Yes, we are at life from the wrong side.  We have been giving all time and attention to the mere physical, the material, the external, the mere outward means of expression and the things that pertain thereto, thus missing the real life; and this we have called living, and seem, indeed, to be satisfied with the results.  No wonder the cry has gone out again and again from many a human soul, Is life worth the living?  But from one who has once commenced to live, this cry never has, nor can it ever come; for, when the kingdom is once found, life then ceases to be a plodding, and becomes an exultation, an ecstasy, a joy.  Yes, you will find that all the evil, all the error, all the disease, all the suffering, all the fears, all the forebodings of life, are on the side of the physical, the material, the transient; while all the peace, all the joy, all the happiness, all the growth, all the life, all the rich, exulting, abounding life, is on the side of the spiritual, the ever-increasing, the eternal,—­that that never changes, that has no end.  Instead of crying out against the destiny of fate, let us cry out against the destiny of self, or rather against the destiny of the mistaken self; for everything that comes to us comes through causes which we ourselves or those before us have set into operation.  Nothing comes by chance, for in all the wide universe there is absolutely no such thing as chance.  We bring whatever comes.  Are we not satisfied with the effects, the results?  The thing then to do, is to change the causes; for we have everything in our own hands the moment we awake to a recognition of the true self.

We make our own heaven or our own hell, and the only heaven or hell that will ever be ours is that of our own making.  The order of the universe is one thing:  we take our lives out of harmony with and so pervert the laws under which we live, and make it another.  The order is the all good.  We pervert the laws, and what we call evil is the result,—­simply the result of the violation of law; and we then wonder that a just and loving God could permit such and such things.  We wonder at what we term the “strange, inscrutable dispensations of Providence,” when all is of our own making.  We can be our own best friends or we can be our own worst enemies; and the only real enemy one can ever have is the self, the very self.

It is a well-known fact in the scientific world that the great work in the process of evolution is the gradual advancing from the lower to the higher, from the coarser to the finer, or, in other words, from the coarser material to the finer spiritual; and this higher spiritualization of life is the great work before us all.  All pass ultimately over the same road in general, some more rapidly, some more slowly.  The ultimate destiny of all is the higher life, the finding of the higher self; and to this we are either led or we are pushed,—­led, by recognizing and coming into harmony with the higher laws of our