Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/201

 looks to self-gain or self-gratification, brings no reward to the soul of the giver. If he is prompted by a desire after fame, or from a hope of inward satisfaction, he does not act from the true impulse. He who sounds the trumpet in the world or in his soul, to call attention to his charities, can have no reward of his Father in heaven. He who acts from the true divine impulse acts spontaneously, acts as it were involuntarily; that is, he is not aware that he wills. His left hand knows not what his right hand doeth. He meets with a case of need. He stops not to argue the question and determine probabilities and uses. The steel and the flint are in contact, and the spark, comes forth.

In the domestic relation of husband and wife, parent and child, brother and sister, there is much of this moral lust which is mistaken for love. Many professing to be husbands, and really thinking themselves to be so, love the use of their wives better than the wife, just as the lustful in religion love the use of God better than God.

It is this mistaking lust for love which begets so many unhappy marriages. The considerations leading to the union are not unfrequently of a lustful character altogether. Thus the young man seeking a wife is constantly trying the question of use. She will administer to his comfort in this way and that, and upon the whole she will be the means of making him very happy. It will not be denied that in a vast majority of cases the man, in seeking a wife, is seeking after his own happiness, and he will cherish her while she conduces to that end. But if he finds himself disappointed—finds that she fails to fulfill his expectation—the