Chapter 12

Here, then, we find the secret of power. It is contained in the true worship of "the Father," which is the constant recognition of the lifegivingness of Originating Spirit, and of the fact that we, as individuals, still continue to be portions of that Spirit; and that therefore the law of our nature is to be perpetually drawing life from the inexhaustible stores of the Infinite--not bottles of water-of-life mixed with other ingredients and labelled for this or that particular purpose, but the full flow of the pure stream itself, which we are free to use for any purpose we desire. "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely." It is thus that the worship of "the Father" becomes the central principle of the individual life, not as curtailing our liberty, but as affording the only possible basis for it. As a planetary system would be impossible without a central controlling sun, so harmonious life is impossible without the recognition of Infinite Spirit as that Power, whose generic tendency serves to control each individual being into its proper orbit. This is the teaching of the Bible, and it is also the teaching of the New Thought, which says that life with all its limitless possibilities is a continual outflow from the Infinite which we may turn in any direction that we desire.

But, it may be asked, what happens if we go counter to this generic law of Spirit? This is an important question, and I must leave the answer for further consideration.

IV

_Conclusion_

I concluded my last chapter with the momentous question, What happens if we go counter to the generic law of Spirit? What happens if we go counter to any natural law? Obviously, the law goes counter to us. We can use the laws of Nature, but we cannot alter them. By opposing any natural law we place ourselves in an inverted position with regard to it, and therefore, viewed from this false standpoint, it appears as though the law itself were working against us with definite purpose. But the inversion proceeds entirely from ourselves, and not from any change in the action of the law. The law of Spirit, like all other natural laws, is in itself impersonal; but we carry into it, so to speak, the reflection of our own personality, though we cannot alter its generic character; and therefore, if we oppose its generic tendency towards the universal good, we shall find in it the reflection of our own opposition and waywardness.

The law of Spirit proceeds unalterably on its course, and what is spoken of in popular phraseology as the Divine wrath is nothing else than the reflex action which naturally follows when we put ourselves in opposition to this law. The evil that results is not a personal intervention of the Universal Spirit, which would imply its entering into specific manifestation, but it is the natural outcome of the causes that we ourselves have set in motion. But the effect to ourselves will be precisely the same as if they were brought about by the volition of an adverse personality, though we may not realise that in truth the personal element is our own. And if we are at all aware of the wonderfully complex nature of man, and the various interweavings of principles which unite the material body at one end of the scale to the purely spiritual Ego at the other, we shall have some faint idea of on how vast a field these adverse influences may operate, not being restricted to the plane of outward manifestation, but acting equally on those inner planes which give rise to the outer and are of a more enduring nature.

Thus the philosophic study of Spirit, so far from affording any excuse for laxity of conduct, adds an emphatic definiteness to the Bible exhortation to flee from the wrath of God. But, on the other hand, it delivers us from groundless terrors, the fear lest our repentance should not be accepted, the fear lest we should be rejected for our inability to subscribe to some traditional dogma, the fear of utter uncertainty regarding the future--fears which make life bitter and the prospect of death appalling to those who are in bondage to them. The knowledge that we are dealing with a power which is no respecter of persons, and in which is no variableness, which is, in fact, an unalterable Law, at once delivers us from all these terrors.

The very unchangeableness of Law makes it certain that no amount of past opposition to it, whether from ignorance or wilfulness, will prevent it from working in accordance with its own beneficent and life-giving character as soon as we quit our inverted position and place ourselves in our true relation towards it. The laws of Nature do not harbour revenge; and once we adapt our methods to their character, they will work for us without taking any retrospective notice of our past errors. The law of Spirit may be more complex than that of electricity, because, as expressed in us, it is the law of conscious individuality; but it is none the less a purely natural law, and follows the universal rule, and therefore we may dismiss from our minds, as a baseless figment, the fear of any Divine power treasuring up anger against us on account of bygones, if we are sincerely seeking to do what is right now. The new causes which we put in motion now will produce their proper effect as surely as the old causes did; and thus by inaugurating a new sequence of good we shall cut off the old sequence of evil. Only, of course, we cannot expect to bring about the new sequence while continuing to repeat the old causes, for the fruit must necessarily reproduce the nature of the seed. Thus we are the masters of the situation, and, whether in this world or the next, it rests with ourselves either to perpetuate the evil or to wipe it out and put the good in its place. And it may be noticed in passing that the great central Christian doctrine is based upon the most perfect knowledge of this law, and is the practical application to a profound problem of the deepest psychological science. But this is a large subject, and cannot be suitably dealt with here.

