because man is so idle, so indisposed
to assume or accept responsibility, that he falls
back upon this temporary makeshift of a
creator. It is temporary indeed, for it can only
last during the activity of the particular brain
power which finds its place among us. When
the man drops this mental life behind him,
he of necessity leaves with it its magic lantern
and the pleasant illusions he has conjured up
by its aid. That must be a very uncomfortable
moment, and must produce a sense of nakedness
not to be approached by any other sensation.
It would seem as well to save one's
self this disagreeable experience by refusing to
accept unreal phantasms as things of flesh
and blood and power. Upon the shoulders of
the Creator man likes to thrust the responsibility
not only of his capacity for sinning and
the possibility of his salvation, but of his very
life itself, his very consciousness. It is a poor
Creator that he thus contents himself with,--one
who is pleased with a universe of puppets,
and amused by pulling their strings. If he is
capable of such enjoyment, he must yet be in
his infancy. Perhaps that is so, after all; the
God within us is in his infancy, and refuses
to recognise his high estate. If indeed the soul
of man is subject to the laws of growth, of
decay, and of re-birth as to its body, then there
is no wonder at its blindness. But this is
evidently not so; for the soul of man is of that
order of life which causes shape and form,
and is unaffected itself by these things,--of
that order of life which like the pure, the
abstract flame burns wherever it is lit. This
cannot be changed or affected by time, and is
of its very nature superior to growth and
decay. It stands in that primeval place which
is the only throne of God,--that place whence
forms of life emerge and to which they return.
That place is the central point of existence,
where there is a permanent spot of life as
there is in the midst of the heart of man. It
is by the equal development of that,--first
by the recognition of it, and then by its equal
development upon the many radiating lines of
experience,--that man is at last enabled to
reach the Golden Gate and lift the latch. The
process is the gradual recognition of the god
in himself; the goal is reached when that
godhood is consciously restored to its
right glory.

III

The first thing which it is necessary for the
soul of man to do in order to engage in this
great endeavor of