The Agnisuryans respond to the sound. The waters ebb and flow. Let the magician guard himself from drowning, at the point where land and water meet. The midway spot, which is neither dry nor wet, must provide the standing place whereon his feet are set. When water, land and air meet there is the place for magic to be wrought.
[235] It would be advisable for the student to read with care the commentary on this rule as given in the Treatise on Cosmic Fire. It will be noted how extremely abstruse it is and how full of almost blind occult information. This should however be studied. The word “astral plane” should also be looked up and a general idea gained as to its nature and its function as the battle-ground of the senses, and as the place from which magic is wrought. The intelligent and constructive desire of the white magician, acting under the instruction of his own soul and therefore occupied with group work, is the motivating power back of all magical phenomena. This magical work is begun in the magician’s own life, extends to the world of the astral plane and from thence (when potent there) can begin to demonstrate on the physical plane and on the higher planes eventually.
We shall, therefore, take a good deal of time over this rule for it covers the immediate work and activity of the intelligent aspirant. It is the most important in the book from the standpoint of the average student. It cannot be understood where there is no soul contact, nor can the magical force of the soul work out in manifestation upon the physical plane until the meaning of its esoteric phrases has been somewhat wrought out in the inner experience of the magician.
Most true aspirants are now at the midway spot, and can either drown (and so make no further progress this life), stand and so hold the ground gained, or become true practicing magicians, efficient in white magic, which is [236] based on love, animated by wisdom and intelligently applied to forms.
We will, therefore, divide this rule into several parts, the more easily to study it and take them up step by step, so as to grasp their application to the average life of the probationary disciple, and to gain a wise understanding of their wide implications.
These three divisions are:
1. The response of the astral elementals and the consequent ebb and flow of the waters.
2. The dangers of the midway spot, its nature and the opportunity it affords.
3. The place where magic is wrought.
We will study now the first point which is summed up for us in the words:
“The Agnisuryans respond to the sound.
The waters ebb and flow.”
The situation might be stated in the following terse statements. The rules already studied convey the truth anent the magician.
1. The soul has communicated with his instrument in the three worlds.
2. The man on the physical plane recognises the contact, and the light in the head shines forth, sometimes recognised and sometimes unrecognised by the aspirant.
3. The soul sounds forth its note. A thought-form is created in consonance with the united meditation of the soul and the man, his instrument.
4. This thought-form, embodying the will of the ego or soul, cooperating with the personality, takes to itself a triple form, constituted of the matter of all three planes, and vitalized through the activity and by the emanations from the heart, throat and [237] ajna centres of the white magician—the soul in conjunction with its instrument.
5. The personality sheaths, each with its own individual life, feel they are losing their power and the battle between the forces of matter and the force of the soul is violently renewed.
6. This battle must be fought out on the astral plane and will decide three things:
a. Whether the soul will, in any one life (for some life holds the critical stage), be the dominant factor and the personality from henceforth be the servant of the soul.
b. Whether the astral plane is no longer the plane of illusion, but can become the field of service.
c. Whether the man can become an active co-operator with the Hierarchy, able to create and to wield mental matter, and so work out the purposes of the Universal Mind, which are prompted by boundless and infinite love, and are the expression of the One Life.
This is the crux of the entire situation, and when the man has mastered the forces opposed to him, he is ready for the second initiation which marks the release of the soul from the prison of the astral body. Henceforth the soul will use the astral body, and mould desire into line with divine purpose.
It is of value for the student to know where he stands and what his particular problem is. The average man is learning the control of the physical body and the organizing of his physical plane life. The student on the probationary path is learning a similar lesson in relation to his astral body, its focus, its desires and its work. The student on the path of accepted discipleship has to demonstrate this control and begin to discipline the mind nature and so function consciously in the mental body. [238] The work of the initiate and the adept grows out of these achievements and they need not be dealt with here.
The battle is spread over quite a series of lives, but in some one life it becomes critical; the final stand is made and Arjuna triumphs in the fight, but only by letting Krishna assume the reins of control, by learning mind control and by the revelation of the form of God. By distinguishing between the soul and the form, and by a vision of the perfection of the glory which can radiate from the forms “indwelt by God”, he learns to choose the way of light and to see his form and all forms as custodians of the light. So he buckles down to the work of making the astral body simply a reflector of that light and by the quelling of desire, through the subjugation of the “Agnisuryans” who constitute his astral body and are the living substance of the astral plane, he learns to function as an adept on that plane, to pierce through its illusion and to see life true .
