cripture would
perish when a few millennia had passed away. Whereas by this method of
successive meanings it is given a perennial value, and evolved men may
find in it hidden treasures, until the day when, possessing the whole,
they no longer need the part.

The world-Bibles, then, are fragments--fragments of Revelation, and
therefore are rightly described as Revelation.

The next deeper sense of the word describes the mass of teaching held by
the great Brotherhood of spiritual Teachers in trust for men; this
teaching is embodied in books, written in symbols, and in these is
contained an account of kosmic laws, of the principles on which the
kosmos is founded, of the methods by which it is evolved, of all the
beings that compose it, of its past, its present, its future; this is
The Revelation. This is the priceless treasure which the Guardians of
humanity hold in charge, and from which they select, from time to time,
fragments to form the Bibles of the world.

Thirdly, the Revelation, highest, fullest, best, is the Self-unveiling
of Deity in the kosmos, the revealing of attribute after attribute,
power after power, beauty after beauty, in all the various forms which
in their totality compose the universe. He shows His splendour in the
sun, His infinity in the star-flecked fields of space, His strength in
mountains, His purity in snow-clad peaks and translucent air, His energy
in rolling ocean-billows, His beauty in tumbling mountain-torrent, in
smooth, clear lake, in cool, deep forest and in sunlit plain, His
fearlessness in the hero, His patience in the saint, His tenderness in
mother-love, His protecting care in father and in king, His wisdom in
the philosopher, His knowledge in the scientist, His healing power in
the physician, His justice in the judge, His wealth in the merchant, His
teaching power in the priest, His industry in the artisan. He whispers
to us in the breeze, He smiles on us in the sunshine, He chides us in
disease, He stimulates us, now by success and now by failure. Everywhere
and in everything He gives us glimpses of Himself to lure us on to love
Him, and He hides Himself that we may learn to stand alone. To know Him
everywhere is the true Wisdom; to love Him everywhere is the true
Desire; to serve Him everywhere is the true Action. This Self-revealing
of God is the highest Revelation; all others are subsidiary and partial.

The inspired man is the man to whom some of this Revelation has come by