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THE KEY OF KNOWLEDGE.
immediate payment of their claims. Matters went on like this for some time, till one morning the director went to take some money out of the safe to pay off some of the most pressing employees and creditors, when, lo! and behold! the safe was only full of emptiness, with all its money already spent and gone. In vain did he try to beg and pray the manager to save him somehow, but so confused were his ideas that he could only curse his hard fate and abuse that faithful servant, calling him the devil, the evil one, and so forth. At last he began to march up and down the room in a state of mental frenzy, when accidentally he knocked against the iron safe, fell heavily upon its open door, and burst an artery.
The lesson to be learnt from the story becomes obvious when we remember that the director of the firm is the illusory bodily self of man, the concern, the life of the body, and the good manager, the Divinity within, also called Providence, who carries out the wishes of the apparent physical ego. The director wished to shut up what he foolishly considered to be his possessions in the iron safe of selfish greed, heeded not the warnings from the Providence, and, finally, abused the same Providence for the evils which he had brought on himself, calling him the evil one and the like. Thus it is that man creates the devil for himself ; in reality the devil has no existence apart from one's thoughts.
Let us now enquire into the Christian notion of sin. As early as I Kings VIII. 46 it was said : " For there is no man that sinneth not."
in Romans (III. 23) we are told :“ For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."
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