Benjamin Franklin Woodcox, Spiritual Evolution, – Thoughts on the Evolution of Spirit-Life and Various Other Subjects

 

1921

 

THE law of spiritual evolution seems to be the most important thing that this book suggests. But there are two other things of nearly equal importance with spiritual evolu­tion, to my way of thinking, suggested herein. The one is the discovery that all life is spirit; is spirit-life, and the other is the suggestion that nature is the only bible. that has any vestige of authority in the universe, and the book to which we should go for religious guidance.

C. H. F.

I am the Message that Nature brings

 

SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION

1. All life is spirit; is spirit-life. And all spirit- life is in course of evolution through enumerable forms and changes and lives until it reaches and passes through the human form and continues its evolution without the aid of a material body.
2. The evolution of spirit-life takes place under what is known as the law of Spiritual Evolution. And the law of Spiritual Evolution is a very simple law, and one that can be easily understood and explained.
3. We can easily understand how the tiny spark of life, or spirit, implanted by the Creator in the most simple material form can grow, or evolve, and can be transplanted as it grows from one material body to another until it becomes the complex spirit of man, or rather the complex spirit that inhabits the material form or body that we call man. And we can further understand how this spirit that is in man may con­tinue to grow, or evolve until it has become sufficiently strong, or full of vitality or life to no longer need the protection of a material body, but can continue its evolution without this material hindrance. And it is still possible for us to further understand how this spirit that is now free from a material body, can con­tinue to evolve until it arrives in the presence of its God; until it becomes like unto the God who gave it birth and started it on its evolutionary journey.

4. The law of Spiritual Evolution enlightens. It helps us to understand the Christian religion, and all other religions.
5. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution it is easy to find an explanation for everything, even for things of the most trivial nature.
6. The law of Spiritual Evolution agrees with all that science has discovered, or will discover. It is one of the universal laws like the law of Gravitation. That is, the law of Spiritual Evolution admits of no ex­ceptions. And no religion is, or can be true that is not in harmony with spiritual evolution. No religion can be true that is out of harmony with the law of spirit­ual growth or development.
7. The law of Spiritual Evolution unites all re­ligions. Discloses the fact that all religions are but one religion that is differently interpreted and under­stood by different people and by different persons of the same belief who are differently enlightened or spiritually developed.
8. As the spirit-life evolves, the law of Spiritual Evolution becomes more and more complex. First, there enters into Spiritual Evolution the law “ Love. ” And this law at once becomes an essential to the further evolution of spirit-life. A little later the law “Faith” appears and begins to play its part in spirit­ual evolution. And long before the spirit-life has evolved sufficiently to appear in human form it has become a rather complex spark of life, and may be said to be religious. But not until this spark of life—this spirit—has entered human form, and has developed a rather high state of self-consciousness, does the law of Right and Wrong become an important factor in spiritual evolution.
9. The minute that we become sufficiently self­conscious to come under the operation of the law of Right and Wrong, we begin the battle that is to de­cide our future evolution; we begin the battle that is to decide how slowly, or how rapidly we shall evolve toward the divine.
10. Spiritual,—or self-consciousness begins back at the beginning of life and proceeds upward by a slow unfolding, an evolution.
11. Spiritual,—or self-consciousness is attained with infinite slowness. Not until the spirit-life has been evolving for thousands of centuries does it attain sufficient self-consciousness to distinguish between the right and the wrong. Not until the spirit-life has been evolving for thousands of centuries is it sufficiently developed to work out its own destiny; is it sufficiently developed to no longer need the hand that has guided it through all the early stages of its evolution.
12. First the spirit-life becomes conscious of its environment, and as the spirit-life continues to evolve this consciousness increases until it includes a knowl­edge of everything human and divine.
13. With increased consciousness comes enlight­enment, and knowledge, and understanding, and wis­dom; the ability to think, and to see, and know.
14. That man whose consciousness is the most highly developed is the most close to the truth of things—is the most apt to be in the right.
15. Most human spirits are just approaching the border of self-consciousness—are not yet conscious of one-thousandth part of their life, or of the lives of others, or of the beauty and the grandeur of life.
16. Spiritual evolution is a slow unfolding attained through right living; through constantly holding the right attitude toward all life.
17. Our spiritual development can be measured by the loftiness of our thought, and by the emotional depth of our feelings.
18. That which does not help us in our spiritual evolution, does not help us.
19. Our spiritual enlightenment and develop­ment, like our refinement and our culture, is per­fectly apparent to all who are in a position to observe it, or to understand it.
20. The law of Spiritual Evolution leads us grad­ually to the truth through an enlightenment that is spiritual growth.
21. Some human spirits have advanced sufficient­ly in their development to see into the heavens them­selves; have evolved sufficient spiritual vitality and perception to have a clear idea of what is in the be­yond.
22. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution every virtue and every vice is accounted for, considered and weighed, and either helps us in our evolution or re­tards us in our spiritual growth.
23. Most persons have not yet reached a stage in their spiritual evolution where freedom and leisure is of value to them—have not yet reached a stage in their development where they can use freedom and leisure to the best advantage.
24. All things fade into each other, or are obtained through a gradual blending.
25. Nothing in this world is finished. Everything ‘ is in course of being developed, or evolved, or per­fected.
26. Evolution is the first aim of all life. Spiritual evolution first, and then mental and physical evolu­tion.
27. We who are in human form have advanced far enough in our evolution to have attained self-con­sciousness. Have advanced far enough to be able to understand the difference between right and wrong, and to begin to see and to appreciate the beautiful and the good; but we have not yet advanced far enough for us to be completely, entirely wise, or just.
28. As we mount higher and higher in the scale of spiritual evolution we become more and more in con­trol of our destiny.
29. No religious theories, nor dogmas, nor creeds, are necessary to spiritual development. Just faith is all that is needed. Faith in some God that is more lofty and divine than we are. Just something to cause us to seek to become better than we are; to cause us to make an effort to evolve out of ourselves into something higher; something more like the faith that we hold. And if our faith is not lofty enough we need not fear for as we approach our faith, our faith will become more lofty, and will advance upward be­fore us, and lead us at last through spiritual evolution to the right God.

Have faith in some God, and believe whatever you will, or can. All is well. Your faith will accomplish its purpose, and with that purpose accomplished, which is the evolution of your inner-life, will come a more enlightened faith, and a knowledge of the truth, which is also the good, and God.

30. Spirit-life makes use of material forms only until it has evolved, or generated sufficient strength and vitality and consciousness to no longer need the protection of a material body.
31. Everything tends to prove that the inner, or spirit-life that is in man is still in its infancy though probably thousands of centuries old.
32. Spirit-life is the electric spark which makes possible material or physical life.
33. Without spirit-life there could be no material, or physical, or animal life. And this physical, or material, or animal life can not, in any case, survive the departure of the spirit-life within.
34. Spirit-life has the ability to see a little way into the immediate future, just as the material eye has the ability to see a little way before and beyond it.
35. Each spirit-life inhabits a material body that is capable of certain independent actions; a material body that was created in order to protect this spirit- life in the early stages of its development, or until it has evolved sufficient vitality, and strength and self­consciousness to no longer need such protection.
36. Each physical or animal form contains two lives, each capable of certain independent actions. The one a spirit-life in course of evolution, and the other a material-life that may be destroyed in many different ways, and that can not in any case survive the departure of the spirit-life within it.
37. All spirit-lives however highly developed or perfect must depend upon their material intellects to receive and to translate the impressions that are flashed to them out of the great beyond; and if these intellects are imperfect, or if they are not sufficiently sensitive to receive and to record the finest impressions and have not the ability to translate these impressions into language, then these spirits are not able to make known what they know and understand of the divine.
38. Most human spirits are capable of receiving more information and knowledge and truth from the beyond than their intellects are capable of under­standing or of translating into language.
39. Most human spirits know more of God and of the life beyond than they think they know; than they have any self-consciousness of knowing.
40. The spirit-life is able to leave its material abode for brief periods of time without endangering the life of that abode.
41. Spirit-life often leaves its material abode and goes out to meet that which it desires if it desires it strongly. Often spirit-life goes out to meet love and friendship and beauty and other things that may help it in its development. However spirit-life never goes out to meet trivial things, nor worldly things, nor things that belong to the physical life.

