Heavenly Father works
through ways and means. If a man fall on the street God does not cause a
miracle to be wrought and a bed to descend from the clouds, but He works
through the sympathies of the bystanders. Is it not equally conceivable
that the appeal for leading and for light sent into spirit spheres meets
the response of spirit-aid; that it awakens the interest and the
infinite tenderness and care of those who have passed from this life
into that of the next stage beyond, and that they are, according to
their development and powers, co-workers with God, even as we who are
yet on earth aim and pray to be?

Now it is just this faith that is so largely pervading the religious
world to-day. Spirituality includes all the convictions that constitute
ethics. Spirituality is the unchanging quality in all forms of organized
religion. And it is found, in greater or in less degree, in every sect
and every creed. Outward forms come and go; they multiply, or they
decrease, and the change in the expression of religious faith is a
matter largely determined by the trend of general progress; but the
essentials of religion, under all organized forms, remain the same, for
the essential element is spirituality. In and around Copley Square in
Boston, within the radius of one block, are several denominations whose
order of worship varies, the one from another. The Baptist believes in
immersion as the outer sign of the inner newness of life; the
Episcopalian holds dear his ritual; the Unitarian and the Presbyterian,
and perhaps a half-dozen other sects in close proximity (which express
the various forms of what they call "new thought"), each and all exist
and have their being by virtue of the one essential faith held in common
by all,--the one aim to which all are tending,--that of the
spiritualization of life. The larger recognition of the spiritual
universe includes the recognition of this interpenetration of the life
in the Seen and the Unseen. Every thought and decision is like an
action on the spiritual side. A thought has the force of a deed, and
there is a literal truth in the line,--

"The good, though only thought, has life and breath;"

and in Lowell's words:--

"Ah! let us hope that to our praise
Good God not only reckons
The moments when we tread His ways,
But when the spirit beckons."

The thought-life is, indeed, the most real of the two lives, and
dominates the other. The events and achievements, held