-
"FATHER of Infinite Love, we Thy little children
thank Thee with grateful hearts that always Thou respondest
to the desire of the Spirit within. We thank Thee for
Thy over-seeing care, for all that protection which
indeed will never fail. We thank Thee that Thou hast
thought it fit to use us in this manner; and we ask
Thee to so strengthen us that nothing of the physical
may be allowed to interfere with the sacred mission
which lies before each one.
-
"O most tender and understanding Father, lift
us up out of the worries of material life, out of our
doubts and misgivings, and centre us in Thy peace -
in that peace which brings reassurance, not only of
Thy Divinity, but of Thy Power and Thy compassionate
Love.
-
"Tonight we dedicate ourselves again to this most
holy work, and we ask Thee to make it possible that
the Spirit, cabined within the body, may contact unhindered
with those who are free.
-
"Yet one more petition before we turn to our task,
which is that the light of understanding may shine
upon us all; that the indwelling Spirit may arise and
dominate and take that which is its own.
-
"Father, we ask Thee to help us to help ourselves.
Amen.
-
"GOOD evening, my children, and if I say in the
beginning how happy I am to be with you all then indeed
I should be understating the truth; I say tonight that
God has been over-good to us all and that each one,
as the days go on, shall feel that a blessing indeed
rests upon them.
-
"Tonight, gathering you into my love, I wish to
speak to you about a very wide-spreading subject which
concerns you all; I want to tell you a little about
failure and success. I want you to consider these two
conditions from the spiritual point of view; to banish
from your minds the physical conception because it
does not portray, even in a fragmentary way, that which
is Truth indeed.
-
"I speak to you all with most tender understanding
of your lives, of your conditions, of your thoughts
and aspirations.
-
"To many that word FAILURE strikes an answering
note in the mind, connected with sorrow and disappointment.
The course of your life has not run on smooth or easy
lines and there has been that in it which has brought
something like despair. That is the world's point of
view; but God's point of view is so different, such
a definite contradiction that indeed it needs pondering
over in solitude and in quietness of Spirit.
-
"Children, the word 'failure' is used freely by
those on the physical plane. The majority judge entirely
by the outside presentation of any fact or subject;
and if a man or a woman cannot show the possessions
of the world - those decorative misconceptions of popularity
and success - then there are many who say at once:
'He is a failure! - he has failed in that which he
sought to accomplish!'
-
"I want you to go back on your own lives - on
the memories. Many of them are tinged with bitterness
and all with sorrow because - it seemed to you - that
do what you may the conditions of physical life foiled
you at every turn. Yes, and it is quite easy to see
that the judgement of others is correct from the world's
point of view. Success has passed you by; others have
reached that point to which you looked with such longing
eyes - to which you devoted so much effort and so much
consideration as well.
-
"My little children, how I long for you to get
the Christ view of lives like these; how I long for
you to see with the eyes of the Spirit and to overlook
the beauty and the power which you have been acquiring
by 'going without', by laying aside the things of the
world - perforce though it may be.
-
"When you come here you will thank God for these
so-called failures - thank God that this ambition,
that that desire was not worked out as your fancy so
ordained. You will look and you will see that God's
ways are best - yes! are best.
-
"There are many in this room tonight whom the
world called failures: those who strove and yet as
the years passed on had to look back and acknowledge
that not one of their dreams had come true. Yet, dear
children, have you not been told before that there
is no dream - that has one thought of God in it - which
is not worked out into actual fact in the Spirit.
-
"I take you with me in thought and I ask you to
turn those leaves of memory to where this went wrong
and to where that went all awry; and tonight I am instructed
to say that when you are free you will find that the
failures were successes in a way which escapes your
imagination altogether.
-
"Yes, dear children, the world is very deceptive.
Its conceptions are mounted on a false foundation -
that of selfishness. And because the world sneers when
this one or that loses those possessions which are
so prized, loses that position which gave them power
to control others - when the world sneers thank God,
thank God because the Saviour's smile is yours for
ever more.
