of a past universe, can come into the
present world with all the perfection of His divine Wisdom and Love,
with all the memory of His past, able by virtue of that memory to be the
perfect Helper of every living Being, knowing every stage because He has
lived it, able to help at every point because He has experienced all.
"In that He Himself hath suffered being tempted, He is able to succour
them that are tempted."[293]

It is in the humanity behind Him that lies this possibility of divine
Incarnation; He comes down, having climbed up, in order to help others
to climb the ladder. And as we understand these truths, and something of
the meaning of the Trinity, above and below, what was once a mere hard
unintelligible dogma becomes a living and vivifying truth. Only by the
existence of the Trinity in man is human evolution intelligible, and we
see how man evolves the life of the intellect, and then the life of the
Christ. On that fact mysticism is based, and our sure hope that we shall
know God. Thus have the Sages taught, and as we tread the Path they
show, we find that their testimony is true.

CHAPTER X.

PRAYER.[294]

What is sometimes called "the modern spirit" is exceedingly antagonistic
to prayer, failing to see any causal nexus between the uttering of a
petition and the happening of an event, whereas the religious spirit is
as strongly attached to it, and finds its very life in prayer. Yet even
the religious man sometimes feels uneasy as to the rationale of prayer;
is he teaching the All-wise, is he urging beneficence on the All-Good,
is he altering the will of Him in "whom is no variableness, neither
shadow of turning?"[295] Yet he finds in his own experience and in that
of others "answers to prayer," a definite sequence of a request and a
fulfilment.

Many of these do not refer to subjective experiences, but to hard facts
of the so-called objective world. A man has prayed for money, and the
post has brought him the required amount; a woman has prayed for food,
and food has been brought to her door. In connection with charitable
undertakings, especially, there is plenty of evidence of help prayed for
in urgent need, and of speedy and liberal response. On the other hand,
there is also plenty of evidence of prayers left unanswered; of the
hungry starving to death, of the child snatched from its mother's arms
by disease, despite the most passionate appeals to God. Any true view of
prayer must take into