that runs through all the universe,—­that for every service there must be in some form or another an adequate service in return, that the law of compensation in one form or another is absolute, and, in fact, the greatest forms of service we can render any one are, generally speaking, along the lines of teaching him the great laws of his own being, the great laws of his true possibilities and powers and so the great laws of self-help.

And, again, it is possible for one whose heart goes out in love and service for all, and who, by virtue of lacking that long range of vision or by virtue of not having a grasp of things in their entirety or wholeness, may have his time, his energies so dissipated in what seems to be the highest service that he is continually kept from his own highest unfoldment, powers, and possessions, the very things that in their completeness would make him a thousand-fold more effective and powerful in his own life, and hence in the life of real service and influence.  And, in a case of this kind, many times the mark of the most absolute unselfishness is a strong and marked selfishness, which will prove however to be a selfishness only in the seeming.

The self should never be lost sight of.  It is the one thing of supreme importance, the greatest factor even in the life of the greatest service.  Being always and necessarily precedes doing:  having always and necessarily precedes giving.  But this law also holds:  that when there is the being, it is all the more increased by the doing; when there is the having, it is all the more increased by the giving. Keeping to one’s self dwarfs and stultifies.  Hoarding brings loss:  using brings even greater gain.  In brief, the more we are, the more we can do; the more we have, the more we can give.

The most truly successful, the most powerful and valuable life, then, is the life that is first founded upon this great, immutable law of love and service, and that then becomes supremely self-centred,—­supremely self-centred that it may become all the more supremely unself-centred; in other words, the life that looks v/ell to self, that there may be the ever greater self, in order that there may be the ever greater service.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote A:  Headquarters at Boston, Mass.]

[Footnote B:  Toward Democracy.]

PART IV.

THE AWAKENING

    If you’d live a religion that’s noble,
      That’s God-like and true,
    A religion the grandest that men
      Or that angels can,
    Then live, live the truth
      Of the brother who taught you,
    It’s love to God, service and love
      To the fellow-man.