Utopian! But how much less Utopian to-day than yesterday. Can anyone doubt that when the present heads of the Church have passed away their successors will be very different men? Already we can mark the advent of a great awakening among the younger clergy. When the present generation of potentates and statesmen have gone the way of all flesh, the rulers of the nations will be cast in a very different mould.

Evolution moves in cyclic laws; such vary according to past experience. We know something of astronomical cycles, of those minature cycles represented by the recurring seasons, night and day, sleep and waking, birth and death, but as yet we know little of national cycles and their laws, of autocracy, tyranny, democracy. Such cycles are clearly required to quicken man's education in self-government, the final earthly goal. However titanic be the forces in the world drama, the latch of Heaven is unloosed by such experiences, for humanity must at times be brought to bay by such supreme misery that it turns and fights for peace, stability and order. Stern lessons learned by men on their self-chosen pathway drive them back on those strongholds which cannot be shaken, to those schemes of value which are immutable, and which are writ in the scriptures of the world.

The Masters of Wisdom think universally, and in centuries, not in months or days. They look to the spiritual evolution of the world as a whole, and their guidance of humanity is ever upward. Only they understand the mighty upward arc of the cyclic laws, and their bearing on mankind.

It is those Masters of Wisdom who, as humble servants of the Lord of Life, work with deliberate intent, alike through the dark and golden ages, preparing the soil of earth for the reaping and sowing through thousands of years to come.

It is not easy to picture to ourselves a being who has left behind him all the frailties of human nature. We can understand the position of those who stand below us, at a lower stage of development, but it is not so easy to comprehend the life of a saint. The higher can comprehend the lower, but the lower cannot comprehend the higher. How difficult it then is to realise the altitudes reached by those who have attained adeptship, and become world teachers, world rulers, world saviours. "Remember, O disciple, that great though the gulf may be between the good men and the sinner, it is greater between the good men and the one who is on the threshold of divinity."

"The threshold of divinity." Yes, this, and nothing short of this is the quest of humanity. St. Paul made this clear when he used the term "Christ" as the mystic expression for souldevelopment in man. My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."

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The man of seventy is very different from what he was at seven. Half a decade changes an individual out of all recollection. What will endless aeons do for him? The tree bears no similarity to the acorn from whence it sprang. If we are indeed immortal we shall develop into beings of an inconceivably superior order. Trees to our present

acorn.

John of Ruysbroeck says, "He goeth towards God by inward love and in eternal work, and he goeth in God by his fruitive inclination, in eternal rest. And he dwelleth in God, and yet he goes out towards created things in a spirit of love towards all things, in the virtues and in works of righteousness. And this is the most exalted summit of the inner life."

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CHAPTER XIV

PHANTOMS OF THE DAWN

"Do you know," asked Lammenais, "why man is the most suffering of creatures? It is because he stands with one foot in the Finite and the other in the Infinite, and is torn asunder, not by four horses but by two worlds."

No thoughtful person will refuse to-day to ackknowledge that our little world is shuddering on the brink of some stupendous movement.

Is it that all is exhausted, that we have reached the end of all things, or is it the dawn of that glorious vision which has always haunted man with gleams of fitful splendour? Are we about to plunge downwards, into rapid extinction in the charnel house of dead worlds, or are we on the verge of an upward leap into untrodden ground, which will widen out on the way for undreamed progress? Surely the latter!

Those Phantoms of the Dawn which continuously flit across our limited horizon are but shadowy gleams of ultimate relations. Even though this speck of star dust we call our earth be still without form and void, the fiat has gone forth:

"Let there be light."

Though we have not yet reached the morning and evening of the second day, those Phantoms of the Dawn tell us that far, far beyond our ken the

eternal laws hold sway. They pass from our sight, but surely not into oblivion; for they have whispered in our ears the Divine message. The meaning of life is only intelligible as the avenue to another life, and the yearning to know something of that future life is deep and natural.

"We are being torn asunder, not by four horses, but by two worlds."

What are those Phantoms of the Dawn but new forms becoming manifest, and closely following the evolution of spiritual forces? They are forces which have entered this world in order to compel us to accept one of two courses. We are being driven to step up on to a higher plane of civilisation, or be overwhelmed, as nation after nation, civilisation after civilisation has been overwhelmed before.

There is no standing still. The East groweth white with the dawn when the Immaculate conception shall take place in the hearts of men. Now is the appointed hour for mankind to drive out the animal passions from the manger, and make way for the Christ child to enter in.

Our choice lies before us. Upon whom does it depend?

Upon the number and quality of those who have learned certain lessons. Upon those who have outgrown the parochial view point, and have sighted a gleam of cosmic consciousness.

We have got free will, but within limits. We are travelling towards a determined destination, and we are quite free to move about in the mighty chariot of God which is conveying us hence.

True, we are impotent to change the route or