his telepathy with Christ is the means by which the soul learns in a
direct manner the will and the teaching and the mind of Christ, and
it is by this means she gains such wisdom as it is God's will she shall
have. The soul seeks this telepathy during the second stage, vaguely,
not knowing or understanding the mode of it, receiving it rarely and
with great difficulty.

In the third stage she obtains it in abundance, at times briefly, at
others at great length.

* * *

That God has his dwelling-place at an incalculably great distance
from ourselves is a true knowledge of the soul: but a further
knowledge reveals to us that this calamity is mitigated, and for short
periods even annulled, by provision of His within the soul to
annihilate this distance, and be the means of bringing the soul into
such immediate contact with Himself as she is able to endure. But
the Joy-Energy of God being insupportable to the very nature of
flesh, in His tender love and pity He provides us, through the Person
of His Son, with degrees of union of such sweet gentleness that we
may continually enjoy them through every hour of life; and through
His Son He comes out to meet the prodigal "while yet afar off."

This is strongly observable, that as the process of Christ proceeds
and grows in us, though our joys in God are individual, yet they
become also clothed in a garment of the universal, so that the soul,
when she enters the fires of worship and of blessing and of
conversing with God--without any forethought, but by a cause or
need now become a part of herself,--enters these states and gives to
Him no longer as I, but as We--which is to say, as All Souls.

* * *

Many of us look to death to work a miracle for us, thinking the mere
cessation of physical living will give entry to paradise or even
heaven, so long as we are baptised and call ourselves Christians.
This is a great delusion. In character, personality, cleanliness,
goodwill we are, after death, exactly as far advanced as we were
before death, and no further. What then is needed, since death will
not help us? The Seed of Divine love and life planted and
consciously _growing_ in us whilst we are still in this world. And
what is this Seed?--the Redeemer.

* * *

What is paradise, what is heaven? The progressive gradations of
conditions of a perfect reciprocity of love, and the greater the
perfection of this reciprocity the greater the altitudes attained of
heaven. Thus we see