“Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” said the Teacher, “and all these things”—material things, food and clothes that he had been speaking of—“shall be added unto you.” Now God is love, and the kingdom of God is universal love, the love that knows no separateness; therefore let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Believe in God. The man who seeks first the wide Universal Peace does not worry nor fret. He has, by that very seeking, put himself in tune with the Infinite, and he finds that the sounds which have seemed to him like harsh discords are, to his listening ear, blended into harmony. He has heard the “sweetest carol ever sung” and nothing can drown its melody. With that song in his ears he can “run and never be wearied, he can walk and not faint.” He loses his feverish impatience, for “he that believeth shall not make haste”; he sees himself in every man and every man in himself; he has found rest for his soul.
When this peace reigns within, the seeming ills of life do not disturb us. We are not conscious of ungratified desires, and in this lies the truth of the promise—“all things shall be added unto you.” For, if man is not conscious of any ungratified want or desire, then, though he be poor in this world’s goods and entirely unknown, he is richer by far than the multi-millionaire who is compelled to heap silver upon gold, or the pushing politician whose thirst for fame can never be slaked. He is in harmony with the Universe, he has allied himself with moral gravitation, and, going with its force, he is upheld and supported, so that he has rest now and is neither worried nor afraid.
CHAPTER LI
SOCIAL UNREST
Peace, peace, thou over-anxious, foolish heart;
Rest, ever-seeking soul; calm, mad desires;
Quiet, wild dreams—this is the time of sleep,
Hold her more close than life itself. Forget
All the excitements of the day, forget