　　　　　CHAPTER IV

　　　GUIDE'S HELP FOR AN M.P.

　WHAT a variety of different people, in all walks of life have come to our circle to imbibe the wisdom of Silver Birch!

　To a Labour M.P. who knows something of the Spiritualist case, the guide addressed these words:

　"I have come back merely to stress a few elementary spiritual truths. It seems to me—and I am quite an old manーthat what your world needs is not some high-flown, theo-logical, abstract collection of doctrines, but a few simple truths enthroned in the hearts of most religions, taught by those who were inspired by the power of the spirit in days gone by, that all mankind is part of one another, that beneatour physical differences there is a common bond of the spirit which unites us all.

　"The same blood flows in our veins, the same spirit is in each of our natures. The Great Spirit has made us all members of one family. The children make differences and fail to see the underlying unity, and they have to be reminded that there is no true progress until these spiritual realities take their place in all worldly systems.

　"Brotherhood, co-operation, service, toleration—these are foundations, in all life, and until man learns to build on these foundations, there can be no true peace. Serve one another, love one another, desire to help one another, that he who has much shall give some to him who has not enough—these are the simple truths which must be stressed over and over again. And I do know this: that all who apply them in their own lives and in the lives of peoples and nations, will provide the kind of existence which man was intended to have."

　The politician, an idealist, was given this advice when he asked about a course of action connected with a public duty:

　"If you think that it is right for you to do what is asked, do it. If you think that it is wrong, despite anything that I have said, do not do it. But I think you will find that the door opens wide, and it leads to much greater things.”

　"I am in a quandary tonight," said the M.P. when the sitting began. He had decisions to make on political matters.

　Among those who, through the guide, encouraged him was George Lansbury, the zealot for reform and peace, who said, “I was wrong though I was right.” He meant that he was right in his crusading for peace and amity but wrong in thinking it could be done now.

　Then the guide said to him:

　"You have to suffer in silence, to be acquainted with sorrow and with grief, who have been companions for a long timeーI am going back into the pastーwhen, to all outward appear-ances, it seemed as if there was nothing at all the matter with you.

　"But you have been brave. You have always faced up to it and asked yourself the simple questionーWhat is right? And then you have unhesitatingly followed that course. This is not the place to touch on the one great sorrow of your life.

　"The reason you are here is because you have a destiny to fulfil, one that should be fulfilled before you leave this earth. It is quite a great contribution that you can make, for you can be the means of helping many, who are unfortunate, to find light, understanding and to lend their aid to all the forces that work for man's greater freedom. Do this and all other things will be added unto you.

　"You do not have to worry because the love that surrounds you and guides you constitutes arms of certainty, and with your knowledge and understanding, unless you choose to exercise a free will in the wrong direction, you will not be

allowed to stray.

　"Are you conscious of all the great love that enfolds you?” asked the guide.

　"I am humble before it," he was told.

　"You are greatly loved in our world,” said Silver Birch, "by many souls whom we esteem and whom we account as shining ones who have distinguished themselves by lives of great service.

　"Sometimes I wish the people of your world, even those of you who have the knowledge of spiritual truths, could see these individuals who uphold and sustain you in all your labours and who rejoice at your forward strides and mourn at the setbacks, but who know all the time that the spirit of man is on the march and none can gainsay it the fruits of its own divinity.

　"You have toiled,” he said to his visitor, “and you have laboured; you have wept and you have suffered. You have known what it is to feel a loneliness of soul, when all seems completely neglected, uncared for, forlorn. You have known the exaltation of the spirit as the soul soars to altitudes that few can reach. You have tasted the depths of despair. No Mountain of Transfiguration can be achieved until the soul has endured its Garden of Gethsemane."

　Then from Keir Hardie, one of the earliest Socialist leaders, Silver Birch relayed this message to the M.P.: "He says he is very proud of you. He is proud of all those who have never trimmed their sails in the good cause ...that which is best for man, bodily, mentally and spiritually.

　"He loves those whose single desire is to allow all man's aspirations to be expressed, not only to raise a physical standard where there is more money and less work, but where the spirit of man has the chance to develop and his mind a chance to cultivate all the arts that make for beauty. That, he says, is the kind of gospel you are preaching. Is it?"

　"I hope so," was the answer.

　Then Silver Birch said to Hannen Swaffer: “The rights of the common man are being fulfilled in the physical world, but at the same time, the rights of the spiritual man are taking their place, although there are not, as yet, all the visible signs of its happening. You are in the new era, the gradual unfold-ment of the new world in which there will be a greater freedom for the largest numbers of people.

