SYNTHESIS OF THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL 



nature, as it manifests itself in consciousness, puts it 

 be3'ond rational doubt that there is, so to speak, a sjnier- 

 gisni in spiritual or ideal growth. We freel}' form and 

 reform our creative ideals because their primal Creator is 

 forming them within us. We work out our own salvation 

 becau.se the universal Spirit is "working ^within us to 

 will and to do of his good pleasure." The nature of 

 this correlation of spiritual facts is a difficult problem ; 

 but, since the correlation belongs to a rational universe, 

 we need not de.spair of a solution. This, however, seems 

 to be clear. In the synergism the universal spirit is su- 

 preme. He does not, it is true, reduce the .spirit of man 

 to a mere instrument, but sustains him in the status 

 of a conscious co-worker. He nevertheless, in the evo- 

 lution of histor}^, so generates ideals within him that he 

 cannot altogether e.scape them, for to be man is to be 

 mind, and to be mind is to think, and to think is to 

 form, out of the element in which man lives, ideals — i. e. 

 *' the light that never was on sea or land," that " lightetli 

 every man that cometh into the world," "that is the 

 master light of all our seeing," and that reveals our evil 

 and makes us " tremble like a guilty thing surprised," and 

 gives us no rest till we arise and follow " the gleam." 



Every higher ought in the soul springs from the 

 primal spiritual Energy, without which we could not have 

 made it our own. It was first His, and even after it has 

 been received it is still His. vSo we may reverse the words 

 of Tenny.son and say, "Our wills are His to make them 

 ours." This law of spiritual development, by which we 

 make the higher will of another our own, is illustrated in 

 every life. I knew a man in whom, up to a certain time in 

 his life, the "ought" in his experience was as the command 

 of a sovereign, but his life was grafted on another life in 

 which was, so to speak, a sweeter sap, and from that time 

 the fruit of duty became the fruit of love. May I illustrate 

 this way of the Spirit by a simple incident from my early 