42. Spirit-life no longer takes an interest in its material body if that body is worn out, or diseased, or too old. In such cases the spirit-life waits to depart; is willing to take unto itself another material form if it has not yet finished its journey here; that is has not yet evolved beyond the need of a material form.
43. Some spirits are fettered; are retarded in their development by the physical forms or bodies which they inhabit, and to such spirits the parting or what we call: “Death,” comes as a great blessing’
44. All invisible spirit-lives that remain invisible to us are superior to us; have evolved above us, and have no further need of a material body, as we have.
45. The invisible spirits are the superior spirits, and they may be around and about us without our knowledge.
46. All spiritual communications must reach us through the harmony of silence, or the solitude of nature; must reach us when we are alone with God and all is still.
47. Material sounds produce discords and inter­fere with what nature has to say.
48. Material life is weak, is frail, is imperfect, and can easily be destroyed; and because this is so spirit- life is forced to frequently take its departure, and to occupy many different forms and shapes and material bodies in course of its evolution.
49. All spirit-life seeks to conceal itself from all save those who are able to understand—seeks to conceal itself from all save those who have reached the same height in their development that it has reached.
50. That spirit-life that can soar to the most lofty height, and there enter into and intermingle with the most lofty developed spirits, is itself highly developed, and has begun to blend gradually into that life that exists beyond the material plain.
51. We can not counsel with our spirit-life upon anything but the important things of life. Such as the good, the beautiful, the true—spiritual things.

If we seek to counsel our spirit-life on the trivial— the ordinary—things of life, it is silent—makes no answer—has nothing to say.

52. The more highly developed we are spiritually the nearer our lives become a harmony, a poem, a song.
53. Poets are spirits that are highly developed, and all spirits must some time become poets because all spirits will some time reach that stage in their development where all things are poetical; will reach that stage in their development where all is harmony and no discord can prevail.
54. Though all spirits will reach that stage in their development where all things are poetical, and will become poets, not all will give expression to the beauty and to the grandeur that will be theirs.
55. Most spirits that are in human form are not sufficiently developed to live wisely—are not sufficient­ly developed to get the most out of life.
56. Most spirits that are in human form possess but imperfectly developed consciousness—are yet far from the end of their journey in human form.
57. To the spirit-life that has not yet reached a high state of development, the trivial things of life may appear great, and the great things of life may not appear at all.
58. Each spirit-life must attain the same amount of development before it can cross the bridge into the land where no material bodies are to be found, or are necessary.
59. Spirit-life never sleeps. Only the physica mind sleeps. And during the slumber of the physi cal mind the spirit-life often leaves its material abode for brief periods of time; often leaves its material abode and goes forth into the spiritual world to visit and to learn much that it should know.
60. Spirit-life knows no rest, nor seeks any, nor desires any until it has completed its journey. But when spirit-life is retarded in its development—when it is held back because it is out of harmony with the good—it grows restless and suffers much anxiety.

61. Not all human spirits understand the law of Spiritual Evolution.
62. The spirit-life that is in man is related to the spirit-life that is in the flower, or in the tree, and when man observes the beauty of these it is their inner—or spirit-beauty that he most often observes. It is their inner—or spirit-beauty that most often astonishes him and excites his admiration.
63. Spirit-life is not interested in the things that concern material life—is not interested in the things that are not of the spiritual sphere of life.
64. Trust your subconscious nature—your spirit­ual self—with any important mission you may desire because your spirit-life can be trusted and can be de­pended upon to learn secrets and secure information that is beyond the ability of your intellect to other­wise learn or secure.
65. Your spirit-life may be able to fulfil the mission assigned to it in a day, or in a week, or in a year,—but be patient!—your spirit-life will fulfil the mission assigned to it.
66. The food of the spirit—of the spirit-life—is love and sympathy, and trust and goodness, and kindness. All the virtues are the food of the spirit.
67. He knows most of God who is the most highly developed spiritually, for spiritual development leads to God through nature.
68. Nature speaks to us of God. Does in fact reveal to us God’s laws, and work, and beauty.
69. Nature is the source of all our wisdom. It is from nature that all truths are to be learned.
70. All depends upon our attitude whether we are to learn from nature or not.
71. If we would speak with nature we must ap­proach her with expectations, and humbly, as we would approach God.
72. A knowledge of nature and of nature’s God can not be learned, or acquired from others. It must be attained through experience; through a close and harmonious communication with nature. And this communication with nature can come only through spiritual evolution and the gradual blending of our life with all the life that is in nature.
73. Nature never speaks to those who are un­worthy of being spoken to—to those who lack suf­ficient spiritual development, or to those who ap­proach her as though they merely wished to counsel with her upon some important question.

73. We can never get too close to nature; can never learn too much of her.
74. Out in the silence with nature, goodness reigns, virtue is to be found, and every evil either takes to its heels or ceases to be.
75. In the silence with nature or in solitude, we have a chance to enjoy our own society, to get ac­quainted with our spirit-life, and perchance to learn who we are and what we are, and why we are.
76. That society in which none intrude save the silence and the harmony of nature is the best possible society, and the most companionable, and lofty, and serene, and godlike.
77. All nature is a temple; a sacred place where each man should go alone to worship, or to live, if he would be near to God.
78. Just as there is a harmony that prevails and fills all nature, so is there a discord that is to be found everywhere in society, or where two or more human beings are gathered together.
79. Nature is able to reach us even in the heart of a great city, and to help us to live wisely though we are far from her temple and too much a slave of com­mercialism to behold all her beauty or understand most of her laws.
80. Nature loves us—calls to us—and will not in any case allow any of us to become completely, en­tirely lost to her. Nature will not allow any of us to entirely escape from her temple, or out from under her care, or parental influence.
81. Out in the silence with nature man becomes conscious of the fact that all nature is filled with har­mony.
82. The harmony that is in nature, which men hear only in solitude, or in the silence with nature, thrills the highly developed spirit-lives more completely than does that highly cultivated music of society.
83. The music that is in nature is the most lofty of all music, and has the most elevating influence of all music upon those of us who are able to hear it.
84. Nature is the only healing force in the world and .nature is more able to heal us out in the silence than anywhere else.
85. Nature discloses to us just as much of her beauty as we are prepared to appreciate, and no more.
86. All nature is set to music, is by nature musical, and each separate thing in nature has its own melody that it prefers to render.
87. He can not be otherwise than good who spends his life in the silence with nature.
88. It is when we are out in the silence with nature that most of our lofty thoughts come; and they come unattended and unannounced, and as direct as if fired at us from the barrel of a gun.
89. He who lives alone with nature fears no danger—is afraid of no foe—dares to look life in the face.
90. To those who are out of harmony with the purpose of life, nature sometimes appears as a cold, heartless, relentless force that is to be feared, and is feared.
91. From nature we can learn all that it is neces­sary for us to know in this life.
92. Nature is the supreme authority on God, and therefore on life.
93. He who fears to be and to live in the soli­tude with nature fears not nature but nature’s God— is not living as wisely nor as well as he should—has some sin from which he should depart.
94. Nature reveals herself to those only who go forth to meet her in sympathy and love.
95. Nature conceals her real beauty, her inner- self from all save those who love her, and who go forth alone into the silence with expectations, hoping to meet her.
96. If you would know God, first try to become in some way worthy of God’s acquaintance and then go seek God alone in the silence with nature, for it is in the silence with nature that God is most often to be found.
97. Not to obey the laws of nature is to be an outlaw—is to be forever and eternally on the side of the bad—is to live out of harmony with the purpose of life.
98. Nature never conceals her beauty. Her beauty is always apparent—always to be seen—but some persons are resolved not to see the beauty of nature. Some persons turn their eyes away and focus them upon the more trivial things and deny to them­selves the most beautiful pleasure upon earth.
99. Nature has a language with which to converse with him who has an ear to hear but she never speaks to him who comes merely to observe and to study her. Nature reserves all her communications and conver­sations for those who love her—for those who are in sympathy and harmony with her.
100. Nature is more refined than culture, more delicate, more sincere, and more beautiful. It is only when nature has been trifled with that it becomes coarse and in need of an artificial polish.
101. All nature is on the march toward perfection.
102. Nature, in the early stages of her evolution, was chiefly concerned with life. Beauty came as an after thought.
103. All nature overflows in some way and in some direction. And this overflow in a man’s nature re­veals the man.
104. Nature never harms us. She soothes us, quiets our restless nerves and fills us with harmony and health.
105. The more we love nature, the more nature reveals herself to us and the more rapidly we evolve toward the divine.
106. Nature is the supreme law and the court of last appeal on all questions of right and wrong.
107. A legal right is no right at all in the court of love. Nature does not recognize any such a right, neither does God. It is man only, among all of God’s creation, who is so stupid as to assume that a legal right exists, and has precedence over the sacred rights of love.
108. Nature is more serene, and calm, and more lofty than man. Man lives in perpetual discord while all nature is filled with harmony and peace.
109. Nature can sleep, but man must keep awake, or if he sleeps, must expect to dream because man’s restlessness follows him even into slumberland.
110. Nature has not yet succeeded. Her work is still in the experimental stage.
111. Nature must do away with fear before she can proceed much further on her road to perfection.
112. Nature has not yet succeeded in making a man.
113. The natural is the spiritual. Every effort that nature makes is a spiritual effort.
114. Nature is forever forsaking the old for the new—is each day becoming more enlightened and intelligent.
115. The life germ in all nature is spirit, and the only difference there is in this germ is in its develop­ment—its evolution—its growth.
116. Nature has a language that requires no vocal sounds or words. A language that is more eloquent, more melodious, more beautiful, and more persuasive than that of any other language in the world.
117. It is the silence of nature that speaks with so much melody—that tells us so much of God— that fills our ears with harmony, and our spirit-life with rapture.
118. Next to the silence of nature, beauty is the most important thing that God has to disclose to us
119. It is in the silence with nature that all the wisdom of the world is whispered—that all the secrets of life are talked of, and nothing of importance to man is left undiscussed.
120. To listen in on the silence of nature is to listen in on God and to learn what our Creator is about.
121. The silence of nature reveals the first faint sound of every change that is to be wrought in the world and in life. It tells us all that we need to know upon every subject on which it is necessary that we be informed.
122. The most delicious fruits that nature yields are all spiritual fruits. They are spiritual enlighten­ment, increased self-consciousness, wisdom, an in­creased sense of the beautiful, a knowledge of life and what it is about, and an understanding of God.
123. In few natures is love and friendship and hate constant. In most natures these emotions ebb and flow.
124. Nature is more concerned with the purpose of life than she is with mere life. Mere existence is of less interest to nature than evolution—than development—though existence is necessary in order that the evolution may be attained. If nature thought that she could produce nothing more perfect and more lofty than she has produced, she would be­come despondent and discouraged and cease to struggle.
125. Morals have to do with the social relations of man, and not with nature or God. Nature and God are concerned with the good, and not with the moral.
126. Nature remembers, not what was, but what is. She concerns herself only with the present and gives no thought to the past.
127. Nature has laws that deal out justice in all cases of right and wrong, automatically, and never do these laws fail to be completely, entirely, accurate­ly just.
128. The reason why we should go to nature in its most simple forms to study spirit-life is because spirit-life is found there in its most simple form—is found there before it has become so highly developed and complicated as it is in man.
129. Nature is inhuman—yes, nature is inhuman because she is more than human; is nearer the divine.
130. Just as man at times prefers to be alone, so does nature like to retire into solitude and there be undisturbed. Man is not always welcome when he disturbs the solitude of nature.

