it is stimulating and elevating, it makes life more complete, more harmonious and more cheerful. If you have a true friend, you have one who is ready to make sacrifices for you, who would do for you what he would do for himself, despite the effort and time and drudgery involved; you have one before whom you may speak the truth, the whole truth, without restraint and without hesitation, and without fear of losing your prestige and your favor, without fear of rebuke or humiliation; you have one whose mere presence lifts you to a higher, more joyous realm. And if you are a true friend, you will be to him the same beneficent influence that he is to you. Although the love of friendship differs in its kind from the love one feels for his family, yet it has the same effect of broadening and deepening the heart, of augmenting and multiplying human sympathies. The more friends one gains, the greater does he grow inwardly; and the more one loves, the more he is loved. 8. The love of family and the love of friends are vital and fundamental, but even they, are, to a certain extent, circumscribed and limited in their scope. The duty of the human heart is to expand itself to much larger dimensions, and to embrace within the circumference of its affection numerous more objects of love. The highest and noblest manner in which love may find expression is one in which it flows indiscriminately-that is, when one loves mankind. There are not many in a generation who attain this height of humanity, yet this is the only road to perfect harmony and happiness. Man was born to love mankind, for love wells from the Divine Mind, and the Divine Mind knows no discrimination, and has nо favorites. What is true of the Divine Mind is also true of the attributes He expresses through man. Man's original nature, therefore, is to love everyone; it is only in the complexities of adjustment that human sympathies have shrunk and man's naturally noble feelings have suffered curtailment. The human mind having thus, to a certain degree, obstructed the outlet of love, has thereby developed its negative-hatred. 9. Love is the attractive force, hatred is the repelling force; love is the power that makes for harmony, while hatred makes only for separation and division. Love, therefore, brings happiness; hatred, misery. Hatred ruins not the object of hatred, but the one who hates. Love heals and soothes, hatred brings constant agony. Love generates new strength and new health with the birth of every kind and tender feeling; every sympathetic current that flows out from the heart brings in return a stream of happiness and vitality. Hatred, on the other hand, gnaws at the very roots of the heart, it undermines health, it saps vitality, it causes sickness, and keeps the individual in a state of bitterness and irritability. When one hates, everything becomes transmuted into the colors of hate, just as when one loves, everything that exists is translated into terms of love. 10. Love, particularly love of mankind, is an all-embracing and transcendent expression of man's divinity. Love is greater than tolerance, for love breeds tolerance; love is greater than benevolence, for benevolence is one of the many channels through which love pours itself forth; love is more than tenderness, for tenderness is but the language of love; love is more than forgiveness, for he who loves forgives. Love gives rise to all these noble qualities, inherent in man's highest self, and yet is more even than the aggregate of all of these. Love gives thought and time and effort to the welfare of others without the expectation of compensation in return. Love seeks to help, but not to benefit; to serve, but not to dominate. Love seeks equality; it seeks to demolish the barriers among races, to destroy the partitions among classes. Love knows no creed, no color, no caste or station or position. It embraces all mankind with the same sympathy and affection. II. It is only through love that the salvation of mankind will be attained. It is only when men will learn to give full expression to the divine power of love within them, that bloodshed will cease and war will be no more. All arbitrary devices for preventing war must be ineffectual, for the things that divide men are too strong to be obliterated by rules and restrictions imposed upon men from without. Any project for the maintenance of permanent and universal peace, though they be the result of good judgment and lofty intention, must fail of effect if they attempt to impose peace from without. Peace must emanate from within; it must find its birth in the heart of the race, it must grow in the consciousness of a people, it must be the fruit of love. Universal peace will come about through universal love. If we love men, we shall have no cause to fear them; if we love them, we shall not envy their wealth nor covet their glory nor become suspicious of their power; we shall realize that each nation, no matter what its measure of civilization, or strength, is a channel through which Divine Love expresses itself. To destroy another race, to batter another nation, is tantamount to the ruin, in a certain degree, of one's self; for it means the stoppage of a channel through which our love may be expressed. The more we love, the more does our love well; the more we give of our feelings to others, the more our feelings become enriched; the more human beings we embrace within the circle of our affections, the greater, the happier we grow. 12. Traditional Judaism has counted six hundred and thirteen commandments which it is incumbent upon a member of the house of Israel to observe. All these, however, may be summed up in the two injunctions: 1. Love the Lord, thy God. 2. Love thy neighbor. And these two may again be reduced to one: "Love the Lord, thy God." The Divine Mind fills the universe, He saturates all reality; He is the soul, the essence of all that exists. Love, then, everything, and you are loving God. Love thy neighbor, and you love God; love all beings, and you love God. When man attains the height of love for every one, he attains the height of perfection, and becomes godlike. CHAPTER XI FAITH 1. The essence of religion is faith. Faith is the wholehearted realization of the Divine Presence accompanied by the conviction of His profound goodness. The man of faith trusts himself to the care of the Divine Mind; he knows that he is not alone in this world, but that the Universal Creative Power that called him into existence, is constantly watching over him and ever shielding him. The man of faith is never overcome by worry or fear, for he relies upon the Divine Mind in moments of difficulty and exigency; and he finds his trust well rewarded. In the hour of need, he thinks in his heart with the Psalmist: "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." When drawn into a hostile atmosphere, he affirms: "The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" He dreads no event, he fears no man: "In God do I trust, I will not be afraid; what can man do unto me?" He turns to the Divine Mind in every hour and circumstance of his life, and the Divine Mind never fails him. 2. It is from the Psalmist that we receive our inspiration in faith. "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord," he says, and proves it in his every experience. The Psalmist, as we learn from his outpourings, is steeped in suffering. Enemies from without and from within en |