present state of existence, are simply an organised Form, composed of these atoms, and your will-power, which is part of the Divine creative influence, is set within you to govern them.  If you govern them properly, the building-up and revivifying atoms within you obey your command, and with increasing strength gradually control and subdue their disintegrating opponents,—­opponents which after all are only their servants, ready to disencumber them from all that is worthless and useless at the first sign of disablement.  There is nothing more simple than this law, which has only to be followed in order to preserve both life and youth.  It 5s all contained in an effort of the will, to which everything in Nature responds, just as a well-steered ship obeys the compass.  Remember this well!—­I say, everything in nature!  This crystal globe holds momentarily imprisoned atoms which cannot just now be directed because they are shut in, away from all Will to govern them—­but if I left them as they are for a few more hours their force would shatter the crystal, and they would escape to resume their appointed way.  They are only shown to you as an object lesson, to prove that such things are—­they are facts, not dreams.  You, like this crystal globe, are full of imprisoned atoms—­atoms of Spirit and Matter which work together to make you what you are—­but you have also the governing Will which is meant to control them and move them either to support, sustain and revivify you, or else to weaken, break down and finally disperse and disintegrate you, preparatory to your assumption of another form and phase of existence.  Now, do you begin to understand?”

“I think I do,”—­I answered—­“But is it possible always to make this effort of the Will?”

“There is no moment in which you do not, consciously or subconsciously, ‘will’ something”—­he answered—­“And the amount of power you use up in ‘willing’ perfectly trifling and ephemeral things, could almost lift a planet!  But let us take simple actions—­ such as raising a hand.  You think this movement instinctive or mechanical—­but it is only because you will to raise it that you can do it.  If you willed not to raise it, it could not raise itself of itself.  This tremendous force,—­this divine gift of will-power, is hardly exercised at all by the majority of men and women—­hence their manner of drifting here and there—­their pliable yielding to this or that opinion—­the easy sway obtained over the million by a few leaders and reformers—­the infectious follies which possess whole communities at a time—­the caprices of fashion—­the moods of society—­all these are due to scattered will-power, which if concentrated would indeed ‘replenish the earth and subdue it.’  But we cannot teach the world, and therefore we must be content to teach and train a few individuals only.  And when you ask if it is possible always to make the necessary effort of will,