-
"God's Will be done. God's Will has been done, and
once more we assemble together in this most holy communion,
bringing our gifts of service, of dedication and the
wish to follow direction, and laying them at the Feet
of the Most High, certain that their love shall meet
Love and all shall be according to the highest and
the best.
-
"Oh Saviour Christ, we thank Thee again and again for
all Thy good gifts, for Thy tenderness, Thy understanding
and Thy merciful kindness, thank Thee that nothing
in the physical is strong enough to shut us off from
that which is of Thee, and that nothing can interfere
with this demonstration of the Holy Spirit.
-
"It is for a great purpose that we meet tonight. Thy
children have been tried and tested, and retried and
retested again and again, and although the heart and
mind have shrunk under the process, yet the spirit,
free and untrammelled, has gone triumphantly on, and
all has been according to Thy Will.
-
"Oh God, send down the strength which is needed, send
down the peace which is Thy children's by right of
suffering, and the joy which is but a foretaste of
the real and glorious joy to come, in that time when
the power of the shadows is no more, and when communion
with Thee is unbroken and complete.
-
"It is with trust and with a renewed faith that we
meet together again, and we ask Thee to wipe out of
our minds the memory of the past - its sadness, its
disappointments and its seeming injustices and hardships.
Grant that we may forget them all, not only now but
in the days to come, and that they may be powerless
to cast a shade across the brightness which shall shine
from Thee upon us all for evermore...
-
"Once more you have the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrated
and I think tonight that this illustration should indeed
strengthen your faith - that faith which I know has
been cut at and torn at by the most dangerous powers
of darkness there could be. But I say tonight that
faith should be put upon so strong a basis that nothing
more should be able to touch it. It is for you to respond
in the way God expects.
-
"I am but a messenger from Him, and I say that upon
you all, God has laid a deep obligation, and that is,
that you shall rise above sorrow and doubt, and the
distrust of others, and be free. Put your whole confidence
in God and He will never fail you. It is that half-confidence
which gives the shadows their chance - it is that moment
of hesitation when the mind asks: 'Will the power of
good be strong enough to overcome these terrible powers
of evil?' It is in those moments of hesitation that
much damage is done and you reap sorrow as a consequence.
-
"It is essential for all of you to put doubts of all
kinds on one side and to be certain that what has been
said is not going to be worked out in some abstruse,
tangled-up way that entirely escapes your imagination.
You have been given words - plain sentences. I have
told you what the future holds and my words are not
to be challenged.
-
"I speak most firmly. There has been too much of the
wrecking process lately and I mean to put a stop to
it once and for all. You must understand, that I am
not only your leader, fighting for God, but I am also
fighting for the spirit within you - two things separate
to you, may be, but one and undivided to me.
-
"I am not in a position to say to you that after all
this preparation, this travail of soul, and this postponement
of joy - that it has all been a mockery and that I
only said this, that and the other to urge you on.
If I had adopted such an attitude, you would indeed
have good reason to hate and despise me. Even now sometimes
you shrink from me as a child would from a great but
stern and unbending father. You feel that Zodiac expects
too much, that he fails to remember your spiritual
youth, and that the pace is altogether too great.
-
"In the first place, work of this nature is not given
to those who are in their spiritual babyhood that would
be useless; it would be absolutely against our methods
over here. Only when people have reached a certain
stage of development are they suitable weapons to be
used for God, and very often even then, when put to
the test of the fire, the strength is not yet sufficient
to fight through.
-
"I am your protector and your guide, and I have not
brought you thus far to leave you now in your doubts
and misgivings. You are coming with me to the end of
the journey and nothing in your world or in ours shall
prevent it. God has given you into my charge and in
doing so invested me with power and with the necessary
protection. To those who have asked themselves - as
some of you have done - what the future holds, I say
go back on your old records and re-read them. You do
not do it sufficiently.
-
"Busy days pass all too quickly - a host of details
take your attention, the mind is tired and harassed
and the effort is often too great, and so the shadows
use the physical mind with its capacity for forgetting
those things it should remember and remembering those
things which are best forgotten - to wound you again
and again, and in so doing, to strike at the Heart
of the Saviour.
-
"In the Bible you have illustrations of faith over
and over again. You remember the words spoken to Thomas
by our Lord: 'Blessed are they that have not seen and
yet have believed' - and I say that in those words
you have your direction, you have your admonition and
you cannot turn from it.
-
"Once more build up the foundation of the pedestal
on which faith rests. The enemy, under cover of darkness,
has been undermining that which you failed to notice.
But when the grey days go on and events seem so obstinate
of changing, then the test comes, and you look around
and see that damage has been done.
-
"More and more I wish to impress upon you all the necessity
for watchfulness, prayerfulness and the constant rededication
to God of heart and mind and body. It is the only thing
that can save you on a work of this kind. You cannot
take liberties with yourselves when you are out on
the higher reaches. You have nothing upon which to
hold when the wind blows cold - nothing but the Christ
within you, but that is stronger than all the elements
together.
