oring touch of nature, under a force applied by the
invisible angelic Intelligences, who carry out in this world the
workings of karmic law; when a greater One is acting, this force is of
more swiftly compelling power, and the physical vibrations are at once
attuned to the harmony that is health. All such forgiveness of sins may
be termed declaratory; the karma is exhausted, and a "knower of karma"
declares the fact. The assurance brings a relief to the mind that is
akin to the relief experienced by a prisoner when the order for his
release is given, that order being as much a part of the law as the
original sentence; but the relief of the man who thus learns of the
exhaustion of an evil karma is keener, because he cannot himself tell
the term of its action.

It is noticeable that these declarations of forgiveness are constantly
coupled with the statement that the sufferer showed "faith," and that
without this nothing could be done; _i.e._, the real agent in the ending
of this karma is the sinner himself. In the case of the "woman that was
a sinner," the two declarations are coupled: "Thy sins are forgiven....
Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace."[320] This "faith" is the
up-welling in man of his own divine essence, seeking the divine ocean of
like essence, and when this breaks through the lower nature that holds
it in--as the water-spring breaks through the encumbering
earth-clods--the power thus liberated works on the whole nature,
bringing it into harmony with itself. The man only becomes conscious of
this as the karmic crust of evil is broken up by its force, and that
glad consciousness of a power within himself hitherto unknown,
asserting itself as soon as the evil karma is exhausted, is a large
factor in the joy, relief, and new strength that follow on the feeling
that sin is "forgiven," that its results are past.

And this brings us to the heart of the subject--the changes that go on
in a man's inner nature, unrecognised by that part of his consciousness
which works within the limits of his brain, until they suddenly assert
themselves within those limits, coming apparently from nowhere, bursting
forth "from the blue," pouring from an unknown source. What wonder that
a man, bewildered by their downrush--knowing nothing of the mysteries of
his own nature, nothing of "the inner God" that is verily
himself--imagines that to be from without which is really from within,
and, unconscious of his own Divinity, thinks