, of animals, of human beings, sources of joy that are always with us. Even in prison—the beauty of a ray of sunshine, the flies, the sounds. But the supreme source of joy is love, my love for people, the love of the people for me.

Beauty is a joy, but taken as a joy, independent of goodness, it is repulsive. I found this out long ago and abandoned it. Goodness without beauty is painful. The two must be combined, or rather than combined, beauty must crown goodness.

That which appears incontrovertible from the social point of view, appears senseless from the Christian point of view. This difference is due to the difference in the aims set before man.

The Christian teaching sets before us different aim from that which is set before us by social teaching.

The aim which the Christian teaching sets before man is not the happiness of this or that aggregation of human beings which is attained by the observance of the will and of the laws of this aggregation, but the supreme happiness of all the people and of the whole world is attained through the fulfilment of the will and of the law of God.

To live for self is agony, for it incites you to live for an illusion, for something that is not, and this is not only bound to lead to unhappiness, but is downright impossible. It is like dressing and feeding a shadow. Life can be only outside of self, in serving others, not in serving near ones and dear ones; this again is serving self, but in serving those whom one does not4ove, best of all in serving one's enemies.

It is true that Thy work and Thy strength are entrusted to me. Thy work is to manifest Thee in the world. And herein is all my life.

It is true that Thy strength was given me in order to accomplish Thy work. And Thy work is to increase Thy strength in me and in the whole world.

The true life of man is not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Many people are ignorant of this. And when they are ignorant of this, people fear that most of all which can injure their flesh—they fear death most of all. But when a man knows that his life is in the spirit, he has nothing more to fear, for nothing or nobody outside of himself can harm him.

In the essential problems of life we are always atone; the true story of our life cannot be comprehended by others. And the essential part of this story is in the extent to which we live cither in the flesh or in the spirit.

Wherever your fate may cast you, you have with you always your being, your spirit, the center of life, liberty and power. There are no external blessings or grandeurs in the world for the sake of which it would be worth while for й man to suppress within him the consciousness of that spirit, to sever his union with it, to undermine the integrity of his soul by an inner discord with his own self.

Can you point to the treasure which you would have but at the cost of such a sacrifice?

Marcus Aurelius.

The win of God is not that I alone be happy, but that all be happy. And in order that all be happy, there is but one means open—for all to seek one another's happiness instead of their own.

If you ask any man who he is, np man can answer anything else but: "I am—I." And if every one is "I,"

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

233

then there is one and the same principle in all. And it is so in reality.

The life of man is a striving for happiness, and that for which he strives has been granted to him.

Man only thep sees evil in the shape of death and suffering when he mistakes the law of his carnal animal existence for the law of his life.

Only when as a human being he descends to the level of the animal, will he see death and suffering. Death and suffering are the bugaboos which from all sides assail him with fear and drive him to the one path which is open to him—^the path of human life subject to reason and manifesting itself in love. Death and sufferings are man's transgressions of his own law of life. For the man who lives according to his law there is no death or suffering.

"Come to me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Matthew XI, 28-30.

The life of man is a striving towards happiness; that towards which he is striving is granted unto him; a life which knows no death, and a blessedness which knows no evil.

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS

(Translated by Laud A. Maude)

Pttbliihed bj Harper ft Broi. 1909

THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS Christ*■ Teaching

Last year I formed a class of village children, from ten to thirteen years of age. Wishing to impart Christ's-teaching to them in a way they would understand, and that would have an influence on their lives, I told them, in my own words, those parts of the four Gospels which seem to me the most understandable, most suitable for children, and ' at the same time most necessary for moral guidance in life.

The longer I worked at this, the more clearly I saw— from the way the children repeated what I told them, and from their questions—what it was that they grasped most easily, and by what they were most attracted.

Guided by that, I composed this booklet; and I think its perusal, chapter by chapter, with such explanations of the need of applying the eternal truths of this teaching to life, as the reading evokes, cannot but be beneficial to children, who, according to Christ's words, are especially receptive to the teaching about the Kingdom of God.

Jesus Christ showed men by his teachit^ an

According to the teaching of Jesus Christ, all ills come to men because they think their life is in their body, and not in the Spirit of God. That is why they quarrel with one another, why Aeir souls suffer, and why they fear death.

The spirit of God is love. And love lives in each man's soul.

When people come to believe theic Ufe Vi ^ '■та. •&*!

spirit of God—that is, in love—there will be no enmity, no mental suffering, and no fear of death.

Every one wishes good for himself. The teaching of Christ shows men that good comes to them by love, and that all can have this good. That is why the teaching of Christ is called the Evangel. Ev means "good," angelion means "tidings"—good tidings. j John IV. 7, 12, 16.

II.

Jesus was bom 1908 years ago, of Mary, the wife of Joseph.

Till the age of thirty he lived in the town of Nazareth with his mother, father and brothers; and when he was old enough he helped his father to do carpenter's work.

When Jesus was thirty years old, he heard of people going to hear a holy man preach in the wilderness. This man's name was John. So Jesus went into the wilderness with others, to hear John preach.

John said that it was time for the Kingdom of God to come, when every one will understand that all men are equal, and that no one is higher and no one lower than another; and that all men should live lovingly and in good accord with their fellows. He said this time was near, but would only quite come when people stop doing wrong.

When plain people asked him: "What am I to do?" John told them that he who had two garments should give one to him who had none; and in the same way he that had food should share it with him that had node. To the rich, John said that they should not rob the pec^Ie. The soldiers he told not to plunder, but to be content with what was given them, and not to use bad language. The Pharisees and Sadducees, the lawyers, he told to change their lives and to repent: "Don't think," he said, "that you are some

special kind of men. Change your lives, and change Ihem so that one may see by your actions that you have changed. If you do not change, you will not escape the fate of the fruit-tree that bears no fruit. If the tree bears no fruit it is cut down for firewood; and that is what will happen to you if you do no good. If you don't alter your lives, you will perish."

John tried to persuade all to be merciful, just, and meek. And those who promised to amend their lives, he bathed in the river Jordan, as a sign of the change in their lives. And when he bathed them he said: "I cleanse you with water; but only the spirit of God within you can make you quite pure."

The words of John, who said that people must change their lives so that the Kingdom of God might come, and that only by the spirit of God could men become clean, sank deep into the heart of Jesus. And to think out all that he had heard from John, Jesus, instead of returning home, remained in the wilderness. There he lived many days, thinking over what he had heard from John.

MaU. I. 18; Luke U. 51; ///, 23; Matt. Ш. 1-13; Lttke Ш. 3-14; Matt. IV. 1, 2.

III.

John said that for the Kingdom of God to come, people must be cleansed by the spirit of God.

"What does cleansed by the spirit of God mean?" thought Jesus. "If to be cleansed by the spirit of God means to live not for one's body, but for the spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God would certainly come if people lived according to this spirit, for the spirit of God is the same in all men; and if all men lived by that spirit, they would all be tuiited, and the Kingdom of God would ha.v«.

come. But men can't live only in spirit, they must also live in their bodies. If they live for the sake of their bodies, serving their bodies, and making them their chief care, they wilt all live disunited, as they do now; and the Kingdom of God will never come. Then what is to be done?" thought Jesus. "To live only for the spirit is impossible, and to live only for the body, as worldly people do, is wrong; and if we live so we shall all live apart, and the Kingdom of God will never come. Then what is to be done? To kill one's body won't do; because the spirit hves in the body by the will of God. To kill oneself is, therefore, to go against the will of God."

