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and at once compassion and sympathy take the COMPETITIVE LAWS AND LAW OF LOVE ]9 place of competitive strife; and, in the blessedness of giving and receiving, men enjoy a foretaste of the heavenly bliss that the spiritually wise have found, * which all shall ultimately reach.

The fact that abundance and not scarcity creates competition, should be held con- stantly in mind by the reader during the perusal of this book, as it throws a searching light not only on the statements herein con- tained, but upon every problem relating to social life and human conduct.

More- over, if it be deeply and earnestly meditated upon, and its lessons applied to individual conduct, it will make plain the Way which leads to the Kingdom. Let us now search out the cause of this fact, in order that the evils connected with it may be transcended.

Every phenomenon in social and national life — as in Nature — is an effect, and all these effects arise in a cause neither remote nor detached, but the immediate soul and life of the effect itself. As the seed is contained in the flower, and the flower 20 ENTERING THE KINGDOM in the seed, so the relation of cause and effect is intimate and inseparable.

An effect, also, is vivified and propagated by the life and impulse existing in the cause, not by any life inherent in itself. Looking out upon the world, we behold it as an arena of strife in which individuals, communities, and nations are constantly engaged in struggle, striving with each other for superiority and for the largest share of worldly possessions.

We see, also, that the weaker fall out defeated, and that the strong — those equipped to pursue the combat with undiminished ardor — obtain the victory, and enter into pos- session. Along with this struggle we see the suffering inevitably connected with it : men and women, broken down with the weight of their responsibilities, failing in their efforts and losing all; families and communities broken up, and nations subdued and subordinated.

We find seas of tears, telling of unspeakable anguish and grief; we see painful partings and unnatural deaths; and we know that this COMPETITIVE LAWS AND LAW OF LOVE 21 life of strife is largely a life of sorrow when stripped of its surface appearances.

Such, briefly sketched, are the phenomena connected with that aspect of human life with which we are now dealing; such are the effects as we see them; and they have one common cause that is found in the human heart itself. As all the multiform varieties of plant life have one common soil from which to draw their sustenance, by virtue of which they live and thrive, so all the varied activities of human life are rooted in, and draw their vitality from, one common source — the human heart — the spirit within.

The cause of all suffer- ing and of all happiness resides in the inner activities of the heart and mind, not in the outer activities of human life, and every external agency is sustained by the life it derives from human conduct. The organized life-principle in man carves for itself outward channels along which it can pour its pent-up energies, makes for itself vehicles through which it can manifest its potency and reap its experience, and 22 ENTERING THE KINGDOM as a result we have our religious, social, and political organizations.

All visible manifestations of human life, then, are effects; and as such, although* they may possess a reflex action, they can never be causes, but must remain for ever what they are — dead effects, electrified into life by an enduring and profound cause.