Much has been written and said on the origin of evil, and a volume might be filled with the detailed study of the subject; but for all practical purposes it may be summed up in the one word limitation. For what is the ultimate cause of all strife, whether public or private, but the notion that the supply of good is limited? With the bulk of mankind this is a fixed idea, and they therefore argue that because there is only a certain limited quantity of good, the share in their possession can be increased only by correspondingly diminishing some one else's share. Any one entertaining the same idea, naturally resents the attempt to deprive him of any portion of this limited quantity; and hence arises the whole crop of envy, hatred, fraud, and violence, whether between individuals, classes, or nations. If people only realised the truth that "good" is not a certain limited quantity, but a stream continuously flowing from the exhaustless Infinite, and ready to take any direction we choose to give it, and that each one is able by the action of his own thought to draw from it indefinitely, the substitution of this new and true idea for the old and false one of limitation would at one stroke remove all strife and struggle from the world; every man would find a helper instead of a competitor in every other, and the very laws of Nature, which now so often seem to war against us, would be found a ceaseless source of profit and delight.

"They could not enter into rest because of unbelief," "they limited the Holy One of Israel": in these words the Bible, like the New Thought, traces all the sorrow of the world--that terrible _Weltschmerz_ which expresses itself with such direful influence through the pessimistic literature of the day--to the one root of a false belief, the belief in man's limitation. Only substitute for it the true belief, and the evil would be at an end. Now the ground of this true belief is that clear apprehension of "the Father" which, as I have shown, forms the basis of Jesus' teaching. If, from one point of view, the Intelligent Universal Life-Principle is a Power to be obeyed, in the same sense in which we have to obey all the laws of Nature, from the opposite point of view, it is a power to be used. We must never lose sight of the fact that obedience to any natural law in its generic tendency necessarily carries with it a corresponding power of using that law in specific application. This is the old proverb that knowledge is power. It is the old paradox with which Jesus posed the ignorant scribes as to how David's Lord could also be his Son. The word "David" means "Beloved" and to be beloved implies that reciprocal sympathy which is intuitive knowledge. Hence David, the Beloved, is the man who has realised his true relation as a Son to his Father and who is "in tune with the Infinite." On the other hand, this "Infinite" is his "Lord" because it is the complex of all those unchangeable Laws from which it is impossible to swerve without suffering consequent loss of power; and on the other, this knowledge of the innermost principles of All-Being puts him in possession of unlimited powers which he can apply to any specific purpose that he will; and thus he stands towards them in the position of a father who has authority to command the services of his son. Thus David's "Lord," becomes by a natural transition his "Son."

And it is precisely in this that the principle of "Sonship" consists. It is the raising of man from the condition of bondage as a servant by reason of limitation to the status of a son by the entire removal of all limitations. To believe and act on this principle is to "believe on the Son of God," and a practical belief in our own sonship thus sets us free from all evil and from all fear of evil--it brings us out of the kingdom of death into the kingdom of Life. Like everything else, it has to grow, but the good seed of liberating Truth once planted in the heart is sure to germinate, and the more we endeavour to foster its growth by seeking to grasp with our understanding the reason of these things and to realise our knowledge in practice, the more rapidly we shall find our lives increase in livingness--a joy to ourselves, a brightness to our homes, and a blessing expanding to all around in ever-widening circles.

Enough has now been said to show the identity of principle between the teaching of the Bible and that of the New Thought. Treated in detail, the subject would extend to many volumes explanatory of the Old and New Testaments, and if that great work were ever carried out I have no hesitation in saying that the agreement would be found to extend to the minutest particulars. But the hints contained in the foregoing papers will, I hope, suffice to show that there is nothing antagonistic between the two systems, or, rather, to show that they are one--the statement of the One Truth which always has been and always will be. And if what I have now endeavoured to put before my readers should lead any of them to follow up the subject more fully for themselves, I can promise them an inexhaustible store of wonder, delight, and strength in the study of the Old Book in the light of the New Thought.

1902.

XX

JACHIN AND BOAZ

"And he reared up the pillars before the temple, one on the right hand, and the other on the left; and called the name of that on the right hand Jachin, and the name of that on the left Boaz." (II Chron. iii, 17.)

