Margaret
Morrison, C.S., of Boston, Massachusetts
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The
Mother Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
Spiritual understanding of God is the key to the fulfillment of the Scriptural promise of world peace and eternal life, Margaret Morrison, C.S., of Boston, said at a lecture in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, yesterday.
Christianity as demonstrated by Christ Jesus, and Christian Science as revealed by Mary Baker Eddy, "have fulfilled the promise of the Messiah and the Comforter," said Miss Morrison, a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship, and show "how this promise, of a new heaven and a new earth will be fulfilled through the intelligent and scientific destruction of the claims of evil."
Miss Morrison, who spoke on "Christian Science: The Fulfillment of Promise," was introduced by James Harry McReynolds, C.S.B., First Reader of The Mother Church, who said:
"Friends:
"The Mother Church extends a most cordial and loving welcome to you to hear a lecture on Christian Science to be given by a member of the Board of Lectureship of this Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.
"A verse from a much-loved hymn written by Frederic W. Root seems particularly appropriate to this occasion:
'Our God is Love, unchanging Love,
And can we ask for more?
Our prayer for Love's increase is vain;
'Twas infinite before.
Ask not the Lord with breath of praise
For more than we accept;
The open fount is free to all,
God's promises are kept.'
(Hymn 269-270, Christian Science Hymnal)
"The title of the lecture you are to hear is 'Christian Science: The Fulfillment of Promise.' In the study of the truths of Christian Science we find abundant proof that 'God's promises are kept;' and, my friends, 'the open fount is free to all.' In listening to the lecture you will be shown how you can utilize these truths and thus experience the 'Fulfillment of Promise' in your lives.
"I am pleased to present Margaret Morrison of Boston, who will now speak to you. Miss Morrison."
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
What a bright word is promise! One may be poetic and call it a rainbow word — full of color and good cheer, of tenderness and command, the peace and power of that divine command, "Be not afraid." Christian Science brings to you this word of promise, the promise of good, and shows the way to fulfillment.
One of the first and most precious promises to be found in the Scriptures is the promise of the coming of a Messiah, one who would fulfill the promise of salvation for mankind from its ills. This promise came of old to men of great spiritual vision, those who caught glimpses of the true nature of Life and of the creator as Spirit. One of these was that prophet of beauty and promise — Isaiah. In these words he describes the promised Messiah: "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counseller, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end. . . . And the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; . . . and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears. . . . He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. . . . To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house."
This promise of the Messiah was fulfilled in the coming of Christ Jesus — Jesus the man who demonstrated the Christ, Truth, which indeed opens the blind eyes and brings forth the prisoners from the prison house of matter.
Jesus has been called the "man of sorrows" and the "humble Nazarene." Both of these titles have given an incomplete impression of him whose life was one of transcendent power and beauty, a power and beauty no material atheism can deny or overthrow. Could anyone endowed with power to dispel all manner of evil, to hold command over all the so-called forces of matter or the carnal mind, who at the same time loved little children and was keenly aware of the beauty of the lilies of the field — could such a one possibly be a man of sorrow? Could he possibly know either fear or sorrow in the presence of his creator, or Father? Must he not have been a man of such a transcendent joy that material sense could not behold it or material circumstances defeat or destroy it? That joy Jesus promised to all his followers. He said, "Your joy no man taketh from you." Shall we not accept this great legacy of joy and see to it that no man, no claim or clamor of the material senses, steals it from us? It is the radiant, eternal joy of our true selfhood. What about the humility of this humble Nazarene? It was the scientific humility of the scientist, standing selfless before the laws he would demonstrate. In Christ Jesus we have the greatest Scientist that has ever lived, standing selfless before the divine Principle which he understood and demonstrated. Mighty humility, indeed, that recognized only one power and demonstrated that power, in healing all manner of sickness and disease, raising the dead, walking over the water, and stilling the tempest! Mighty self-immolation, indeed, that recognized the reflection of that power as the only selfhood possible of being. He proved that humility before God is power before men. Here indeed is fulfilled the promise of the Messiah.
Another of the precious promises in Scripture is given by Jesus himself — the promise of another Comforter. Did he not say, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth; . . . he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you"? Jesus did not promise that the Comforter would be a person, but "even the Spirit of truth."
Today has this promise been fulfilled, and the Comforter has come to us — the Spirit of truth which leadeth into all truth — even Christian Science. This promised Comforter, even the Spirit of truth, has been made known to the world by Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded the sacred Science of Christianity. Here is a follower of the Master who was truly humble enough to perceive the impersonal, spiritual nature of the promised Comforter, and who was self-sacrificing and loving enough to labor untiringly to make that Comforter known to mankind in its tender omnipotence.