Speaking symbolically the substance of the astral plane is animated by three types of divine force, which, when brought together, produce the great Illusion. These are:
First, the force of selfish desire. This involutionary energy plays a big part in bringing about evolution, for selfishness is the nursery of infant souls. Hence the aspirant refuses to be held by it.
Second, the force of fear. This is the product of ignorance, and in its initial stages it is not the product of wrong thinking. It is basically instinctual and is found dominating in the non-mental animal kingdom as well as in the human kingdom. But in the human, its power is increased potently through the powers of the mind, and through memory of past pain and grievance and through anticipation of those we foresee, the power of fear is enormously aggravated by the thought-form we ourselves have built of our own individual fears and [239] phobias. This thought form grows in power as we pay attention to it, for “energy follows thought” till we become dominated by it. Second ray people are peculiarly a prey to this. For the majority of them it constitutes the “dweller on the threshold”, just as ambition and love of power, backed by frantic desire and unscrupulousness form the “Dweller” for the first ray types. The crystallized thought form of intellectual achievement for selfish ends, and the use of knowledge for personality objectives stand before the portal of the path in the case of the third ray person, and unless broken up and destroyed will dominate him and turn him into a black magician.
You oft have been told that fear is an illusion. Yet this statement does not help. It is a generalisation that one can admit, yet which remains profoundly difficult to apply individually. The fears to which aspirants are subject (note the mode of wording this) are seldom of a selfish nature except insofar as suffering has caused them to recoil from a further continuation of untoward happenings. Their fears are wrapt in seeming love around their loved ones. Yet should each disciple ask himself a most practical question: How many of the torturing hours have been expended on realities and on tangible happenings, and how many on illusory premonitions and on doubts and questionings, based on that which has never happened? I would like to point out to my brothers that they need to do two things: To meditate on truth in daily life, using the concept of truth practised and lived by as their seed thought in meditation; to this end I would suggest that they memorise and use at all times when swept by illusory fears and needless foreboding the following formula or prayer:
“Let reality govern my every thought, and truth be the master of my life.”
Let each say this to himself as constantly as need requires, [240] forcing his mind to focus attention upon the significance of these spoken words.
I would suggest also sound common sense and the cultivation of an attitude of mind which refuses to permit time for illusory fears to grow.
Fear is the main obstacle frequently to a very vital step forward which could be taken in this life, but may have to be delayed to another if due opportunity is not taken and the will nature powerfully excited.
The first ray aspirant who fails to overcome his Dweller may become a “destroyer of souls”, as it is called, and be condemned (until he learns his lesson) to work in the forces of matter, and with the forms which hold all souls in prison. This is the occult significance of the misunderstood words, death and destruction. Of this type, the Devil is the great prototype.
The second ray aspirant who builds his Dweller and permits its steady and increasing control becomes a “deluder of souls”. He is the true Anti-Christ, and through false teaching and the working of so-called miracles, through hypnotism and mass suggestion he draws a veil over the world and forces men to walk in the great illusion. It is interesting to note that the work of the Devil, the imprisoner of souls, is beginning to lose its power, for the race is on the verge of understanding that true death is immersion in form, and that matter is but a part of the divine whole. The thought form of this “Dweller on the Threshold” which humanity has built for millions of years is on the verge of destruction. But the work of Anti-Christ is only rising now to its height, and the delusion of riches, of possession, of false teaching will increasingly hold sway but the term of the delusion will be shorter than the term of destruction, for all these factors function under their own cycles and have their own ebb and flow.
The third ray person who also fails to shatter his [241] “Dweller” becomes what is called a “manipulator of souls” and uses the mind to destroy the real and to put a veil between the man and reality. It must be remembered that none of these names and these activities refer to the soul on its own plane but only to human souls in incarnation on the physical plane. This must be stressed, for on its own plane the souls of all men stand free from illusion, and neither can be destroyed, deluded nor manipulated. It is only “the souls in prison” who are subject to the activities of the forces of evil and only for a term. The first group works through governments, through politics, and the interplay between nations and is relatively small in number. The second ray group who delude and deceive, work through religious agencies, through mass psychology, and the misuse and misapplication of devotion and of the arts. They are largest in number. The third group work primarily through commercial relations in the business world, and through the use of money, the concretisation of prana or universal energy, and the outer symbol of the universal flux and flow. These thoughts are suggestive but not vital, dealing as they do with the cosmic tendencies.