132. Nature is largely feminine in character. She has all the feminine characteristics that we know best, and love best in woman.
133. The way to eternal life lays through nature. Nature is the gateway that leads to heaven. But there are many of these gateways in nature and we must pass through all of them before we can arrive at that celestial city.
134. Some men seek nature to learn of her; other and wiser men, seek nature to communicate through her with that which is beyond her—the divine.
135. In nature it is not the flower that is the most interesting, nor the bird, nor the tree; but the life— the spirit—that is in the flower, and the bird, and the tree.
136. The real beauty that is in nature is not in its form, or shape, or color; but in the life that is con­cealed by its form, and shape, and color.
137. All nature is a bible, and the only bible that has any vestige of authority in the universe. Yet many men who can not interpret the inner meaning of this bible, pretend to read this book for us, and to interpret its meaning to us.
138. Those only are qualified to speak of nature who are in sympathetic and emotional rapport with nature.
139. No one can be in harmony with nature who is out of harmony with God, with the good, with the purpose of life.
140. Nature is more important to us than friends, than books, than wealth. Is equal in importance to us with our own life.
141. The man who knows not nature knows not God because God is the life-spark that is in nature.
142. In nature we are able to find God in his most simple form; in the only form in which we are able to grasp him and to understand him.
143. Nearly everything in nature prefers to be left alone to live its own life in its own way; prefers to be left alone to work out its own destiny.
144. Nature in her attempt to realize her concep­tion of life and beauty begins on a small scale and pro­ceeds upward with infinite pains and patience.

145. We belong to nature and nature to us. There is no difference. The material that is in us and in nature is the same, and the life that is in both of us is the same life. And this life differs only in its evoluion—in its development.

146. To get in harmony with nature we must be good, must obey all of nature’s laws, and in just so far as we obey all of nature’s laws can we hope to understand nature and the spirit-life that is in nature and in us—is us.
147. God is our father, nature our mother, and it is upon our mother that our development mostly depends.
148. Nature is our mother, our most valuable friend and guide, and like unto the human mother who gave us birth, nature should be loved and respected and followed.
149. Nature has improved by experience. She is able to do today what she was not able to do a few hundred centuries ago, or when the spirit-life that is in man was first intrusted in her care.
150. Nature is not so proud of man as man assumes. She loves him less than she loves her latest born—that tiny spark of God that is more in need of her parental love and care, and of whom, perhaps, she expects more than from man.
151. Nature is the only authority upon the sub­ject of life that is worth considering.
152. Nature rules by law and not by preaching. Believe in nature or not as you please, but if you are wise you will keep in harmony with nature’s laws, whether you believe in nature or not.
153. Nature offers us everything, but we must be patient. A thousand centuries is but a little while with nature, and nature does not intend to give us everything at once. A little at a time. Things given to us gradually through an evolution is nature’s way.
154. All that is most deep and true, and most profound and beautiful in nature can not be expressed in words—can only be suggested. And we can under­stand that which is suggested to us by nature in so far only as we are in harmonious rapport with nature.
155. Nature keeps selecting and rejecting through­out all the early stages of evolution. She allows noth­ing to proceed far in its development that does not satisfy her; and the moment that any of her work fails to come up to her standard she begins to recon­struct it, or to destroy it.
156. Nature is willing to create a thousand writers in order that she may select one that is suitable to be her scribe; in order that she may find one that is capable of observing her, and detecting her whims, and fancies, and purposes, and giving expression to these. Nature loves to be reported but not to be falsely reported.
157. Nature alone knows God, has ever felt him, or is capable of feeling him, and in just so far as we are in perfect harmony with nature are we capable of feeling and knowing God. However our knowledge of God depends upon our consciousness and our con­sciousness depends upon evolution. He who is the most highly developed spiritually is the most able to understand God, or nature, or life.
158. That is our nature which we have a tendency to do, not that which we do.
159. Our nature is revealed by everything that we do, or say, or think—by our interpretation of everything.
160. Nature is God’s masterpiece. And there is nothing superior to nature in the universe.
161. Nature is the master force; the power that is in control of life. And that man is simply foolish who does not study nature and strive to get into harmony with nature and nature’s work and purpose.
162. Nature is the master workman that is mould­ing and shaping our lives, whether we believe in nature or not. But nature can do this work much more perfectly and successfully if we believe in her and are in sympathy with her and her purpose.
163. Some spirits flee from the silence, or from the solitude of nature, because their lives are out of harmony with the good, with nature, with God. Some spirits flee from the silence of nature because they fear to disclose to nature their real attitude toward the purpose of life.
164. To flee from the silence, from the solitude, of nature is a confession of guilt—is an admission that one is living out of harmony with the law of Spiritual Evolution—is an admission that one is retarding and delaying one’s own spiritual-self on its road to per­fection.
165. The spirit-life that is in nature is the only important thing that is in nature and the only thing in nature that has life.
166. Nature is less interested in her physical development than she is in her spiritual development. She cares less for her form or shape or color than she does for her life-spark, her spirit, her inner, or real self.

167. Nature is the source of all enlightenment, of all knowledge, of all wisdom, of all goodness and virtue and worth. Nature is the source of all things that are, can be, or will be. Nature is the means by which God is made manifest to us.
168. Nature is our guiding star, the power that leads us under any and all conditions.
169. Nature is bent upon winning us away from the material things of life. She would take us by the hand and lead us out into the silence, and show us God; the God who sits upon his throne and rules the universe through law and order. No temple is quite so sacred as this silence into which nature would lead us, no prayer is quite so serious, or thought so lofty, or feeling so serene and peaceful. He who has not been led by nature out into the silence where God reigns and there been made to feel the presence of God has not yet experienced religion or been lifted up to the plain of spiritual life.