After being healed herself through spiritual power alone of an injury pronounced fatal by her physician, Mrs. Eddy devoted several years to consecrated research and study of the Scriptures, searching for the exact Science of that healing power that she might make it known to others. In her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she writes (p. 109): "I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action to be God, and that cures were produced in primitive Christian healing by holy, uplifting faith; but I must know the Science of this healing, and I won my way to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration."
Who can measure the magnitude of the work of this intrepid, gallant, self-sacrificing follower of the Master of Christianity? Clad in the full armor of God, she stood. She had taken unto her the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit — even the Word of God — and her feet indeed were shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Thus clad, she stood alone and maintained her vision of Truth and Love undimmed by the hatred and persecution of materialism until she saw that vision in its vigor and grandeur established in the world as Christian Science. She is one of those of whom St. Paul spoke as "sealed with that holy Spirit of promise."
That promise has been fulfilled in making known to the world what material so-called science declares to be unknown and unknowable. Sir James Jeans, one of the most eminent of physical scientists, said in an address given in Aberdeen, Scotland: "Knowledge follows knowledge. And this knowledge is only one of probabilities and not of certainties; it is at best but a smeared picture of the clear cut reality which we believe to lie beneath." "The electron exists only in our minds. What exists beyond, and where, to put the electron in our minds we do not know." Shall we not give all honor to her who was spiritually scientific and humble enough to make known this "unknown" as divine Mind? Does not her teaching virtually repeat the words of St. Paul on Mars' Hill: "I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious. For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you"?
Here we have fulfilled the promise of the Messiah and the Comforter: Christianity as demonstrated by Christ Jesus and Christian Science as given to the world by Mary Baker Eddy. Christianity and Science! These two has God joined together, and no man can put them asunder. Said the Psalmist, "God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God."
St. John, the close friend of Christ Jesus and the one among his immediate followers who most clearly understood his mission and saw the reality of spiritual being, unfolded many promises of good to us, even that transcendent promise of a new heaven and a new earth in which is found no evil. Of this new heaven and new earth he says: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them. . . . And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Christian Science shows us how this promise of a new heaven and a new earth will be fulfilled through the intelligent, and scientific destruction of the claims of evil.
This new heaven and new earth represent the creation of divine Mind, or divine Principle, which we reverently designate as God and it is the one and only true creation. Mrs. Eddy tells us that the primal quality of this divine creative Principle is intelligence. She says (Science and Health, p. 469): "Intelligence is omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. It is the primal and eternal quality of infinite Mind, of the triune Principle, — Life, Truth, and Love, — named God."
In this creation of intelligence, omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence, evil is of necessity an impossibility. It is an illusion, a mistake. We may even call it a mental absurdity, just as a mistake in figures is a mathematical absurdity. Is not 2 times 2 equals 10 a mathematical absurdity, impossible of existence in the principle of numbers? So fear, greed, hatred, disease, and so forth, are mental absurdities, impossible of existence in the divine Principle, the divine Love which is God.
As evil exists only in the unreal realm of false belief, never in the one creation of Mind, it is devoid of power either to create or destroy aught that is truly existent. Only within the belief of two powers, two creations at war with one another, can a sense of destruction be experienced. As evil is understood as deception, we see that its elimination does not involve any element of destruction any more than the correction of a mistake to mathematics involves the destruction of the numbers involved. This is only a matter of enlightenment, obedience, and adjustment of numbers to the principle which governs them.
In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy states (p. 480): "If sin, sickness, and death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear. As vapor melts before the sun, so evil would vanish before the reality of good." How irresistible in its outshining of evil is this tender, spiritual might, this melting power of Love! When that which can be destroyed is dissolved by Love, only blessing and fruition are experienced — never pain and destruction.
The human mind with all its boasted science still uses material means to protect itself from its ills — mental ills — and seeks to destroy evil with more evil. It builds for itself material defenses which it declares to be impregnable, then builds weapons strong enough to destroy these defenses. This necessitates still stronger defenses and mightier weapons. So the vicious and utterly non-intelligent circle goes on, in its vain imagination against God, good. Christ Jesus denied the ability of Satan to cast out Satan and affirmed that he cast out evil by the Spirit of God.
Evil, in its own suppositional realm, fulfills its own law of destruction, destroys its own suppositional creation and agencies, but what is called evil itself can be destroyed only by good. The evil of war never destroys the evils that cause war, whether it is a quarrel between neighbors and friends or a battle between nations. The quarreling will be overcome and the battles cease, not through the victory of one faction over another, but by the coming of peace, and intelligence, and love, into the hearts of men.
