through successive phases of life, each one under the influence of his or her own controlling Soul, to higher and ever higher perception and attainment.  The great majority of the world’s inhabitants live with less consciousness of this Spirit than flies or worms—­they build up religions in which they prate of God and immortality as children prattle, without the smallest effort to understand either,—­and at the Change which they call death, they pass out of this life without having taken the trouble to discover, acknowledge or use the greatest gift God has bestowed upon them.  But we,—­we who are here to realise the existence of the all-powerful Force which gives us complete mastery over the things of space and time and matter—­we, who know that over that individual moving universe of atoms called Man, It can hold absolute control,—­we can prove for ourselves that the whole earth is subject to the dominance of the immortal Soul,—­ ay!—­and the very elements of air, fire and water!—­for these are but the ministers and servants to Its sovereign authority!”

He paused again—­and after a minute or two of silence, went on—­

“This beautiful earth, this over-arching sky, the exquisite things of Nature’s form and loveliness, are all given to Man, not only for his material needs, but for his spiritual growth and evolvement.  From the light of the sun he may draw fresh warmth and colour for his blood—­from the air new supplies of life—­from the very trees and herbs and flowers he may renew his strength,—­and there is nothing created that is not intended to add in some measure to his pleasure and well-being.  For if the foundation of the Universe be Love, as it is, then Love desires to see its creatures happy.  Misery has no place in the Divine scheme of things—­it is the result of Man’s own opposition to Natural Law.  In Natural Law, all things work calmly, slowly and steadfastly together for good—­Nature silently obeys God’s ordinance.  Man, on the contrary, questions, argues, denies, rebels,—­with the result that he scatters his force and fails in his highest effort.  It is in his own power to renew his own youth—­his own vitality,—­yet we see him sink of his own accord into feebleness and decrepitude, giving himself up, as it were, to be devoured by the disintegrating influences which he could easily repel.  For, as the directing Spirit of God governs the infinitude of atoms and star-dust which go to make up universes, so the mind of a Man should govern the atoms and star-dust of which he himself is composed—­guiding their actions and renewing them at pleasure,—­ forming them into suns and systems of thought and creative power, and wasting no particle of his eternal life forces.  He can be what he elects to be,—­a god,—­or merely one of a mass of units in embryo, drifting away from one phase of existence to another in unintelligent indifference, and so compelling himself to pass centuries of aimless movement before entering upon any marked or decisive path of individual