170. There is a brain in nature that directs and leads, and controls and shows us the way. And this brain is of a spiritual nature, like our subconscious mind, yet far more powerful and more wise and serene and certain.
171. Nature has a privacy into which none dare intrude until they are admitted by nature herself. And nature never admits us into the inner courts of her life until we have reached a very high state of spiritual evolution—until we are near to being divine.
172. The external beauty that we see in nature is not worth mentioning in comparison to that beauty that we shall observe as we advance further into the courts of nature.
173. Nature never discloses herself to some men— never admits some men even into the outer court of her life, nor discloses to them the first faint blush of her beauty, nor the first audible sound of her voice.
174. There are as many strata of beauty in each separate thing in nature as there are strata of life in the observer of nature.
175. That which is not beautiful does not belong to God.
176. We are at the beginning of beauty. Beauty will increase, and so will our ability to perceive the beautiful, as we and the world evolve toward] per­fection.
177. With evolution comes the beautiful, and the ability to perceive the beautiful.
178. The amount of beauty that we see in any­thing depends largely upon us, and this beauty may range anywhere from mere attractiveness, or charm, to the sublime.

179. The lover of the beautiful, the dreamer, the poet, the artist is many degrees nearer heaven, and farther from earth than the practical man.
180. Love is a great beautifier, and so is sympathy, and faith, and charity, and trust. All things that tend to produce harmony between us and the pur­pose of life are great beautifiers.
181. That church, that religion that is not utterly, entirely, completely, wholly beautiful is not true: is in some way false: is false in all ways in which it is not utterly, entirely, completely beautiful.
182. The beautiful is the good, and anything that tends to destroy the beautiful is the bad.
183. A bad disposition is one of the greatest of all beauty destroyers.
184. That which possesses beauty grows more and more beautiful the longer, and the more closely we observe it,—and all things possess beauty.
185. Each day a new world of beauty is unrolled for those who seek the beautiful.
186. It is a sin not to seek to behold the beautiful.
187. There is indescribable beauty concealed even in the most insignificant creation or production of nature.
188. All the beauty that we have known and be­come accustomed to in life is merely a trivial in com­parison to the beauty that will yet be revealed to us, a little at a time, as we evolve higher and higher.
189. All beauty increases for us as rapidly as our consciousness increases. Therefore those who are the most highly developed spiritually are able to behold beauties that as yet do not exist to us.
190. We are often elevated and enthused and in­spired by the beauty that is conveyed to us in a poem or a thought, but it seldom occurs to us how much more beautiful and vital that beauty must have been to him who perceived it, and translated it into larguage for us.
191. We often lament because the creators; the translators of the beautiful are so poorly paid, but we never dream how much they really get out of having conceived and translated into language a beautiful poem or thought.
192. All things are more beautiful and more lofty than we picture them even with our spiritual eye.
193. All beauty of the highest order is spiritual; is beauty that is not discernible with the material eye: is beauty that is beheld only by the eye of the inner life.
194. All beauty is primarily spiritual, owes its perception to the spirit-life, and is by nature a part of that life.
195. All beauty belongs to the spirit-life. Even that beauty that we call “Physical” has that within it that the spirit-life values and cherishes and trans­forms into spiritual wealth and beauty.
196. Physical beauty depends upon form and shape and color—depends upon physical appearance. But spiritual beauty does not depend upon any of these because it has no permanent form, or shape, or color,—is continually changing,—yet it is the most beautiful of all beauty.
197. The most beautiful thing in the universe is life—spirit-life. But the beauty of spirit-life varies and increases with its evolution—with its develop­ment.
198. The beauty of everything increases with spiritual development, and those creatures that are yet in the lower stages of spiritual evolutions are as yet unable to appreciate—perhaps even to behold the beautiful.
199. Spirit beauty is the only beauty that will bear close inspection. All other beauty is best ob­served from a distance.
200. Often the inner beauty that we see in those about us is merely the reflection of our own internal beauty.
201. In our effort to reach and to possess some physical or material beauty that we see, we begin to perceive and to possess some spiritual beauty that did not exist to us before.
202. In exchange for some physical or material beauty that we desire we are often given some spirit­ual beauty that is more beautiful and hallowed and divine
203. When we begin to leave the physical plane of living and to enter the spiritual plane, all things become more and more beautiful and godlike.
204. We are always glorified by that beauty—that love—that reaches the spiritual plane of life.
205. The perception of the beautiful is a spiritual test. It reveals to those who are in a position to see how far they have advanced on their road to perfec­tion.
206. Beauty is a food upon which our spirits feed. It is a nourishment that helps us to gain more and more spiritual vitality.
207. The beautiful is the divine. And the more completely we possess the beautiful, the nearer we are to the divine.
208. All is beautiful. There is beauty every­where and in everything.
209. We are apt to pay the most homage to that beauty which we see the most clearly, and some of us are more able to see material beauty, than we are spiritual beauty.
210. Spiritual beauty is not only the most lofty of all beauty, but it is also the most difficult for most persons to perceive.
211. Beauty is both like a fire and like a frost. Neglect beauty and it freezes you. Approach too close to beauty and it burns you. Occupy the right relation to beauty and it is your most gracious friend and helpmate.
212. How can those who are too blind to observe the beauty of earth expect to behold the beauty of h eaven ?
213. Every beautiful thought that we perceive, every lofty sentiment that we feel, tends not only to elevate us but to help us in our evolution toward the divine.
214. If our inner—our spirit-life is beautiful, it will find a way to express itself that is beautiful for beauty never conceals itself. The beautiful is too divine, too godlike, to seek concealment.
215. Everything about us takes on the aspects, and the color, and the beauty of that which is within us—takes on the aspects and the color of our inner, or spiritual self.
216. The nearer we approach beauty, the more beautiful we become. Our inner—or spirit-life absorbs all the beauty that it perceives and makes it a part of itself.
217. Next to the creation and maintenance of life, beauty is the most important thing that nature has undertaken and the one thing upon which she has spent most of her time and talent.
218. Beauty precedes the transplanting of all life from one form to another. It prepares the way for all such changes in nature and leads up to them.
219. All things that come to us direct from nature are good and are true, and can no more be bad or false than God can be bad, or false.
220. The moral is a mere trivial in comparison with the good.
221. Being good is merely being sensible. It is good sense followed by wise acts.
222. The good is the staff of life. It is that which makes spiritual development possible.
223. He who is good is in harmony with the pur­pose of life.
224. Only .the good understand the value of being good.
225. Desire only the good because from the good only will you receive perfect satisfaction.
226. Goodness is a necessity and all must become good in the end.
227. Goodness is necessary to spiritual evolution, to development, to life.
228. He who is good is strong, while he who is not good lacks strength—is not highly developed spiritually—has not advanced far on his road to per­fection.
229. The good and the beautiful are one. For that which is good is beautiful, while that which has not yet attained goodness has not yet developed sufficiently to be beautiful.
230. Goodness is an innocence that has knowl­edge—is an innocence that is no longer ignorant. Goodness is an innocence that has become enlight­ened—that has developed into something finer and more pure and God-like than it was before.
231. We can not approach close to the good with­out approaching close to nature and to God.
232. There is a vast difference between the good and the moral. The one is the fullfilling of the pur­pose of life: the other the obeying of the rules relat­ing to conduct that are laid down by society.
233. Everything that tends to help nature in the accomplishment of her purpose, whatever that pur­pose may be, is good; and everything that tends to retard, to delay nature in the accomplishment of her purpose, whatever that purpose may be, is bad. All other conceptions of the good and the bad, of the right and the wrong, are false conceptions—are con­ceptions that are based upon a misunderstanding of the purpose of life.
234. It requires strength to be good, and most persons who are not good, are so because they lack strength—spiritual strength.
235. Some of us have to struggle to be good. Others of us would have to struggle to keep from being good.
236. There are persons in this world who are good because they can not help it, and other persons who are bad for precisely the same reason.
237. Real angels and real devils can not possibly exist in human form, or in the material world.
238. All who are in this world are struggling toward the good, and those that are yet too far from the good may seem to be utterly, entirely, completely bad.
239. Our courage helps to decide how good and how bad we can be. It prescribes the limits between which we must live our life.
240. Goodness, like happiness, is contagious—is catching. Be good and others will become like you —good.
241. Nothing is too good to be believed, or ex­pected, or to be realized.
242. He is good who lives as wisely as he knows how to live.
243. We must be good to be able to live in soli­tude—to be able to live in the silence with nature. And he who lives in the silence with nature will each day become better than he was the day before.
244. The only investment that is safe, that is sure to pay a dividend, is goodness: is sympathy: is love.
245. The moment that we begin to perceive the good, we begin to appreciate it and to possess it.
246. The more closely we approach the good, the more we are attracted by it, and the less we are attracted by the bad.
247. Goodness is something that does not greatly concern some persons because these persons have not yet reached a point in their development where good­ness becomes of vital importance to their future evolution.
248. The minute that the good becomes of vital importance to the spiritual evolution of a person, that minute that person becomes profoundly interested in the good, and, instinctively, begins to seek out the pathway that leads to the good—that leads to a harmonious relation with the purpose of life.
249. To be good is to be in harmony with the laws of nature, is to be in harmony with the conditions that tend to develop spirit-life the most rapidly, and to bring to that life the most vitality.
250. The difference between the good and the bad is a spiritual, not a moral, difference—is a difference in their spiritual development, in their consciousness, in their nearness to the light—to the divine.
251. He who knows not the good, but must follow the moral guide-posts set up by society, is not wise, or highly spiritually developed, nor even learned, though he may be a graduate of all the schools.
252. That which is good is in harmony with life, and life’s development and purpose; and that which is bad is that which is out of harmony with life, and is therefore that which tends to retard life’s develop­ment and to destroy its purpose.
253. There are many different heights and de­grees of goodness, and we must reach the most lofty of all these heights before we can have attained our complete development.
254. A man must in some way be good to be an idealist, and the better he is the more of an idealist he will be and the more lofty will be his conception of the good.
255. When one has once become good—has tasted the divine essence of goodness—though he may again become bad, he will return to the good, and no power on earth or in hell can do more than retard or delay his return for a few brief years or lives.
256. We dislike those who are too good because they are too far above us. We wish everybody to live on our plane of life, or a little beneath us.
257. It is wise to be moderate in most things but not in virtue and goodness. There is no extreme to wise living—to living in harmony with nature and with the purpose of life.
258. Every spirit-life tries to be as good as we believe it to be, and if our belief in that life is suf­ficiently strong, we may help that life to more rapidly attain its development.
259. Just as we must be more than moral to be really good, so must we be more than good to be divine.
260. In goodness there is beauty, poetry, music, rhythm, harmony.
261. It is a sure sign of goodness not to be able to think that our enemies are bad—to perceive that they also are good.
262. The laws underlying goodness and operating through the good can be reduced to an exact science, because these laws are among the fixed laws of nature and never vary a hair’s breadth in their operation.
263. Everything works together for good. Even our evils tend to show us the way to goodness.
264. All things that are good are the fruit of spiritual development, and are closely related to each other.
265. No good that we can conceive is beyond our ability to attain if we will be patient and strive faithfully to attain that good; but when we have attained that good we will find another good, that before we could not see, or conceive of, just a little ahead of us and we will wish to attain that good also, and so we will keep on struggling upward toward the good until we finally attain our spiritual development and no longer need to be fettered by a material body or form.
266. All things tend toward goodness. Nothing in the universe is bad—entirely, completely bad.
267. Do not look for goodness upon the surface of life. Goodness is more apt to be found beneath the surface—within the life.
268. Those who are good through fear or through policy are not good because goodness is an attitude— a harmonious relation to law—and can not spring from an ignoble or unworthy motive.
269. Men may be deceived by the seeming good­ness that springs from an ignoble attitude, but not the law, or nature, or God.
270. All things that are good tend upward—tend to help us in our spiritual development—and all things that are bad tend downward—tend to retard, to delay us in our spiritual evolution.
271. God is on the other side of nature from us.
272. The road to God leads through nature. It is a road that only a few have observed closely, and scarcely a hundred have thought to follow for any distance, yet it is the road that leads to God.
273. If we could penetrate through nature we would come into the presence of God.
274. If nature does not speak to you of God, and tell you all you need to know, then the time has not yet come when it is necessary that you should know God.
275. Go out into the silence with nature and listen. Perhaps God has something that he wishes to say to you.

