21:15 If my friends are going to Europe, while I am /en
route/ for California, we are not journeying together.
We have separate time-tables to consult,
21:18 different routes to pursue. Our paths have
diverged at the very outset, and we have little oppor-
tunity to help each other. On the contrary, if my
21:21 friends pursue my course, we have the same railroad
guides, and our mutual interests are identical; or, if I
take up their line of travel, they help me on, and our
21:24 companionship may continue.
Zigzag course
Being in sympathy with matter, the worldly man is at
the beck and call of error, and will be attracted thither-
21:27 ward. He is like a traveller going westward
for a pleasure-trip. The company is alluring
and the pleasures exciting. After following the sun for
21:30 six days, he turns east on the seventh, satisfied if he can
only imagine himself drifting in the right direction. By-
and-by, ashamed of his zigzag course, he would borrow
22:1 the passport of some wiser pilgrim, thinking with the aid
of this to find and follow the right road.
Moral retrogression
22:3 Vibrating like a pendulum between sin and the hope
of forgiveness,- selfishness and sensuality causing con-
stant retrogression,- our moral progress will
22:6 be slow. Waking to Christ's demand, mortals
experience suffering. This causes them, even as drown-
ing men, to make vigorous efforts to save themselves; and
22:9 through Christ's precious love these efforts are crowned
with success.
Wait for reward
"Work out your own salvation," is the demand of
22:12 Life and Love, for to this end God worketh with you.
"Occupy till I come!" Wait for your re-
ward, and "be not weary in well doing." If
22:15 your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive
no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a
sluggard in the race.
22:18 When the smoke of battle clears away, you will dis-
cern the good you have done, and receive according to
your deserving. Love is not hasty to deliver us from
22:21 temptation, for Love means that we shall be tried and
purified.
Deliverance not vicarious
Final deliverance from error, whereby we rejoice in
22:24 immortality, boundless freedom, and sinless sense, is not
reached through paths of flowers nor by pinning
one's faith without works to another's vicarious
22:27 effort. Whosoever believeth that wrath is righteous or
that divinity is appeased by human suffering, does not
understand God.