Again I punched my friend, but this time with a long stick, and when he turned sharply about, I said:
"I did not jab you, it was the stick. But the stick," I explained, "had become the instrument of my will; therefore my will got expressed at a greater distance from my body. The stick was really the lengthening of my finger."
I then told them of the man in Virginia who was talking by wireless telephone. It is reported that when he spoke, one man in Paris, and another in Honolulu, replied at the same time, as if he were in both places:
"Hello, Jake, is that you?" Had there been a million receivers in the encircling space with people listening, it would have seemed to every one of them that he was present. Though expressed in a million remote places at one time, he would not have been divided into a million persons; neither would he have been spread out to reach all the places occupied by his listeners. His instruments would have been spread out, but not his soul. His soul would still have remained sharply self-conscious. That concentrated, self-conscious will is what we mean by the soul. The soul is always a definite, personal will, to itself and to the one or the many with whom it is communicating, however short or extended its instruments.
That the young people grasped this conception of spirit, was made evident in a subsequent review.
So to the question, "Where is God?" we must answer that, as naked spirit, He is not anywhere, but that His instruments may express Him everywhere. Where His instruments end, or whether nature ends at all, no scientist knows. The Divine Spirit is no larger than the human spirit, for neither of them has any largeness at all. God is simply more conscious, more loving, and more intelligent than we; and His instruments are infinitely more vast than ours. Developing a soul is not making it larger, but making it more loving, intelligent, and purposeful. However, the development of the soul does require the enlargement of its instruments. An undeveloped person may be very conscious of his body and its wants and scarcely at all aware of his soul and its needs. To be infinitely self-knowing, like God, is the most concentrated and intensified reality conceivable. So the minister's wife of whom we have spoken, was mistaken in thinking God a rarified substance like ether, spread out to fill all nature. With her materialistic conception of God, she thought Him so spacially big that she could neither know Him nor love Him, whereas He is no more spread out than the mathematical point that has no dimensions. To give complete satisfaction to our friend, it will be necessary to show her the various ways of approaching this Loving Will, the Father of her own invisible self; but for this we are not yet ready.
Dr. Lyman Abbott tells of sitting at the table one day with his little grandson when the latter said, "'Grandfather, how can God be in Cornwall and in Newburgh at the same time?' I touched him on the forehead and said, 'Are you there?' 'Yes.' I touched him on the shoulder, 'Are you there?' 'Yes.' I touched him on the knee, 'Are you there?' 'Yes.' 'That is the way,' I replied, 'God can be in Cornwall and in Newburgh at the same time.' He considered a moment, and shyly smiled his assent."
I am well aware that we have not said enough about God to make Him satisfyingly near and personal to our love; but it is a start, and we still have the pleasure of traveling together over a beautiful road until we shall stand face to face with Him whom our souls seek. We should reach this desired goal in the fourth chapter. But if we become impatient, we shall spoil the journey, for we are traveling as fast as we can go without having a wreck.
Here, a little incident from actual experience may be helpful. My eldest son, when a little child, would not say a prayer. This, beyond doubt, was abnormal, because most little children are willing to pray. As my own religious life had given me so much trouble, I concluded that he had inherited my frailties, and not his mother's virtues. Being perplexed by his attitude I would sometimes take him out to see the stars, when I would speak of the greatness and goodness of God. Then, once in awhile, though not often, I could get him to pray. We did not wish him to be unduly serious, certainly not solemn, but it did puzzle us to know why he would not say a prayer. So one day when he came into my study I thought, "Now is my chance." Taking him up, I set him on the desk before me, which permitted him to look out of the window upon the apple trees that were a bower of beauty in their spring blossoms.
"Isn't this a beautiful world?" I said.