Very likely some of us have wondered what was the meaning of these two mysterious pillars set up by Solomon in front of his temple, and why they were called by these strange names; and then we have dropped the subject as one of those inexplicable things handed down in the Bible from old time which, we suppose, can have no practical interest for us at the present day. Nevertheless, these strange names are not without a purpose. They contain the key to the entire Bible and to the whole order of Nature, and as emblems of the two great principles that are the pillars of the universe, they fitly stood at the threshold of that temple which was designed to symbolise all the mysteries of Being.

In all the languages of the Semitic stock the letters J and Y are interchangeable, as we see in the modern Arabic "Yakub" for "Jacob" and the old Hebrew "Yaveh" for "Jehovah." This gives us the form "Yachin," which at once reveals the enigma. The word Yak signifies "one"; and the termination "hi," or "him," is an intensitive which may be rendered in English by "only." Thus the word "Jachin" resolves itself into the words "one only," the all-embracing Unity.

The meaning of Boaz is clearly seen in the book of Ruth. There Boaz appears as the kinsman exercising the right of pre-emption so familiar to those versed in Oriental law--a right which has for its purpose the maintenance of the Family as the social unit. According to this widely-spread custom, the purchaser, who is not a member of the family, buys the property subject to the right of kinsmen within certain degrees to purchase it back, and so bring it once more into the family to which it originally belonged. Whatever may be our personal opinions regarding the vexed questions of dogmatic theology, we can all agree as to the general principle indicated in the role acted by Boaz. He brings back the alienated estate into the family--that is to say, he "redeems" it in the legal sense of the word. As a matter of law his power to do this results from his membership in the family; but his motive for doing it is love, his affection for Ruth. Without pushing the analogy too far we may say, then, that Boaz represents the principle of redemption in the widest sense of reclaiming an estate by right of relationship, while the innermost moving power in its recovery is Love.

This is what Boaz stands for in the beautiful story of Ruth, and there is no reason why we should not let the same name stand for the same thing when we seek the meaning of the mysterious pillar. Thus the two pillars typify Unity and the redeeming power of Love, with the significant suggestion that the redemption results from the Unity. They correspond with the two "bonds," or uniting principles spoken of by St. Paul, "the Unity of the Spirit which is the Bond of Peace," and "Love, which is the Bond of Perfectness."

The former is Unity of Being; the latter, Unity of Intention: and the principle of this Dual-Unity is well illustrated by the story of Boaz. The whole story proceeds on the idea of the Family as the social unit, the root-conception of all Oriental law, and if we consider the Family in this light, we shall see how exactly it embodies the two-fold idea of Jachin and Boaz, unity of Being and unity of Thought. The Family forms a unit because all the members proceed from a common progenitor, and are thus all of one blood; but, although this gives them a natural unity of Being of which they cannot divest themselves, it is not enough in itself to make them a united family, as unfortunately experience too often shows. Something more is wanted, and that something is Love. There must be a personal union brought about by sympathetic Thought to complete the natural union resulting from birth. The inherent unity must be expressed by the Individual volition of each member, and thus the Family becomes the ideally perfect social unit; a truth to which St. Paul alludes when he calls God the Father from Whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. Thus Boaz stands for the principle which brings back to the original Unity that which has been for a time separated from it. There has never been any separation of actual Being--the family right always subsisted in the property even while in the hands of strangers, otherwise it could never have been brought back; but it requires the Love principle to put this right into effective operation.

When this begins to work in the knowledge of its right to do so, then there is the return of the individual to the Unity, and the recognition of himself as the particular expression of the Universal in virtue of his own nature.

These two pillars, therefore, stand for the two great spiritual principles that are the basis of all Life: Jachin typifying the Unity resulting from Being, and Boaz typifying the Unity resulting from Love. In this Dual-Unity we find the key to all conceivable involution or evolution of Spirit; and it is therefore not without reason that the record of these two ancient pillars has been preserved in our Scriptures. And finally we may take this as an index to the character of our Scriptures generally. They contain infinite meanings; and often those passages which appear on the surface to be most meaningless will be found to possess the deepest significance. The Book, which we often read so superficially, hides beneath its sometimes seemingly trivial words the secrets of other things. The twin pillars Jachin and Boaz bear witness to this truth.[5]

[Footnote 5: The following comment was made by Judge Troward, after the publication of this paper in _Expression_:

"_The Two Pillars_ of the Universe are Personality and Mathematics, represented by Boaz and Jachin respectively. This is the broadest simplification to which it is possible to reduce things. Balance consists in preserving the Equilibrium or Alternating Current between these two Principles. Personality is the Absolute Factor. Mathematics are the Relative Factor, for they merely Measure different Rates or Scales. They are absolute in this respect. A particular scale having been selected all its sequences will follow by an inexorable Law of Order and Proportion; but the selection of the scale and the change from one scale to another rests entirely with Personality. What Personality can not do is to make one Scale produce the results of another, but it can set aside one scale and substitute another for it. Hence Personality contains in itself the Universal Scale, or can either accommodate itself to lower rates of motion already established, or can raise them to its own rate of motion. Hence Personality is the grand Ultimate Fact in all things.