Thirdly, the force of sex attraction. This is a pull from the physical plane and the swinging back of a type of involutionary energy on to the path of return. Cosmically speaking, it manifests as the attractive force between spirit and matter; spiritually speaking, it is demonstrated as the activity of the soul, as it seeks to draw the lower self into full realisation. Physically speaking, it is the urge which tends to unite male and female for the purpose of procreation. When man was purely animal, no sin was involved. When to this urge was added emotional desire, then sin crept in, and the purpose for which the urge manifested was perverted into the satisfaction of desire. Now that the race is more mental, and the force of mind is making itself felt in [242] the human body, an even more serious situation is apparent, which can only be safely worked out when the soul assumes control of its triple instrument.
Humanity is now at the midway point as this rule shows. Man is swept by selfish desire and by ambition, for all of us have first ray qualities. He is racked by fear—his own, family fears, national fears and racial, for all of us swing to the rhythm of the second ray. He is dominated by sex and by money which is another manifestation of the energy of matter and hence has a triple problem with which he is well equipped to deal through the medium of his triple vehicle and the triple potencies of his divine soul. Let us close the instruction on that note—well equipped to deal. We can overcome mental inertia and begin to function as souls in command of our environment. The soul is omniscient and omnipotent.
Let us consider now the words “the ebb and flow of the waters.”
In the understanding of the law of cycles, we gain knowledge of the underlying laws of evolution and come to a realization of the rhythmic work of creation. Incidentally also we gain poise as we study our own life impulses, for they also have their ebb and flow, and alternate between periods of light and periods of darkness.
We have with us always that symbolic daily occurrence wherein the part of the world in which we live swings out into the clear light of the sun, and later returns into the healing dark of the night. Our very familiarity with the phenomenon causes us to lose sight of its symbolic significance and to forget that under the great law, periods of light and dark, of good and evil, of submergence and emergence, of progress into illumination [243] and apparent betrayal into darkness, characterize the growth of all forms, distinguish the development of races and nations, and constitute the problem of the aspirant who has built for himself a picture of walking in a constant illumined condition and of leaving all dark places behind.
In these Instructions, it is not possible for me to deal with the ebb and flow of the divine life as it manifests in the various kingdoms in nature and through the evolutionary growth of humanity, through experience in races, nations and families. I seek, however, to elaborate somewhat the cyclic experience of a soul in incarnation, indicating the apparent ebb and flow of its unfoldment.
The outstanding cycle for every soul is that of its forthgoing into incarnation and its return or flowing back into the centre from whence it came. According to the point of view will be the understanding of this ebb and flow. Souls might esoterically be regarded as those “seeking the light of experience” and therefore turned towards physical expression, and those “seeking the light of understanding”, and therefore retreating from the realm of human undertaking to forge their way inward into the soul consciousness, and so become “dwellers in the light eternal”. Without appreciating the significance of the terms, the psychologists have sensed these cycles and call certain types, extraverts, and others, introverts. These mark an ebb and flow in individual experience and are the tiny life correspondences to the great soul cycles. This passing into, and passing out of, the web of incarnated existence are the major cycles of any individual soul, and a study of the types of pralaya dealt with in The Secret Doctrine and A Treatise on Cosmic Fire would be found of real value by the student.
There is also an ebb and flow in soul experience on any one plane and this, in the early stages of development, will cover many lives. They are usually quite extreme in [244] their expression. A study of the racial ebb and flow will make this clearer. In Lemurian days the “flow”, or the outward going cycle, spent itself on the physical plane and the ebb carried the life aspect right back to the soul itself, and there was no secondary ebb and flow on the astral or mental planes.
