of the Divine with the Individual results in his continual expansion, or, to use the Master's words, in his having Life and having it more abundantly [John 10:10 --- Ed]; and consequently, his powers steadily increase, and he is led by the most unlooked-for sequences of cause and effect into continually improving conditions which enable him to do more and more effectual work, so as to make him a centre of power, not only to himself, but to all with whom he comes in contact.

This continual progress is the result of the natural law of the relation between himself and the Universal Mind when he does not invert its action, and because it works with the same unchangeableness as all other Natural Laws, it constitutes an Everlasting Covenant which can no more be broken than those astronomical laws which keep the planets in their orbits, the smallest infraction of which would destroy the entire cosmic system; and it is for this reason that we find in the Bible such frequent allusions to the Laws of Nature as typical of the certainty of the relation between God and His people. "Gather My saints [separated ones] together unto Me; those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice" (Psalm 50:5); the two principles of Sacrifice and Covenant rightly understood will always be found to go hand in hand.

The idea of Guidance and Protection which is thus set forth recurs throughout the Bible under the emblem of the Shepherd and the Sheep, and it is in a