Was neither cloak nor crumb my own.”
The Biblical verse:—“It is more blessed to give than to receive,” is a great occult teaching. As we strengthen the muscles by exercise, so we enlarge the intelligence and the heart by constantly dispensing our means, whether these be golden thoughts, or time, or affections, all along the line of Brotherhood. Not because of a sentiment, but because Life is made up of vibrations which our scientists, cautious as they are, admit may affect the farthest stars.
“Like warp and woof, all destinies
Are woven fast,
Linked in sympathy, like the keys
Of an organ vast.
Pluck but one thread, and the web ye mar;
Break but one of a thousand keys, and the paining jar
Through all will run.”
This from Whittier reminds us of the lines on Karma in Light on the Path. “Remember that the threads are living,—are like electric wires, more, are like quivering nerves. How far, then, must the stain, the drag awry, be communicated.” Yes, the communion of saints is a living fact. We all commune, not alone with one another; with those above us and with those below, but essentially with our time. Not one of us can escape its influence: we oppose its conclusions, deny its powers, and meanwhile it speaks through us, without our knowledge, the passwords we do not yet understand. This “dark age” is still the birth-place of spiritual development, of an awakening belief in the supernatural, or that which overshadows nature. We have had no more safe, practical sober poet than Whittier, who sweetly sings the life of every day, when he is not stirred by the fret of the times, to Freedoms larger issues. Yet hear him describing the power of a “wizard:”