　"All those who have crossed the border of death to join us in this world of spirit release an energy, a tremendous energy, which acts as an incentive for them to attach themselves to all those in your world who are inspired with the ideal of helping the unfortunate and the less privileged to obtain some of the joys of earthly life.

　"Man is not thwarted as he seeks to claim his own. The forces of greed, rapacity and self-interest try to obstruct and to prevent the natural upsurge of the human spirit as it yearns for the freedom which is part of its innate nature. This spirit is gradually unfolding in your own world accompanied by tremendous outbursts of the power of the spirit.

　"Not only is this being expressed in the physical and political and economic fields in which you are so interested, but you will find as a result of these outbursts that many new instruments of the spirit will come forward inspired by this great wave of activity.

　"With it there will be released the power which will not only comfort mourners and heal the sick, but it will enable inspiration to flow in greater measure. More and more people will turn towards you, finding that you can give them guid-ance in their perplexity, balm in their difficulty, and peace and certainty when their hearts and minds are full of anxiety and trouble.”

　And with these words the guide ended the sitting:

　"So let us all pause just for one moment to try and become more conscious of the power that is in our midst, that we may recognise some of the beings who lend us their aid to labour with us and who strive to inspire us to accomplish yet greater things. They know that the richest service we can render to the Great Spirit of all life is to serve His children, so many of whom know not where to turn.

　"May we be fortified in all our endeavours to help all who need it, to encourage all in difficulty, to search for that enlightenment which will ease the burdens that they carry. And may we always, by our own actions, reveal that we are indeed the emissaries of a divine power, and be worthy of that Great Spirit to whom we all belong."

　On another occasion, the Hannen Swaffer home circle was visited by the editor of a national newspaper with a very large circulation. Speaking of the war which had not long ended, Silver Birch told him: “The fact is that out of all the agony, the suffering and misery and privation, out of all the bloodshed and chaos and upheaval of a tremendous war, there is also a similar upheaval, mentally and spiritually, in the people who have passed through these awesome experiences.

　"And in this cataclysmic upheaval there has been a shatter-ing of all old ideas to which allegiance has been given for many long years by those who were not trained to think along the lines of truth, but were moulded and manipulated by the ones who had their own interests to serve.

　"The whole structure of materialism has been broken down and much has received its death blow. Here and there are small groups of those who seek to serve their own ends, who wish to aggrandise themselves and who have no concern in their hearts for the wellbeing of humanity.

　"And some of these have control of the machineryーyour kind of machineryーand seek to obstruct the upsurge of the human spirit as it demands full expression and the redemption of promises of a brighter, happier, fairer, better world made to them in times of agony and stress.

　"All those who are on the side of the new world, the better world, the world in which the vast millions will find freedom of spirit, freedom of mind, freedom of body, attract to their aid the vast hosts in the world of spirit who have died, as you call it, for this cause.

　"They also attract a large number of higher beings who have dedicated themselves to the task of helping humanity find itself, so that it shall derive from life all the fulness and the richness and the beauty that it has to offer.

　"Greater successes will come to those who work for the welfare of humanity, which has never truly had the chance, which has always been cheated and deprived, obstructed and hindered, prevented from fulfilling its divine mission. This is that the Great Spirit which is within every human being shall be manifest to the highest, fullest capacity.”

　Then the guide added, “That sounds very evangelical, doesn't it? Do I make myself clear?"

　"I think so. It is pretty clear to me," said the editor, who was meeting Silver Birch for the second time.

　"What the world needs,” the guide went on, "is simple truth. There is no new great truth, no wonderful revelation, no new dispensation to be given.

　"It has all been revealed in days gone by, in every age, in every clime, according to the needs and understanding of the people of those days. There have always been, and there always will be, the inspired men and the inspired women on whom the power of the spirit will descend and who will have the clear vision and see and teach and heal and comfort.

　"In your own day this same power of the spirit descends in larger fullness to repeat the demonstrations that always accompany this descent of the Holy Ghost, as it has been called, to stress the same old truthsーman's deathlessness, his im-mortality, his spiritual nature, his origin, his destiny, the purpose of his being, his relationship with the great oversoul of life, his relationship with his neighbour and all the implica-tions that arise from those tremendous facts.

　"And now, once again, this outburst and outpouring of the spirit comes in increasing measure to repeat the same old truths. They are old but they are still necessary because now the world enters into a new cycle of evolution. No longer is there a respect for that which is aged and hallowed and con-ventional. No longer is there obedience to authority because

it is authority. No longer is there worship of convention.