-
"Failure and success; humbleness and importance;
and when the vision comes so you too, in looking out
on life to those who have 'failed', will not only send
out your compassion - as you do at this stage - but
also the realisation of the part you have taken yourselves
will come, bringing its comfort, bringing deliverance
from those dark, questioning thoughts which now, it
seems to you, stand between you and the bright Presence
of the Divine . . .
-
"Oh my children, cannot you grasp something of
the glory of going without? Cannot you grasp that those
who are unprotected, from the world's point of view,
are doubly, trebly protected by those whose power is
as a sea compared to a little rivulet that wanders
where it must?
-
"I speak in most understanding tones to those
who've had to fight the battle of life seemingly alone;
to those who have felt the lack of the strong protecting
arm - those indeed who have had to fend for themselves,
searching within for the resources which are lacking
without; finding God only by treading the thorny path;
understanding life only by going through the sad experiences
of life. To these - to all so placed - I have a message
of infinite hope and cheer; I tell them that indeed
are they the beloved of the Lord; indeed do they love
that which is Love itself; indeed have they willingly
and voluntarily, in Spirit, laid aside the toys of
the world, seeing the loveliness and the value of the
gifts of God; that the Divine within - having vision
seeing beyond this little day - is storing, is harvesting
for the time of freedom, for the time when the physical
body, having done its part, is laid aside and they,
Spirit indeed, free from the world, free from its bondage,
are centred in the Joy which has no end.
-
"Children, though tribulation may have come close
remember that the Master has said that tribulation
can and will be overcome, because He has overcome the
world. It is but of the earth. The physical mind suffers,
it is true, but the spirit within goes on, gaining
new strength, enlarging its borders of usefulness,
in touch with the Divine; and sorrow is unknown to
that which is of God.
-
"And then, dear children, I come to another point
and that is the application of Faith; and again I ask
you to look beneath the surface and to see the spiritual
meaning - the purpose underneath.
-
"There have been those in the world who have laid
down that it is not wise to test faith too far; there
have been those who - representing Faith itself, yet
bound by the earth view - have put a bar across the
free stream of the faith of others, and for this they
will be anguished indeed when they see and know.
-
"Children, I speak of the power of Spirit put
into operation in any form. I speak of those who gathering
up all their latent resources of faith have with trembling
hands presented their gift on the altar of sacrifice,
asking God to make perfect that which is imperfect;
I speak of those who sore troubled by the body have
gone in faith to God asking that He might heal them
as He healed others in days long passed; I speak of
those who taking their courage in both hands have lent
themselves for use by those who have passed out of
physical life - who have indeed handed over that tabernacle
of the spirit in trust to others so that God's will
shall be done and His Love explained (Trance Mediumship).
-
"Children, I could enumerate instance after instance
of those who, 'fainthearted' though they might be,
have yet found within themselves that strength which
puts faith to the test. And I say now - under God's
direction - that faith which is not put into action
is not faith at all; faith which is of the mind is
but an echo of the real - an echo of that which Christ
has asked from you all.
-
"And then I come again to the physical aspect.
There are some who point out so readily that - in this
case and that - faith has hardly been justified, indeed
faith has produced nothing in a concrete form.
-
"Oh blind and foolish ones! Oh most ignorant mind
of man! Because no outward sign in physical semblance
is there they say there is danger in exercising that
which is of God within; they say: 'Keep to the safe
path; don't expect too much - don't expect anything
lest disappointment should come!' Here you get the
argument of that which is antagonistic to The Divine;
here you get the most subtle argument of the 'evil
one'.
-
"Children, this life of yours - so fleeting, so
pressed in on either side by physical and material
things - this life is but an echo of the real, but
a materialisation of that which is Supreme, Divine,
unending. And yet for the sake of that echo the gift
of price is thrown aside.
-
"Think it out! Listen to my words for this is
God's truth! I say to you that one thought of faith,
nay, one wish to have more faith is producing that
which can never pass away. Those who have gone in faith
to be healed and have returned unhealed, these have
built for themselves wonders and beauties and power;
and the healing which was not possible in the body
- because they had taken on pain as part of their experiences
- that healing is transferred to the soul-body, and
that healing shall save them much suffering in the
days to come.