And having thought this, Jesus said to himself: "It comes to this: We cannot live only in the spirit, because the spirit lives in the body. And we ought not to live only in the body, serving it as most people do. Nor can we free ourselves of the body, for the spirit lives in the body by God's will. Then what can be done? Only one thing: We can live in the body as God wishes us to live; but while living in the body we must serve not it, but God."

And, having come to that conclusion, Jesus left the wilderness, and went through the towns and villages to preach his teaching. Matt. IV, 3-10: Luke IV. 3-15.

IV.

And the rumor of Jesus spread through the district, and many people began to come to htm, to hear his words.

And he spoke to the people saying:

"You went out to hear John in the wilderness. Why did you go ? One goes t9 see people dressed in fine clothes, but they live in palaces; there was nothing of that kind in the wilderness. Then why did you go to John in the wHderness ? You went to hear a man who taught you how

to live a good life. What did he teach you ? He taught you that the Kingdcmi of God must come, but that to make it come—and that there may be no evil in the world—it is necessary that men should not live separately, each for himself, but that all should be united, loving one another. So that to bring about the Kingdom of God you must first of all change your life. The Kingdom of God will not come of itself; God will not estabhsh that Kingdom; but you yourselves must and can establish that Kingdom of God; and you will establish it when you try to change your way of life.

"Do not think that the Kingdom of God will appear in a visible form. The Kingdom of God cannot be seen. And if they tell you: 'It is there, or there,' do not believe them, and do not go after it. The Kingdom of God is not at any special time, or in any special place. It is everywhere and nowhere—for it is within yourselves, in your own souls." Mail. XI, 7-12; Luke XVI. 16; XVII. 20-4.

And Jesus explained his teaching more and more clearly. Once, when many people had come to him, he began telling them how men should live, so that the Kingdom of God may come.

He said:

"God's Kingdom is quite different to worldly kingdoms. Into God's Kingdom will enter not the proud and the rich. The proud and the rich rule now. They amuse themselves now, and everybody praises and respects them now. But so long as they are proud and rich and the Kingdom of God is not in their souls, they will not enter the Kingdom of God, Not the proud will enter the Kingdom of God, but the meek; not the rich, Ь\Л iW v*>'=- ^"^ "***■

meek and the poor will only enter it if they are meek and poor, not because they were unable to become rich and famous, but because they would not sin in order to become grand and rich, If you are poor only because you are unable to get riches, you are like salt that has no taste. Salt is no use unless it tastes salt; if it does not taste salt, it is good for nothing, and is thrown away.

"It is the same with you: if you are poor only because you did not know how to get rich, you also are not fit for anything—neither to be poor nor to be rich,

"So, before all else, it is necessary to be in the Kingdom of God. Seek for the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and you will have alt you need.

"And don't think that I am teaching you anything new, I teach you what all the wise and holy men tau^t. I only teach you how to fulfil what they taught. And to do that, you must obey God's commandments—not merely talk about them, as false teachers do, but fulfil them. For only he who fulfils God's commandments, and by his example teaches others to fulfil them, will enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Matt. V, 1-20; Luke VI. 20-26.

VI.

And Jesus said:

"The first commandment is this: In the old law it was said, 'Do not murder,' and, 'He who murders is a sinner.'

"But I tell you that if a man is angry with his brother, he is a sinner before God; and he is a yet greater sinner if he says a rude word of abuse to his brother. So, if yoa begin to pray, and remember that you are angry with your brother, first go and make it up with him, or if for any reason you cannot do that, put away the anger against him that is Ш your heart.

"This is the first commandment.

"Another commandment is this: The old law said, *Do not commit adultery, and if you separate from your wife, give her a letter of divorce.'

"But I tell you, that not only must a man not commit adultery, but if he looks at a woman with bad thoughts in his mind, he is already a sinner before God. And about divorce, I tell you, that a man who divorces from his wife commits adultery himself, and leads his wife into doing the same, and also leads into sin him who marries the divorced woman.

"That is the second commandment.

"The third commandment is this: In the old law you were told, *Do not forswear yourself, but keep your oaths before God.'

"But I say that you should not swear at all, but if you are asked about anything, say, *Yes' if it is Yes, and 'No' if it is No. You must not swear by anything. Man is altogether in God's power, and cannot promise beforehand to do what his oath binds him to do.

That is the third commandment.

The fourth commandment is, that in the old law it was said: 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.'

"But I say that you should not return evil for evil, and take an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. And if any one strikes you on one cheek, it is better to turn the other cheek to him, than to give a blow in answer to a blow. And if any one wants to take away your shirt, it is better to give him your coat as well, than to be his enemy and fight with your brother. You must not resist evil with evil.

"That is the fourth commandment.

"The fifth commandment is that in your oW loA»4V-*i-i>s.

(C

««»

said: 'Love the people of your own nation, and hate the people of other nations,'

"But I tell you that you must love everybody. If men think themselves your enemies, and hate and curse you, and attack you, you should still love them and do good to them. All men are sons of one Father. Alt are brethren; and therefore you must love every one the same.

"That is the fifth and last commandment."

Matt. V. 21-48.

VII.

And Jesus went on to tell alt who were listening to him what would happen if they obeyed his commandments.

"Do not think," said he, "that if you do not get angry with people, are peaceable with everybody, live with one wife, do not swear, do not defend yourselves against those who offend you, and give away all you are asked for, and love your enemies—do not think that if you live like that, your life will be harder and worse than it is now. Do not think so; your life will not be worse, but much better than it now is. Our heavenly Father has given us this law, not to make our lives worse, but that we mi^t have true life.

"Live according to this teaching, and the Kingdom of God will come, and you will have all you need,

"To birds and beasts God has given their laws, and when they live according to those laws things go well with them. And things will go well with you, if you obey the law of God. What I say, I do not say from myself, but it is the law of God, and is written in the hearts of all men. If this law would not bring welfare to men, God would not have given it.

"The law, in a few words, is that we should love God,

and our neighbor as ourselves. He who obeys this law behaves to others as he would wish them to behave to him.

"And therefore every one who hears these words of mine, and fulfils them, does as a man does who builds his house on a rock. Such a man fears neither rain, nor floods, nor storms, because hts house is built on a rock. But every one who hears my words, and does not fulfil them, acts like a thoughtless man who builds his house on sand. Such a house will not stand against the waters or the storms, but will fall down in ruins."

And when Jesus had finished speaking, the people were astonished at his teaching. Matt. VI, 26-33; VII, 24,-8.

VIII.

And after that Jesus began to explain to the pe<^1e, in parables, the meaning of the Kingdom of God.

Here is the first parable he told them:

"When a man sows seed on his field, he does not keep thinking about it, but sleeps at night, and gets up in the morning, and goes about his business without troubling how the seeds come up and grow. The seeds swell and sprout, the green appears, stalks form, then ears, and the grain swells. And only when the corn is ripe for harvest does the master send laborers to reap it.

"So also God does not establish the Kingdom of Heaven among men by His own power, but leaves it to people to establish it themselves."

Jesus told them a second parable, to show that men who have not the Kingdom of Heaven within them, and whom, therefore, God does not take into His Kingdom, He leaves in the world for them to make themselves worthy to enter the Kingdom of God.

