IV
“What place have the unfit on your plane?” we asked Mary K., at the conclusion of the sixth Lesson.
“No place. They are errors of development, and have a long struggle ahead before they can reach the degree of development that should have been theirs in your life. They are fusions of weak purposes, and should not be permitted to hold back the strong and the fit. Development will come to them slowly, at best, but more quickly here than there.”
“In the present stage of our development, is there a sufficient incentive to progress, without hope of material gain or personal improvement?”
“Any material gain that is for the constructive purpose is a force for light and progress in the larger sense. Material gain is deterrent only when purpose is its price. Personal ambition is an incentive always. When it is for personal gain, at any price, it is deterrent. When it is ambition to serve a great purpose worthily, it becomes a constructive force, to which material gain adds only more constructive force.”
“Have you all history spread out before you? Or are you taught after you get there?”
“We have a grasp of results, not easily understood in your life. It is like seeing a landscape from a high and distant hill. The salient features are easily distinguished.”
“Are these messages for all people? Or only for civilized people? Do they come from Christians on your plane?”
“This is a message to the civilized world.... Jew or Gentile, Christian or agnostic, all men are brothers in the larger sense. Uncivilized little brothers will grow, or come to this freer plane to join their larger purposes.”
“Then from whom do these Lessons come?”