damnation involve the most fiendish torture the Almighty could invent,
but the torture was inflicted, without an instant of relief, throughout
the eons of eternity.

I recall a sermon to which I listened as a boy of nine. It was on a
summer's evening, when the windows of the church were open. A moth
fluttered about a light. The church stood at the foot of a mountain. The
preacher was trying to explain to us the eternal duration of God's
punishment. "Think of that moth," he said, "carrying away one grain of
sand from that mountain, and going off for a million years, after which
it would return and take away another grain. And think of it keeping
this up, one grain every million years, till the whole mountain was
removed. Well, that would be only a moment as compared with the time you
would be in hell."

On the generations comforted and fortified by this sort of teaching I
have no comment to make; but we of another generation should surely not
be reproved for moving away from it. We move away from it in the
direction of common sense, since common sense must be an attribute of
the Universal Father as it is of the wiser among mankind.

XX

I revert, then, to my statement that God's relation to punishment is
chiefly verbal. His "wrath against sin" is a way of "putting it." If you
can best express the suffering which springs from wrong methods as
"God's wrath" you are at liberty so to express yourself; but we should
not lose sight of the fact that the wrong methods produce the suffering,
and not an outburst of fury on the part of One who is put before us
as Love.

The fact that the Hebrew writers often used a vivid form of warning and
invective is not a reason why we should keep on doing it. The Hebrew
writer was a primitive speaking to primitives. Meaning what we mean, he
required a stronger, fiercer vocabulary than we ever need. In saying
this I am not dodging the issue; I am stating a fact which rules in all
historical interpretation. To make the phraseology of two thousand years
before Christ the literal expression of the thought of two thousand
years after Him is to be archaic beyond reason. Having grasped a
principle, we phrase it in the language of our time.

The language of our time makes, on the whole, for restraint, sobriety,
and exactitude of statement. Few of our habits modify themselves more
constantly and more rapidly than our forms of speech. Not only does each
generation find something special to itself, but each year and each
season. To me it seems that much of our misunderstanding of God springs
from the effort to fix on Him forevermore the peculiarities we infer
from the idiom of five thousand years ago. Only to a degree does that
idiom convey to us what is conveyed to those who heard it as a living
tongue; and of that degree much is lost when it percolates through
translation. To cling to words when all we need is to know principles,
clothing them in our own way, seems to me not only absurd in fact but
lamentable in result. I venture to think that more people have been
alienated from God by a pious but misapplied verbal use than were ever
estranged from Him by sin.

XXI

Our ancient Hebrew predecessors understood God in their own way. We
understand Him in the same way, but with the clarification wrought by
the intervening years of progress. In other words, they bequeath us a
treasure which we are free to enrich with our own discoveries.

Among our own discoveries is a clearer comprehension of pain as
resulting from wrong methods, and of God's detachment from pain. More
and more, punishment becomes a concept we reject. Even in our penal
institutions, which have been for so many centuries a barbarous token of
our incompetence, we begin to substitute for punishment something more
nearly akin to cure. If we find mere vengeance unworthy of ourselves we
must find it unworthy of the Universal Father. If we concede to the
criminal the right to a further chance we concede it to ourselves. If we
recognise the fact that the sinner on earth may redeem himself, working
from error towards righteousness, the same principle should rule in the
whole range of existence. There is nothing about the earth-life to make
it the only phase of effort and probation. Effort and probation are
probably conditions of eternity. They will be in our next experience as
they have been in this, leading us on from strength to strength.

XXII

One main difference between the mind of the past and the modern mind is
that the mind of the past tended to be static, while the mind of to-day
is more and more attuned to a dynamic universe. Civilisation before the
nineteenth century was accustomed to long periods with relatively little
change. Most people spent their entire lives in the same town or the
same countryside. In the class in which they were born they lived and
died, with little thought of getting out of it. This being so they
looked for the same static conditions after death as they saw before it.
A changeless heaven appalled them with no sense of monotony, nor did a
changeless hell do anything to shake their nerves. Their nerves were not
easily shaken. They were a phlegmatic race, placid, unimaginative,
reposeful.

Because we of to-day are more restless it does not follow that our views
should be truer. We only know they are truer because we are so much
nearer the truth than they had the opportunity to come. We prove that we
are nearer the truth by our greater command of the Father's resources.
If our whole horizon of truth were not broadened, we could not possess
this command.

XXIII

Changing our static conception of life to that of a dynamic will to
unfold, we see the climax we commonly call death as only a new step in
unfoldment. Whatever I have been, the step must be one in advance. It
would not be in accord with creative energy that I should go backward.
The advance may entail suffering, since it is probable that it will give
me a heightened perception of the wrong in my methods; but there are
conditions in which suffering signifies advance.