He said:

"The Kingdom of Heaven is like a fisherman who casts out his nets in the sea and catches all sorts of fish. Having caught them, he sorts them, keeps those he needs, and puts back into the sea those that are no good."

And he told a third parable about the same thing:

"A master sowed good seed in his field; but when the seed began to come up, weeds grew up too among it. And the laborers came and said to the master, 'Did you sow bad seeds? Many weeds are growing in your field. Send us, and we will go and pull them up.' But the master said, 'No; you had better not, or in pulling up the weeds you will tread down the wheat; let them grow together, and when harvest-time comes, I will tell the reapers to gather up the wheat, and to throw away the weeds.'

"So also God does not allow people to interfere with the lives of others, and does not interfere Himself. Only by his own efforts can each man come to God."

Mark IV, 26-9; Matt. ХП1. 47, 48; 24-30.

IX.

Besides these parables, Jesus told another about the Kingdom of Heaven.

He said r

"When seeds are sown in a field, not all of them grow up alike. This is what happens: some seeds fall on the road, and birds come and pick them up. Others fall on stony ground, and though they grow up, it is only for a short time, for they have no soil into which to strike their roots, and so their shoots soon dry up. And some seeds fall among thorns, and the thorns choke them. But there are some that fall on good earth, and grow, and one grain bears thirty or sixty grains.

"So it is with men. There are some who do not re-

ceive the Kingdom of Heaven into their hearts; and temptations of the flesh come to them and steal away what was sown: tliese are the seeds sown on the road. The seed on the stony ground is, when men at first accept the teaching gladly, but afterwards, when they are insulted and persecuted for it, turn away from it. The seed among thorns is, when people understand the meaning of the Kingdom of Heaven, but worldly cares, and greed for riches choke it within them. And those that are sown on good ground, are those who understand the meaning of.the Kingdom of Heaven, and take it into their hearts, and these peofJe bear fruit, some thirty, and some sixty, and some a hundredfold.

"So that he who has kept what was given him will receive more; but from him who has not kept what was ^ven him, all that he has will be taken away. Therefore try with all your might to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Do not grudge anything, if only you can get in.

"Do like the man who, when he found out that a great treasure had been buried in a field, sold all he had and bought that field, and became rich. You should do the same.

"Remember that a little effort for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven brings much fruit; just as a small seed grows into a big tree."

"Every one can by his own effort gain the Kingdom of God, for the Kingdom of God is within you."

Matt. Xm, 3-8. 12, 19-23, 31, 32, 44-6; Luke XVI, 16.

And, hearing -these words, a Pharisee named Nico-demus, came to Jesus and asked him how he was to understand that the Kingdom of God is within us. And Jesus

said, "That the Kingdom of God is within us means that to enter it we must be bom again."

And Nicodemus asked: "How can a man be bora again? Can a man go back inside his mother, and again be bom?"

Jesus said to him: "To be bom again does not mean to be born in the flesh, as a baby is bom of its mother, but for the spirit to be born. For the spirit to be bom, means, to understand that the spirit of God lives in man, and that besides being born like every man of his mother, he is also bom of the spirit of God. What is bom of the body is of the body; it suffers and dies. What is bom of the spirit is spirit, and lives by itself, and can neither suffer nor die.

"God put his spirit into men, not that they should suffer and perish, but that they should have a glad and an everlasting life. And every man can have that life. That life is the Kingdmn of Heaven.

"So the Kingdom of God must irat be understood to mean that at some time and in some particular place, the Kingdom of God will come to everybody; but tfiat if people realize the spirit of God in themselves, and live by it, then they enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and do not suffer or die; but if people do not realize the spirit that is in themselves, and live for their bodies, then they suffer and perish." John Ш, 1-21. XI.

More and more people followed Jesus and listened to his teaching; and the Pharisees did not like this, and they began to consider what they could accuse Jesus of, before the people.

One Saturday Jesus and his disciples were walking through the fields; and the disciples plucked ears of com, rubbed them between their hands, and ate the grain. But

by the teaching of the Jews, God made an agreement with Moses that people should do not work on Saturdays, but should only pray to God. The Pharisees, seeing that the disciples of Jesus rubbed the cars of the com on a Saturday, stopped them and said: "You should not do that on Saturday. No work should be done on Saturday, but you are rubbing com. The law says that those who work on Saturday must be put to death."

Jesus heard this, and said: "The Prophet said that God wants love and not sacrifices. If you understood those words, you would not condemn my disciples. Men are more important than Saturdays." And the Pharisees did not know what to answer, and were silent.

Another time some Pharisees saw that Jesus entered the house of Matthew, a tax-collector, and dined with his household. And those with whom he dined were considered by the Pharisees to be sinners. So they blamed Jesus, saying that it was not lawful to eat with the unfaithful.

But Jestis said: "I teach the truth to all who wish to learn the truth. You consider yourselves faithful, and think you know the truth; so there is nothing more for you to learn. It follows that only the unfaithful can be tau^t; and how are they to learn the truth, if we do not mix with them?"

Then the Pharisees, not knowing what to answer, began reproaching the disciples of Jesus for eating with unwashed hands. They themselves strictly observed their own tradition of how to wash their hands and their dishes, and they would eat nothing that came from the market unless it had been washed.

And to this Jesus replied: "You reproach us because we do not keep the custom of washing before we eat; but it is not that which enters a man's body that can defile him.

It is that which comes out of a man's soul that defiles hiin, for out of man's soul comes evil: adultery, murder, robbery, avarice, anger, fraud, impudence, envy, calumny, pride, and all evil. All evil comes out of the soul of man; and only evil can defile a man. Let there be love for your brothers in your soul, and then everything will he pure."

Mall. X!I. 1-8; IX, 9-13; Mark VII. 1-5; 14-23.

XII.

Once Jesus went apart from the disciples and began to pray. And when he bad finished, they came to him and said: "Master, teach us how to pray."

And he said to them:

"First of all, you must not pray as is often done, that people may see you praying, and praise you for it. If it is done that way, it is done for the sake of men, and it is men who reward it. The soul does not benefit by such prayers. But if you wish to pray, go into a place where no one will see you, and there pray to your Father; and your Father will give you what you need for your soul.

"And when you pray, do not say too much. Your Father knows what you need, and even if you do not say it at all. He will give you all your soul requires.

"You must pray, first of all, that the spirit of God within us should be holy; that the Kingdom of Heaven should come into our souls; that we should live not according to our own will, but according to God's will; that we should not wish for too much, but only for our daily food; that our Father should help us to forgive our brothers in their sins, and that He should help us to avoid temptations and evil.

"Let your prayer be this:

"Our Father, Who art in Heaven! hallowed be Thy

Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, as we forgive them that sin against us. And deliver us from temptation and from evil.

"That is the way to pray; but if you want to pray, think first whether there is no anger in your heart against any one; and if you remember that there is, then go first and make it up with him; or if you cannot find that man, get the anger against him out of your heart, and only then begin to piay. Only then will your prayer be of use to you." Lukg XI, 1; Matt. VI. 5-13; Mark XI, 25, 26; Matt. V. 23, 24.

xm.

It happened once that Jesus went to dine with a Pharisee. And while he was there, a woman of the town came in. She was one of the unfaithful. She had heard that Jesus was in the Pharisee's house, and came there and brou^t a bottle of perfume. And she knelt at the feet of Jesus and wept, and her tears dropped on his feet, and she wiped them with her hair, and poured on them the perfume out of her bottle.

