“Well, my friend, do you want to tell me your story?” said I, after he had given me his name and I had asked him to be seated.

He was a rather nice looking man of about fifty, with graying hair, full face, a little bloated, and weighing about two hundred pounds.

“It is drink,” he replied. “I have been hitting it up pretty steady for about two months. I was laid out in Pittsburg; in Youngstown the same; then in Canton, and have just gotten over a bad spree here. Something has been telling me to kill myself, and I seem powerless to get away from that something. My wife won’t let me come home until I get over this, and if it were not for my two boys I would have been gone long ago. The landlady at the hotel saw my condition and got me to tell her my troubles. Then she insisted that I come over and talk to you.”

“I am glad you came,” said I. “Tell me, do you want to stop drinking, but think you can’t? Is that the situation, and do you think I can help?”

“I don’t know about that; it was Mrs. C—— that said you could, and I came only because she urged me so strongly. But what do you think? Is there any hope for me?”

“Of course there is, if you really want to quit, and I can prove it to you easily.” I then questioned him further about himself and his struggles to free himself from drink. He told me he had a good position, a fine home; that there was no trouble about money or other women, as he had plenty of money and had no interest in women. It was drink only that controlled him, or rather, something that was compelling him to drink continually, and lately was urging him to kill himself; that he dare not go near a stairway or, when up high, look down, as there was an irresistible impulse to throw himself to the bottom.

“Do you believe in another world; that we continue to live after we die in this world?” I asked him.

“Yes,” he replied. “I studied for two years to be a priest in the Catholic religion, and learned all about Purgatory and such things.”

“That is good. You will then understand what I will now tell you. What do you think becomes of a man who is an habitual drunkard when he dies? Do you think he changes or could change his nature in the next world, when he could do nothing to change it in this world? No, he is exactly the same man there that he was here, with the same nature, the same mind, the same weaknesses, the same desires and appetites. All that is different is, there he has no longer a physical body in which to indulge and gratify his desires and appetites, which are of the mind only and which created and fed them by former indulgences.

“Imagine yourself with your thirst for whiskey and with no way to drink it, over there. The very power of your thirst would draw you down to earth to the saloons you frequented, but where now you could not drink liquor, because of its material nature, as were the glasses and bottles that contained it, and you had no physical hands to hold them, nor tongue and throat to drink or enjoy the taste.

“And what about all the dead drunkards back through the centuries? Many of them soon discovered over there that in the atmosphere of saloons, though invisible, they could get some satisfaction from the fumes of the liquor when poured into glasses as it evaporated; for when uncorked the spiritous essence of liquor always seeks to escape its material confinement.

“Also others learned that by strong desire they could influence the minds of many of those in the saloons and impel them to drink, and by much indulgence of such could gradually weaken their will and its resistance so that they could drive out the rightful owner of a body, enter it and obsess it, and then could drink as they did when alive on earth into complete drunkenness.

“Now why am I telling you all this? I believe you have begun to understand why you have been so strongly impelled to drink—often against your will and desire; and why, by so often yielding, your will has become weakened so that you believe you can no longer resist. And lately that other influence that tried to get you to commit suicide, you can now see must be some poor crazed sot who died, impelled like you to suicide when drunk, and who first compelling you to get drunk and obsessing you, then obsessed by the memory of that former experience on earth tries to kill himself again.

“I do not need to ask, realizing all this, if you intend longer to give your mind and body over to these poor deluded spirits who do not know any better,—you with your understanding and will power, which is far greater than that of any discarnate entity; because such lack the physical force which always makes one stronger than any spirit who has no physical body.

“All you have to do, my friend, is to turn to God in prayer and ask His protection, and then command this entity in the name of Jesus Christ to begone! Knowing that you are dealing with an actual man of such low type, though you cannot see him, you must treat him exactly as you would one of that type in this world who tried to influence you. Would you stand for such to try to make you do what you did not want to do? I know that you would not.”

“I begin to understand,” he replied. “But about God and Jesus Christ; I don’t know your religion, but I was brought up to believe that Jesus was God come to earth to teach man His laws. But when they taught me that Jesus was only a man like us, even though the best and most perfect man that ever lived, somehow after that I lost my faith in God and Jesus and all hope of getting any help from Them. And so I haven’t had any religion for years. Do you really believe God and Christ can and do help one when one earnestly prays to Them?”

Then I carefully tried to show him who Christ is, that He is the Holy Spirit of God, that which is the life and intelligence in all men and is “the Light which lighteth every man in the world.” I showed him how this Light and Life dwells in the darkness of man’s carnal nature with his gross appetites, but from the beginning has been trying to point him the right way, to caution and chide him, ever holding an ideal before him to follow, when his mind was quiet enough to think of such things. That Christ was God’s Love in the heart trying to find expression in and through man, and that when one turned to God in humble faith, which is man’s first beginning to respond to God in his heart, it actually opens the door so that God, the Inner Self, God’s Spirit within man, hears and answers such prayers of faith—though not always as one asks or expects.

