"I hope he will find it soon," she answered, "for in the old days he was
always giving me interesting things to do, to help him achieve the
purposes of his will, and now he only sends me over there. I don't like
_over there_!"
"Why not?"
"Because my friend is menaced by something over there."
"And what has his will to do with that?"
"Why, even about that, he says all day to the great Being that he loves
so much more than me, 'Thy will be done.'"
"Do you think you could learn to say it, too?" I asked.
"I say it after him sometimes; but I don't know what it means."
"Have you never heard of God?"
"I have heard of many gods, of Isis and Osiris and Set, and of Horus,
the son of Osiris."
"And is it to one of these that he says, 'Thy will be done'?"
"Oh, no! It is not to any of the gods that he used to call upon in his
magical working. This is some new god that he has found."
"Or the oldest of all gods that he has returned to," I suggested. "What
does he call Him?"
"Our Father who art in heaven."
"If you also should learn to say 'Thy will be done' to our Father who is
in heaven," I said, "it might help you toward the attainment of that
soul you were wanting and waiting for, when last we met in Paris."
"How could our Father help me?"
"It was He who gave souls to men," I said.
The eyes of the sylph were brilliant with something almost human.
"And could He give a soul to me?"
"It is said that He _can_ do anything."
"Then I will ask Him for a soul."
"But to ask Him for a soul," I said, "is not to pray the prayer your
friend prays."
"He only says----"
"Yes, I know. Suppose you say it after him."
"I will, if you will tell me what it means. I like to do what my friend
does."
"'Thy will be done,'" I said, "when addressed to the Father in heaven,
means that we give up all our desires, whether for pleasure or love or
happiness, or anything else, and lay all those desires at His feet,
sacrificing all we have or hope for to Him, because we love Him more
than ourselves."
"That is a strange way to get what one desires," she said.
"It is not done to get what one desires," I answered.
"But what is it done for?"
"For love of the Father in heaven."
"But I do not know the Father in heaven. What is He?"
"He is the Source and the Goal of the being of your friend. He is the
One that your friend will re-become some day, if he can forever say to
Him, Thy will be done."
"The One he will re-become?"
"Yes, for when he blends his will with that of the Father in heaven, the
Father in heaven dwells in his heart and the two become one."
"Then is the Father in heaven really the Self of my friend?"
"The greatest philosopher could not have expressed it more truly," I
said.
"Then indeed do I love the Father in heaven," breathed the sylph, "and I
will say now every day and all day, 'Thy will be done' to Him."
"Even if it separates you from your friend?"
"How can it separate me from my friend, if the Father is the Self of
him?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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