276. You must seek God in solitude, or in the silence with nature if you would find him, or converse with him, or learn to understand him.
277. God is the God of nature, though each sep­arate thing in nature may have its own guiding star or spirit that leads it the way that God wishes it to go.
278. Not even God is superior to nature because God is nature—is nature in its perfection—is nature in that perfection toward which all life is evolving.

279. Those who condemn God in nature do so through ignorance and lack of enlightenment and development. They not only do not know God, but they are not sufficiently high in the scale of spirit­ual evolution to know or to understand him.
280. The nearness of God to us depends upon our spiritual development, and this development depends largely upon our attitude toward life.
281. Nothing is that is not of God. Therefore all that is, is of value to us in our attempt to form an accurate conception of God.
282. Fundamentally God is nature, and all that has sprung from nature.
283. Harmony is the touchstone by which truth can be ascertained.
284. That thought or idea that is in harmony with the purpose of life is the truth.
285. The road that leads to contentment and peace, and happiness and enlightenment, and wisdom and spiritual development is harmony—is to get into harmony with nature, with the purpose of life.
286. He who is in harmony with the purpose of life is good; has faith; is developing spiritually; is not selfish, or controled by greed, or hate, or fear, or distrust.
287. There must be harmony between the spirit- life and nature before there can be harmony of thought or of perception.
288. All real friendships must spring from spirit­ual harmony.
289. Harmony, rhythm, melody, music prevails through everything that is good, that is helpful to the evolution of spirit-life.
290. It is more important that we keep in har­mony with all spirit-life than that we get in harmony with the world—than that we get in harmony with material or physical life.
291. All things are tuned to music, to harmony, to law. And when this harmony is broken, the law is broken, and discord and disaster result.
292. Harmony is not the result of belief, or faith, or religious attitude. It is the result of law.
293. Get in harmony with the purpose of life, with nature, and all is well.
294. Just as harmony prevails throughout all nature, so does discord prevail wherever unnatural men are to be found.
295. All clubs and libraries and churches and places where men gather are filled with discord— with discordant thought waves. Thought waves from different minds cross and recross each other and destroy the harmony that should prevail—that does prevail—out in the silence with nature, or in the solitude of one’s home or study.
296. All unhappiness is the result of being out of harmony with the purpose of life. All discontent is the result of a discord between nature and us—is the result of a discord that may be caused by anything that retards spiritual evolution and defeats the pur­pose of life or nature.
297. We seldom live the life we think we live.
298. Everything in life costs us more than we think.
299. There are persons whom we can not know in life, who are made known to us in death.
300. Most human lives are filled with nothing but emptiness. They sail into the harbor of death with nothing on board worth mentioning.
301. There is in the life of the most contemptible human being that which would arouse our sympathy and our compassion if we but fully understood.