"Different personalities should be regarded as different degrees of consciousness. They are different degrees of emergence of The Power that knows Itself."]

XXI

HEPHZIBAH

"Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate; but thou shalt be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married" (Isaiah lxii, 4). The name Hephzibah--or, as it might be written, Hafzbah--conveys a very distinct idea to any one who has lived in the East, and calls up a string of familiar words all containing the same root _hafz_, which signifies "guarding" or "taking care of," such as _hafiz_, a protector, _muhafiz_, a custodian, as in the word _muhafiz daftar_, a head record-keeper; or again, _hifazat_, custody, as _bahifazat polis_, in custody of the police; or again, _daim-ul-hafz_, imprisonment for life, and other similar expressions.

All words from this root suggest the idea of "guarding," and therefore the name Haphzibah at once speaks its own meaning. It is "one who is guarded," a "protected one." And answering to this there must be some power which guards, and the name of this power is given in Hosea ii, 16, where it is called "Ishi." "And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and thou shalt call me no more Baali." "Baali" means "lord," "Ishi" means "husband," and between the two there is a whole world of distinction.

To call the Great Power "Baali" is to live in one world, and to call it "Ishi" is to live in another. The world that is ruled over by Baali is a world of "miserable worms of the dust" and such crawling creatures; but the world that is warmed and lightened by "Ishi" is one in which men and women walk upright, conscious of their own divine nature, instead of dodging about to escape being crushed under the feet of Moloch as he strides through his dominions. If the name Baali did not suggest a wrong idea there would be no need to change it for another, and the change of name therefore indicates the opening of the mind to a larger and sounder conception of the true nature of the Ruling Principle of the universe. It is no imperious autocrat, the very apotheosis of self-glorification, ill-natured and spiteful if its childish vanity be not gratified by hearing its own praises formally proclaimed, often from lips opened only by fear; nor is it an almighty extortioner desiring to deprive us of what we value most, either to satisfy its greed or to demonstrate its sovereignty. This is the image which men make of God and then bow terrified before it, offering a worship which is the worship of Baal, and making life blank because all the livingness has been wiped out of it.

Ishi is the embodiment of the very opposite conception, a wise and affectionate husband, instead of a taskmaster exploiting his slaves. In its true aspect the relation of husband and wife is entirely devoid of any question of relative superiority or inferiority. As well ask whether the front wheel or the back wheel of your bicycle is the more important. The two make a single whole, in which the functions of both parts are reciprocal and equally necessary; yet for this very reason these functions cannot be identical.

In a well-ordered home, where husband and wife are united by mutual love and respect, we see that the man's function is to enter into the larger world and to provide the wife with all that is needed for the maintenance and comfort of the home, while the function of the woman is to be the distributor of what her husband provides, in doing which she follows her own discretion; and a sensible man, knowing that he can trust a sensible wife, does not want to poke his finger into every pie. Thus all things run harmoniously--the woman relieved of responsibilities which are not naturally hers, and the man relieved of responsibilities which are not naturally his. But let any perplexity or danger arise, and the woman knows that from her husband she will receive all the guidance and protection that the occasion may require, he being the wise and strong man that we have supposed him, and having this assurance she is able to pursue the avocations of her own sphere undisturbed by any fears or anxieties.

It is this relation of protection and guidance that is implied by the word Hephzibah. It is the name of those who realise their identity with the all-ordering Divine Spirit. He who realises this unity with the Spirit finds himself both guided and guarded. And here we touch the fringe of a deep natural mystery, which formed the basis of all that was most valuable in the higher mysteries of the ancients, and the substance of which we must realise if we are to make any progress in the future, whatever form we may adopt to convey the idea to ourselves or others. It is the relation of the individual mind to the Universal Mind, the combination of unity with independence which, though quite clear when we know it by personal experience, is almost inexpressible in words, but which is frequently represented in the Bible under the figure of the marriage relations.