If it is true here that many exert a spiritual influence they are
unconscious of, it is still truer of the spheres within. Once the soul
has attained to any possession like love, or persistent will, or faith,
or a power of thought, it comes into spiritual contact with others who
are struggling for these very powers. The attainment of any of these
means that the soul is able to absorb and radiate some of the diviner
elements of being. The soul may or may nor be aware of the position it
is placed in or its new duties, but yet that Living Light, having found
a way into the being of any one person, does not rest there, but sends
its rays and extends its influence on and on to illume the darkness of
another nature. So it comes that there are ties which bind us to people
other than those whom we meet in our everyday life. I think they are
most real ties, most important to understand, for if we let our lamp
go out some far away who had reached out in the dark and felt a steady
will, a persistent hope, a compassionate love, may reach out once again
in an hour of need, and finding no support may give way and fold the
hands in despair. Often we allow gloom to overcome us and so hinder the
bright rays in their passage; but would we do it so often if we thought
that perhaps a sadness which besets us, we do not know why, was caused
by some one drawing nigh to us for comfort, whom our lethargy might
make feel still more his helplessnes, while our courage, our faith might
cause "our light to shine in some other heart which as yet has no light
of its own"?
III.
The night was wet, and as I was moving down the streets my mind was also
journeying on a way of its own, and the things which were bodily present
before me were no less with me in my unseen traveling. Every now and
then a transfer would take place, and some of the moving shadows in
the street would begin walking about in the clear interior light. The
children of the city, crouched in the doorways or racing through the
hurrying multitude and flashing lights, began their elfin play again in
my heart; and that was because I had heard these tiny outcasts shouting
with glee. I wondered if the glitter and shadow of such sordid things
were thronged with magnificence and mystery for those who were unaware
of a greater light and deeper shade which made up the romance and
fascination of my own life. In imagination I narrowed myself to their
ignorance, littleness, and youth, and seemed for a moment to flit amid
great uncomprehended beings and a dim wonderful city of palaces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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