Ignorance and blindness may "try all other ways," and they prove
unavailing. There is no success, there is no happiness, there is no
progress, until there is the clear inner recognition and the profound
and loving and joyful acceptance of the Divine will; of coming into such
perfect acceptance of it as to make one's own will identified with its
harmony.
Thus, when Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He
simply expressed a fact that cannot be negatived nor ignored. It is an
actual, a positive law, as impossible to evade as the law of
gravitation. One may refuse "the way, the truth, and the life," and
wander in bewilderment and inaction; but he will never be able to
achieve worthy work, or personal peace, until he accepts and lives by
this law. As Professor Hilty so well says, this, alone, gives life an
intelligent meaning. "As one follows the way, he gains, first of all,
courage, so that he dares to go on in his search. He goes still
further, and the way opens into the assurance that life, with all its
mystery, is not lived in vain. He pushes on, and the way issues into
health, not only of the soul, but even of the body; for bodily health is
more dependent on spiritual condition than spiritual condition is on
bodily health; and modern medicine can never restore and assure health
to the body if it limit its problem to physical relief alone. Nor is
even this the end of the 'way' of Christ. Here alone is positive social
redemption.... Finally, the way is sure to lead every life which follows
it, and is willing to pay the price for the possession of truth, into
the region of spiritual peace."
Thus, in the end, "out of the midst of evil, issues at last the mastery
of the good." Thus moral progress itself is the witness of God.
Living by this faith, life becomes strong, serene, and radiant. "The
Magi have but to follow their Star in peace.... The Divine action
marvellously adjusts all things. The order of God sends each moment the
appropriate instrument for its work; and the soul, enlightened by faith,
finds all things good, desiring neither more nor less than she
possesses."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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