THE UNIVERSAL LAW

“The works of God are fair for nought, Unless our eyes in seeing, See hidden in the thing, the thought That animates its being.”

“The outward form is not the whole, But every part is moulded To image forth an inward soul, That dimly is unfolded.”

“Thus nature dwells within our reach; But though we stand so near her, We still interpret half her speech With ears too dull to hear her.”

“Whoever at the coarsest sound Still listens for the finest, Shall hear the noisy world go round To music the divinest.”

“Whoever yearns to see aright, Because his heart is tender, Shall catch a glimpse of heavenly light In every earthly splendour.”

The Law according to the Buddha.

“The whole knowable universe forms one undivided whole.”

♦ The Causal Law ♦ It is composed of “a vast aggregate of original elements which are perpetually working out their fresh re-distribution in accordance with their own inherent energies.” These elements never become more nor less; but under the Law which governs them, they are in constant motion; they form, distribute, change, re-form; each fresh combination being the effect of Causes, or groups of Causes which precede it.

The all-governing Law which keeps the universe in motion is the Law of Evolution, the Law of Cause and Effect.

This Law is absolute in its working, it provides for no exceptions. Harvest-time follows seed-time; effects follow causes: and as the harvest provides the seed for all future seed-times and harvests, so, in every sphere, effects in their turn become causes of all future causes and effects. There is no possible deviation from this universal, fundamental law.

There is, nevertheless, infinite variety in the universe. For, Causes continually combine to produce ever new Effects; and the universe in its endless progression, is an ever-varying, harmonious, reposeful Unity. There can be no conflict under the governance of the one glorious unalterable Law.

The Law according to the Christ.

♦ The Causal Law ♦ Christ has many things to say which reveal His constant consciousness of the Harvest Law, as it may be called. To Him also it was the deepest, the fundamental thought; and He illustrates His teaching continually by reference to it. The Causes already in the field—the ground as well as the seed—determine the harvest of the sower. As surely as tares are sown amongst the good seed, so surely shall there be a mingled harvest of tares and good grain. The kind of harvest will be according to the kind of seed. The tree is known by its fruit. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns, nor figs of thistles.”

There is no evasion of the Causal Law; and in the fair universe there is no desire to evade it. For the Causal Law is the Law of Life. “The earth beareth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear”—the farmer knoweth not how—but “when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come.”

♦ The First Cause ♦ Buddha ♦ How the universe came into existence, who enacted the Law, the Buddha did not inquire, and forbade men to inquire. It was enough for them that they found themselves a part of the endless chain of causation; duty lay for them in the practical task of finding their place in the chain, and of adjusting themselves within it.

♦ Christ ♦ The Christ, on the other hand, assumed a Builder of the universe, and a Purpose in the Law; and He summed the graciousness and the harmony of nature in the only human phrase which conveyed His own conception of its wonderfulness. “My Father worketh.” “Not a sparrow falleth to the ground without your Father.” “Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin, and yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field...?”