Strength and stability of character can be built up through
      the soul meeting trouble and difficulty. Again it must be
      pointed out that they must be met in the right spirit.

It will be seen then, that our future depends entirely upon the way
we think and act in this life. Our future lies in our own hands. If
we violate the law of love in this life, we create disaster and
suffering for the future, which will have to be met, in the form of
"big fate" of a painful character, some day. Therefore, by right
thinking and right doing now, we not only ameliorate conditions in
this life, but we also create a future that will be more harmonious
and freer than anything we have experienced hitherto.

It is also necessary to point out that, even in this life, some of
its big disasters are the result of thoughts and actions committed
during this present existence. A youth or young man may commit a
folly that brings, in after life, a terrible retribution. Or he may
do another man a grievous wrong and years afterwards someone else
does the same wrong to him. It is always an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth on this plane of cause and effect, but the Great
Way Shower, by His teaching of the power of love, enables us to rise
above these lower things and live a life of harmony and peace.




CHAPTER IV.

CAUSE AND EFFECT.


Man is the cause of the disasters in his life. He reaps through the
ages exactly as he sows. Life is perfectly just and rewards every
man according to his works. The fate of the present is the reaping
of his sowing in, it may be, a distant past. Therefore, the disasters
and sufferings of this life, must not be attributed to the
interference of a capricious and unreasonable God, for the truth is,
they are due to the exact working of a perfectly just law. Fate, once
created, is irrevocable. It can neither be fought nor evaded. By
fighting against fate, man merely smashes himself to pieces. To do
so, is equivalent to running his head against a stone cliff: the
harder he charges, the greater the damage to his head--but the cliff