Later, the tide broke on the shores of the astral plane, though including the physical in less degree. The flow directed its attention to the emotional life, and the drift back to the centre took no account of the mental life at all. This was at its height for humanity in Atlantean days and is true also of many today. Now the ebb and flow is increasingly inclusive, and the mental experience has its place so that all three aspects are swept by the life of the soul; all are included in the outgoing energy of the incarnating soul, and for many lives and series of lives this cyclic force spends itself. Within the aspirant there arises an understanding of what is going on and he awakens to the desire to control consciously this ebb and flow or (to put it in simple words) to turn the forces of the outgoing energy in any direction he chooses, or to withdraw to his centre at will. He seeks to arrest this process of being swept out into incarnation without having any conscious purpose, and refuses to see the tide of his life beat out on emotional or mental spheres of existence, and then again see that life withdrawn without his conscious volition. He stands at the midway point and wants to control his own cycles, the “ebb and flow” as he himself may determine it. With conscious purpose he longs to walk in the dark places of incarnated existence and with equally conscious purpose he seeks to withdraw into his own centre. Hence he becomes an aspirant.
The life of the aspirant begins to repeat earlier cycles. He is assailed by a sudden stimulation of the physical nature and violently swept by ancient desires and lusts. [245] This may be succeeded by a cycle wherein the physical body is conscious of the flowing away from it of vital energy and is devitalised, because not the subject of attention. This accounts for much of the sickness and lack of vitality of many of our most cherished servers. The same process can affect the emotional body, and periods of exaltation and of highest aspiration alternate with periods of the deepest depression and lack of interest. The flow may pass on to the mental body and produce a cycle of intense mental activity. Constant study, much thought, keen investigation and a steady intellectual urge will characterize the mind of the aspirant. To this may succeed a cycle wherein all study is distasteful, and the mind seems to lie entirely fallow and inert. It is an effort to think, and the futility of phases of thought assail the mind. The aspirant decides that to be is better far than to do. “Can these dry bones live?” he asks, and has no desire to see them revitalised.
All true seekers after truth are conscious of this unstable experience and frequently regard it as a sin or as a condition to be strenuously fought. Then is the time to appreciate that “the midway spot which is neither dry nor wet must provide the standing place whereon his feet are set.”
This is a symbolic way of saying that he needs to realize two things:
1. That states of feeling are quite immaterial and are no indication of the state of the soul. The aspirant must centre himself in the soul consciousness, refuse to be influenced by the alternating conditions to which he seems subjected, and simply “stand in spiritual being” and then “having done all, stand.”
2. That the achievement of equilibrium is only possible where alternation has been the rule, and that the cyclic ebb and flow will continue just as long as the soul’s [246] attention fluctuates between one or other aspect of the form and the true spiritual man.
The ideal is to achieve such a condition of conscious control that at will a man may be focussed in his soul consciousness or focussed in his form aspect,—each act of focussed attention being brought about through a realised and specific objective, necessitating such a focussing.
Later when the words of the great Christian teacher have significance, he will be able to say “whether in the body or out of the body” is a matter of no moment. The act of service to be rendered will determine the point where the self is concentrated, but it will be the same self, whether freed temporarily from the form consciousness or immersed in the form in order to function in different aspects of the divine whole. The spiritual man seeks for the furthering of the plan and to identify himself with the divine mind in nature. Withdrawing to the midway spot, he endeavours to realize his divinity and then, having done so, he focusses himself in his mental form which puts him en rapport with the Universal Mind. He endures limitation so that thereby he may know and serve. He seeks to reach the hearts of men and to carry to them “inspiration” from the depths of the heart of spiritual being. Again he asserts the fact of his divinity and then, through a temporary identification with his body of sensory perception, of feeling, and of emotion, he finds himself at-one with the sensitive apparatus of divine manifestation which carries the love of God to all forms on the physical plane.
Again he seeks to aid in the materialising of the divine plan on the physical plane. He knows that all forms are the product of energy rightly used and directed. With full knowledge of his divine Sonship and a potent mind realisation of all that that term conveys, he focusses his forces in the vital body and becomes a focal point for the transmission of divine energy and hence a builder in [247] union with the building energies of the Cosmos. He carries the energy of illumined thought and sanctified desire down into the body of ether, and so works with intelligent devotion.
You ask for a clearer definition of the “midway” spot.
For the probationer it is the emotional plane, the Kurukshetra, or the plane of illusion, where land (physical nature) and water (emotional nature) meet.
For the disciple it is the mental plane where form and soul make contact and the great transition becomes possible. For the advanced disciple and the initiate, the midway spot is the causal body, the karana sarira, the spiritual body of the soul, standing as the intermediary between Spirit and matter, Life and form, the monad and the personality.
This can also be discussed and understood in terms of the centres.
