change
in communion with God, and it is not pleasing to Him that this
should be seen by any eye but His own.

If anyone finds great difficulty (and the most of us do) in coming to
the first stage--that of taking Jesus into the heart--he must pray every
day in a few short words _from the heart_ that God will give him to
Jesus, and in due time he will be heard.

In the third stage of progress we have the home-coming of the soul
as far as we are able to know it in the flesh: "We taste of the powers
of God" (Hebrews).

But the fullness of home-coming is reserved for that day in which
the greatest of all the mysteries will be revealed to us--the mystery
of the Relation of the Soul to God.

In that great day we shall know God by His Own Name.

* * *

We do not find God by denying the existence of things not pleasing
to Him. We do not find the Eternal Goodness by saying that Evil
does not exist. We do not find true health of spirit because we deny
all sickness, pain, and disease. Such a mode of Christianity may give
a sense of comfort, lend a false security to the heart and mind at
once weary of God-searching, and disenchanted with the world; but
it is not the Christianity which regenerates. It is a narcotic, not a
Redemption. It is the way of a mind unwilling to face truths because
they pain. If there was anything made plain by Christ it is that the
way of Redemption lies through heroism and not cowardice. Let
those of us who too much fear a passing pain of sacrifice of will
remember that the deepest of all pains, the last word in the tragedy
of life, is to come to old age and descend to the grave without
having found the Saviour. For our calamity is that we are lost souls.
Our opportunity is that in this world we find the track of Christ
which leads us home.

* * *

God does not create a new world on purpose for His lovers
immediately to live in, yet though we remain our full time in this
same world it is not the same world. We see a person in a severe
illness and again in full health. It is the same person, and not the
same person. We see a garden filled with flowers in the rain under
grey clouds, and again the same garden filled with mellow sunlight
under blue skies; it is the same garden, and not the same garden.

These changes could never be described or conveyed to the man
blind from birth; neither can spiritual changes be described or
conveyed till we ourselves gain similarity of experience. God
transpose