And the Pharisee, seeing this, was tempted, and thought that if Jesus were really a prophet he would have known that this woman was unfaithful and a sinner, and would not have let her touch him.

Jesus guessed what the Pharisee was thinking, and turning to him said:

"Shall I tell you what I am thinking?"

"Yes, tell me," said the Pharisee.

And Jesus said:

"Two men owed a rich man, one £50 and the other iS. And neither of them had anything to pay with. The rich

man forgave both of them the debt. Now, which of the two do you think would love and tend the rich man best?" The Pharisee said: "Of course the one who owed most." Then Jesus, pointing to the woman, said: "So it is with you and with this woman. You think yourself righteous, and therefore not owing God much. She considers herself unfaithful, and therefore owing him much. When I came into your house, you did not give me any water to wash my feet with, but she has washed them with tears and dried them with her hair. You did not kiss me, but she kisses my feet. You did not give me any oil for my head, but she pours rich perfume on my feet. She thinks herself a great sinner; and therefore it is easy for her to love people. But you consider yourself righteous, and so it is difficult for you to love. But to him who loves much, all is forgiven." Luke VII, 36-48,

XIV.

Another day Jesus was passing through Samaria. He was weary, and sat down by a well, while his disciples went into the town to buy bread. A woman came from the village to fetch water, and Jesus asked her to let him drink. The woman said to him: "Why, you Jews don't have anything to do with us Samaritans. So how can you ask me for a drink?" Jesus answered: "If you knew me, and what I teach, you would not speak like that, but would give me some water, and I should give you the water of lite."

The woman did not understand him, and said, "Where would you get any other water? Here there is no water but this out of the well of our father Jacob."

And he said to her: "He who drinks of your water

will want to drinlc again, but he who drinks of my water will always be satisfied, and will give others to drink of it."

The woman understood that he was talking about godly matters, and said: "But I am a Samaritan, and you are a Jew, so you cannot teach me. Our people pray on this mountain, and you Jews say that God's only house is in Jerusalem."

Jesus said: "That used to be so; but now the time has come when men will pray to the Father, and not on this mountain nor in Jerusalem, but every one will worship Ле heavenly Father, not in this place or that, but in the spirit and in truth. God is a spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth."

The woman did not understand what he said to her, and replied: "I have heard that God's messenger will come, and then everythii^ will be explained,"

And Jesus said: "W<6man, try to understand what I have told you, and do not wait for anything more."

John IV. 4-26. XV.

Jesus went throi^h the towns and villages preachii^r, and he also sent his disciples to places he intended to visit He told them:

"Many people do not know the blessing of real life. I pi^ them all, and should like to show them what I know. As a master cannot manage to work his field alone, but calls laborers for the harvest, so I call you. Go to the different towns, and tell of the teaching about the Kingdom of God everywhere. Tell people the commandments of the Kingdom, and yourselves fulfil those commandments in everything.

"I am sending you like sheep among wolves. B« wik

as serpents and pure as doves. First of alt, have nothing of your own, take nothing with you; no bag, no bread, no money, only the clothes on your bodies and the shoes on your feet. And do not make distinctions between people. Do not choose the house in which you will stay, but stay at the first house you come to. When you enter, greet the inmates. If they receive you, go in; if not, go to the next house.

"People will hate you for what you say, and will attack and drive you from place to place, but do not be dismayed. When you are driven from one village go to another; and if you are turned out of that, go to a third. You will be hunted, as sheep are hunted by wolves, and will be beaten, and will be taken before the rulers, to justify yourselves to them. And when you are brought before the judges and before the rulers, do not think about what you are gtMng to say, but know that within you lives the spirit of your Father, and He will say what Is necessary.

"People may kill your body, but they cannot do anything to your soul, so do not be afraid of men. But be afraid only of your soul perishing with your body, if you swerve from fulfilling your Father's will. That is what you should fear. Not one little bird perishes without your Father's will. Without His will, not a hair falls from your head; and if you are in His care, what have you to fear?" Luke X, 1-7; Matt. X. 7-12; 16-31.

XVI.

And the disciples he sent out went one way, while Jesus with the other disciples went another way, through Ihe villages and hamlets. And once he came into a village, and a woman named Martha asked him to her house. He went in and began to speak, and Martha's sister Mary sat

at his feet, listening, while Martha busied herself getting food ready.

And Martha saw that her sister sat at the feet of Jesus, listening to him; and she came to Jesus and said: "I am doing all the work alone, while my sister sits listening to you. Tell her to come and work with me."

And Jesus said:

"Martha, Martha! You are busy and anxious about many things, but only one thing is necessary. And Mary has chosen that one thing that is necessary, and which no one can take from her. For true life, not food for the body, but food for the soul is needed.'

And Jesus told a parable about it:

"A man once had a very good harvest; and thought, Now I will rebuild my barns, and will put up larger ones, and will gather all my goods into them. And I will say to my soul: 'Here, soul, is plenty of everythii^. Rest, eat, drink, and live for your pleasure.' But God said to him, 'You fool; this night your soul shall be taken from you, and all you have collected will belong to others,'

"Sn it happens to everybody who prepares for the life of the body, and does not live for the soul.

"Only he lives a real life who gives up his own will, and is always ready to do the will of God. But he who is anxious about his bodily life destroys his real life."

LMke X. 38-42; ХП, 15-21; IX, 23-5.

XVII.

Tesus happened to hear some pec^Ie telling how Pilate had killed some Galileans, and also how a tower had fallen and crashed eighteen men. And Jesus asked the. ^wwjJ*.-,

"Do you think those men were particularly guilty of anything? No; we all know that they were not at all worse than we are. And what has happened to them might at any moment happen to us. All of us may die, to-day or to-morrow. We cannot escape death, so there is no need for us to take care of our bodily life. We know that it must soon end. We must take care of that which does not die—^the life of the spirit."

And he explained this by a parable:

"A master had in his garden an apple tree that bore no fruit; and he said to his gardener, 'It is now three years that I come looking for fruit, and this tree has still no fruit. It must be cut down, for it only takes up room uselessly.' But the gardener said, 'Let us wait a little longer, master, and I will dig round it and manure it, and we shall see next summer. Perhaps it will bear fruit. If it has no fruit next year, then we will cut it down.'

"So it is with us. While we live only in the body, and do not bear the fruit of the spirit, our Master does not cut us down, does not put us to death, because he expects fruit from us—the life of the spirit. But if we do not bear fruit, we cannot escape destruction. To understand this, no wisdom is needed; every one can see it for himself. For not only about household matters, but even about things that happen in the whole world, we know how to reason and guess what will happen. When the wind is from the west we say it will rain; when it is from the south we say it will be fine; and so it is. How is that we can foretell the weather, but cannot foresee that we must all die, and that it is not our mortal bodily life, but the immortal spiritual life, that we must preserve?"

LukeXHI, 1-9; Х/Л 54-7.

XVIII.

Another time Jesus told the people a parable of what man's life is like. He said:

"There was a rich man who had to go away from home. And before he went he called his slaves and gave them ten pounds of silver, one pound to each, and he said: 'Work, each of you, while 1 am away, with what I have given you.' Having said that, he started on his journey. And when he had gone the slaves felt free, and did as they liked. But when the master returned, he called his slaves, and ordered each of them to tell him what he had done with the silver. The first came and said: 'With your pound of silver I have earned ten pounds.' And the master said to him, 'That is well, good servant; you have been faithful in a small thit^, so I wilt give you great things to manage. Be my equal, sharing all my wealth.'