As every student knows, there are two centres in the head. One centre is between the eyebrows and has the pituitary body as its objective manifestation. The other is in the region at the top of the head and has the pineal gland as its concrete aspect. The pure mystic has his consciousness centred in the top of the head, almost entirely in the etheric body. The advanced worldly man is centred in the pituitary region. When, through occult unfoldment and esoteric knowledge, the relation between the personality and the soul is established there is a midway spot in the centre of the head in the magnetic field which is called the “light in the head”, and it is here that the aspirant takes his stand. This is the spot of vital import. It is neither land or physical, nor water or emotional. It might be regarded as the vital or etheric body which has become the field of conscious service, of directed control, and of force utilisation towards specific ends.
Here the magician takes his stand and through the [248] medium of his force or energy body performs the magical creative work.
One point is rather abstrusely dealt with in this rule, but it clarifies, if the words are studied with care. At the close of the rule we are told that when “water, land and air meet” there is the place for the working of magic. Curiously in these phrases the idea of location is omitted and only the time equation considered.
Air is the symbol of the buddhic vehicle, of the plane of spiritual love, and when the three above enumerated (in their energy aspects) meet, it is indicative of a focussing in the soul consciousness and a centralisation of the man in the spiritual body. From that point of power, outside of form, from the central sphere of unification and from the focussed point within that circle of consciousness, the spiritual man projects his consciousness into the midway spot within the brain cavity where the magical work must, in relation to the physical plane, be carried out. This ability to project the consciousness from the plane of soul realisation into that of creative magical work on the etheric subplanes is gradually made possible as the student in his meditation work develops facility in focussing his attention in one or other of the centres in the body. This is accomplished through the medium of the force centres in the etheric body. He gradually gains that plasticity and that fluidity of the self-directed consciousness which will enable him to play on the centres, as a musician utilises the seven notes of music. When this has been achieved he can begin to train himself in wider and more extended focussings and must learn to withdraw his consciousness, not only to the brain, but to the soul on its own plane and thence re-direct his energies in the performance of the magical work of the soul.
The fundamental secret of the cycles lies in this withdrawal and the subsequent re-focussing of attention and [249] it must be remembered in this connection that the basic law underlying all magical work is that “energy follows thought”. If aspirants would remember this they would live through their periods of aridity with greater ease and would be conscious of the underlying purpose.
It might here be asked what are the dangers of this midway spot?
The dangers of too violent fluctuation between land and water, or between the emotional response to life and truth or life on the physical plane. Some aspirants are too emotional in their reactions; others too materialistic. The effect of this is felt in the midway spot and produces a violent instability. This instability has a direct effect on the solar plexus centre which was the “midway spot” in early Atlantean times, and is still the midway point in the transmutation processes of the aspiring personality. It transmutes and transmits the energies of the sacral centre and of the centre at the base of the spine, and is the clearing house for all energies focussed in the centres below the diaphragm.
The dangers incident to a premature and uncontrolled pouring in of pure spiritual energy to the mechanism of the personality. That vital spiritual force enters through the cranial aperture, and pours into the head centres. From them will follow the line of least resistance which is determined by the daily trend of the aspirant’s thought life.
Another and rather potent danger is the result, literally, of the bringing together of the land and water. It demonstrates as the pouring into the brain consciousness (the land aspect) of the knowledges of the astral plane. One of the first things an aspirant becomes aware of is a tendency to the lower psychism. It is a reaction from the solar plexus centre. But this midway point can be utilised as a “jumping off place” into the world of astral phenomena. This will produce “death by drowning”, [250] for the aspirant’s spiritual life can be swamped and entirely submerged in the interests of the lower psychical experiences. It is here that many worthy aspirants go astray—temporarily it may be, but the times are so critical that it is a matter to be deplored if any time is lost in futile experimentation and the retracing of any path chosen.
A clue to the significance of these words is to be found in the recognition of the following occult fact. The place where water and land meet is the solar plexus centre. The place where water, land and air meet is in the head. Land is the symbol of the physical plane life, and of the exoteric form. Water is the symbol of the emotional nature. It is from the great centre of the personality life, the solar plexus, that the life is usually ruled and government administered. When the centre of direction lies below the diaphragm there is no magic possible. The animal soul controls and the spiritual soul is perforce quiescent. Air is the symbol of the higher life in which the Christ principle dominates, in which freedom is experienced and the soul comes to full expression. It is the symbol of the buddhic plane, as water is of the emotional. When the life of the personality is carried up into Heaven, and the life of the soul comes down on to earth, there is the place of meeting, and there the work of transcendental magic becomes possible.