302. If you would know the kind of life you live, learn to note the kind of thoughts you think, and the kind of subjects on which you love most to converse.
303. Only those are prepared to live who are pre­pared to die.
304. Life is not measured by years, but by living; by the amount of good it has brought us; the distance on the road to spiritual perfection it has carried us; and the nearness to God it has left us.
305. Life is spirit. And the development of this spirit-life accounts for all the different species of life, and for the development of each of these species.
306. There is poetry, and rhythm, and music in everything that is in harmony with the purpose of life.
307. The most important question of life is: “How best to live. How to live to get the most spiritual development out of life.”
308. Most of us do not get as much out of life as we should because we do not know how to live.
309. To possess a life that is full of beauty and poetry and music and truth is to possess great spirit­ual wealth and development.
310. To live is to evolve.
311. Most of the things of life are so trivial that we can well put them off for a few centuries and devote our time to living. We need not, in fact, do these trivial things at all if we do not wish. They do not count in the scheme of things. They do not make us more wise, nor better, nor help us in our spiritual development. They are merely a few pebbles in our pathway, and need not impede our progress unless we stop to pick them up and to carry them about with
312. It is our attitude toward the purpose of life, and not our knowledge or faith in that purpose, that is important—that is necessary to our spiritual development. It does not matter what we believe, but it is all important that we believe, and that we get into harmony with our belief. Spiritual develop­ment requires of us, first: that we get in harmony with our belief. And second: that we are passive and allow our belief to lead us toward the light.
313. All life is spirit. And all spirit-life has the power to generate certain material activities that produce a kind of life that is independent of spirit- life so long as it is in contact with spirit-life as a gen­erating force. But remove the spirit-life from con­tact with this material life, and the material life ceases to live, or to have life.
314. The life element, or spirit that is in man does not differ in any essential from the life element or apirit that is in a tree, or a flower, or a bird, or other snimal, or plant, or mineral. Does not differ in any essential. Does not differ except in its evolution, or development.
315. All life is but one life—spirit-life—differ­ently developed.
316. Each spirit-life is but a spark of God, which through evolution will become like unto the God who gave it birth.
317. If you wish to search for the spirit-life of one who has departed this life before having completed his evolution in human form, do not search in the spirit-world, but among the new born babes.
318. All things of real spiritual value to life, and in life, are free to all who possess the ability to grasp them, and to understand them, and appreciate them. And the ability to grasp, and to understand, and appreciate spiritual things depends upon spiritual development—upon evolution. And spiritual evolu­tion depends largely upon our attitude toward the purpose of life; depends upon whether we are in harmony with nature and her laws, or not.
319. In life we fight nearly all the time on the defence, and blindly. We do not understand how to live wisely, but we live wisely without under­standing. In life we believe one thing and do another, and know not that that which we do is more wise than that which we believe.
320. Those who live profoundly, live serenely and calmly, and peacefully. It is those who live on the surface of life who suffer most from storms and terrn pests—whose lives are so full of discontent and un­happiness.
321. To fully understand one’s spirit-life is to understand the spirit-life of the universe, and to know what life is about.
322. No one spark of life is of more importance than any other spark of life except in the progress it has made in its evolution.
323. All—everything—depends upon our attitude toward life. We are all magnets that attract to us that which our inner, or spirit-life needs or desires.
324. If your life is purely a physical one, or a mental one, do not imagine that you are near to heaven, or that you possess any exact knowledge of life, or of nature, or of God.
325. All things in life come to us in fragments— in peices—and out of these fragments and pieces a successful life or failure must be built.
326. In life we often meet again some of those whom we have known in former lives, and renew again the relation that formerly existed between us.
327. Many of our hates and fears and friendships and loves in this life are based upon acts and deeds and conditions that existed in some of our former lives.
328. We are the sum total, not of one life but of all the lives that we have lived since God planted our spark of life in the first crude form of nature.
329. Enumberable lives have been lived, and countless periods of time have been spent in the evolution of the life that is in each of us.
330. – Death is as natural as sleep, or birth, and no more to be feared.
331. Death is an adventure into the unkown. It is a journey that none need fear. Especially not those whose bodies are worn out, or diseased.
332. To fear death is not to trust life—is to be lacking in understanding, or faith, or both.
333. Death is not sad, but the parting is sad.
334. Death may bring us and the departed nearer to each other, or may keep us farther apart. All depends upon whether our love for each other is of the spirit-life or not.
335. Death makes us young again. It is but the doorway that leads to a new life. And though we fail in our spiritual evolution and must return to earth again in human form, we gain by death another youth and youthful body in which to try again to attain our spiritual development.
336. Under the law of Spiritual Evolution, death is of no consequence because death does not destroy life; does not impair, or delay life in its evolution; has no power to harm life whatever.
337. Death is never sudden. The inner, or spirit- life is always conscious of the approach of death, and is ready to depart.
338. Though death is never sudden or a surprise to the dying, yet it is so free from sensation, or feeling, or jar that the departed are not conscious of the passing over.
339. Life blends into death, and death into life again without our being conscious of the change. We simply become conscious that we are alive, and if we have any consciousness of our former life, it is a vague and visionary one, as something apart from ourselves.
340. The dead do not possess any great knowledge of what is in the beyond. All things are revealed to them, as to us, by a slow unfolding—an evolution.
341. We live each of our lives in a compartment shut off from our past and our future by thick cur­tains, through which we can not see except imperfectly, and only spiritual evolution has the power to lift these curtains or to remove them before us as we advance or retreat.

342. We can not always believe that which we wish to believe.
343. We seek to convince ourselves of the truth of that which we wish to believe with every means within our power.
344. Our belief depends upon our enlightenment— upon our development—upon the point at which we have arrived in our spiritual evolution.
345. Many persons wish to believe that which, as yet, they are unable to believe and therefore could not possibly live.
346. Do not strive to believe that which for the moment your inner, or spirit-life can not accept as the truth because such a truth is not true to you and may never become true. Do not strive to believe that true which your inner- life rejects as untrue and as unnecessary to your spiritual evolution.

347. It does not matter what we believe. Spirit­ual evolution does not depend upon belief. Besides our belief will change with our evolution.
348. Our spiritual self is a better judge of what to believe than are our spiritual teachers. And never does our spiritual self believe in that which is no longer of use to it—in that which it has outgrown.

349. That religion is the most true that contains the most wisdom—that is the most in harmony with th,e laws of nature.
350. We live our religion, though not often the religion that we believe, or think we believe.
351. Our religious belief is merely our explanation, or interpretation of the purpose of life; while our spiritual development is the point in life at which we have arrived.
352. When any religious belief becomes lofty enough it ceases to have sect and united itself with all other religious beliefs that are lofty.
353. That religion that answers to all your present spiritual requirements is your religion, and is true to you, though it may not answer to the spiritual requirements of another living soul, and therefore can not be true to them.
354. Our religion is the sum total of all that we believe concerning life.
355. All religions are good. All religions help us in our spiritual evolution. All religions accomplish their purpose.
356. All religions fade and blend into each other.
357. All religions are, in all essentials, in harmony with the law of Spiritual Evolution, though this law as such may not be known to all of them.
358. No religion can be true that excludes all other religions.
359. That religion is the most lofty that is the most in harmony with all life.
360. Our religious instinct seeks the light—the truth—and is never satisfied until it has obtained that for which it seeks.
361. Our religious instinct does not depend upon reason or knowledge for enlightenment, but its en­lightenment is re-enforced and strengthened by these.
362. All religious beliefs are good to those who believe them; are in fact the most lofty religious thought of which they are, for the moment, capable of understanding.
363. A religion that fails to keep pace with us in our spiritual growth must be left behind—can not continue to be our religion.
364. It would be almost impossible for us to ac­curately estimate what it has cost us to manufacture the world’s present ideas of Christianity.
365. If Christianity is to survive it must get in harmony with nature, with enlightenment, with knowledge, with reason, with God.
366. Christianity can be saved only by Christians —can be saved only by Christians who have sense enough to bring their religion into harmony with nature.
367. The Christian religion shows a marked spirit­ual development over the religion of the Jews, or the religion of Moses and the prophets. It occupies a more lofty height and is the product of a more highly developed consciousness.
368. Most persons confuse the religion of Christ and the religion of the Jews, and try to mix these two religions, and to quote the one in support of the other, but this can not be successfully done because these two religions do not entirely agree.
369. Christ, being the latest arrival from the kingdom of the gods, brought with him many new ideas—but think not that with Christ all is said— that God has nothing more to say to his people.
370. Christ brought into the world a lofty religion. A religion more lofty than most persons are able to understand, or to appreciate, or follow. But as soon as man has learned to understand, and to appreciate, and to follow the religion of Christ, he will be given another, and a still more lofty religion, and one nearer the truth.
371. The final religion will be the religion of nature, and will come with a more lofty spiritual development, and a more accurate knowledge of natural law.
372. Faith is instinctive. It is of the spirit-life.
373. All things are based upon faith that are, can be, or will be. Even reason can find no other founda­tion on which to rear its structure.
374. Faith has the power to save us from every­thing—even from ourselves.
375. Hope is important, but it is not so important as faith.
376. Faith is essential to the possession of any­thing. We always lose that in which we have lost faith.
377. Faith is a means of knowing that which could not otherwise be known. It is a means of comprehending that which we are not sufficiently enlightened to otherwise comprehend.
378. Any faith is a good faith provided that it is sincere and lofty, for the spirit-life will evolve as rapidly under one faith as another.
379. All faiths lead to the same goal; to the same heaven; to the same spiritual attainment or develop­ment.
380. It is safe to assume that he who holds the most lofty faith is himself more lofty, and more highly any right to force upon us that which our soul developed spiritually than others.
381. The Christian faith is too far above the spiritual development of most persons. It is too lofty for most persons to grasp, and to understand, and to make their own.
382. A faith that is too far above us is not our faith, but a faith that may be ours when we have evolved higher.
383. We must be faithful to the faith we have if we would have more faith; and we must be true to the truth we possess if we wish to possess other and more lofty truths.
384. Faith is necessary to spiritual evolution because faith tends to create a harmonious attitude between life and us, and to bring us into harmony with the law of Spiritual Evolution.
385. Faith precedes us in our spiritual evolution, and shows us the way. Belief follows after our evolution, and helps us to understand more or less perfectly why a thing is true, or good.
386. Faith is an essential to the evolution of spirit-life. Belief is a non-essential.
387. As long as we have faith we evolve irrespec­tively of what we believe, or whether we believe or not.
388. Faith requires of us nothing that is unreason­able, that is unjust, that is untrue, that is unnatural, or in any way out of harmony with nature. Faith requires of us only hope and trust. A belief in the good, and a desire to get in harmony with the purpose of life whatever that purpose may be.
389. Faith demands of us no exact knowledge, no theology whatever, though these may be of aid to faith if they are in harmony with truth.
390. No truth can be true that is out of harmony with other truths—that is a discord amid the harmo­nies of truth. And that truth must be true which is in harmony with all the other truths of which we know.
391. Spiritual evolution must be true because spiritual evolution is in harmony with all the other religious truths of which we can be certain—because spiritual evolution is in harmony with all the essential truths of all religions.
392. That truth which is the most lofty must be the most true, whether it be heathen or Christian. And the law of Spiritual Evolution is not only the most lofty truth in the universe, but it is also the most reasonable and the most just.
393. That which is not true to us is not true, and no religious teacher or other person, or persons, has rejects because it has not yet come into the dominion of our spiritual world, or has come and passed out again.
394. The truth is more powerful than any religion, or belief, or creed, or theory. And if a truth is true no amount of force or opposition will be able to stifle it or destroy it.
395. There are as many truths in the world as there are individuals, and if a truth answers to our spiritual requirements, that truth is our truth.
396. A spiritual truth is no truth at all to those who have not yet developed sufficiently to grasp it, or to understand it, and know that it is the truth.
397. We may be able to communicate spiritually with some whom our thoughts never reach. We may be able to communicate spiritually with some who are utterly incapable of perceiving our truths, or understanding our development.
398. The spirit-life is capable of communicating in a spiritual way with less highly developed spirit- lives; but the intellect is utterly incapable of convey­ing a spiritual truth to a spirit that is not sufficiently developed to grasp that truth.
399. The bible is the work of man. Nature is the work of God.
400. Nature has written the only bible that appeals to the enlightened man. And as man becomes more and more enlightened he will insist more and more upon a religion that is in harmony with nature— that is nature.
401. Nature tells us more than any bible tells us, than any prophet tell us, or religious teacher, or book reveals to us. If you would know life and what it is all about go to nature.
402. No bible is necessary. Nature teaches us all we need to know, or can know about God, the Creator of the Universe.
403. The bible is an explanation. It is the work of some of the best minds and most enlightened spirits of the age in which it was written. The bible is a priceless book, but it is not the word of God. It is merely an attempt on the part of man to explain God, and to teach us how best to live.
404. The best explanation of God comes from God’s work—from nature.
405. The bible is worth quoting upon any sub­ject, provided that it is quoted as an opinion and not as an authority.
406. At any point where the teachings of the bible conflict with the laws of nature, at that point the teachings of the bible cease to be of value to the human race because the laws of nature are the su­preme authority on all subjects pertaining to God.
407. Man needs no bible nor religious guide to show him the way to God. All that he needs is nature, for in nature all is revealed.
408. Science is in position to help us much in arriving at a more correct knowledge of God; and that scientist who is the nearest to God in his evolution is the best scientist, and the most able to understand, and to explain God.
409. It would be easy by a new version of the Christian bible to bring that book into harmony with all that science finds true, with all that culture finds true, with all that education and learning finds true, with all truth. It would be easy by a new version of the Christian bible to bring that book into harmo­ny with all the truths that spiritual evolution and enlightenment have revealed to man since the dawn of history, or since the bible was written. It would be easy by a new version of the Christian bible to bring that book into harmony with nature and with God.
410. Faith is as necessary to science as it is to religion. And when faith is lost, all is lost.
411. Science comes nearer the truth concerning God than any religion comes—than Moses came— than Buddah came—than Brahma came—than Christ came.
412. Science comes near the truth concerning

