THE LAW OF EQUALITY

Man has to leam to die— <}iiite simply and naturally — as the child has to leam to walk.

A little while snatching to youiself the goods of the earth, jealous of your own crédit, and of the admiration and applanse of men,

Then to leam that you cannot defeat Nature so . . .

The daims of others as good as youis, tbeir excellence in their own line equal to your best in yours, their life as near and dear to you as your own can be.

So letting go ail the chains which bound you, sdl the anxieties and cares,

The wearisome burden, the artifidal unyielding armour wherewith you would secure yourself, but which only weighs you down a more hdpless mark for the enemy —

To pass out, free, O joy ! — free, to flow down, to swim in the sea of Equality —

To endue the bodies of the divine Companions,

And the life which is eternal.

The impression hère given of this way of life is that it consists in giving one's self away to this one and to that, to as many as possible, in every direction ; sharing, spreading one's self hère and there; entering into this heart and into that; f orming personal love-contacts in many places ; so allowïng one's life to expand, as oil poured into many vessels from a cruse that fails not, until one's self appears to be but the focus of a wide area within whidi many other lives are, partially or wholly, embraced and gathered. Of such a one, Carpenter says that his heart is

like Naturels garden, that ail men afaide in.^