them; they couldn't do without me. Hostility between us was as out of
place as between men pulling together on the rope which is to save all
their lives. If peril could bring about unity God could bring it about
even more effectively. God was the great positive, the solvent in which
irritation and unfriendliness must necessarily melt away.



VIII


The third point, involving my obvious first step, was to put suspicion
out of my own mind. I was to see myself as God's Self-Expression working
with others who were also His Self-Expression to the same extent as I.
It was in the fact of our uniting together to produce His
Self-Expression that I was to look for my security. No one could
effectively work against me while I was consciously trying to work with
God. Moreover, it was probable that no one was working against me, or
had any intention of working against me, but that my own point of view
being wrong I had put the harmonious action of my life out of order.
Suspicion always being likely to see what it suspects the chances were
many that I was creating the very thing I suffered from.

This does not mean that in our effort to reproduce harmonious action we
should shut our eyes to what is evidently wrong, or blandly ignore what
is plainly being done to our disadvantage. Of course not! One uses all
the common-sense methods of getting justice for oneself and protecting
one's own interests. But it does mean that when I can no longer protect
my own interests, when my affairs depend upon others far more than on
myself--a condition in which we all occasionally find ourselves--I am