ight itself, and in it all illusion is
dispelled; but it is the expansion to infinity of all in us that is
Affirmative, all that is really living.

Therefore, in looking for its guiding and guarding we are relying upon
no borrowed power from _without_, held at the caprice and option of
another, but upon the supreme fact of our own nature, which we can use
in what direction we will with perfect freedom, knowing no limitation
save the obligation not to do violence to our own purest and highest
feelings. And this relation is entirely _natural_. We must steer the
happy mean between imploring and ignoring. A natural law does not need
to be entreated before it will work; and, on the other hand, we cannot
make use of it while ignoring its existence.

What we have to do, therefore, is to take the working of the law for
granted, and make use of it accordingly; and since that is the law of
Mind, and Mind is Personality, this Power, which is at once _ourselves_
and above ourselves, may be treated as a Person and may be spoken with,
and its replies received by the inner ear of the heart. Any scheme of
philosophy that does not result in this personal intercourse with the
Divine Mind falls short of the mark. It may be right so far as it goes,
but it does not go far enough, and fails to connect us with our vital
centre. Names are of small importance so long as the intercourse is
real. The Supreme Mind with which we converse is only to be met in the
profoundest depths of our own being, and, as Tennyson says, is more
perfectly ourselves than our own hands and feet. It is our natural Base;
and realising this we shall find ourselves to be in very truth "guarded
ones," guided by the Spirit in all things, nothing too great and nothing
too trivial to come within the great Law of our being.

There is another aspect of the Spirit in which it is seen as a Power to
be used; and the full flow of life is in the constant alternation
between this aspect and the one we have been considering, but always we
are linked with the Universal Mind as the flower lives by reason of its
root. The connection itself is intrinsic, and can never be severed; but
it must be consciously realised before it can be consciously used. All
our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this
connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever
purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it _may_
respond, but with the certain knowledg