-
"That is the position and you cannot ignore it. You
have to realise that your supports are now down and
that you are face to face with your real Self. It is
a serious thing. I am not minimising it all and yet,
as with all big things, it is so simple. It just means
that in place of those supports, which often failed
in the time of need, in place of the shelter of the
wood - though even there the storms beat in upon you
and drove you from point to point - you have the God
within you.
-
"All the other things are now left behind and you are
called upon to stand up, emancipated and free, with
your hands outstretched to Christ, and there is no
one else to bring you through. It has to be done. These
tests have to be faced; you have to learn to know your
real Self - the Self which belongs to God, and until
that real Self is in harmony with the physical self,
which as yet does not sufficiently recognise its Master,
sorrow intervenes.
-
"Once you could adopt this attitude: 'With Christ I
am secure and nothing can touch me' - nearly all the
worries of your life would disappear never to return.
I know it is a most difficult attitude to attain. It
is the highest of all and only available to those who
have bought and paid for it. I am not referring to
happy-go-lucky people who shelve their own responsibilities
off on to Almighty God - they have much to learn in
the days to come, and that is not the faith to which
I refer. The attitude of the Children of Light should
be this: 'God is my Father and I am His child - therefore
nothing that is not of Him can touch me' - and nothing
can touch you if only you believe.
-
"I may have caused you some distress by my seemingly
stern remarks. Yet if you saw someone you loved well
in danger - if not of self destruction, then of great
unhappiness - would you not speak with determination
yourself in order to prevent that which is preventable,
and that which is entirely against the Will of the
Father?
-
"I hold all of you in my heart. Could you get the smallest
idea of what you mean to me, what your anxieties cost
me in thought and in prayer - if you could see what
the sad days represent to your guides, you would not
think of me as being a leader rather a close and tender
companion. I want you more and more to build up the
love between us; not to allow it to grow thin and not
to think that Zodiac is far removed from you, but to
let me into the personal side of your lives, and to
be certain that what concerns you in the smallest way
is a thing of great importance to me.
-
"I am so anxious to bring things through to a successful
conclusion, and I do not want you, when the promises
are worked out, to have the bitterness of regret from
which you cannot escape if you do not trust me to the
utmost. It will not be easy then for you to forgive
yourself your doubts. In the happy moments the remembrance
of them will come back, like little whips of remorse,
and the longing will rise up in your hearts: 'Oh, why
didn't I trust Zodiac more!' - and this is not my wish.
I want the joy when it comes to have no shady corners.
I want it all to be bright and uniform, and I want
you to feel that there is nothing with which you have
reason to reproach yourself.
-
"You may have a curious impression of me - but never
mind. I understand how it all comes and I am not going
to discuss that now. Soon the greatest enlightenment
of all will be in your own possession, and then you
will see that indeed you belonged to Zodiac and Zodiac
belonged to you, and that we were all united in love
with Christ our Lord and Saviour.
-
"It is not reasonable to you - having suffered so much
- that God has you under His protecting wing and there
is nothing strong enough to divide you ever again.
You must remember that these are the training days
and the shadows are not easy to circumvent. They have
had all the advantage, so you think, but you will recollect
that only to the spiritually tried and tested are such
tests given. In itself it is a sign of progress, and
you are not to think anything but this: 'I am right
with God and God understands me and His Love fails
not'. Put all other things than these out of your mind
and be certain that in His sight you are His devoted
and obedient child.
-
"I think there are very few of you who do not read
with delight the story of Christ, and how He gathered
the children to His knee and taught them simple things
and impressed upon their hearts His own personality.
Well, that has been the case tonight. You have been
gathered to the knee of the Master and He has been
talking to your spirit while your mind has been listening
to me. I want you to gather this thought to yourself.
In the busy life - the discord and the triviality which
so often comprise the days of those upon earth - I
want you to recall what I have said this evening, which
is that the real you, the spirit within you, is gathered
to the side of Christ and is listening, and drinking
in with love the words which come from Him.
-
"I want you to separate yourselves more and more from
the world and to link yourselves more closely still
to the Spirit, knowing that that is your right environment,
and that the earth is but the training ground - the
forcing house - which produces the flowers of the Spirit
in all their beauty and sweetness. Let not your hearts
be troubled ever again. Put on the whole armour of
Christ and go forward with renewed courage and be certain
that God has spoken, that He is in command and that
the Holy Spirit is working through your lives and in
your lives, and that what was, shall be and will be,
in the sense that God looks after His own and has prepared
a place for those that love Him.
-
"Gather round you my love and let me take you all in,
shutting the cold and the dreariness outside. That
is my heart's desire, for you belong to me and I belong
to you. Goodnight."