-
"Think not of results in a physical sense. The
body has many enemies - it is but a garment which must
be laid aside - the mark of faith is on the soul, and
that faith has cleansed, that faith has restored, that
faith has brought a strength which nothing of the earth
can take away.
-
"Yes! it has been said by those who should have
known better: 'Wiser to keep on the lower plane; wiser
to avoid the risk of disappointment; wiser not to raise
in the heart and mind of others that which may not
be fulfilled'.
-
"Children, it is impossible to raise in the heart
and mind of anyone a thought of God which will not
be fulfilled. So I ask you to go over your mind and
to think thus: 'That although my heart's desire may
not be granted to me when I wish it most, yet that
heart's desire is being worked out in the Spirit; it
is but held for me until I am strong enough, until
I am wise enough to put it to its best use.'
-
"I want you to regard the showing of faith as
something so precious, something so God-like that indeed
the pangs of the physical mind are as nothing in comparison.
I want you to go to others and to say to all with confidence:
'Have faith in God; have faith in the answering of
prayer; have faith in the power of healing!' For indeed
they, and you, shall see that the faith and the prayer
and the healing, all were preserved, all are in the
Spirit, waiting - only waiting the appointed time for
you to have and make your own.
-
"Unanswered prayers? Such a thing never has been
and never could be! Even your faintest desire reaches
the Mind of Love; even those thoughts which are half
of the world and half of the Spirit find a response
in the One who understands you best - and never has
one remained unanswered. Get beneath the surface; see
the Spirit at work and know that God is your Father
and as your Father, tends and cares, supports and guides
His little children who, it seems to them, wander alone
on an unknown sea, guided by no compass but that of
a wavering faith. Yet because even that wavering faith
is there, so the little craft of their life goes on
its journey and finds God's harbour at last.
-
"My children, faith is so precious; faith has
such power that, of necessity, it must be worked for
if it is to be made your own. You cannot see things
thus, but we who are free we see the mighty, controlling,
uplifting, directing force of faith; and because that
one attribute is so charged with power then, dear children,
of necessity, the task of acquiring it must be difficult,
must be of rather a strenuous character.
-
"The things which are worth having have to be
earned; the things of little value, they come easily;
but what can they bring you? They are indeed as thistledown,
alighting a little while and then taken on the breeze
far out of reach and unregretted by those who wish
to climb.
-
"But faith is even as a strong staff - a staff
which grows. Yes, just a tiny reed, it may be, in the
beginning; something you would protect, something you
dare not lean upon for fear it should snap. Yet it
can mature; it can grow so strong that indeed the whole
weight of your physical life can rest upon it. But
that staff can only grow by experience, only by testing
its strength, only by patience and concentration. Yet
in the end you have got that which can take you out
of the valley up the steep hill-side, over rocks and
boulders, over deep ravines - safe into the Father's
Home . . . The trusted staff which has saved you not
only from the perils of physical life but from those
deep anguishes which await the immature soul when the
body is laid aside; which awaits those who have chosen
the easy path, those who have leant on the world, those
who have not known that only Spirit can help Spirit,
that only that which is of God can take you to God.
-
"The staff of faith which never fails. That staff
is indeed gifted by Him to all when they have shown
sufficient courage, when they have shown sufficient
endurance to continue the uphill path.
-
"To those who have started to climb with but a
thin and weak staff to help them - to these I say -
that because within themselves the spiritual longing
is so great, as they go on they shall see that, by
the miracle of God's Love, that which was weak has
been made strong; that which needed support shall indeed
support them and others as well.
-
"So, my children, I leave you with this thought
in your minds: That the world's view and the construction
put upon the outward and visible - these matter not,
these are the things which pass away. You are sowing
in the Spirit and in the Spirit the harvest is glorious
indeed.
-
"Keep the faith, dear children, keep the faith!
- and remember all those who love you who are working
for you, who are guiding every step; and have no fear,
have no fear!