And yet if I suffer it can only be with what I may call a curative
suffering. It will be suffering that comes from the recognition of
mistake; not the hopeless anguish of the damned. Having learned "how not
to do it," I perceive "how to do it"--and go on.

But the perception of "how to do it" is precisely what most of us have
been acquiring. I venture to think that few of us will come face to face
with death without being more or less prepared for it. Life is so
organised that, at its worst, all but the rare exceptions make progress
daily, through obedience to the laws of righteousness.

In saying this we must count as righteousness not merely the carrying
out of a rule of thumb laid down by man's so-called morality, or the
technical regulations prescribed by the churches for the use of their
adherents; we must include every response to every high call. We must
remember that all a man does in the way of effort to be a good son, a
good brother, a good husband, a good father, a good workman, a good
citizen, is of the nature of slowly creeping forward. Above every other
form of training of the self this endeavour determines a man's spiritual
standing, and his state of worthiness. He may know some failure in each
of these details; and yet the fact that in the main he is set--as I am
convinced the great majority are set--toward fulfilling his
responsibilities helps him to be ready when the time comes to put the
material away.

The great common sense of the nations brought us to this perception
during the years when the young men of the world were going down like
wheat before the reaping machine. For the most part, doubtless, they
were young men in whom the ladies who attend our churches would have
seen much to reprimand. The moral customs of their countries were
possibly held by them lightly. The two points which constitute pretty
nearly all of American morality they may have disregarded. And yet we
felt that their answer to the summons, which to them at least was a
summons to sacrifice, showed them as men who had largely worked out
their redemption. Whatever our traditions, we were sure that those who
were ready to do anything so great could go to the Father without fear.

But war calls for no more than a summing up and distillation of the
qualities we cultivate in peace. These men were ready because homes,
offices, banks, shops, factories, and farms had trained them to be
ready. So they are training all of us. Traditions help; the churches
help; but when it comes to the directing of the life toward
righteousness--the effort to do everything rightly--no one thing has
the monopoly.

XXIV

Going to the Father without fear! All the joy of life seems to me to
hang on that little phrase. I used it just now of the young men who
passed over from the battlefield; but I used it there with limitations.
Going to the Father without fear is a privilege for every minute of the
day. More and more knowledge of the Father is the progress for which we
crave, since more knowledge of the Father means a fuller view of all
that makes up the spiritual universe. Into that knowledge we are
advancing every hour we live; into that knowledge we shall still be
advancing at the hour when we die. The Father will still be showing us
something new; the something new will still be showing us the Father.

It will be something new, as we can receive it. He who can receive
little will be given little; he who can receive much will be given much.
In growth all is adjusted to capacity; it is not meant to shock, force,
or frighten. The next step in growth being always an easy step, I can
feel sure of moving onwards easily--"from strength to strength," in the
words of one of the Songs for the Sons of Korah, "until unto the God of
gods appeareth everyone of them in Zion."[33]

[33] The Book of Psalms.

CHAPTER VIII

THE FEAR OF DEATH AND ABUNDANCE OF LIFE

After all, the conquest of fear is largely a question of vitality. Those
who have most life are most fearless. The main question is as to the
source from which an increase of life is to be obtained.

An important psychological truth was involved when our Lord made the
declaration, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might
have it more abundantly." This, I think, was the first plain statement
ever made that life was a quantitative energy; that it is less or more
dynamic according to the measure in which the individual seizes it. But
once more the Caucasian has stultified the meaning of Jesus of Nazareth
by evaporating it to the tenuous wisp which he understands as
spiritual. Between the pale ghost of such spiritual life as he has
evoked from the Saviour's words and manly and womanly vigour in
full-blooded exercise he has seen no connection.

II

Few of us do see a connection between strength of spirit and strength of
limb; but it is there. I am not saying that a strong spirit cannot
coexist with a feeble frame; but the feeble frame is a mistake. It is
the result of apprehension and misapprehension, and bred of race-fear.
The strong spirit would have put forth a strong frame if we had given it
a chance. Abundant life must be _life_, healthy, active, and radiant. It
should show the life-principle no longer driven from sea to land, and
from land to air, or battling with a million foes, but vigorous and
triumphant.

This vigour and triumph we ought to work into our point of view, so
kneading it into our subconsciousness. Strong in proportion as our
subconsciousness is strong, fearless in proportion as our
subconsciousness is fearless, the going from strength to strength
becomes a matter of course to us. Urging us on in sheer joy of power,
abundance of life becomes still more abundant through the indwelling of
the life-principle. That mystic resistless force, which has fashioned
already so many forms, is forever at work fashioning a higher type
of man.