God, but science has not gone far enough. It has merely plowed the surface of nature, and discovered a few mysterious manifestations of that power, force, or creative energy within, and knows not that it has discovered God.

413. We are enlightened by love, by sympathy, by admiration, by all things that are in harmony with the laws of nature.
414. That man is the most enlightened who has advanced farther than others on the road to spirit­ual perfection.
415. Enlightenment is a spiritual, not a mental, quality. We acquire knowledge through studjr and experience, and enlightenment through spiritual evolution or development.
416. Just as our enlightenment and our self­consciousness increases as we evolve, or as we advance upward toward the good, so do these decrease if by chance we travel the other way.
417. Only the most enlightened know how little they know, and how profound is the ignorance of those who know less than they know.
418. No man is sufficiently enlightened to ac­curately judge the importance of the most insignificant act, or the most vaguely perceived impression.
419. Fear stands like a ghost in the pathway of enlightenment, and prevents many from becoming enlightened.
420. Our enlightenment increases in so far only as we follow it, or are guided by it. The moment that we cease to follow our enlightenment, and begin to do that which we know is not wise, our enlighten­ment and our wisdom begin to recede from us and to leave us in spiritual darkness.
421. The most enlightened of us are yet so stupid that a truth must be presented to us in many different forms and shapes and colors before we can fully grasp it, and digest it, and make it our own.
422. We are all moral in some ways, and immoral in others.
423. To be moral is to play the game of life ac­cording to the rules laid down by society, but to be moral has nothing to do with being good.
424. It is wise to be moral, but it is much more wise to be good.
425. Those who are moral obey the laws of man and those who are good obey the laws of God, or of nature.
426. The moral code is neither lofty enough, nor perfect enough, nor good enough to be our guide.
427. Morality is the policy of man. That which will serve man’s interest best is the moral. There­fore morality bears no true relation to the good, and may even be, and sometimes is, the bad.
428. Our moral standard changes with our morals, and both are continually changing.
429. Morality was once in harmony with nature’s laws, but that was before man thought to improve upon the work of nature.
430. The moral is too low and mean and disgust­ing. It reminds us too much of man, and too little of God. It is not lofty enough, nor good enough, nor divine enough to be our guiding star, the standard toward which we aspire.
431. The moral can not lift its soul high enough to touch the skirts of the good.
432. To sin is to get out of harmony with the pur­pose of life, or of nature. It is therefore discord. It is to strike the wrong key, or cord, or note.
433. Sin retards spiritual evolution by producing discord between the good, or nature, and us. And sin produces this discord between nature and us by breaking the current of spiritual attraction that exists between us and all other spirit-life. And this discord that sin produces, creates in us a restlessness, and discontent, and unhappiness that reveals to us the fact that discord exists between nature, or the good, and us.
434. Sin dulls our perception. It prevents us from seeing our way clearly. It forces us to grope our way about like one in the dark.

435. Sin has not the power to destroy us. It can only impede, retard and delay us on our evolutionary journey. Sin can only hold us back, and force us to spend more lives than are necessary in material bodies.
436. Sin occupies but a narrow space in life. It can not go beyond the point where self-consciousness is born, nor can it mount to that height of spiritual enlightenment to which our evolution soon carries us.

437. Sin is eventually a corrective force. It eventually pushes us toward the good by forcibly revealing to us the fact that we are out of harmony with the good, or with nature, or with the purpose of life.

438. The sins that we have committed seem much less heinous to us than the sins that have been com­mitted by others.
439. Those hate sin most who still have some­thing to fear from sin.
440. The farther we get from sin the less con­scious we are of the existence of sin. And if we journey far enough from sin, sin will cease to exist to us.
441. Every evil, every falsehood, carries within it the germ of self-destruction.
442. Every evil is a discord—is a note that is out of harmony with nature and with life.
443. Evil suggests evil to those who are evil.
444. The minute we cease to be evil, evil ceases to exist to us.
445. He fears evil who is evil.
446. Every evil act that we commit tends to delay not only us, but all humanity, all nature, on its march toward perfection.
447. Out in the silence with nature there is harmony and it is in this harmony of silence, rather than in the discord of sounds, that great men are born and developed and become great.
448. Every great or highly developed spirit-life is the product of solitude, or of the silence of nature.
449. He who fears silence, fears God—is afraid to meet his spirit-self, or the spirit lives of others.
450. Only when we are in the silence with nature are we in position to be guided or instructed or helped by the dead—by those spirit-lives that are above and beyond us.
451. Just as some men flee from the silence or from solitude, in order to get away from life, and to keep their minds on things outside themselves, so other men seek solitude or the silence, in order to learn of life and of themselves and of God.
452. Every great thought, or idea, or conception that we conceive comes to us from solitude, or out of the silence of nature.
453. The silence of nature is healthful and heal­ing. It tends to destroy discord and to produce harmony between life and us.
454. Go out into the silence with nature and listen to what nature has to say if you wou lealdrn how trivial are the ways of men or if you would become enlightened, or learned, or wise.
455. Silence tells us much which no words or sounds can tell us. It reveals to us beauty and dis­closes to us wisdom that is beyond the power of human language to express.
456. Solitude is necessary to spiritual develop­ment—is one of the mysterious laws of our inner- growth.
457. A man to live in solitude must be good, must be in harmony with nature and at peace with his own soul.
458. To be able to live in the silence with nature, in solitude, is one of the most great of all virtues because solitude makes the highest possible demands upon the spiritual man.
459. Most of our virtues are virtues that require of us no conscious effort, are virtues that have ceased to be virtues and have become part of our nature.

