What we have to do, therefore, is to take the working of the law for granted, and make use of it accordingly; and since that is the law of Mind, and Mind is Personality, this Power, which is at once _ourselves_ and above ourselves, may be treated as a Person and may be spoken with, and its replies received by the inner ear of the heart. Any scheme of philosophy that does not result in this personal intercourse with the Divine Mind falls short of the mark. It may be right so far as it goes, but it does not go far enough, and fails to connect us with our vital centre. Names are of small importance so long as the intercourse is real. The Supreme Mind with which we converse is only to be met in the profoundest depths of our own being, and, as Tennyson says, is more perfectly ourselves than our own hands and feet. It is our natural Base; and realising this we shall find ourselves to be in very truth "guarded ones," guided by the Spirit in all things, nothing too great and nothing too trivial to come within the great Law of our being. There is another aspect of the Spirit in which it is seen as a Power to be used; and the full flow of life is in the constant alternation between this aspect and the one we have been considering, but always we are linked with the Universal Mind as the flower lives by reason of its root. The connection itself is intrinsic, and can never be severed; but it must be consciously realised before it can be consciously used. All our development consists in the increasing consciousness of this connection, which enables us to apply the higher power to whatever purpose we may have in hand, not merely in the hope that it _may_ respond, but with the certain knowledge that by the law of its own nature it is bound to do so, and likewise with the knowledge that by the same law it is bound also to guide us to the selection of right objects and right methods. Experience will teach us to detect the warning movement of the inner Guide. A deepseated sense of dissatisfaction, an indescribable feeling that somehow everything is not right, are the indications to which we do well to pay heed; for we are "guarded ones," and these interior monitions are the working of that innermost principle of our own being which is the immediate outflowing of the Great Universal Life into individuality. But, paying heed to this, we shall find ourselves guarded, not as prisoners, but as a loved and honoured wife, whose freedom is assured by a protection which will allow no harm to assail her; we shall find that the Law of our nature is Liberty, and that nothing but our own want of understanding can shut us out from it. XXII MIND AND HAND