"The second slave came, and said: 'Master, with your pound of silver I have earned five.' And the master said to him: 'You have done well, good slave. You too shall be my equal in the whole of my estate.'

"Then came the third slave, and said: "Here is your pound of silver, Lord; I wrapped it up in a handkerchief, and kept it, because I know you—you are a severe man. You take where you did not put anything, and reap where you did not sow; and I was afraid of you.' And the master said: 'Foolish slave, I will judge you by your own words. You say that for fear of me you kept my silver and did not use it. If you knew that I am severe, and take where I have not put, why did you not do as I ordered? Had you used my silver, my wealth would have increased, and you would have done what I told you. But now you have not done the very thing I gave you the silver for; so you must not keep it'

I "And the master ordered them to take the silver from him who had not used it, and to give it to them who had worked most. Then the servants said to the master: 'Lord, they already have so much/ But the master said, 'Give it to those who have worked much, for those who use what is given them get more; but those who do not use it have everything taken away from them/

"So it is with the life of men," said Jesus. "The rich master is the Father. His slaves are people. The silver is the spirit of God in man. As the master did not himself work with his silver, but told each of his slaves to work with what was entrusted to him, so our heavenly Father has given men His spirit that they should increase it in themselves, and should use what has been given them. And wise men understand that the life of the spirit is given them to do the will of the Father, and they increase in themselves the life of the spirit, and become sharers in the life of the Father. But unwise people, like the foolish slave, fear to lose their bodily life, and do only their own will, and not the will of their Father; and so they lose the true life.

"Such people lose that which is most precious—^the life of the spirit. And so there is no more harmful mistake than to consider one's life to be of the body and not of the spirit. One must be at one with the spirit of life. He who is not with it is against it. One must serve the spirit of life, and not one's own body."

Luke XIX, 11-26; Matt XXV, 14-30; Luke XI, 23.

XIX.

One day some children were brought to Jesus. His disciples began to turn them away; but Jesus saw this, and said:

"You should not turn the children away. Children

should not be sent away, but we should learn from them, for they are nearer to the Kingdom of God than grown-up people. Children do not use bad language, do not bear malice, do not commit adultery, do not take oaths, do not go to law with anybody, and do not know any difference between their own nation and other nations. Children arc nearer than grown-up people to the Kingdom of Heaven. One must not drive children away, but must be careful not to lead them into temptation.

"Temptations destroy men by leading them, under the guise of what is good and pleasant, to do most harmful deeds. If a man gives way to temptation he destroys both his body and his soul. Therefore it is better for one's body to suffer, than to fall into temptation. As a fox that has got its paw into a trap bites off the paw in order to escape, so it is better for every man to suffer in his body than to yield to temptation. It ie better not only for a hand or a foot, but even for the whole body to perish, rather than to get to like evil, and become accustomed to it. Temptations bring sorrow to the world. By temptations, all evil comes into the world."

Matt XIX, 13, 14; XVIII, 2-9; Luke XVIII, 17.

XX.

And Jesus also said that of all temptations the worst is anger.

"A man is angry with his brother for his sins, and thinks that by being angry he can cure his brother of his sins, and forgets that not one of us can judge his brother, because every one of us is full of sin; and before correcting our brother, we must correct ourselves; otherwise we may see a little grain of dust in our brother's eyes, and not 5ce a shaving in our own. And so, if you think your brother:.

has acted badly, choose a time and a place where you can talk with him alone, and tell him gently what you have against him. If he listens to you, instead of being your enemy he will become your friend. But if he will not listen to you, be sorry for him and leave him alone."

And one of the disciples asked: "But if he does not listen to me, and again offends me? Am I to forgive him again? And if he offends me again and again, a third and a fourth and a seventh time, must I even then forgive him ?"

And Jesus answered: "Not only seven times, but seventy times seven, we should forgive; for as God forgives us all our sins, if only we repent of them, so we must always forgive our brothers."

Matt VII, 1-5; XVIH, 15-22.

XXI.

To explain this Jesus told them the following parable: "A rich man began reckoning up with his debtors. And a debtor was brought to him who owed him a thousand pounds, and who had nothing to pay it with. And the rich man could have sold the debtor's estate, and his wife and children, and the man himself. But the debtor begged for mercy; and the rich man had pity on him and forgave him the whole debt. And when he had been let off, a poor man who owed him something came to him and asked to be forgiven his debt. But the debtor who had been let off, would not excuse the poor man's debt, but demanded payment at once. And however much the poor man begged, the other would have no mercy, but cast the poor man into prison. This was noticed, and people came to the rich man, and told him what his debtor had done. Then the rich man called the debtor back to him, and said: *I let you off the whole of your debt because you asked me; and you should

have forgive your debtor, as I forgave you. But what have you done?' And then the rich man enforced the law against his debtor.

"The same happens to us, if we do not forgive from our hearts all who are guilty towards us. Every quarrel with our brother binds us, and takes us further from our Father. And therefore, not to be removed from God, we must forgive our brothers, and must live peaceably and lovingly with men." Matt. XVIII, 23-35, 18, 19.

XXII.

Once s

"You know that a child can be bom only of one father and mother. God has arranged it so; and man must not violate what God has arranged. If a man violates what God has arranged, and leaves his wife and takes another woman, he commits a threefold sin — against himself, against his wife, and against other people. He harms himself, because he accustoms himself to dissoluteness. He harms his wife, because, by deserting her, he drives her to do wrong. He harms other people, because he tempts them, by setting them an example of adultery."

And the disciples said to Jesus: "It is too difficult to live with only one wife. If one must hve with one woman till death, no matter what she may be like, then it is best not to marry at all."

Jesus answered them: "One may abstain from marryii^ at all. But if a man wishes to live without a wife, let him be quite pure and not think about women. It is well for a man who can live such a life; but if a man cannot do it, let hun

шаггу, and live with one wife till death, and not allow him-self to be tempted by other women." Matt, XIX, 3-12.

XXIII.

One day the collectors of tithes for the Temple came to Peter, and asked him: "Will your Master pay what is due ?" Peter said that he would. And Jesus, hearing this, said to Peter: "What do you think, Peter—from whom does the King take taxes, from his sons or from strangers ?" Peter said, "From strangers." "So we, if we are sons of God," said Jesus, "need not pay tithes. But in order not to tempt them, pay them; not because we are obliged to pay, but in order not to lead them into temptation."

Another time some Pharisees agreed with the Kingfs officers and came to Jesus, to catch him in his words, and to see whether he would refuse his obligation to the King. They said to him: "You teach everything truly, so tell us, Must we pay taxes to the King?" Jesus said: "Show me with what you pay the taxes to the King." They showed him a coin. On the coin was stamped the King's head. And Jesus pointed to it and said, "Give to the King what is the King's; but what is God's—your souls—give to nobody but God. Your money, property, work—everything that any one asks of you, give to him, but do not do for anybody what is against God's laws."

Matt. XVII, 24-7; XX П, 15-22.

XXIV.

It happened one day that the disciples of Jesus came to a village and asked to be allowed to spend the night there. But no one would let them in. And the disciples came to

Jesus and told Him about it, saying: "Such wicked people live there—they deserve to be killed by a thunderstorm!"

And Jesus was grieved, and said: "You do not understand of what spirit you are. I do not teach how to destroy, but how to save people. How can one wish one's neighbor any ill? In every man lives the same spirit of God as in you, and you must not wish ill to that which is within yourselves."

