And there are those who begin to shrink the moment they are asked to aim at the highest goal and fulfilment of their possibilities, and feel they are being asked to forego the physical, the earth joys of life, or are asked to give up earth to accept heaven.

None of the great teachers of the past taught that man must give up earth to accept heaven: they have all told him to accept heaven first and all else would be granted and that he must obey the great law of self and become a lawful being, and restrictions and penitentiaries and official places will not be necessary to restrain him upon earth when he becomes a self-conscious law-abiding Soul.

There is no need of any one fearing that he must leave his religion no matter what his religion may be if he is reverential toward his ideals and ideas and lives his ideals out. It is the one who is attempting to restrain consciousness from being natural and loving who is the menace to evolving mankind.

The being who can live from his consciousness out, no matter how low in evolution it may be, or how small in inclusiveness it may have grown, is a safe law unto himself. And we find that when one, instead of busying himself with the living of his own life, becomes busied with the manner in which another is living, he becomes responsible for his brother; instead of permitting his brother to be responsible for himself When he begins to assume others' responsibilities with resistance, with restraint, with domination, he begins to depart from his own consciousness, he begins to leave his center where the still small voice is, and where the illumination from on high can pierce and guide him. He departs from this center when he begins to project out and dictate and domineer and order other conditions; for after all, if he studies himself he realizes that it is expression that he needs: that restraint and suppression bring him the opposite to growth, and that his nature impels him outward onward, and upward, and that anything that comes over him to circumscribe, to suppress, to restrain him, is his enemy. (The race has risen through countless ages with a just belief that it was surrounded by enemies, realizing that everything that restricts and restrains is an enemy - the meaning of the word, in truth.) Everything that calls out and expresses and liberates and manifests him is his benefactor. He has been his own most cruel enemy, his own jailor, during times past, and today he is just learning his humanity, a humane way of treating himself, just learning that these qualities and impulses and characteristics are of slumbering beings, not yet awakened; that these tendencies that seem so perverted, these lower impulses and passions and greeds and apparent untruths or opposites to his true nature, are divinity; and as he comes to understand that these things not to be crushed out, that all things else are not to be denied him because the kingdom of heaven is to be granted him; he comes to understand that all the impulses of the flesh, all of the impulses of the mind, all of the impulses of the divine being have their place, are stepping stones, are mounting blocks, instead of barriers, or enemies. Instead of crushing these out or annihilating them, the work to be done is to direct them. He learns that these longings of the heart that will prompt people to sell their honor to provide for certain beauty, for certain acquired delight or satisfaction, are not unnatural, are not strange; they are simply misunderstood. When these beings understand their great longing for satisfaction, for beauty, for love, for abundance of life's joys, is perfectly divine, is perfectly good, is perfectly true; and when an attitude of commendation is taken toward it and man is told to rise, to lift himself up and go forward undismayed, told that this indeed is the glory of God in expression, is the fulfilment of life! When he can understand that this is true, this old resistance, this old ignorant prejudice against sacrifice or fear of having to give up so much to acquire this kingdom, will have passed away.

This old psychology of belief, this false teaching of the past, will have annulled itself when he brings on the light of his own reason, of his own intelligence and when he comes to understand that after all, if he wished to have these things, or to acquire all of this fulfilment of his ideals; to have in his environment beauty, in his heart love, by his side comradeship that is congenial, in his soul true abundance; if he desires in his heart to have all these ideals fulfilled, and to bring his life into one grand symphony, when he feels this impulse and realizes this is truly God's suggestion to him to lift up his head to see the kingdom of heaven which is awaiting his acceptance, to see that all these things are his, he take the key and unlock the portal of his doubt, of his disbelief.

But do not misunderstand what I mean. There is a price paid for everything, good or bad. There is an earning before there is a share, an earning necessary to enable one to acquire a reward. There is a law which governs all, which is immutable, which is unerring; and he must live the life of a child of God, as a child of God, to enjoy the inheritance of God.

As man comes into the consciousness of his Divine nature, as he comes into at-one-ment of it through the living of it, through the being this “I am" which he is; these grants are made, these possessions become his, the kingdom is opened to him and he is par taking of it; but not until he has earned it, not until he has evolved, and possessed it within his heart. It is not in the opinion of others; not when he has been able to make others THINK he has earned it and persuaded them to grant it; not that. He cannot deceive God; but when be knows himself; when he himself knows what he deserves, what be has earned; when he himself can go to the fount of all and trust himself to select that which is due him and when he has overcome until naught except that which is due him tempts him, not until he would reject loans, until he has outgrown a desire to borrow anything, until he stands upon his own feet, up to his own standard, is he in the midst of fulfilment.

Never till souls can come to the consciousness that they are obliged only to themselves; that all depends upon themselves to acquire and to attain peace, satisfaction and fulfilment, can they obtain this reward; and the time is coming fast forward when these imitators and pretenders, these who have apparently yet not really deceived others, who have been able to make themselves imagine that others think of them what they wish others to think of them; (but who have little consideration for what they think of themselves), the time is fast coming when the standard of moral ethics, of man's judgment of man, will change into a different standard, a different process of judg ment, when man will be called forward to testify for himself, when man will be called forward to give his version of himself, his opinion of himself, his knowledge of himself; instead of the testimony of others against him or for him. By his works he shall be known; by his works he is KNOWN today; by his past he has a present; by his present he has a future; as he sows he certainly SHALL reap, and he has reaped according to his sowing. There is no evading; and swifter and swifter comes the fulfilment of the law to the awakened consciousness. In the old and primitive, crude and stoic consciousness of long ago, causes and effects were very, very far apart oftentimes; but as civilization, cultivation, education and evolution have been brought to a higher vibration, effects are fast following upon causes; faster than ever before in the evolution of the human race.