lds to a mechanical theory of
life, which works without the necessity of antecedent Mind, the latter
appearing as a "product" at a certain stage. The Eastern holds _that
Mind is back of, under, and antecedent to all the work of
Evolution_--the _cause_, not the effect or product. The Western claims
that Mind was produced by the struggle of Matter to produce higher
forms of itself. _The Eastern claims that the whole process of
Evolution is caused by Mind striving, struggling and pressing forward
toward expressing itself more fully--to liberate itself from the
confining and retarding Matter--the struggle resulting in an Unfoldment
which causes sheath after sheath of the confining material bonds to be
thrown off and discarded, in the effort to release the confined Spirit
which is behind even the Mind. The Yogi Teachings are that the
Evolutionary Urge is the pressure of the confined Spirit striving to
free itself from the fetters and bonds which sorely oppress it_.

The struggle and pain of Evolution is the parturition-pangs of the
Spiritual deliverance from the womb of Matter. Like all birth it is
attended by pain and suffering, but the end justifies it all. And as
the human mother forgets her past suffering in the joy of witnessing
the face, and form, and life, of her loved child, so will the soul
forget the pain of the Spiritual birth by reason of the beauty and
nobility of that which will be born to and from it.

Let us study well the story of Physical Evolution, but let us not lose
ourselves in it, for it is but the preliminary to the story of the
Unfoldment of the Soul.

Let us not despise the tale of the Body of Man--for it is the story of
the Temple of the Spirit which has been built up from the most humble
beginnings, until it has reached the present high stage. And yet even
this is but the beginning, for the work will go on, and on, and on, in
the spirit of those beautiful lines of Holmes:

"Build thee more stately mansions, oh, my soul!
As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at last _art free_,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea."

THE NINTH LESSON

METEMPSYCHOSIS.

As we have said in our last lesson, while the Yogi Teachings throw an
important light upon the Western theory of Evolution, still there is a
vital difference between th