Love in its substantial reality dispels the illusion of fear and hate; joy dissipates condemnation, grief, and discouragement. Peace dissolves restlessness and anxiety. Peace, universal peace, will be established and remain unshaken only as the law of Love, divine Principle, is recognized as supreme, commanding and enforcing obedience and fulfilling its own good purposes.
St. James wrote, "If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well." Shakespeare, speaking of a war which mad ambition had kindled between two nations, wrote:
"This might have been prevented and made whole
With very easy arguments of love."
God, whose primal quality is intelligence, eternally maintains His own creation, including man, in immutable majesty and power, uninterrupted harmony and beauty, and in this presence is proved the nonexistence of evil. "As vapor melts before the sun," so does evil vanish before the ever-present penetrating power of Truth, before the tender, irresistible persuasions of Love. Hear this imperative message of the Christ, the saving Truth: "This is my commandment, That ye love one another." So is fulfilled the promise of a new heaven and a new earth.
Here is another of the promises given to us through the understanding of John: "And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life." How may we see this promise fulfilled? The key to the fulfilling of this promise of eternal life is given in the words of Christ Jesus: "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." How mental, how spiritual it all becomes! Life is knowledge of God, and God is Spirit, as Jesus declared and proved. The conclusion is inevitable in its logic. Spirit is Life, and to come into knowledge or understanding of Spirit or Mind is to be instructed into eternal life.
We have seen that the primal quality of Life or God is intelligence. Is it possible that intelligence could need non-intelligence as a medium of expression? Can deathless Life possibly need lifeless matter as a medium through which to express itself? That is illogical and impossible on the face of it. Spirit must and does express itself through its own intelligent, vital imperishable qualities and ideas. Knowledge of God involves knowledge of love, joy, peace, intelligence, wisdom, freedom, dominion. To know and express these qualities and ideas in their indestructible substance is to have eternal life.
In the Preface to her textbook Mrs. Eddy writes (p. vii): "Ignorance of God is no longer the stepping-stone to faith. The only guarantee of obedience is a right apprehension of Him whom to know aright is Life eternal."
As there is only one God or Mind, there is only one Life. Life cannot be divided into lives any more than Mind can be divided into minds. Life cannot be separated into "my life" and "your life," "our life" and "their life." This does not mean the elimination of the individual expression of Life; rather does it make individuality infinite and imperative, otherwise Life would be unexpressed. We would have absorption rather than emanation. Do not be afraid, dear friends, of losing your individuality by acknowledging only one Life. Rather let us rejoice to find our individuality in the beauty, order, goodness, power, and activity — in the divinity — of Mind's ideas and qualities,
It is to be kept in view that Life is eternal. There is no transient life. The transient life of matter concepts is an illusion, at best a counterfeit of Life eternal. Life is found only in the infinite depth, sweetness, and fullness of its own infinite being. Life has nothing to do with time. In the knowledge of God there is "time no longer" — another of the promises given by St. John. Understanding this, we find what is called time illumined by eternity — the "glory of eternity." In Science and Health, speaking of the light of spiritual truth thrown on the material concept of life, Mrs. Eddy says (p. 502), "Even thus the crude forms of human thought take on higher symbols and significations, when scientifically Christian views of the universe appear, illuminating time with the glory of eternity."
Time illuminated with the glory of eternity means life freed from the limitations of mortal belief and lifted into the eternal verities of true being and of inexhaustible good.
In one of his best-loved plays Shakespeare (if I may quote him again) declares, "Time travels in divers places with divers persons." Then follows a graphic description of those for whom time trots, ambles, gallops, or "stays it still withal." To the human mind generally, however, time passes all too quickly, because the passing of time very often seems the passing of good — the passing of what is called youth, of strength, of health and activity, of life itself. In the light of eternity we find that spiritual good, the only good, never passes. It is the ever-present substance and condition of man and the universe. No good thing ever passes with what is called the passing of time. This is the glory of eternity.
Perhaps time is arguing that it is allowing you only so much of itself and you must hurry up and get things done or you will miss something. It may say, "You have just so much of me, time, in which to carry out that good plan necessary to your human welfare; you have just so much of me in which to get well." It may even say, "You have just so much of me in which to be saved, else you will go to hell."
In the light of the glory of eternity one is saved from this threat and worry. One sees that all good is already created and established, maintained by the omnipotent God. Each individual's good is by Him ordered and maintained, and His law of good governs immutably the individual's every moment and assures the success of his good purpose. This is demonstrated as one intelligently trusts and obeys eternal Truth, the substance of his spiritual being.
