Books for the Holidays. We highly recommend any and all of the following excellent books as suitable for holiday gifts to friends. IN TUNE WITH THE INFINITE.. Ralph Waldo Trine ..James W. Coulter STUDIES IN THE THOUGHT WORLD VOICES OF HOPE " DISCOVERY OF LOST TRAIL....Chas. B. Newcomb " BETWEEN THE LINES .......Hannah More Kohaus " 1.25 1.25 1.25 .Henry Wood 1.00 1.00 Horatio W. Dresser .... 1.25 " .75 1.00 1.25 SPIRITUAL CONSCIOUSNESS. IT IS POSSIBLE: A Story of Life.. Helen Van Anderson UNITY TRACT SOCIETY, 1315 MCGEE ST., KANSAS CITY, Mo. This blooming era in its beauty, frought It is teaching Love as the God within, That sin is disease which the mind has brought, It is teaching peace in a world of strife, It is moulding faith on a grander plan, 'Tis an age in thought of the lofty kind, God's temple in man- let the thought unfold By all means, use sometimes to be alone; CAN RELIGION AND CONDUCT BE DIVORCED? 1. P. LATHROP, Union Divorce always implies previous union. is strength. Divorce means a scattering of strength, with the result of weakness. Underneath all union lies the great law of attraction. Without this omnipresent, all-powerful law, we should have neither the church, the family, nor social life. Spiritual attraction results in the union of souls in the great church bodies. Love's attraction makes possible the family and home- the strongest, sweetest union the world has known, and the foundation of all strength. Mental attraction means the union of thought and talent in the various forms of social life. Discord, which is not a law but a condition arising out of the natural dissatisfaction with anything less than the divine, seeks ever to divorce all that God has joined together by means of His great law of attraction. Discord in the church seeks to divorce the Divine Spirit from itself, for is not the Spirit of God the "light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world"? and if a man withdraws his spiritual being from his brother, is he not withdrawing from God, because it is God also that is the Spirit of his brother? No wonder that church quarrels are the most bitter of all. It is warring with the Almighty; it i endeavoring to break up and scatter the Omnipresent Spirit; it would destroy the Omnipotence of God. which is one vast union, Discord in the home- ah! to what evil does it not lead? Divorce of love! What can be more pitiful What more against the law of God? God is love, so again it is warring against God, What calamity to the heart to substitute antagonism for tenderness! What ruin to mind and judgment! And Oh! the little ones gathered about seeing it all with fearing, wondering eyes; eyes fresh from the infinite beauty, ears still attuned to the hearing of harmony and love. I sometimes think no sin is equal to this sin to the children. So helpless, so trusting; always seeing all good in their parents until the parents themselves. teach them differently. Surely this trust in a child shows that the parents were meant to be symbols of God to their children until such a day that the little minds could see the infinity of God. A mother sat one night by the side of her little one of two and a half years. She was talking about God, and telling as fully as she could of the goodness. of God. The little one listened attentively, then in great earnestness sat up in her crib, fixed her eyes. upon her mother's face with that illuminated look that comes sometimes in a young child's face when it has grasped momentarily a truth that is far beyond its years, and exclaimed, with a rare smile that the mother never forgot, "You are God!" Can you imagine that mother ever forgetting what was expected of her? Sometimes the same child, as the years rolled on, would stand silently watching her mother if she wereirritable, or manifesting wrong in any way, and in the most caressing manner would reach up her dear arms, as if for blessing, and say, "You are such a good mamma." Verily, "out of the mouths of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise." In both instances, the child looked inspirationally past the seeming wrong to the real God Spirit of good within. Let us not by our conduct divorce our children from their natural reverence and their seeing of good. Our conduct then must be good, and there is only one way to make that possible- the heart must be good, for "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." Conduct is merely the showing forth of what the heart chooses to give the first place in the mind. How then shall we make the heart good? How give religion such a prominent place in our hearts that religion and conduct shall be one? How be good? for, verily, no matter what may seem to be the aim of the human heart, down underneath the lust of wealth, and power, and position, lies more strongly than all the yearning for something that shall save us from the evil of our many desires. So many times we have been told to be good, and when we ask in despair at our failures how to be good, we are told to ask God, and then try and never cease from trying. So we have prayed, and we have tried, until the very trying has become accompanied with such a fear of failure that failure has ridden naturally and easily along the path that fear has made, and we Seem often to ourselves and others worse than when we were not trying so hard. Our friends see the struggle and the worn, saddened looks in our faces, and religion is accused of making people sad, taking away natural joy and substituting trials innumerable, and a very hidden spiritual joy that is little else than the satisfaction one has of having made a good fight. Ah! that is not the way. There is a much better, much easier way. In the first place, let us not think at all of our religion. Let us substitute the word God for religion; then shall we seek to have our conduct not at-one with our religion, but at-one with God. That means, then, to have first and foremost in our hearts not religion, which means perhaps good conduct, but God, the mainspring of all good, which makes good conduct natural. How shall we have God thus fill our hearts? Simply by knowing that He is there already, and always has been. Cease praying to a Being outside of yourself. You are not divorced from your God. You never |