Another time the Scribes and Pharisees brought to Jesus a woman taken in adultery, and placed her before him, saying: "Master, this woman was taken in adultery, and according to the law of Moses such women must be stoned. What do you say?"

They said that to tempt him. Had he said that she must be stoned, it would have been contrary to his teaching of love for all; but if he had said that it must not be done, he would have spoken against the law of Moses. Jesus, however, did not answer anything, but stooping low, wrote with his finger in the sand.

They asked him the same thing again. Then he looked up and said: "Vou say that according to the law she must be stoned—then do it. But let him throw the first stone at her who is sinless." Having said that, he bowed his head, and again wrote on the ground. And the accusers began to go away one after the other, and Jesus was left alone with the woman.

Then Jesus lifted his head, and seeing no one but the woman, said to her: "It seems that no one has condemned you?" She answered, "No one, Lord."

"Then neither do I condemn you," said Jesus. "Go, and sin no more." luke IX. 52-6; John VUI. 3-U.

XXV.

Jesus taught the people that all men are children of one Father, and that therefore the whole law of God is to love God and one's neighbor.

And one lawgiver, knowing this, and wishing to catch Jesus in his words, and to show him that all men are not equal, and that men of different nations cannot be equally the sons of God, asked Jesus: **You teach us to love our neighbor. But who is my neighbor?"

Jesus answered him by a parable, and said:

"There was a rich Jew, and it happened that once, as he was returning home, he was attacked by robbers, who beat him, robbed him, and left him by the roadside. A Jewish priest passed by, and saw the wounded man, but passed on without stopping. And another Jew, a Levite, passed and he also saw the wounded man, and went by. Then a man of another nation, a Samaritan, came along the road, and he saw the wounded man; and—without considering that the Jews did not look upon Samaritans as neighbors, but as foreigners and enemies—he pitied the Jew, lifted him up, and took him on his ass to an inn. There he washed and dressed his wounds, paid the innkeeper for him, and only left when the Jew could do without him.

"You ask, Who is one's neighbor?" said Jesus. "He in whom there is love considers every man his neighbor, no matter what nation he may belong to."

Luke X, 25-37-XXVI.

The teaching of Jesus spread more and more; and the Pharisees grew more and more angry with him. They said to the people: "Do not listen to him; he is deceiving you.

If you were to live by his commandments there would be more evil than there is now in the world."

Jesus heard this, and said to them:

"You say that if I teach the people not to seek for riches, but to be poor; not to be angry, not to demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but to bear all things and love everybody—I do away with evil by evil, and that if men followed my teaching their life would be worse than it was before. You say that in place of the old evil there would be a new evil. That is not true. It is not I who put one evil in place of another, but it is you who drive out evil with evil. You wish to destroy evil by threats, executions, oaths and by killing. But evil still does not get destroyed. And it cannot be so destroyed, for no power can destroy itself, I do not drive out evil by such means as you use. I destroy evil by good. I destroy evil by calling on men to fulfil those commandments which will save them from all evil." Matl. ХП, 24-8.

XXVII.

One day his mother and brothers came to Jesus, and could not get to him, because there were so many people around him. And a man noticed this, and came to Jesus and said: "Your relations, your mother and brothers, are standing out there, and wish to see you."

And Jesus said: "My mother and my brothers are those who know the will of the Father, and do it,

"For every man the will of God his Father should be more important than his father, his mother, his wife, his children, his brothers or his sisters, or than all his property, and even than his bodily life.

"In worldly matters every reasonable man, before he

begins doing anything, reckons out if what he means to do is profitable, and if it is profitable he does it, and if not, he does not do it. Any one who wishes to build a house, before beginning, sits down and counts how much money will be needed, how much he has, and whether it will be enough to complete the house; so that it should not happen that, having begun to build, he is unable to finish, and has only wasted his strength and his time. And every king, if he wants to go to war, first considers whether with 10,000 men he can fight against 20,000. If he reckons out that he cannot, he sends messengers to make peace, and does not fight.

"So every man must understand that all that he looks upon as his: his family, his property, and his bodily life itself, will be taken from him to-day or to-morrow, and that the one thing that is his, and can never be taken from him, is his spiritual life, and that he can and must care only about that."

Hearing this, a man said: "It is well if there be a spiritual life; but how if we give away everything, and there is no such life ?"

To this Jesus replied:

"Every one knows that there is a spiritual life, and that it alone does not die. You all know that, but you do not act on what you know—not because you doubt it, .but because you are diverted from real life by false cares."

And he told them this parable:

"A master prepared a feast, and sent his servants to invite the guests; but the guests refused to come. One said, 'I have bought some land, and must go and see it.' Another said, 'I have bought some cattle, and must go and plough with them.' A third said, '1 have married, and it is my wedding-feast/ So the servants returned, and told their master that no one would come. Then the master sent to

invite the beggars. The beggars did not refuse to come, and they feasted.

"In the same way, only when men are free from bodily cares do they know the spiritual life."

Luke Vin. 19-21; Matt. XII. 46-50; Luke XIV. 26-33, 15-24.

XXVIII.

Once a young man came to Jesus, and knelt down before him, saying: "Good Master, tell me what to do to get eternal life."

Jesus answered: "Why do you call me good? No one is good but God. You know the commandments. Keep them."

And the young man asked: "Which ? There are many commandments."

Jesus answered: "Do not kill, do not commit adultery, do not lie, do not steal, do not oiTend any one, and honor your father and mother."

And the man said: "I have kept these commandments ever since I was a boy."

Jesus looked at him and felt fond of him, and said; "One thing you lack. Go, sell all you have, and divide it among the poor."

And the young man was troubled, and went away without replying, for he was very rich.

And Jesus said to his disciples:

"You sec how hard it is for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven!" The disciples were dismayed at these words, but Jesus repeated them, saying, "Yes, children ; it is very, very hard for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God. It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a iseedle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom

of Heaven." And they were still more dismayed, and said among themselves: *'How can one live, if one must not have anything? One would freeze and starve." But Qirist said: "It only seems frightful to the physical man; but to the spiritual man it is easy. He who believes and tries it, will see that this is true."

Mark X, 17-27; Matt. XIX, 18.

XXIX.

Jesus also said: **You cannot serve two masters at the same time: God and riches; the will of the Father, and your own will. You must choose between the two; and serve the one or the other."

The Pharisees, who liked riches, heard this, and laughed at the words of Jesus. And he said to them: "You think that because men honor you for your riches, you are really honorable? No! God does not look at what is outside, but at the heart. Things that men think much of are worthless in God's sight. It is not the rich, but the poor who enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

Jesus knew that the Pharisees believed that after death some people go to hell and some to heaven, and he told them this parable about riches:

"There once lived a very rich man; he feasted, dressed in fine clothes, and made merry every day. And in the same place there lived a scabby beggar, called Lazarus. Lazarus came into the rich man's courtyard hoping to get some of the scraps left over from the rich man's table. But he got none, for the rich man's dogs ate up the scraps; and they also licked Lazarus' sores. The rich man and Lazarus both died. And the rich man, in hell, saw Abraham in the distance, and scabby Lazarus with him. And the rich man said:

" 'Father Abraham, I dare not trouble you; but I see with you scabby Lazaras, who used to lie at my gate; send him to me, and let him dip his finger in water to cool my throat, for I am burning with fire.' But Abraham said: 'Why should I send Lazarus into the Barnes to you? You had all you wanted in the other world, and Lazarus had nothing but sorrow. I should like to do what you ask, but I cannot, for there is no communication between us and you.' Then the rich man said: 'If it is so, Father Abraham, at least send Lazarus to my house. I left five brothers, and am sorry for them. Let him tell them what riches bring, lest they too come to the torment I suffer.' And Abraham said, "They know it. Moses and all the prophets have told of it.' But the rich man replied, 'Still, it would be better if some one rose from the dead and went to them: it would make them bethink themselves.' But Abraham replied, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the prohpets, neither would they hear though some one rose from the dead."

