It is high time that he should find such friends—men ready to meet him with that in their minds which prepares his way before him. He has too long been the voice driven to cry in the wilderness. Too long and too often he has found men opposing him with a settled prejudice in favour of the vested interests—the sanctified, it may be, and glorified vested interests—of law and order and creed, of institution and crystallized opinion. It is time that a new atmosphere should be made about him and that these things should be visibly set in their right place and held at their right value. When this is done the secret materialism of his opponents will be brought to light. For, however it may be disguised, all overvaluing of the instrumental product of life's activity comes of the undue depreciation of living spirit and the undue appreciation of its means. Science and philosophy, in teaching us now to seek for the true relation of matter and spirit, are also teaching us to lend a willing ear to the prophet. When we have learnt to see in man the beginning of a synthesis of order and freedom in a vital harmony not manifest in those starry heavens to which men point as the standing witness of God against prophets of new freedom, we are ready to confess, if we have found our God, that in him that perfect synthesis is declared and in man it is foreshadowed and to be pursued. ------- CHAPTER IV Hearken to me, ye children of the Immortal, dwellers of the heavenly worlds, I have known the Supreme Person who comes as light from the dark beyond. _Isha Upanishat._