ese several
considerations do not, of themselves, throw light on the reason for
certain other inward practices. The basis of these other practices is,
unfortunately, less simple and less well-known. Why is there need of
particular occasions for prayer and worship? Why need we gather together
and sit quietly? Why practice waiting before God? If He is in us, why
does He not manifest to us continually, why does His power not always
motivate our actions? Why do we have to practice His presence, and why
is this practice so difficult? To answer these questions we are forced
to adopt a somewhat complex and non-habitual view of the situation.

Suppose we are approached by a person of inquiring mind who says, "You
say that there is that of God in every man. All right, I am prepared to
accept that as truth. But precisely where in us does the divine spark
exist? Is it in our bodies? Is it in our ordinary minds and everyday
thoughts and emotions? Do you mean to say that God exists in ignorance,
in man's prejudices and hatreds, in human evil?" How will we reply?
Obviously God does not exist in our trivial actions, nor in our godless
thoughts and feelings. Certainly He does not exist in our ignorance and
evil. But these things exist in us. They constitute a part of us. This
part of us, then, is separated from God, while another part is related
to Him. Insofar as we identify with the separated part and believe it to
be ourselves, we exist divorced from that of God in us.

The attitude, in brief, is this. There is that of God in every man.
Therefore man, in his entirety, is not separated from God. But man is
divided within, and against, himself, into two different and opposing
aspects, and one of these aspects is separated from God. This is my view
of the situation. If I understand the writings of the early Friends,
this was their view of the situation.

The early Friends had names for the part of us that is separated from
God. They called it the "natural man," the "earthly man." I shall
sometimes refer to it as the "body-mind" or the "separated self." The
early Friends called the part of us that is related to God and in which
God dwells the "spiritual man," the "new birth," the "new creation." I
shall sometimes call it the "inner being," the "spiritual self."

It is of course the separated self that presents the problem. It
obstructs our attempts to relate ourselves to God and to our fellow men.
It interferes with worship as well a