satisfy its demands of nourishment. So far as we can trace this we see the thought-out mind under its influence, enslaving other beings to satisfy its demands. This slavish nature never changes until modified by a ray of contradicting light which seeps through its dissolving false sense of false substance.

Under this influence the religious mind becomes purely selfish. It is generous and kind to anything it can use, and ungenerous and unkind to anything it cannot use. Its deeds of kindness it cites in its defense and its deeds of unkindness its enemies cite in denouncing it. Thus we account for its insufficiency to its votaries and the public. So when concreted into an organization this same selfishness increases in the same ratio with its growth and power. The same influence that makes this attendant evil possible prevents the evil from being seen even when under its influence decadence has set in.

The military mind reversing the condition, admitting its imperfection but contending for its necessity through the failure of good, contends the remedy lies in a strong organization controlling the evil and thereby permitting the good to operate. However the felt-out mind using this power perverts it to the slavery of its exaggerated desires.

Our educational institutions have yielded to the same influence. While it has not been admitted and seldom discerned, yet the purpose of education when analyzed in the light of higher usefulness has consisted of acquiring knowledge of things useful to the senses in the work of enslaving those less fortunate. The intelligence thus acquired has been used to profit by the ignorance (of this same kind of intelligence) of those unable to com

pete with it. This can be veneered over by high-sounding words and hypnotizing phrases, but under the alchemy of universal usefulness it becomes evident and true. Instead of sending men out into the world to disperse useful knowledge (preach the Gospel as Jesus commanded) and apply intelligence to conversation and construction for the general good, and giving the unfortunate and unlearned the benefit of this knowledge, it has done just the opposite.

To uncover an evil is to ultimately overcome it. This is not a pleasant task and the effect it has on us when we uncover it proves its negative nature. It will be therefore a relief from the contemplation of evil to take up the consideration of the inspired thought, out of which grow positive and hopeful species.

CHAPTER XVIII

INGLORIOUS PROPHETS

"Moral enthusiasm is not, uninstructed and of itself, a suitable guide to practicable and lasting reformation," is the conclusion of Woodrow Wilson after years of applied efforts, associated with culture, learning and experience, forming in themselves a combination and completeness rare in the world's history.

A little more than a hundred years ante-dating the writing of Professor Wilson's words and when the world was experiencing a similar awakening as that through which we have just passed, and which was followed by a series of wars surpassed only in intensity and cruelty by the one raging as these words are written, a Frenchman contemplating the ruins of ancient Assyria and addressing himself to the genius of the departed amid whose tombs he sat, asked this comprehensive question: "By what secret causes do empires rise and fall; from what sources spring the prosperity and misfortunes of nations; and on what principles can the peace of society and the happiness of man be established ?"2

We read in the Revelation of St. John: "And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it." On the determining of just what this light consists

1 When a Man Comes to Himself-Woodrow Wilson (Page 31). 2 Ruins of Empires-Volney (Page 13). (When this question was asked its answer had, no doubt, appeared in the principles of the "Wealth of Nations," by Adam Smith the greatest of the Inglorious Prophets.

3 Bible-Revelation 21:24.

and the method of availing ourselves of it depend the only hope of mankind. To place the realization of this beyond the grave makes of no effect the Lord's Prayer, which says: "Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in Heaven.” It is useless any longer to answer these questions by humanly defined words. The needs of the hour allied to general intelligence demand something more than explanations which do not explain and therefore fail to remedy.

Coeval with the decline of ecclesiasticism in the seventeenth century was heard a Voice which has grown stronger in proportion as ecclesiasticism has grown weaker. Its words have been the energy and nourishment of our western civilization and to it we are indebted for all we now enjoy. Its prophets have been slain sometimes by actual spilling of blood, but oftener by more cruel methods. In spite of this the Voice is still heard. Louder are becoming its Isaiah-like proclamations and more and more is it influencing our affairs in the form of applied efforts. These prophets, though unpopular and little understood, have in the face of the established order of things in little more than a century succeeded in marvelously regenerating the western world.

Only potentized words have the power to melt human habit and human hatred. From what source came this power accompanying a few words and making them a tocsin among a din of sounds? The answer is: Inspired words are potentized words and the secret of their potentialization is that the procession of the Holy Ghost does not cease with the Father, with the Son, nor with those to whom the Son imparts It, but It adheres to, radiates from and potentizes words spoken by those under Its

influence and necessarily their words have power. This alone is the explanation of the phenomenon of the few overcoming and conquering to a remarkable degree the influence of the human ego. "God is no respecter of persons," we read in the Scriptures, and if this be true, why must we refuse to receive truth because it has not come through ecclesiastical or ecclesiastically authorized channels? If the world has been blessed there is only one source from which blessings come. Red-blooded men make for reforms, and not anemic white-blooded pietists. Moreover, a large part of what has been regarded as piety is nothing more nor less than the want of intellectual independence; a cringing cowardice born of the fear of punishment in the nature of human insufficiency. Moreover, if many of these people would break up their "fallow ground" (undisturbed beliefs) they would realize the cruelty they have been unconsciously a party to, and while shedding tears over the crucifixion of one prophet by one race of people they might find blood on their own hands.

While considering the word inspiration and its relation to the inglorious prophets it would be well to note that the word has been given, through the influence of sacred books, the significance of revelation. This is incorrect and robs both words of their highest significance. Inspiration as defined by the authorities on language signifies the animation or vivifying of something else. While on the other hand the revealed is not only something wholly apart from something else, but it possesses the faculty of making of no effect another activity. The

1 Bible-Acts 10:34.

2 Bible-Hosea 10:12.