y that they have outspanned the reach of thought. If our
thoughts be fine and unselfish enough, if aspiration tune them
sufficiently high, they will reach their aim: and the reply will be
vouchsafed. There was never yet an aspirant who was unable to find a
teacher. It is most true that the living and the dead are still one
family, for of course there are no "dead," unless we most correctly put
into this category the dull of hearing, the dull of heart, and the
loveless who still walk this earth. But if we deem the pioneers defunct
and inarticulate, then it is little likely that we shall comprehend the
reality and the naturalness of this interplay and inspiration. If we
never seek, information and insight will scarcely drop upon us from the
skies.

We talk of inspired playing, inspired teaching, the gift of song, and so
on, and we talk of a reality. The playing that is not inspired is worth
but little, it has the worth of a nutshell with the kernel gone
amissing. It is sound, perhaps it may even be fine sound, yet it
signifies nothing: it is as the painted face aping true beauty. Art
without inspiration is our electric light bulb disconnected from the
main current. There are prophets in the world to-day, for a prophet in
the strict sense of the word is one who speaks forth his message.
Everyone who senses something of the eternal message--which is love--is
in his degree a prophet, yea and a saviour too. He may speak or sing, he
may perform or compose, he may wait and serve, or he may just pass his
message on with a handshake and a smile: he is an interpreter, a medium
twixt wisdom and the unwise. Thus we must place the true artist,
whatever be the particular bent of his activities, as a prophet in his
day and his generation. That he may be far from being regarded as such
by those to whom he ministers is merely one of the incidental
disadvantages of being a prophet.

Quite obviously also there will be both good prophets and bad: even a
prosaic telegram may be repeated on payment of half the original cost,
because of the possibility of error occurring in the text. How much more
may error occur, then, when tenuous messages are being sent from high
sources by the power of thought, and when the receiving instrument is so
often imperfect, so frequently out of gear, and when that instrument in
addition is more than a trifle wilful and tainted with selfishness.
Inspiration is ever ready, it floats around us like tuned wireless