never spake
before, tell, in a symbolism that is self-evidently true, the way by
which alone, real happiness is won. We are blessed or cursed of God,
through the working of His laws immutable, according as our relation
to those laws is one of knowledge and obedience, or of ignorance and
perversity. As, in the Hebrew tongue the words we render, "to curse,"
and "to bless," run back to the same root idea, so in point of fact,
the very suffering which, sooner or later, comes to us when we are out
of touch with the divine order of love to God and love to man, is the
means appointed to bring us to that harmony which all must gain.

The lowest things are often seen to signify the things most high. A
parable, _paraballo_, is that which "throws before" us such concrete
imagery as best serves to foreshadow and to fit the mind to understand
a certain abstract principle. As we become disciples, "learners" of
the Truth, we find it speaks to us only through such emblems as enable
us to reason from the things we do already know to those concerning
which we wish to be informed. The words of Jesus went forth
full-freighted with vitality. They were truly spirit and life, because
charged with a virtue that can only come from a soul in submission to
the law by his lips enunciated. Hence we see why, in the mystical
language with which the Gospel of St. John begins, he is called the
Logos, Reason or Word of God, from God and one with God, because he
reveals the divine thought concerning man, inherently perfect from the
first, but requiring time and space for its outworking. That human
individuality may be maintained, man is uplifted only over the fulcrum
of his own will. This volitional power is the ray in us of that
Creative Energy whose name Jehovah signifies, _I will be what I will
to be_. Thus, then, oneness with God is not sameness with God, nor the
absorption of human personality in the Infinite Being. It is simply a
state to be reached in our progressive creation where we will come to
a knowledge of the laws of life, and will consciously co-operate with
those divine decrees governing the origin, nature, and destiny of the
soul. To illustrate the possibility of such achievement and exemplify
the way of its attainment, was the mission of the Christ. But it has
been so much easier to idolatrously worship his person than to embody
his principles, that ceremonials and doctrines have been substituted
for the life he lived. This is a suffici