with life" and bring us and ours to a higher stage of being. This new and greater miracle of another life beyond does not stagger us much after we have fully entered into the wonder of the spring. It is no more difficult to carry a soul safely over the bridge of death into the light and joy of a new world than it is to make a spring dandelion out of one of those strange winged seeds which a child carelessly blew away last summer. But here is the dandelion. It is "common

enough. We hardly stop to look down into its yellow face or to meditate on the wonder of its arrival over the narrow bridge of that flying seed. But if we could penetrate all its mysteries, could know it root and all and all in all, we could see through all the mysteries there are, and we should find it easy to say: "I believe in the resurrection from the dead, and in the life everlasting."

As far as we are able to discover, the soul possesses infinite capacity. A blossom may reach its perfection in a day, but no one has fathomed the possibilities of a human heart. Eternity is not too vast for a soul to grow in, if the soul wills to grow. Why, then, should such a being come and learn the meaning of duty, loyalty, sympathy, trust, and the other spiritual qualities, only to pass as a shadow? My answer is the one Browning

has given, that "life is just a stuff to try the soul's strength on."

“If a man die, shall he live again?" Our heart as well as our head seeks an answer. Knowing that such a hope is reasonable is not enough; we wish to feel that it is true. Here again God meets us, not only with an outward promise, or through the voices of nature, but with an inward conviction born of acquaintance with himself. We hear the answer when we first find him, but it grows as we learn to know him better. This is the apostle's assurance: "I know whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." "Learn of me," said the Master, "and ye shall find rest unto your souls." Yes, in this experience we even cease questioning. We know him and we trust. On his love we rest. Why should we reckon with the grave? Our Father this side shall be our Father beyond. are trusting him here; we can trust him there.

We

CHAPTER VI

THE SOUL'S CONVERSE

I

PRAYER AS AN ENERGY OF LIFE

CLEMENT of Alexandria many centuries ago thought of prayer as a mutual and reciprocal correspondence" or " inward converse with God." For this great Christian teacher prayer was not a solitary, one-sided act. It was a two-sided intercourse, a reciprocal correspondence, a real responsive relationship. This two-sided aspect has been recognized through all the centuries as an essential characteristic of genuine prayer. William James is expressing what most serious-minded men think when he says that religion would turn out to be illusory if there were no such thing as real, mutual, active intercourse between the human soul and God; if, as he declares, the intercourse be not effective; "if it be not a give and take relation; if nothing be really transacted while it lasts; if the world is in no whit different for its having taken

place." 1 In dealing for the present in this chapter with the psychological fact that prayer is dynamic, i. e., an interior heightening energy, I do not want any reader to assume that I am surrendering that other fact, equally essential to all real prayer, namely, that it is a mutual, two-sided correspond

ence.

It must, too, be taken for granted that prayer, true effectual prayer, has a range of influence far beyond the personal life of the one who prays. No person is ever isolated, unrelated and alone. He is bound in with the lives of a living group, an inseparable member of an organic fellowship. No man liveth unto himself, no man dieth unto himself and no man prays resultfully for himself alone. What we are and what we do flow out and help to determine what others shall be and shall do, and even so in the highest spiritual operations and activities of the soul we contribute some part toward the formation of the spiritual atmosphere in which others are to live and we help to release currents of spiritual energy for others than ourselves. If we belong, as I believe we do, in a real kingdom of God - an organic fellowship of interrelated lives prayer should be as effective a force in this inter-related social world of ours as

1 Varieties of Religious Experience, p. 465.

gravitation is in the world of matter.

Personal

spirits experience spiritual gravitation, soul reaches after soul, hearts draw toward each other. We are no longer in the net of blind fate, in the realm of impersonal force - we are in a lovesystem where the aspiration of one member heightens the entire group, and the need of one

even

the least draws upon the resources of the whole - even the Infinite. We are in actual Divinehuman fellowship.

The only obstacle to effectual praying, in this world of spiritual fellowship, would be individual selfishness. To want to get just for one's own self, to ask for something which brings loss and injury to others, would be to sever one's self from the source of blessings, and to lose not only the thing sought, but to lose, as well, one's very self. This principle is true anywhere, even in ordinary human friendship. It is true, too, in art and in music. The artist may not force some personal caprice into his creation. He must make himself the organ of a universal reality which is beautiful, not simply for this man or that, but for man as man. If there is, as I believe, an inner kingdom of spirit, a kingdom of love and fellowship, then it is a fact that a tiny being like one of us can impress and influence the Divine Heart, and we