OUR PURPOSE IN LIFE 131

awakened. It is a day of reckoning, the day
when one touches the bed rock, for one has to
get to the bottom of things and discriminate
the gold from the dross. That is the day when
we ask ourselves, " Has life a purpose ? " It is
the turning point of working for ourselves or for
working with^.the^Self; those who have come
to that point can never turn back. How
thankful one should feel when that point is
reached, when one realises that through all the
pain and struggle of life that the law of action
and reaction is unalterable, that one has to
work through the maze life after life, and that
in future lives we may be of use instead of a
clog, an inspiration, possibly, in the dim future
to others instead of a nonentity. " Therefore
he who wishes to reform the world must first of
all reform himself/'

Out of Himself He has called this mighty
system into being. We who are in it are evolving
fragments of His life, Sparks of His Divine Fire ;

from Him we all have come; into Him we shall
return.

Many have a«ked why He has done this ; why
He has emanated from Himself all this system;

why He has sent us forth to face the storms of life.
Many philosophers have speculated on this point and
many suggestions have been made. The most beau-
tiful that I know is that of a Gnostic philosopher:

God is Love, but Love itself cannot be perfect
unless it has those upon whom it can be lavished