460. We are instructed by our virtues more than we are by our vices. The latter dulls our perception while the former helps us to see.
461. That virtue does not exist to us which is too far above our spiritual development for us to perceive.
462. We owe all our happiness to our virtues, and were we sufficiently wise we could distinguish to which particular virtue we owe each of our happy moments.
463. The philosophy of doing that which is right is so simple that many of us are unable to grasp it.
464. We suffer just as much for having violated principles that we believe to be right as we would if they were right.
465. The satisfaction of being in the right pays a higher dividend than the selfishness of having what we desire, or doing what we wish.
466. He who does wrong is lacking in perception, or in knowledge, or in courage. The man who does wrong is not an enlightened man, nor a wise man, nor a man that is high in the scale of spiritual evolu­tion.
467. The value of prayer is in the attitude pro­duced. Prayer unconsciously tends to bring us into harmony with the law of Spiritual Evolution, and through that law help us in our spiritual development.

468. Most prayers are sermons in which ministers preach to God in the presence of men.
469. Some prayers are but the cry of a soul in distress. And some prayers are prayers of submission, of surrender—are prayers uttered by souls that have been in rebellion against the law of Spiritual Evolu­tion, and who now humbly submit to that law.
470. “Thy will be done,” is one of the most wise of all prayers.
471. The only prayer that is really answered is our attitude toward life.
472. We occasionally ask our God for that which Satan would be glad to grant us.
473. A public prayer should be a series of lofty suggestions preceded by a brief silence. A public prayer should be scientific and psychological. It should suggest the good, and through suggestion bring the hearers into harmony with the purpose of life. To do this successfully each suggestion should be preceded by a brief silence.
474. To be just is not enough. We should also be good.
475. The just man is rewarded for his justness, but the higher rewards are reserved for those who are also good.
476. If justice were given to those who are sel­fish and greedy and who do wrong, they would re­ceive that which they give—selfishness and greed and wrong.
477. It is not the just who most often cry out for justice, but the unjust—those whose sense of justice is imperfectly developed.
478. All men believe in justice, but some men need to be enlightened as to what justice is in reality.
479. Justice appeals to every one, even to the unjust—to those who do not wish for justice save for themselves.
480. To be entirely just we must know—must understand—must be enlightened.
481. In the affairs of men justice is usually an accident. It sometimes happens that those who are to decide between the right and the wrong find that their, interest will be best served on the side of the right, and so justice is done.
482. The desire to be just tends to elevate us> and the desire to be unjust tends to lower, to degrade us.
483. It costs us nothing to be just, but to be un­just costs us some part of our self-esteem, our self­respect. He who commits an unjust act thinks less of himself than he did before that act was committed.
484. Those who do not see goodness and beauty and purpose in every living creature, person and thing do not see—are blind.
485. Our ability to see a thing depends largely upon our attitude toward it. If we care for it— have love for it, or sympathy, or feeling—we are more able to see it.
486. It is with our spiritual eye that we are able to see the most, and to comprehend the most.
487. We need not despair because of that which we can not see—because of that which is yet hidden from us—for as we develop spiritually our ability to see, and to hear, and to know, and to understand will increase. To those who have reached a certain stage in their spiritual development, all is revealed.
488. Observe repeatedly that which you would enjoy because nothing is seen in its entirety at first, or until it has been long and repeatedly observed.
489. Everything reveals itself to us slowly and gradually—a little at a time.
490. Everything that we observe becomes more and more beautiful the longer and more closely we observe it.
491. If you would learn to observe the beauty of God, first begin by observing the beauty of nature, and keep on observing the beauty of nature until it gradually expands before you and leads you into the presence of God.
492. To be one’s self is to be original.
493. We are what we see, and know, and under­stand. Our enlightenment is an accurate standard by which to guage our development.
494. We are more wise than we know, and more foolish than we think.
495. He lives the most wisely who lives the most in harmony with the purpose of life—who is less con­cerned in material things than others.
496. Wisdom is the fruit of spiritual development and consists in a knowledge of how best to live in order to evolve the most rapidly toward the divine.
497. We can not by any flight of our imagination fully realize the grandeur of our destiny.
498. Each spirit-life must work out its own destiny—must obtain its own spiritual development— and though it may be helped or hindered by other spirits, none can succeed for it or secure for it that which it may have failed to obtain for itself.
499. The future does not concern us, but the present is of vital importance to us because out of the present our future is evolved.
500. Our future is illuminated for us for brief periods of time much as the earth is illuminated by a flash of lightning.

501. A seer is one who sees more than others in a spiritual sense because he has attained a higher point in his spiritual evolution than others, and is there­fore in position to see more.
502. The law of Spiritual Evolution makes seers and prophets just as it makes men who are enlightened spiritually and who understand while other men lack enlightenment and are blind.
503. A materialist is one who does not see—who is blind—and therefore one who knows not life or the purpose of life.
504. Materialism is ignorance raised to its high­est degree. It is an ignorance so profound that none of the secrets of life can penetrate to it.
505. Heaven is a state, and is reached through spiritual evolution only.
506. There is no sudden change from earth to heaven. We reach heaven by a gradual develop­ment, or unfolding,that is so gradual that we are seldom conscious of it, and wake to find ourselves in a different sphere from that in which we were.
507. Perhaps there is not a spirit-life in human form that is sufficiently developed to enter heaven from this life, but there must be some spirits in human form for whom heaven is near—is not many ives away.
508. To possess too much of earth is to possess too little of heaven.
509. Earth and heaven gradually blend into each other as our spiritual development increases and while some of us are still firmly upon earth, others of us are in heaven, or in the border land between earth and heaven.
510. The road to heaven is a road that few men understand—in all the centuries past have under­stood—and yet it is a road that is so simple and so plainly discernible that all ought to be able to under­stand it and to follow it without many slips. The road to heaven is simply spiritual evolution obtained through following the good that we know, and aspiring to reach that more lofty good that we have reasons for believing is just ahead. The road to heaven is simply a spiritual growth, a slow unfolding, a development obtained by living in harmony with a law that is perfectly discernible to all who will to behold it and to follow it.

511. If heaven is no more beautiful than we con­ceive it to be, then it is not as beautiful as earth, for earth contains more beauty than we are able to see, or to conceive, or to understand.
512. Of what use is heaven to those who have not yet reached a state in their spiritual development where they are in a position to enjoy earth?
513. Heaven must need grow more beautiful the nearer we approach it. And earth must need become more beautiful to most of us before we can afford to part with it.
514. Heaven is attained through spiritual de­velopment at the point where a physical body is no longer necessary, but the spirit-life does not pause there. It continues its evolution through enumber- able heavens, each one of which is superior to the last or the one beneath it.
515. Heaven is not a reward that can be secured through believing. It is an attainment that can be attained only through spiritual development.
516. The way to heaven lies through aspiration, through desire, through a longing to be something more lofty than we are. The way to heaven lies through an unfolding, a growth, a development, an evolution.
517. He has not traveled who has not gone beyond the few trivial, petty, conventional, and common­place ideas of man and beheld that more lofty sphere where man’s ideas are broad and elevating and beaut­iful and chaste and clean and sincere and godlike.
518. The reason why most men are satisfied with the trivial and commonplace things of life is because they have never known, or experienced any of the important things of life.
519. The petty and the trivial things of life are the important things of life to those who have never ascended to more lofty heights than the commonplace —to those who have never experienced what it is to live on a spiritual plane of life.
520. The world that we know is a mere trivial in comparison to the worlds within this world that we know, for within this world that we know there are millions of other worlds and each of these other worlds is more mysterious and strange and astonishing than the one of which we know. And if we could follow these inner worlds far enough, we would come at last to the one world that is more mysterious and astonishing than all the others—the spiritual world.
521. In all the affairs of men the trivial and un­important has, with few exceptions, precedence over the vital and more important things of life.
522. The importance of anything does not strike us at once. It is only after we have had time to re­flect that we begin to grasp the importance of the most significant fact or event.
523. Nothing is of importance that does not re­veal to us something that is new, something that we have never before seen, that does not disclose to us some secret of life, and therefore enlighten us and help us to live more wisely than before.
524. The most important things that happen to us are those of which we are silent, and which we could not convey to another even if we tried to speak of them.
525. We never discover anything o£nspiritual im­portance without first having made spiritual prep­arations for that discovery.
526. All things that are, are necessary. Nothing is that is not of some importance in the scheme of things.

The End