Each one of us is that higher type of man potentially. Though we can
forge but little ahead of our time and generation, it is much to know
that the Holy Ghost of Life is our animating breath, pushing us on to
the overcoming of all obstacles. For me as an individual it is a support
to feel that the principle which was never yet defeated is my principle,
and that whatever the task of to-day or to-morrow I have the ability to
perform it well. The hesitation that may seize me, or the questioning
which for an instant may shake my faith, is but a reminder that the
life-principle is not only with me, but more abundantly with me in
proportion to my need. My need is its call. The spasm of fear which
crosses my heart summons it to my aid. It not only never deserts me, but
it never delays, and is never at a loss for some new ingenuity to meet
new requirements. "From strength to strength" is its law, carrying me on
with the impetus of its own mounting toward God.

And the impetus of its own mounting toward God is not confined to what
we view as the great things of life. Between great and small it makes no
distinction. It is as eager on behalf of the man behind a counter as on
that of him who is governing a country. The woman who has on her
shoulders the social duties of an embassy, or the financial cares of a
great business, has it no more at her command than she who is nursing
her baby or reckoning her pennies to make both ends meet. It rushes to
the help of all. Wherever there is duty or responsibility it is begging
at the doors of our hearts to be let in, to share the work and ease
the burden.

As I get up each morning, it is there. As I plan my day while I dress
myself, it is there. As I think with misgiving of some letter I tremble
at receiving, or with distaste at some job I must tackle before night,
it is there.

It is there, not only with its help, but with its absolute knowledge of
the right way for me to act. The care that worries me may be so big as
to involve millions of other people's money, or it may be as small as
the typing of a letter; but the right way of fulfilling either task is
pleading to be allowed to enter my intelligence. My task is its task. My
success will be its success. My failure will react on it, since failure
sets back by that degree the whole procession of the ages. Whether I am
painting a great masterpiece or sewing on a button my success is
essential to the Holy Ghost of Life.

IV

So I, the individual, try to confront each day with the knowledge that I
am infused with a guiding, animating principle which will not let me
drop behind, or lose my modest reward, so long as I trust to the force
which carries me along. By trusting to it I mean resting on it quietly,
without worrying, without being afraid that it will fail me. "Fret not
thyself, else shalt thou be moved to do evil."[34] By doing evil, I
presume is meant making a mistake, taking the wrong course. If, however
great the cause, I fret myself I disturb the right conditions. By
disturbing the right conditions I choke off the flow of the
life-principle through my energies.

[34] The Book of Psalms.

V

At a moment when the little buffer state between Egypt and Assyria was
afraid of being overrun by the one or the other it was frantically
casting about to decide with which it would throw in its lot. "With
neither," a great prophet thundered in the ears of the people. "In
calmly resting your safety lieth; in quiet trust shall be your
strength."[35]

[35] The Book of Isaiah.

My small experience in the conquest of fear can be condensed into these
four words: Calmly resting! quiet trust! That amid the turmoil of the
time and the feverishness of our days it is always easy I do not
pretend. Still less do I pretend that I accomplish it. I have said, a
few lines above, that _I tried_. Trying is as far as I have gone; but
even trying is productive of wonderful results.

VI

Least of all do I claim to have covered the whole ground, or to have
discussed to its fulness any one of the points which I have raised.
Whole regions of thought which bear on my subject--such as psychology,
philosophy, and religion as I understand the word--I have carefully
endeavoured to avoid. My object has been to keep as closely as possible
to the line of personal experience, which has a value only because it is
personal. Telling no more than what one man has endeavoured to work out,
what I have written seeks no converts. Though, for the sake of brevity,
it may at times seem to take a hortatory tone, it is a record and no
more. In it the reader will doubtless find much to correct, and
possibly to reject; and this must be as it happens. What I hope he will
neither correct nor reject is the sincerity of the longing to find God's
relations to the phenomena of life, and the extent to which the
phenomena of life reflect God.

VII

In the end we come back to that, the eternal struggle whereby that which
is unlike God becomes more and more like Him. In watching the process,
and taking part in it, there is, when all is said and done, a sense of
glorious striving and success. With each generation some veil which hid
the Creator from the creature is torn forever aside. God, who is always
here, is seen a little more clearly by each generation as being; here.
God, who ever since His sun first rose and His rain first fell has been
making Himself known to us, is by each generation a little better
understood. God, whom we have tried to lock up in churches or banish to
Sundays and special holy days, is breaking through all our
prohibitions, growing more and more a force in our homes and our
schools, in our shops and our factories, in our offices and our banks,
in our embassies, congresses, parliaments, and seats of government. Into
His light we advance slowly, unwillingly, driven by our pain; but
we advance.

The further we advance the more we perceive of power. The more we
perceive of power the more we are freed from fear. The more we are freed
from fear the more exultantly we feel our abundance of life. The more
exultantly we feel our abundance of life the more we reject death in any
of its forms. And the more we reject death in any of its forms the more
we reflect that Holy Ghost of Life which urges us on from conquest to
conquest, from strength to strength, to the fulfilling of ourselves.