med to be in such perfect tune with the
deep ease and satisfaction of his own soul, that every breath he took
was more or less of a thanksgiving to God for having been spared to
enjoy the beauty of such halcyon hours. By the willing away of all his
millions to one whom he knew to be of a pure, noble, and incorruptible
nature, a great load had been lifted from his mind,--he had done with
world's work for ever; and by some inexplicable yet divine compensation
it seemed as though the true meaning of the life to come had been
suddenly disclosed to him, and that he was allowed to realise for the
first time not only the possibility, but the certainty, that Death is
not an End, but a new Beginning. And he felt himself to be a free
man,--free of all earthly confusion and worry--free to recommence
another cycle of nobler work in a higher and wider sphere of action, And
he argued with himself thus:--

"A man is born into this world without his own knowledge or consent. Yet
he finds himself--also without his own knowledge or consent--surrounded
by natural beauty and perfect order--he finds nothing in the planet
which can be accounted valueless--he learns that even a grain of dust
has its appointed use, and that not a sparrow shall fall to the ground
without 'Our Father.' Everything is ready to his hand to minister to his
reasonable wants--and it is only when he misinterprets the mystic
meaning of life, and puts God aside as an 'unknown quantity,' that
things go wrong. His mission is that of progress and advancement--but
not progress and advancement in base material needs and pleasures,--the
progress and advancement required of him is primarily spiritual. For the
spiritual, or Mind, is the only Real. Matter is merely the husk in which
the seed of Spirit is enclosed--and Man's mistake is always that he
attaches himself to the perishable husk instead of the ever germinating
seed. He advances, but advances wrongly, and therefore has to go back
upon his steps. He progresses in what he calls civilisation, which so
long as it is purely self-aggrandisement, is but a common circle,
bringing him back in due course to primitive savagery. Now I, for
example, started in life to make money--I made it, and it brought me
power, which I thought progress; but now, at the end of my tether, I see
plainly that I have done no good in my career save such good as will
come from my having placed all my foolish gainings under the control of
a nature simple