most emphatically denied by the Bible, for that tells us that he that has the power of death is the Devil (Hebrews 2:14). There is no beating about the bush; not God but the Devil sends death. There is no getting out of the plain words. Let us examine this statement.

We have seen that whatever God is, the Devil must be the opposite, and therefore if God is the Power that builds up, the Integrating power, the Devil must be the power that pulls down, or the disintegrating power. Now what is disintegration? It is the breaking up of what was previously an "integer" or perfect Whole, the separation of its component parts. But what is it that causes the separation? It is still the Building-up Power, only the Law of Affinity by which it works is now acting from other centres, so as to build up other organisms.

Diversion And Distraction

The Universal Power is still at its building work, only it seems to have lost sight of its original motive and to have taken up fresh motives in other directions. And this is precisely the state of the case; it is just the want of continuous motive that causes disintegration. The only possible motive of the All-originating Life-Principle must be the expression of Life, and therefore we may almost picture it as continually seeking to embody itself in intelligences which shall be able to