Luke XVI, 13-15; 19-3L

XXX.

After this Jesus went into Galilee, and lived there with his parents. And when the Jewish Feast of the Harvest came, the brothers of Jesus prepared to go up, and asked Jesus to come with them to the Feast. They did not believe in his teaching, and said to him: "There trow I You say that the Jewish worship of God is wrong, and that you know the right way to worship God by deeds. If you really think that you know what no one else knows, then come with us to the Feast—there will be many people there, and you can announce your teaching to them all. If they all believe you, your disciples will see that you are right. Wh^

hide? You say that our worship of God is wrong, and that you know the right way: well then, show it to everybody!"

And Jesus said to them: 'There is a time for everything. I will go when the time comes." So his brothers went away, but he stayed behind.

There were many people at the Feast, and they disputed about the teaching of Jesus. Some said his teaching was true; others that his teaching only disturbed the people. When the Feast was half over, Jesus himself came to Jerusalem, and went into the Temple. In the porch of the Temple were cattle: cows and bulls, as well as sheep, and cages of pigeons, and money-changers who sat beside counters with money. All this was wanted for the sacrifices to God. But Jesus, entering the Temple, and seeing many people there, first of all drove the cattle out of the Temple, and let the pigeons go, and upset the tables of the moneychangers, and then said to the people:

"The prophet Isaiah said: 'The house of God is not the Temple in Jerusalem, but the whole world of God's people.' And the prohpet Jeremiah also said: *Do not believe the false saying, that this is the house of the Eternal; do not believe it, but change your lives and do not judge falsely, nor oppress the stranger, the widow and the orphan; do not shed innocent blood, and do not go into the house of God and then say: "Now we can safely do wrong." Make not my house a den of thieves. I, God, do not rejoice at your sacrifices, but I rejoice at your love of one another.* Understand that these words of the prophet mean: 'The living temple is the whole world of people, when they love one another. We must serve God not in a Temple, but by living in the spirit, and by good actions.'"

All the people listened and wondered at his words, and a^ked one of another, "How does he^ without learning, Хааощ

all this ?" And Jesus heard that everybody was astonished at his words, and he said: "My teaching is not mine, but His who sent me; for he who invents for himself looks for fame from men, but he who seeks for that which He who sent him wants, is true, and there is no falseness in him. I only teach you to fulfil the will of the Father. If you b^n to fulfil the will of God, you will know that I have not invented what I say, but that this teaching comes from God." And many said: "People say he is a false Prophet, but here he speaks openly before everybody, and no one says anything against him. The only thing that prevents one believing that he is the Messiah (God's Messenger) is that it is written that when the Messiah comes, no one will know where he came from; but we know this man, and his whole family.**

Then Jesus said to them: "You know me, and where 1 come from in the body, but you do not know where I come from in the spirit. You do not know from whom I come in the spirit, though He is the only one you need know. If you had been told that I am the Messiah, you would have believed in me, the man; but you do not believe the Father, Who is in me and in you. One must believe only the Father."

John Vn, 1-29; //, 13-16; Matt. XXI, 13; XII, 7.

XXXI.

And many of the people, seeing all this and hearing him, said: "He really is a prophet." Others said: "This is the Messiah." But some said: "Can the Messiah come from Galilee ? It is said in the Scriptures that the Messiah will come from the seed of David, out of Bethlehem, the place David came from."

And there arose a dispute about him, and an Station sprang up among the people.

Then the High Priests sent men to seize him, but the men could not make up their minds to do so; and when they returned to the High Priests and Pharisees, the latter asked them: "Why have you not brought him?" And they replied: "No man ever spoke like this man."

The Pharisees said to them: "Have you too been led astray? Do any of the rulers, or of the Pharisees, believe in him ? Only the accursed people believe in him, and they do not know the law."

And they all returned to their homes.

But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives, and spent the night there with his disciples; and in the morning he came again to the Temple, and many people came to listen to him, and he taught them again, saying: "My teaching gives light to the world. He who accepts it will not walk tn darkness but will see clearly what is good and what is evil. I teach what my Father, the Spirit who sent me, teaches to every man,"

And they asked him: "Where is your Father?"

He replied: "If you knew me, you would know my Father also."

They asked him: "Who are you?"

He said: "I am that spirit which had no beginning and will have no end. I am the Son of Man, but I acknowledge the spirit of God to be my Father. When you raise up in yourselves the Son of Man, you will know who I am, and will understand that I do nothing of myself, and say nothing of myself, but do and say only what my Father has taught me." John VU. 40-9, 53; VHI, 12-29.

XXXII.

The Jews surrounded Jesus, and said: "All you say is difficult to understand, and does not agree with our Scriptures. Do not torment us, but tell us plainly: Are you the Messiah who, according to our Scriptures, is to come into the world?"

And Jesus answered them: "I have already told you who I am, but you do not believe it. Do what I tell you, and then you will understand who I am, and why I have come. He who follows me and does what I say—he who understands my teaching and fulfils it—is with me and with the Father. I and the Father are one."

And the Jews were offended by these words, and took up stones to kill him.

And he asked them: "Why do you want Ю kill me ?"

They answered: "We want to kill you because you, a man, make yourself out to be God."

And Jesus answered them: "I said that I am a son of God, and am one with the Father when I do His will. He who acknowledges himself to be a son of God ceases to be a slave, and receives everlasting life. Аз a servant does not live always in his master^s house, but the master's son always lives at home, so a man viba lives in the spirit is united with the Father, and lives eternally. I tell you truly that he who keeps my word will never see death."

Then the Jews said to him: "Now we know that there is a devil in you. Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, yet you say that he who fulfils your words will never see death. Are you greater than our Father Abraham? Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead, but he whu fulfils your words will not see death!"

And Jesus said: "Truly, truly I tell you, before Abraham was, I am."

Jesus was shaking about that spirit of God which lived in him and lives in every man, and which has no beginning and no end; but they did not understand it.

The Jews did not know what to do with him, and could not get him convicted. And he went beyond the river Jordan, and stayed there. John X, 24-38; VHI, 34-59.

XXXIII.

Once, when Jesus was returning to Jerusalem, two of his disciples, James and John, came to him and said, "Master, promise us that you will do what we ask." Jesus said: "What do you want ?" They replied: "That we may be your equals." But Jesus said: "You do not yourselves know what you are asking. Every one can enter the Kingdom of Heaven by his own efforts, but no one can do it for another."

And Jesus called the other disciples to him and said: "Worldly men consider who is higher and who is lower among them; but among you, none should be higher and none lower. Among you he who serves every one will be the highest. He who wants to be first among you, let him think himself the last; for it is the Father's will that the Son of Man should live not to be served, but to serve everybody, and to give his bodily life for the life of the spirit"

Mark X, 35-45. XXXIV.

