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THE WORLD AND THE BEYOND • 208
There is a view of life which prevails so far imd wide
in this country as almost to deserve the title.of universal
It is that in and above everything which we see, " the
fashion of this world," the Creator of the Universe of
things is present actively engaged in guiding mankind
singly and collectively to a glorious destiny, offering us
all conceivable good now and here, on one condition :
that we desire it more than we can desire anything else.
That means, in simpler language, desiring Him. Meantime,
the world presents to us numberless objeets of desire
whieh, though oftet\ beautiful and indeed necessary to
our welfare, are yet withheld from us, but. not so as to
seem unattainable. The crisis of each individual life,
therefore, is so to use this world and all our experiences
in it as means to progress in the finding of our Creator
and Saviour.
The doing of this is surprisingly difficult, owing to
the imperatively urgent claims of the world, which seem
to demand our undivided attention-claims which in
Europe to-day are very rapidly increasing in complexity
every year that passes. Nevertheless, there are and
always have been a minority of men and women who have
achieved success in this lofty endeavour-that is to say,
who have gradually learnt so to order their lives in the
world as to make them more and more definitely the
training for Eternity; and that when they do, it is by a
process of renunciation, a complete turning upside-down
of a valuation which for a long time seemed to be unquestionably
right and sane. In other words. they change
one view of life for another. This means in most cases
quiet thinking; apparently, in all cases, prayer.
I do not affirm that all the best people have been blessed
with quiet spells in their lives, Some seem able naturally
to trans111ute all experfences into the knowledge of God,
But when we contemplate the problem in its simplicity, it
is a most perplexing faet that nearly all edueat.,ed people
acquiesce in the modern fashion of turning out young
people into the world without provision for or expectation