d _self_
changes its meaning the moment we begin to think about it. So does
the word _nature_. The range of meaning is in each case unlimited.
Yet there are limits beyond which we cannot use either word without
some risk of being misunderstood. When we are meditating on our
origin and our destiny, some other word seems to be needed to enable
us to complete the span of our thoughts.

Is not that word _God_? The source of our life, the ideal end of our
being,--how shall we think about these if we may not speak of them as
_divine_? And in using the word "divine," do we not set ourselves
free to stretch the respective meanings of the words "self" and
"nature" beyond what would otherwise have been the breaking point of
each? The true self is worthier of the name of "self" than the
apparent self. The true nature is worthier of the name of "nature"
than the lower nature. But the true self is the Divine Self; and the
highest nature is the Nature of God. If this is so, we serve God best
and obey God best by trying to perfect our nature in response to a
stimulus, a pressure, and a guidance which is at once natural and
divine.

In other words, we serve God best by following the path of
self-realisation. And the better we serve God, the more truly and
fully do we learn to know him. If to know him, and to live up to our
knowledge of him, is to be truly religious, then the life of
self-realisation is, in the truest and deepest sense of the word, a
_religious_ life. Or rather it is the only religious life, for in no
other way can knowledge of God be won.

Let me try to make good this statement. Knowledge of God is the
outcome, not of definite dogmatic instruction in theology, but of
spiritual growth. Knowledge, whatever may be its object, is always
the outcome of growth. Even knowledge of _number_ is the outcome, not
of definite dogmatic instruction in the arithmetical rules and
tables, but of the growth of the arithmetical sense. It is the same
with literature, the same with history, the same with chemistry, the
same with "business," the same with navigation, the same with the
driving of vehicles in crowded streets, the same with every art,
craft, sport, game, and pursuit. In evolving a special sense, the
soul is growing in one particular direction, a direction which is
marked out for it by the environment in which it finds it needful or
desirable to energise. The soul has, as we have seen, a general power
of adapting itself to