As he listened I could see his face brighten, for I thus knew he was grasping quite fully all I was telling him. His theological training and business ability indicated that he had a good mind, and his next question proved it.

“Where did you learn those things? Are you a preacher? Did you study for the Ministry?”

“No,” said I. “I learned this from hard, practical experience, and from a long and careful study of myself, of my inner self—of my faults, weaknesses and short-comings, as well as of my good qualities, abilities and powers; of all those leadings, impulses, urges, and longings that came from within, as well as of the many mistakes, failures, discouragements and disillusionments that I met with in life, and what caused them. And in so doing I learned that something within me was pointing out all these things to my mind and thus teaching it many truths that have enabled me to avoid further mistakes and troubles as well as to help others to avoid them. Of course I have done much book studying also, and most of all the Bible.”

“Is there any book which embodies the fundamentals of what you have told me that you can recommend?”

“Yes, I am going to give you something to take along to read and study until you get these truths fixed in your mind, when they will truly fortify and strengthen you when you try to use them in this problem of drink, and in opposing what is influencing your mind to destroy yourself.

“When I tell you that you have come to that place in your soul growth where you are getting ready for a Spiritual awakening, you may not fully understand what I mean; but I will try to explain it to you. First do you not feel that what you have just heard has awakened something in you?”

“Yes, I know it has, and you have opened up a whole new world to me, given me not only hope, but have aroused a sense of inner power that I have never felt before.”

“Good!” said I. “Then see if you can grasp what I now will say. Do you believe we live more than one life here on earth?”

“Yes, I know about reincarnation, and can see that it must be a fact.”

“That will help. Supposing I should say that you are not this body of flesh and blood, but are a soul using this body to accomplish what you are here for this lifetime; that you have lived many lives before this one, and that you as a soul are now approaching what is called the blossoming time of life—just as a tree has to grow from a seed or a twig planted in the ground and seemingly dies each winter when its leaves fall off, and year after year builds a stronger and bigger stalk or trunk with more numerous branches before it reaches maturity and its blossoming time.

“During those many lifetimes you have been developing certain soul qualities that build up character—which is akin to the trunk of a tree; and when enough qualities have been developed the soul reaches spiritual manhood. That cannot be reached however without the aid of a strong spiritual will, and that is what your main task to gain here this trip. You are now ready to take up this task. How do I know? By your Higher Self having by these experiences shown you the necessity of strengthening your will and bringing you here to me, so I could explain these things to you. If you were not ready for them you would not be here, nor would you be able to understand or accept their truth. What do you think?”

“It looks very much as you say; and now that I know what is back of it all and its purpose, I feel that I can do my part, which I see is to face this thing and put up a real fight.”

“Yes, my friend, that is what you must do, and this I will promise you; if you will turn to God in an earnest prayer for help, believing that He will give you the necessary strength to master these forces of your lower nature, for His is the only life and strength you have, you will find that more of that new power you feel within you will be released and the overcoming will be easier than you think.

“I am giving you this card, The Way to Safety, which study carefully and then do faithfully just what it tells you to do, and it will be an added help. I am also giving you a booklet, The Way Out, which tells plainly the law of right thinking, which if carefully studied and applied will change your whole life in every way in a short time.

“There also is an article in this Magazine (handing him the March ’33 INNER LIFE) explaining about life after death, how one continues in just the state of mind or consciousness he was in before leaving this life, and that one of a purely material nature will find himself in what is called an earth-bound state, held to his own sensuous earthly beliefs and his former earthly habits and environments, until through suffering sufficiently the penalties that these wrong beliefs always bring—such as the penalties you have been suffering, one longs to be free and yearns for the higher and truer things of life, and turns to God for help.

The man’s face was glowing as I finished, and an entirely new look was in his eyes. In fact I saw he was a changed being, and I thanked and praised God that it was so.

After thanking me for all that I had shown him and asking for my name and address, he promised that I would hear from him in the near future, and departed.

HOW DO WE come by this joy of the personal loving of God, this Romance of the Soul brought to sensible fruition whilst still in the flesh?

Is it a gift? Yes. Is it a gift because of some merit of goodness on our part beyond the goodness of other persons who are without it, through striving? No. Is it because of some work for God that we do in this world, charitable or social? No. Is it, then, nothing but an arbitrary favoritism on His part? No. Is it a sagacity or cleverness, a height of learning, a result of close study? No.

It is simply and solely a certain and particular obedient attitude of mind and heart towards God, of the nature of a longing—giving, a grateful outgoing thinking towards Him continually maintained, and a heart invitation to and a receiving of Jesus Christ into ourselves.

Our part is to maintain this obedient, tender waiting, giving and receiving attitude under all circumstances of daily life, and Christ with the Holy Ghost will then work the miracle in us.