d in
separateness, He can reach each while they cannot reach each other.
Water can flow from above into many pipes, open to the reservoir though
closed as regards each other, and so He can send His life into each
soul. Only one condition is needed in order that a Christ may share His
strength with a younger brother: that in the separated life the human
consciousness will open itself to the divine, will show itself receptive
of the offered life, and take the freely outpoured gift. For so reverent
is God to that Spirit which is Himself in man, that He will not even
pour into the human soul a flood of strength and life unless that soul
is willing to receive it. There must be an opening from below as well as
an outpouring from above, the receptiveness of the lower nature as well
as the willingness of the higher to give. That is the link between the
Christ and the man; that is what the churches have called the outpouring
of "divine grace"; that is what is meant by the "faith" necessary to
make the grace effective. As Giordano Bruno once put it--the human soul
has windows, and can shut those windows close. The sun outside is
shining, the light is unchanging; let the windows be opened and the
sunlight must stream in. The light of God is beating against the windows
of every human soul, and when the windows are thrown open, the soul
becomes illuminated. There is no change in God, but there is a change in
man; and man's will may not be forced, else were the divine Life in him
blocked in its due evolution.

Thus in every Christ that rises, all humanity is lifted a step higher,
and by His wisdom the ignorance of the whole world is lessened. Each man
is less weak because of His strength, which pours out over all humanity
and enters the separated soul. Out of that doctrine, seen narrowly, and
therefore mis-seen, grew the idea of the vicarious Atonement as a legal
transaction between God and man, in which Jesus took the place of the
sinner. It was not understood that One who had touched that height was
verily one with all His brethren; identity of nature was mistaken for a
personal substitution, and thus the spiritual truth was lost in the
harshness of a judicial exchange.

"Then he comes to a knowledge of his place in the world, of his function
in nature--to be a Saviour and to make atonement for the sins of the
people. He stands in the inner Heart of the world, the Holy of Holies,
as a High Priest of Humanity. He is one with all hi