THE SECRET OF TIME AND SATAN

faithful servant, and every expérience is his good angel laden with gifts. To the man who has not mastery — ah, how true it is ! — even good things turn to evil; sympathy weakens him; help renders him less able to stand alone ; gifts become snares and temptations for him ; opportunities, those angel-faced messengers of the forward upward life, are to him mocking spirits since he cannot seize them.

The poem from which the above quotation is taken — " The Secret of Time and Satan *' — is so characteristic of Carpenter's teaching, and of his method, that an exposition of it cannot be ont of place.

It opens with a very simple and engaging question :

Is there oae in ail the world who does not désire to be divinely beautiful ?

To hâve the most perfect body —

To radiate love wherever he goes, to move in and eut accepted ? ^

Surely we ail want that ! Then he comes close to us and whispers in our ear, " You can hâve that ; the secret Ues within you."

He even gives us the hope that this body of which we become aware when we come to selfconsdousness in this world, may be divinely beautiful ; but it must be on the central condition of mastery.

168 ALWAYS EMERGENCE

Ail tha evil tfaat goes lofth from any part of a man's body which is not possessed by himself , ail the devils let loose — from a twîst of the tongue or a leer of the eye, or the unmanly act of any member — and swirling into Society ; ail the good which gathers round a man who is dean and strong — the threads drawing from eJax to the tips of his fingers, the interprétations in his eyes, ail the love which passes through his limbs into heaven ;

What it is to command and be master of this wondrous body with ail its passions and powers, to truly possess it!»

Yet this is not our only body. And while the flesh-body seems for the most part to hâve been given us, our other bodies we can and do create for ourselves. Thèse other bodies lie within us, and are always emerging ;

The child émerges from its mother's body, and out of that body again in time anotber child.

When the body which thou now hast iaXïs away, another body shall be already prepared beneath,

And beneath that again another.*

The body is built up slowly, through many years ; and our power to build up the flesh-body has been acquired — a biological fact — ^in the past in other bodies. In and through the expérience of this présent life we are acquiring power to be used in the building up of future bodies — not necessarily material. So that whether we shall, or shall not, hâve a body divinely beautiful dépends upon ourselves ; not absolutely , since we are bound to some extent to the past ; but the

» T, D., p. 360. • Ihid,, p. 359.

THE BŒNTAL BODY 169

power to build up a body is the most vital, significant, and comprefaensive of ail our human faculties.

The interior bodies are built up of ideas, of images. Take the idea of famé. A man accepts, let us say, the idea of famé for himself . In the focus of his mind he keeps an image of himself occupying some prominent position — the other sheaves bowing dovm to his sheaf . He has this idea before him ; it is a conspicuous feature in his night-dreams and in his day-dreams. By and by, so urgently invited, so tenadously retained, it wiU come to ding to him; he will hâve to carry it about with him ; he will hâve to feed it and satisf y it — just like a body 1 As it becomes more established in the mind, it will begin to lord it over him, like a physical habit entrenched in the flesh-body. He will hâve to make sacrifices to it ; some of thèse he will not mind making to begin with, but the demand will increase and maybe sacrifices will be called for such as he will fed it wrong to make, yet will be forced to make — sacrifices of competitors, of friends, family, personal integrity and dignity, consdence, honour.

Or it may be the idea of pleasure, ease, comfort, selfish well-being. Not a few people give this a prominent and permanent place in their minds. It cornes, after a time, to attach itself to them, and to cling to them. It grows Uke a limb of a body, and increases ever in its demands on the