Jesus, when He lived amongst men, was a grand and magnificent instance of the highest self-abnegation and earnestness of purpose. He lived with you a life of pure self-denial and practical earnest work, and He died a death of self-sacrifice for truth. In Him you have the purest picture that history records of man’s possibilities. They who since have purged the world from error, and have shed on it the beams of truth, have been one and all men of self-denial and earnest devotion to a work which they knew to be that for which they were set apart.
Socrates and Plato, John and Paul, the pioneers of truth, the heralds of progress, all have been unselfish souls—souls who knew naught of self-seeking, of proud aggrandisement, of boastful arrogance. To them earnestness and singleness of purpose, devotion to their appointed work, forgetfulness of self and its interests, were given in a high degree. Without that they could not have effected what they did.
Selfishness would have eaten out the heart of their success. Humility, sincerity, and earnestness bore them on.
This is the character we seek. Loving and earnest, self-denying and receptive to truth; with single eye to God’s work, and with forgetfulness of earthly aims. Rare it is, rare as it is beautiful. Seek, friend, the mind of the philosopher, calm, reliant, truthful, and earnest! Seek the spirit of the philanthropist, loving, tolerant, ready to help, quick to give the needed aid. Add the self-abnegation of the servant of God who does his work and seeks no reward. For such a character, work, high, holy, noble, is possible. Such we guard and watch with jealous care. On such the angels of the Father smile, and tend and protect them from injury.
SM: But you have described a perfect character.
Ah no! You have no conception of what the perfect spirit is. You cannot know; you cannot even picture it. Nor can you know how the faithful soul drinks in the spirit-teaching and grows liker and liker to its teacher. You see not as we see the gradual growth of the seed, which it has cost us so much labour to plant and tend. You only know that the soul grows in kindly graces, and becomes more lovely and more lovable. The character we have faintly pictured in such terms as are intelligible to you is not perfect, nor aught but a vague and distant resemblance of that which it shall become. With you is no perfectness.
Hereafter is progression and constant development and growth. What you call perfect is blotted and blurred with faults to spirit vision.
SM: Yes, surely. But very few such are to be found.
Few, few: and none save in the germ. There is the capability on which we work with thankfulness. We seek not for perfection; we do but desire sincerity and earnest desire for improvement: a mind free and receptive; a spirit pure and good. Wait in patience. Impatience is a dire fault. Avoid over-carefulness and anxiety as to causes which are beyond your control. Leave that to us. In patience and seclusion ponder what we say.
SM: I suppose a secluded life is favourable for your influence, rather than the busy whirl of town?
[Here the writing suddenly changed from the minute and the very clear writing of Doctor to a most peculiar archaic writing, almost indecipherable, and signed Prudens.]
The busy world is ever averse from the things of spirit life. Men become absorbed in the material, that which they can see, and grasp, and hoard up, and they forget that there is a future and spirit life. They become so earthly that they are impervious to our influence; so material that we cannot come near them; so full of earthly interests that there is no room for that which shall endure when they have passed away.
More than this, the constant preoccupation leaves no time for contemplation, and the spirit is wasted for lack of sustenance. The spiritual state is weak: the body is worn and weary with weight of work and anxious care, and the spirit is well-nigh inaccessible. The whole air, moreover, is heavy with conflicting passions, with heart-burnings, and jealousies, and contentions, and all that is inimical to us. Round the busy city, with its myriad haunts and vice, its detestable allurements, its votaries of folly and sin, hover the legions of the opposing spirits, who watch for opportunity to lure the wavering to their ruin. They urge on many to their grief hereafter, and cause us many sorrows and much anxious care.
The life of contemplation is that which most suits communion with us. It is not indeed to supersede the life of action, but may be in some sort combined with it. It is most readily practised where distracting cares come not in, and where excessive toil weakens not the bodily powers. But the desire must be inherent in the soul; and where that is, neither distracting cares nor worldly allurements avail to prevent the recognition of a spirit world, and of communion with it. The heart must be prepared. But it is easier for us to make our presence felt when the surroundings are pure and-peaceful.