Page:The Pathway of Roses, Larson (1913) image of page 216.jpg

216 that passes from the literal belief in truth to the spiritual understanding of truth. When we try to think that God is not personal, we feel as if we have lost a great friend, the very friend of all friends; there seems to be no use for prayer, because how can the limitless Soul of the universe be interested specially in one of us, a mere atom in the immensity of the cosmos? Besides, we find it practically impossible to pray to something that is nothing but changeless principle and immutable law. We therefore cease prayer and substitute affirmations; but something is lacking; the soul remains comfortless; the intellect may be satisfied, but the tender elements of love and sympathy are gradually disappearing, and finally we come to a place where nothing but cold intellect remains. Then we discover we are not on the path; we have gone astray, and everything the heart has wished for seems to be far in the distance.

With God all things are possible; therefore, it is not beyond His power to be personal as well as absolute; nor is it beyond the power of man to understand how this can be. God is the great Soul of the universe. He lives and acts everywhere, and there is no place where He is not; nevertheless, He is just as personal to any one of us as the very dearest friend; in truth, more so, because His personal nearness to us is closer than that of any friend, closer even than life itself. He is not limited and circumscribed as the form of a human personality; if He were, He could be