This meeting place is the place of fire, the plane of mind. Fire is the symbol of the intellect and all magical work is an intelligent process, carried out in the strength of the soul, and by the use of the mind. To make itself felt on the physical plane, a brain is required which is receptive to higher impulses and which can be impressed by the soul utilizing the “chitta” or mental substance in order to create the needed thought forms, and so express the ideas and purposes of the intelligent loving soul. These are recognized by the brain and are [251] photographed upon the “vital airs” found in the brain cavity. When these vital airs can be sensed by the magician in meditation, and the thought-forms imprinted on this miniature reflection of the astral light, then the real potency in magic can begin to make itself felt. The brain has “heard” occultly the injunctions and instructions of the mind as it relays the behests of the soul. The vital airs are swept into form-making activity just as their higher correspondence, the “modifications of the thinking principle, the mind stuff” (as Patanjali calls it), are thrown into an analogous form-making activity. These can then be seen interiorly by the man who is seeking to perform the magical work and much of his success is dependent upon his ability to register impressions exactly, and to see with clarity the forms of the process in magic which he is seeking to demonstrate as magical work in the outer world.
It might therefore be said that there are three stages in the form-making process. First, the soul or spiritual man, centered in the soul consciousness and functioning in “the secret place of the Most High”, visualizes the work to be done. This is not a sequential act, but the finished completed work of magic is visioned by a process that does not involve the time element or spatial concepts at all. Secondly, the mind responds to the soul (calling attention to the work to be performed), and is swept into thought-form making activity by this impression. According to the lucidity and illumination of the mind-stuff so will be the response to the impression. If the mind is a true reflector and receiver of soul impress, the corresponding thought-form will be true to its prototype. If it is not true (as is usually the case in the early stages of the work) then the thought-form created will be distorted and incorrect, unbalanced and “out of drawing”.
It is in meditation that this work of accurate reception [252] and correct building is learnt and hence the emphasis laid in all true schools of esoteric training upon a focussed mind, a capacity to visualize, an ability to build thought-forms, and an accurate grasp of egoic intent. Hence also the need of the magician beginning the practical work of magic with himself as the subject of the magical experiment. He begins to grasp the vision of the spiritual man, as he is in essence. He realizes the virtues and reactions which that spiritual man would evidence in physical plane life. He builds a thought-form of himself as the ideal man, the true server, the perfect master. He gradually coordinates his forces so that power to be these things in external reality begins to take shape so that all men can see. He creates a pattern in his mind which hews as true as he can make it to the prototype, and which serves to model the lower man and force conformity to the ideal. As he perfects his technique he finds a transmuting, transforming power at work upon the energies which constitute his lower nature, until all is subordinated and he becomes in practical manifestation what he is esoterically and essentially. As this takes place, he begins to be interested in the magical work in which it is the function of all true souls to participate.
Then the third aspect of the form-making process can manifest. The brain is synchronized with the mind, and the mind with the soul, and the plan is sensed. The vital airs in the head can be modified and respond to the force of the building magical work. A thought-form exists then as the result of the previous two activities, but it exists in the place of the brain activity and becomes a focussing centre for the soul, and a point through which energy can flow for the performance of the magical work.
This magical work, carried out under the direction of the soul (inspiring the mind which in its turn impresses the brain), leads then (as the result of this triple coordinated activity) to the creation of a focussing centre, [253] or form, within the head of the magician. The energy which flows through this focal point acts through three distributing agents, and hence all three are involved in all magical work.
1. The right eye, through which the vital energy of the spirit can express itself.
2. The throat centre, through which the Word, the second aspect or the soul expresses itself.
3. The hands, through which the creative energy of the third aspect works.
“The White Magician” works “with the eyes open, the voice proclaiming and the hands conferring.”
These points are or technical interest to the experienced worker in magic, but of symbolic interest only to the aspirants for whom these letters are intended.
That the inner vision may be ours, the eye see clearly the glory of the Lord, and the voice speak only in benediction, and the hands be used only in helpfulness, may well be the prayer of each of us.