e
world--because cooperating with the great Cosmic world plan.

The ideal, then, is men and women of the spirit, open and responsive
always to its guidance, recognising the Divine plan and the Divine
ideal, working cooperatively in the world to make all conditions of life
fairer, finer, more happy. He who lives and works not as an individual,
that is not for his good alone, but who recognises the essential oneness
of life--is carrying out his share of the Divine plan.

A man may be unusually gifted; he may have unusual ability in business,
in administration; he may be a giant in finance, in administration, but
if for self alone, if lack of vision blinds him to the great Divine
plan, if he does not recognise his relative place and value; if he gains
his purposes by selfishness, by climbing over others, by indifference to
human pain or suffering--oblivious to human welfare--his ways are the
ways of the jungle. His mind and his life are purely sordid, grossly and
blindly self-centred--wholly material. He gains his object, but by
Divine law not happiness, not satisfaction, not peace. He is outside the
Kingdom of Heaven--the kingdom of harmony. He is living and working out
of harmony with the Divine mind that is evolving a higher order of life
in the world. He is blind too, he is working against the Divine plan.

Now what is the Divine call? Can he be made into a spiritual man? Yes. A
different understanding, a different motive, a different object--then
will follow a difference in methods. Instead of self alone he will have
a sense of, he will have a call to service. And this man, formerly a
hinderer in the Divine plan, becomes a spiritual giant. His splendid
powers and his qualities do not need to be changed. Merely his motives
and thereby his methods, and he is changed into a giant engine of
righteousness. He is a part of the great world force and plan. He is
doing his part in the great world work--he is a coworker with God. And
here lies salvation. Saved from self and the dwarfed and stunted
condition that will follow, his spiritual nature unfolds and envelops
his entire life. His powers and his wealth are thereafter to bless
mankind. But behold! by another great fundamental law of life in doing
this he is blessed ten, a hundred, a millionfold.

Material prosperity is or may become a true gain, a veritable blessing.
But it can become a curse to the world and still more to its possessor
when made an end in itself, and a