“You never can tell what your thoughts will do
      In bringing you hate or love;
    For thoughts are things, and their airy wings
      Are swifter than carrier doves. 
    They follow the law of the universe,—­
      Each thing must create its kind;
    And they speed o’er the track to bring you back
      Whatever went out from your mind.”

Yes, science to-day, at the close of this nineteenth century, in the laboratory is discovering and scientifically demonstrating the great, immutable laws upon which the inspired and illuminated ones of all ages have based all their teachings, those who by ordering their lives according to the higher laws of their being get in a moment of time, through the direct touch of inspiration, what it takes the physical investigator a whole lifetime or a series of investigators a series of lifetimes to discover and demonstrate.

PART II.

THE APPLICATION

    Are you seeking for greatness, O brother of mine,
      As the full, fleeting seasons and years glide away? 
    If seeking directly and for self alone,
      The true and abiding you never can stay. 
    But all self forgetting, know well the law,
      It’s the hero, and not the self-seeker, who’s crowned. 
    Then go lose your life in the service of others,
      And, lo! with rare greatness and glory ’twill abound.

Is it your ambition to become great in any particular field, to attain to fame and honor, and thereby to happiness and contentment?  Is it your ambition, for example, to become a great orator, to move great masses of men, to receive their praise, their plaudits?  Then remember that there never has been, there never will, in brief, there never can be a truly great orator without a great purpose, a great cause behind him.  You may study in all the best schools in the country, the best universities and the best schools of oratory.  You may study until you exhaust all these, and then seek the best in other lands.  You may study thus until your hair is beginning to change its color, but this of itself will never make you a great orator.  You may become a demagogue, and, if self-centred, you inevitably will; for this is exactly what a demagogue is,—­a great demagogue, if you please, than which it is hard for one to call to mind a more contemptible animal, and the greater the more contemptible.  But without laying hold of and building upon this great principle you never can become a great orator.

Call to mind the greatest in the world’s history, from Demosthenes—­Men of Athens, march against Philip, your country and your fellow-men will be in early bondage unless you give them your best service now—­down to our own Phillips and Gough,—­Wendell Phillips against the traffic in human blood, John B. Gough against a slavery among his fellow-men more hard and galling and abject than the one just spoken of; for by it the body merely is in bondage, the mind and soul are free, while in this, body, soul, and mind are enslaved.  So you can easily discover the great purpose, the great cause for service, behind each and every one.