About this, Jesus told them another parable. He said:

"A master went out early one morning to hire laborers for his vineyard, and having agreed to pay them a shilling a day, sent them into his vineyard. Then at breakfast time

'- -' • -^^- —-

THE PATHWAY OF LIFE 275

he went out again, and saw other men without work, and said to them: 'You, too, may go into my vineyard, and I will pay you what is right.* And they went. He did this again at the dinner hour, and in the afternoon. And when it was already evening, he again found men without work, and said to them: *Why do you stand here all day without work?' They said: *No one has hired us.' And he said: 'Go you, too, into my vineyard, and you shall be paid what is right.'

"When the time for payment came, the master of the vineyard said to his steward: 'Call the laborers and pay them all equally, beginning with the last and up to the first.' And those who came in the evening received a shilling.

"Then those who had been hired first, thought they would receive more; but they, too, received a shilling each. Then the first ones began to g^nunble at the master of the vineyard, saying: 'These men only worked one hour, but we worked all day from the morning, and you make them equal with us.'

"The master told them: 'You should not grumble. Did you not agree to work for a shilling? Take what is due to you, and go. If I wish to give to the last as much as to the first, may I not do as I like with my own ? You are offended at my being kind, and are jealous of your brothers. That is not right.'

"And so it is with men: whether a man does what God wishes him to do early or late, all will receive equally, the last the same as the first." Matt. XX, 1-16.

XXXV.

And Jesus explained this by another parable. He said:

"A man had two sons, and the younger wished to go

away from his father, and said: 'Father, give me my share

■mta

276 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

of the property.' And his father did so. Then the younger son took his share, and went to a foreign country. There he wasted all he had, and became quite poor, and he sank so low that he had to go as a swineherd. And he had nothing to eat but the acorns that were given to the pigs. And he thought about his life, and said to himself: 'I was wrong to leave my father. At my father's there was plenty of everything, and even his laborers have enough to eat; while here I eat pigs' food. I had better go to my father, bow down at his feet, and say: "I have sinned, father, towards згой, and am not worthy to be your son. Take me back as a laborer.*"

"Thinking this, he went back to his father; and when he came near the house his father saw him, and went out to meet him, and took him in his arms and kissed him.

•'And the son said: 'Father, I have sinned against you, and am not worthy to be your son.' The father did not answer these words, but ordered his servants to bring the best clothes and good shoes; and he made his son put them on. And he also ordered a servant to kill a fatted calf. And when everything was ready, the father told those of his household: 'This son of mine was dead, and is alive again, he was lost, and is found. Let us feast in honor of this joy.'

"And when they had all sat down to table, the elder son came back from the fields, and saw that there was feasting in the house. And calling a laborer, he asked him: 'Why are our people feasting?' And the laborer answered: 'Have you not heard that your brother has returned, and your father is rejoicing?'

"The elder brother was offended, and did not enter the house. But his father came out to him, and called him. Still the elder son would not enter, but said to his father:

*I have worked for you so many years, and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never killed a fatted calf for me! My younger brother went away and wasted all his property with drunkards, and now you make such a feast for him/

"And the father answered the elder son: 'You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. And you should not be hurt, but glad, that your brother who was dead is now alive again, and after being lost has now been found/

"That is the way God receives all, when—sooner or later—they return to the Father and enter the Kingdom of Heaven." Luke XV, 11-32.

XXXVI.

One day Jesus said to his disciples: "Tell me, how do people understand my teaching?" And they answered: "Some think that you teach the same that John did; others say that you teach what Isaiah taught, and others say your teaching is like Jeremiah's, and that you are a prophet."

"Yes," said Jesus, "but how do you understand my teaching?"

And Simon Peter said: "I think you teach that the spirit of God lives in every man, and that therefore every man is a son of God." Jesus said to him: "You are happy, Simon, to have understood this. No man could have shown this to you, but you have understood it because God dwells in you. It is not I by my words that have shown it to you, but God, my Father, has Himself shown it to you."

At this time Jesus told his disciples that in Jerusalem he could not escape attacks and insults from those who did not believe his teaching; but that if they killed him, they would only kill his body, and not that spirit of God which lived in him.

Hearing these words, Peter was very sorry, and took

•"ОМь

278 THE PATHWAY OF LIFE

hold of the hand of Jesus, and said to him: "Don't go to Jerusalem."

Jesus answered: "Do not speak so. If you are afraid of suffering and death for me, that shows that you do not think of what is godly, but only of what is human. In this life people who live for the Kingdom of God must suffer, because the world loves its own, and hates what is godly. Men of the world always have tormented those who fulfilled the will of the Father."

And, calling the people and his disciples, Jesus said: "He who wishes to live according to my teaching, let him give up his bodily life, and be ready to bear all sufferings, for he who fears for his bodily life will lose his true life; but he who gives up his bodily life will save his real life. And let him who wishes to fulfil my teaching, do so not in words but in deeds."

Then he told them this parable:

"A man had two sons; and said to the first: *Go and work in my garden.' And the son said: 'I won't!' but afterwards repented, and went. And the father went to the second son and said the same to him. The second son answered : T will go at once.' But he did not go. Which of the two fulfilled his father's will ?"

And the disciples said: "The first."

And Jesus said: "And I tell you that the publicans and adulterers will enter the Kingdom of God before those who talk, but do not act."

Matt. XVI, 13-17; 21-25; XXI, 28-31.

XXXVII.

Then the disciples said to Jesus: "Your teaching is hard. Increase our belief that, if we live as you teach us, it will be well with us."

Jesus understood that they wished to know about the reward for a good life, and he said to them:

"Faith is not the belief in rewards; but faith is a clear understanding of what life is. If you clearly understand that your life is in the spirit of God, you will not expect any reward. A master does not thank a servant for doing his duty. And a servant, if he understands that he is a servant, is not offended at this, but does his work and knows that he will receive what is due to him. So you, too, should fulfil the will of the Father, and understand that you are servants; and when you have done your duty, do not expect reward, but be content with what you get. We must not be anxious to receive reward, but must be anxious not to destroy the life given us to enable us to fulfil the will of the Father. Therefore always be ready, like servants who are expecting their master. The servants do not know whether he will return soon or late, but have to be always ready.

"And so it is in life. Always, at every moment, one must fulfil the will of God, not saying to oneself: 'Then or there, I will do so-and-so.'"

"Therefore, live always in the spirit and in the present. For the life of the spirit there is no such thing as time. Take care that you do not burden yourselves, or befog yourselves with drink, over-eating, or cares, but let the spirit of God always rule over your bodies."

Luke XV П, 5-10; X//, 36-40; XXI, 34.

XXXVIII.

And Jesus told them another parable, to show how people should live. He said:

"A master planted a garden, and dug it, and arranged it, and did everything to make it yield as much fruit as pos-

sible. And he sent laborers into the garden to work, gather the fruit, and pay him according to agreement. And when the time came, the master sent a servant to receive the payment; but the laborers had forgotten that the garden had not been planted and arranged by them, and that they had come when it was quite ready; and they drove away the master's messenger emptyhanded, and lived in the garden as if they were the masters, not considering that the garden was not theirs, and that they lived in it by permission of the master. Then the master sent his steward to remind the laborers that the payment was due; but they drove him away too. Then he sent his son. But the laborers thought that if they killed the son they would be left to themselves. And so they killed him.