THE SECRET IS MASTERY

So with the inward bodies. Build them up, in the fashion just described, allowing one idea after another to gain dominance and mastery, and the inward body wiU be tenf old more a prison than the flesh-body.

Yet famé is not wrong to seek ; it is not evil in itself ; neither is pleasnre wrong to seek : it is not wrong to want to succeed, or to enjoy life; it is not wrong to want to be gay, and lightsome, and to love divinely. Âll thèse things are given for use, and out of them can be f ashioned a winged abode and a palace of joy. But the condition is imperative, and cannot be yielded a hair'sbreadth. The man must hâve the mastery. He can accept every expérience with security and freedom, if he dœs not give that away.

Now, the worst of ail this is that the ordinary man has not yet attained complète mastery, and theref ore it sounds like a policy of perfection which tantalizes without stimulating. He is not free ; he is not master of his flesh-body, of the passion and pain that come through it ; nor of his mental-body, with its fears, doubts, and preconceived ideas, and so forth. He is not master of himself ; at best, he is striving for it. He is subject to ail maimer of résistance and opposition, ail manner of temptation and aUurement. The point at which everjrthing shall be perfect to him seems terribly remote — if it is there at aU.

To thèse apparently hostile forces we often give the name of Evil, for they seem to be the enemies

172 SATAN, AS ADVERSARY

of our fif e, seeking — and with some success — to dethrone and dispossess us at the centre. This is Satan. We find Satan in many guises as an adversary, and we reckon him onfy as an adversary. We resist, fight, and would destroy him. What we do not always clearly see is that this is precisely the way in wMch we can corne to mastery, and that the adversary is really the Lover of our Life in disguise. The demand upon us in this warf are is for faithfuhiess, courage, and a certain carelessness and abandon in onset. The end is sure, and is full of joy and glory ; it may be nearer than we think ; and also other than we hâve imagined. For in this struggle and conflict the surface impediments of our Uf e get brushed off ; unfeliable weapons are tested and discarded; deeper and deeper latencies within us unfold; fresh expériences — painful enough, most of them — bring us fresh knowledge, and theref ore fresh power; until at last — let Carpenter tell us in his own words :

And se at last I saw Satan appear before me — magnifioent, folly fonned.

Feet first, with ahining limbs, he glanced down from above the bushes.

And stood there, erect, dark-skinned, with nostrils dilated with passion ;

(In the buming intolérable sunlight he stood, and I in the shade of the bushes ;)

Fierce and scathing the effluence of his eyes, and scûrnfal of dreams and dreamers (he touched a rock hard by and it split with a sound like thtmder) ;