In this ethereal world,—which interpenetrates our atmosphere and in which the higher part of man's being continually dwells,—there are stored the finer forces which humanity is now discovering and learning to use. In this realm spirit speaks to spirit, telepathically. The power to thus communicate is an attribute of the spirit, and, whether in or out of the body, does not seem to affect the power. In this ethereal realm are the currents that make possible wireless telegraphy. The grouping and combination of these finer and more intense potencies result in great inventions. This realm is, in short, the miracle world; but a miracle is not something outside the laws of nature. Indeed, as Phillips Brooks truly said, "A miracle is an essential part of the plan of God." It is simply an occurrence under the higher laws, and on a higher plane. The great truths of spiritual life are pouring themselves out to this age with larger revelations of God. They teach the deepening necessity for constant love, for larger service, for a more complete consecration to the Divine life that may contribute more and more of usefulness to the human life. To achieve that "closer walk with God" that alone gives power, one must constantly seek larger fields of effort and endeavor, and bring himself face to face with great problems.
To live the higher life, the life of the spirit, is not to seek cloistered seclusion, but to enter into all the great opportunities, the difficulties, the privileges, or the penalties, that attend every real endeavor. In this, alone, does one find the life more abundant. In this, alone, lies the secret of making noble the life that now is and glorifying that which is to come.
The profound significance, and the illumination brought to the problem of living by simply giving one's self entirely, with belief, and love, and joy, to the will of God, is an experience that transcends human language. Too often has the acceptance of God's will been held to be a spirit of the abandonment of despair, or of the mere inertia that ceases from striving and from aspiration. On the contrary, it is the most intense form of action. It embodies the loftiest aspiration. It compels the highest degree of energy. It calls into play every intellectual faculty; it arouses and inspires. It is the regeneration of the individual. He does not know what life is; he does not even begin to live, at all, in any sense worth the name, until he lives and moves and has his being in the will of God. It is, indeed, as Professor Carl Hilty has said, a sense of initiative and power. "What is the happy life?" questions Professor Hilty. "It is a life of conscious harmony with the Divine order of the world, a sense, that is to say, of God's companionship.... The better world we enter is, indeed, entered by faith and not by sight; but this faith grows more confident and more supporting, until it is like an inward faculty of life itself. To substitute for this a world of the outward senses is to find no meaning in life which can convey confidence. Faith in God," continues Professor Hilty, "is a form of experience, not a form of proof.... Here then, is the first step toward the discovery of the meaning of life. It is an act of will, a moral venture, a listening to experience. No man can omit this initial step, and no man can teach another the lesson which lies in his own experience. The prophets of the Old Testament found an accurate expression for this act of will when they described it as a 'turning,' and they went on to assure their people of the perfect inward peace and the sense of confidence which followed this act. 'Look unto me and be ye saved,' says Isaiah; 'Incline your ear and come unto me; hear, and your soul shall live.' From that time to this, thousands of those who have thus changed the direction of their wills have entered into the same sense of peace; while no man who has thus given his will to God has ever felt himself permanently bewildered or forsaken.
"Here, also, in this free act of the will is attained that sense of liberty which is described as righteousness. It is a sense of initiative and power, as though one were not wholly the subject of arbitrary grace, but had a certain positive companionship with God.... This step once taken both the world in which one lives and one's own personal life get a clear and intelligible meaning."
Mrs. Browning has a line in "Aurora Leigh" that runs,—
"And having tried all other ways, to just try God's."
Ignorance and blindness may "try all other ways," and they prove unavailing. There is no success, there is no happiness, there is no progress, until there is the clear inner recognition and the profound and loving and joyful acceptance of the Divine will; of coming into such perfect acceptance of it as to make one's own will identified with its harmony.
Thus, when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He simply expressed a fact that cannot be negatived nor ignored. It is an actual, a positive law, as impossible to evade as the law of gravitation. One may refuse "the way, the truth, and the life," and wander in bewilderment and inaction; but he will never be able to achieve worthy work, or personal peace, until he accepts and lives by this law. As Professor Hilty so well says, this, alone, gives life an intelligent meaning. "As one follows the way, he gains, first of all, courage, so that he dares to go on in his search. He goes still further, and the way opens into the assurance that life, with all its mystery, is not lived in vain. He pushes on, and the way issues into health, not only of the soul, but even of the body; for bodily health is more dependent on spiritual condition than spiritual condition is on bodily health; and modern medicine can never restore and assure health to the body if it limit its problem to physical relief alone. Nor is even this the end of the 'way' of Christ. Here alone is positive social redemption.... Finally, the way is sure to lead every life which follows it, and is willing to pay the price for the possession of truth, into the region of spiritual peace."
Thus, in the end, "out of the midst of evil, issues at last the mastery of the good." Thus moral progress itself is the witness of God.
Living by this faith, life becomes strong, serene, and radiant. "The Magi have but to follow their Star in peace.... The Divine action marvellously adjusts all things. The order of God sends each moment the appropriate instrument for its work; and the soul, enlightened by faith, finds all things good, desiring neither more nor less than she possesses."