-brooks. Desire shall lend you its wings; tears, those
blossoms of repentance, shall be the celestial baptism from which your
nature will issue purified. Cast yourself on the breast of the stream in
Prayer! Silence and meditation are the means of following the Way. God
reveals Himself, unfailingly, to the solitary, thoughtful seeker.

"It is thus that the separation takes place between Matter, which so
long has wrapped its darkness round you, and Spirit, which was in you
from the beginning, the light which lighted you and now brings noon-day
to your soul. Yes, your broken heart shall receive the light; the light
shall bathe it. Then you will no longer feel convictions, they will
have changed to certainties. The Poet utters; the Thinker meditates; the
Righteous acts; but he who stands upon the borders of the Divine World
prays; and his prayer is word, thought, action, in one! Yes, prayer
includes all, contains all; it completes nature, for it reveals to you
the mind within it and its progression. White and shining virgin of all
human virtues, ark of the covenant between earth and heaven, tender and
strong companion partaking of the lion and of the lamb, Prayer! Prayer
will give you the key of heaven! Bold and pure as innocence, strong,
like all that is single and simple, this glorious, invincible Queen
rests, nevertheless, on the material world; she takes possession of it;
like the sun, she clasps it in a circle of light. The universe belongs
to him who wills, who knows, who prays; but he must will, he must know,
he must pray; in a word, he must possess force, wisdom, and faith.

"Therefore Prayer, issuing from so many trials, is the consummation
of all truths, all powers, all feelings. Fruit of the laborious,
progressive, continued development of natural properties and faculties
vitalized anew by the divine breath of the Word, Prayer has occult
activity; it is the final worship--not the material worship of images,
nor the spiritual worship of formulas, but the worship of the Divine
World. We say no prayers,--prayer forms within us; it is a faculty which
acts of itself; it has attained a way of action which lifts it outside
of forms; it links the soul to God, with whom we unite as the root of
the tree unites with the soil; our veins draw life from the principle of
life, and we live by the life of the universe. Prayer bestows external
conviction by making us penetrate the Material World through the
cohesion of all our fac