God’s virtues are potential in man. all of the attributes of Divine Mind are latent in him. These virtues which he seems to think are evasive, difficult of cultivation and expression, in reality are most natural to him.

There has been a perverted idea concerning the course of evolution, of the attainment of the soul to higher altitudes; that there is some lesser force (we call it lesser although we seem to grant it is more powerful and more potent than the Divine Light). There has been the idea that it is a struggle, a battle against man's nature, that it is a perpetual strife to win from the evil one the glory to give it to the Almighty, the all Wise, the All Loving, to the all Good. This is not true.

The perverted course yields no satisfaction. It was never commended by those who have traced it. The ascending course which is the natural one for man is onward, forward, and upward. The joys of life are all induced through the pursuit of this upward path. Natural man is divine man, is Godly. Happiness and satisfaction come only by being natural, and peace comes only through virtue. These ephemeral conditions that people call happiness, gratifications that leave only a thirst, an insatiable longing for a real, permanent lasting quenching supply, have never given and never can give a reward, while virtue always is reward, and always lifts the being who expresses it to heights of mastery, into security and position where he can command more of it and create more satisfaction and fulfilment of his Life's hopes and desires.

The voice within each one tells him that the only happiness and security he can ever know, will come through expressing his Divine Self. and expressing the highest he can conceive, and that no one has ever known permanent satisfaction or profit to come out of misrepresentation, falsehood, selfishness, or breaking the golden rule; or living an inner life he is not willing to have exposed or interpreted by the All Seeing Eye.

No Soul enjoys life who is trying to keep himself a secret to the livers of life.

No Soul is so blind or more ignorantly morbid than one who thinks he can procrastinate, that he can postpone the day of judgment, that he can evade in some way long enough to pay him interest on false living.

There is a standard which each and every one holds no matter what his walk in life, and that standard flies over constantly, and every time he strives to drag it beneath his feet, every time he attempts to lower it, every time he attempts to step back and downward, covering himself with a cloak of pretense, he is binding himself with fetters which none but himself can ever break. He has to toil over the same old course and untie every knot which he has tied. He has to come back and face every opportunity which he has turned away from; not only has he to toil back with the cross upon his shoulder, but he has to take it and carry it forth again.

Had he but lived out his opportunities as he came through, had he but lived up to his standard, the drastic painful experience which every soul who fails must meet, would not be his.

There is nothing more pitiful than the life passing over into its zenith toward the grave knowing that he is still pretending, that he is still imitating, that he is not himself in expression, that he is not even what he seems, he is hiding from himself and not living up to his inner consciousness. But there is still greater work to be done for those beings who know better and still do not do it, who have lofty ideals and longings, who love beauty, music, art and perfection, who are conscious of the ideal life but would sell themselves for the sake of a short delay - just a little longer time - postponement of the judgment day, of the judgment hour, heaping upon themselves this interest to be paid also; the habit of throwing dirt over the sprouts of aspiration, of longing for genuineness, the habit of postponing the exposure of the real self, of the hour of fulfilment of his manhood on this plane with the idea that he can evade reality, that some other time will be easier than today to bear the truth.

There is a law which provides for the state of mind that has cloaked itself, and is not strong enough, courageous or daring enough to expose itself, yet who feels the quickening from within but because of not having lived up to its full standard it has undermined the attribute of courage, its faith, its confidence in itself, its estimation of the power of love, truth, and wisdom, and its self respect. All of these attributes of consciousness have been so undermined that they are faint and feeble, and such an one is afraid to lose its hold upon that which he has, though it be false. and risk the chance, the possibility of not gaining the newer and higher fulfilment of realization.

The old orthodoxy has not satisfied the spirit in man, that one may say to him, "Confess your sins, declare your intention to live." These are external declarations. Words cost but little to many people.

Yet the consciousness knows whether that being really wills to identify himself with his ideal and means to be lifted to it, or whether it is an effect he is attempting to produce, a bridge he is trying to build to span a chasm between himself and the ultimate goal or the reward he so covets.

There is a provision which meets the requirements of these souls that are not strong enough to stand out in one hour and declare themselves as they to be, as they long to be, in contrast to what they have been in manifestation. This provision is: that after all, it does not matter what other people think. You are not your brother's keeper, neither is your brother your keeper: you have no explanation to offer, no answer to give to another: you have but yourself to answer to: you have but to live from your center outward: you have to be willing to begin from within and be true to yourself: you do not have to go out and declare your sins, you do not have to go outside of yourself and make claims of remorse and resolution to fulfill the highest that is within you: not outside of yourself.

All of these things may have had their place in a day when individuality was not recognized as divine: but today with this great philosophy of life dawning in the consciousness of the human race, he learns that it is not what he is in the eyes of others, but what he is in his own eyes.