force is always ready and
waiting to pour through when the channel is offered, just as the water
in a cistern may be said to be waiting to pour through the first pipe
that may be opened.

The result of the descent of divine life is a very great strengthening
and uplifting of the maker of the channel, and the spreading all about
him of a most powerful and beneficent influence. This effect has often
been called an answer to prayer, and has been attributed by the ignorant
to what they call a "special interposition of Providence," instead of to
the unerring action of the great and immutable divine law.

_Self-Renunciation._--Fig. 16 gives us yet another form of devotion,
producing an exquisitely beautiful form of a type quite new to us--a
type in which one might at first sight suppose that various graceful
shapes belonging to animate nature were being imitated. Fig. 16, for
example, is somewhat suggestive of a partially opened flower-bud, while
other forms are found to bear a certain resemblance to shells or leaves
or tree-shapes. Manifestly, however, these are not and cannot be copies
of vegetable or animal forms, and it seems probable that the explanation
of the similarity lies very much deeper than that. An analogous and even
more significant fact is that some very complex thought-forms can be
exactly imitated by the action of certain mechanical forces, as has been
said above. While with our present knowledge it would be unwise to
attempt a solution of the very fascinating problem presented by these
remarkable resemblances, it seems likely that we are obtaining a glimpse
across the threshold of a very mighty mystery, for if by certain
thoughts we produce a form which has been duplicated by the processes of
nature, we have at least a presumption that these forces of nature work
along lines somewhat similar to the action of those thoughts. Since the
universe is itself a mighty thought-form called into existence by the
LOGOS, it may well be that tiny parts of it are also the thought-forms
of minor entities engaged in the same work; and thus perhaps we may
approach a comprehension of what is meant by the three hundred and
thirty million Devas of the Hindus.

[Illustration: FIG. 16. SELF-RENUNCIATION]

This form is of the loveliest pale azure, with a glory of white light
shining through it--something indeed to tax the skill even of the
indefatigable artist who worked so hard to get them as nearly right as
possible. It is