　"Men have seen the failure of all these things and have yearned for that which will satisfy their growing minds and their evolving spirits. That is why, as an essential con-comitant of this outpouring spirit power, there is a greater awakening in the purely physical fields of life and the de-mands that justice and brotherhood shall reign everywhere.

　"All this will not be accomplished in a week or a year, or perhaps a decade or a century. But it is part of the law of universal life that men shall find themselves, their true selves. All who are charged with authority and whose task it is to provide signposts to humanity, on your shoulders rests the great responsibility of discharging that duty faithfully and well.

　"Some day you must give an account of your stewardship. I do not say this personally to you. All have to account for the stewardship, the stewardship of their own lives. Then there are regrets for neglected opportunities; then there are joys at the realisation of service that has been rendered.

　"In a world in which despair still reigns and there is so much darkness, those who fight for light and truth need have no qualms, for the mighty power of the spirit, the greatest force in the universe, will uphold and sustain them through all those tasks. For when you are on the side of right, ultimate triumph will be yours.”

　After giving some personal messages from a colleague of the editor, one who had recently passed on, Silver Birch returned to his theme, saying: "I have been working in your world for a long, long time now. I am getting quite accus-tomed to all its vagaries, and I rejoice when people like you come to me and imagine that I can be of any help to you.

　"I rejoice because it is a demonstration that the power of the spirit is at work. All that I know has taught me that that power will succeed as long as there are faithful instruments through which it can express itself.

　"All the forces of reaction, all the forces of opposition, all the traducers and persecutors cannot stay it as long as there are faithful instruments who can touch hearts filled with sadness, mend broken bodies, show the perplexed where they can find light, and show the weary where they can find strength.

　"All this should have been done by others charged with the authority of churches, but they have failed. They are being left behind. And now power, spiritual and material, comes to the ordinary man and woman. If only they were conscious and knew what they were in content, if they understood the divinity of their own natures, if they realised the mighty reservoir of knowledge, the power, the energy that lay within their own beings, they could call it forth and they could

build this new world in a very short time.

　"And that is what must take place in your world because we are tired of receiving day after day the misfits, the derelicts, the outcasts, the flotsam and jetsam, the millions who come here unprepared, unready, unequipped and who have to learn all over again. Instead of passing to our world a stream of evolved souls ready to take up the tasks that await them, there come in their place millions who have to be treated and nursed and tended because they are like bruised little children.

　"That is why it is so important that knowledge in all its forms should spread, that mankind should receive truth, for with truth to guide him he cannot fail. And truth will bring him understanding, understanding will bring him peace and love, and with love in his heart there is no problem that cannot be solved. All the problems that confront leaders of mankind today would fade away if truth and wisdom and knowledge and love were to rule and guide humanity.

　"Do you not agree with me?" he asked the editor, who replied, “Oh, yes.

　"So," continued the guide, “that is what we must do, you in your way, I in mine, and all who can reach the people and give them some truth to which they can hold on, so that they in turn can enrich the world or that part of the world in which they live."

　The visitor and members of the circle discussed the dead newspaper colleague, and Silver Birch resumed:

　"You do not realise that when people come to our world they have an entirely different focus. You think of a man, you think of his position, his place in your society, his in-fluence, his status, his earthly title, but these things mean nothing in the world of spirit. When all these are stripped away, the soul is left naked, covered only by that which it has done.

　"This man really tried to serve humanity. He attracted affection, and all that affection helps him when he passes over and becomes his eternal possessions. The money has to be left behind, the things that are accumulated in earthly treasures no longer are his, but love, affection, service, these are the eternal qualities. These the soul takes with it and by these the soul is known.

　"If you earn the love, the esteem, the affection of your fellows, your soul has added to its stature and by adding to its stature it helps to establish its advancement. And in spheres where true standards of judgment exist these are the things that are considered the most important. For it is what you are, what you have done that will count.”

　There was a long discussion about newspapers and journal-ists, and the editor who had come to the seance asked, “Do, they have any anxiety over there about what we are doing?"

　"Yes," replied Silver Birch.

　"But no anxiety about the financial success of things?" put in the editor, who wondered whether his colleague worried about the newspaper to which he gave many years of his life. The guide said that because this man had only recently passed on, he would be concerned, but he would soon learn to acclimatise himself.

　"Service is the one thing that we all learn here,” added Silver Birch, "and you can serve in so many different capacities. You can serve by giving light, serve by bringing colour into people's lives, serve by cheering them when they are downcast, serve by helping to find truthーyou can serve in so many ways."

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