Spiritual Evolution of Society 183 



him " — the ideal is ever in the recesses of his mind, as 

 an essential element of his nature, and by constant 

 endeavour, unconsciously it may be, he hopes to attain 

 unto it. And if this ideal is an essential of his nature, 

 how did it originate unless implanted by the Eternal, 

 and does it not prove, as far as fair deduction can, the 

 immanence of the Divine ? We are now able to under- 

 stand the appeal which the altruism of Jesus made to 

 this spark of the Infinite and the Eternal which is in 

 every man, and by this means stimulated its evolution 

 to higher and higher flights, until the supremacy of the 

 law of love and self-sacrifice has become the supreme 

 fact in the advance of the race. " Self-abnegation 

 means self-realisation " is a truth of pregnant force, 

 and that is why man only realises true happi- 

 ness when he subdues self and sacrifices his own 

 interests to those of others. The hero in olden days 

 was ennobled by the thought : 



" How can man die better 

 Than facing fearful odds 

 For the ashes of his fathers 



And the temples of his gods ? " 



This was a great thought and the highest of which 

 man was capable in the days when materialism was in 

 the ascendant. But with the advent of Jesus the 

 ascendancy of the spirit and the higher evolution of the 

 race became the potent factors. It will not be con- 

 sidered inappropriate that we should recall a few of the 

 sayings and teachings of the Master and His dis- 

 ciples after Him, and reflect upon the power they 

 exercise as from age to age they distil their " sweet 

 reasonableness " in the minds of men : "In lowliness 

 of mind, let each esteem other better than himself." 

 " Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving 

 one another, even as God, for Christ's sake, hath for- 

 given you." " Bear ye one another's burdens, and so 



