not possess--in fact, we are creating
the very thing we fear. And the remedy for this is always to recur to
the original nature of Being as altogether Good, and then to speak to
ourselves thus: "My thought must continually externalise something, for
that is its inherent quality, which nothing can ever alter. Shall I,
then, externalise God or the opposite of God? Which do I wish to see
manifested in my life--Good or its opposite? Shall I manifest what I
know to be the reality or the reverse?" Then comes the steady resolve
always to manifest God, or Good, because that is the only true reality
in all things; and this resolve is with power because it is founded upon
the solid rock of Truth.

We must refuse to know evil; we must refuse to admit that there is any
such thing to be known. It is the converse of this which is symbolised
in the story of the Fall. "In the day that thou eatest thereof thou
shalt surely die" was never spoken of the knowledge of Good, for Good
never brought death into the world. It is eating the fruit of the tree
of a so-called knowledge which admits a second branch, the knowledge of
evil, that is the source of death. Admit that evil has a substantive
entity, which renders it a subject of knowledge, and you thereby create
it, with all its consequences of sorrow, sickness and death. But "be
sure that the Lord He is God"--that is, that the one and Only Ruling
Principle of the universe, whether within us or around us, is Good and
Good only--and evil with all its train sinks back into its original
nothingness, and we find that the Truth has made us free. We are free to
externalise what we will, whether in ourselves or our surroundings, for
we have found the solid basis on which to make the needed change of
mental attitude in the fact that the Good is the only reality of Being.

1902.

XVIII

ENTERING INTO THE SPIRIT OF IT

"Entering into the spirit of it." What a common expression! And yet how
much it really means, how absolutely everything! We enter into the
spirit of an undertaking, into the spirit of a movement, into the spirit
of an author, even into the spirit of a game; and it makes all the
difference both to us and to that into which we enter. A game without
any spirit is a poor affair; and association in which there is no spirit
falls to pieces; and a spiritless undertaking is sure to be a failure.
On the other hand, the book which is meaningless to the unsympathising
reader is full