Life, veritable spiritual life, is never interrupted by the claim of material birth, nor by the experiences which follow that birth on the way to death. None of the storms and stresses, ecstasies or agonies of the dream of mortal living, interrupt the clear shining, the purity and spiritual bliss of true Life or of its reflection, man and the universe.
Life, though individualized, is never personal. The belief that life is personal, in and subject to matter, tinges our living with uncertainty, a balancing of good and evil. To know one's life as spiritual, altogether good gives to thought, speech, and action the certitude of Spirit, divine Truth.
Sometimes, in our human sense of living, we seem to make mistakes. They may appear to be very grave mistakes, but in every such experience, no matter how serious it may seem to be, there is to be found a blessing. The ever-present light of Truth reveals this blessing to purified consciousness, and in the resultant spiritual serenity and joy we know God's goodness and its blessing as all that was real throughout the experience.
If, through what seems to be a mistake, we learn to know more of God, the mistake is erased by this knowing. Learning more of God means gaining more of Life. The divine order and harmony of Life are never interrupted by what seem to be human mistakes. We read in Science and Health (p. 172): "Spirit can form no real link in this supposed chain of material being. But divine Science reveals the eternal chain of existence as uninterrupted and wholly spiritual; yet this can be realized only as the false sense of being disappears." Time cannot divorce one moment from the eternity of God's goodness. Every moment of what is called time, when illumined with the glory of eternity, is found to be safe in the heart of divinity.
Spiritual Life, true consciousness, is never impressed by evil, never diminished by its claims, nor scarred by its illusions. Life maintains its own beneficent nature in omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, and omniaction and uninterruptedly expresses itself in infinite individuality. This truth, understood, is the greatest healing power in the universe. This was proved to one student of Christian Science who had struggled for many weeks with a physical difficulty which did not yield to her own earnest work and that of a Christian Science practitioner. One day this idea, a ray of light, shone through the seeming darkness of fear and suffering: "My eternal, individual, spiritual being never has been, and is not now, interrupted by fear, sickness, or disease." At that instant the healing began and was shortly consummated.
Veritable Life never partakes of the nature of so-called matter. We never come into touch with Life through the physical senses. Life is never either young or old. Can one really think of young life or old life unless one's thinking includes acceptance of a physical body? Life is never exhausted, never grows weary. Life is never shabby nor drab nor dreary. Life never shrinks nor shrivels. Life is always expressing itself in life uninterruptedly, individually, and universally. What can interrupt Life, exhaust its power of expression, make drab its fadeless beauty, or make dreary, its unfolding way of vital activity?
Veritable Life and its reflection is never interrupted by death, either that seemingly continuous death process which is called the carnal mind, or the immediate incident that seems the dissolution of that mind. Thus the dream of life in matter leaves untouched, undimmed, the glory of the ever-presence of Love, the all-power of Principle, the beauty of Soul, the indestructible essence and substance of Spirit, that which is eternal Life.
So is fulfilled the promise of eternal life.
The power of this spiritual understanding that God is ever-present, uninterrupted Life was evidenced in the experience of a student of Christian Science — a consecrated practitioner. While she and her son were devoted students of Christian Science, other members of the family were adverse to its teachings. So when a member of that family, one who to human sense was well advanced in years, was taken seriously ill with heart disease, materia medica was naturally resorted to. For several weeks he was lovingly cared for by physician and nurses until the physician said there was no use of his coming any more. There was absolutely nothing he could do. One night after the patient had been unconscious all day, the nurse called the family to the bedside and said the last enemy had passed over their beloved one. The grandson then turned to his father and said: "You have tried materia medica and it has not helped. Why not let grandfather have Christian Science? I know he would wish it." Consent was given, and the Christian Science practitioner, a beloved daughter-in-law, was asked to give Christian Science treatment, which she did. In a short time the watching family were filled with awesome astonishment when the patient suddenly sat up in bed, looked at them all with a smile, and said: "I am all right. Annie has been helping me." He was restored to health and resumed his happy and normal activity with his family.
One of the most inspiring and comforting promises in Scripture is that we shall know as we are known. So, as we learn to know God, we learn to know ourselves as we are known of God — the one creator, even divine Mind. As we learn to know God, we no longer turn to what is called the physical body to learn what is true about ourselves, our health, our character, our so-called prospects.
The physical body represents the myth-mind of the Adamic race and has no reality in true being, no more substance, law, or activity than its legendary origin. One of the definitions of Adam in the Glossary of our textbook is (p. 580), "The first god of mythology." This being true, everything that stems from that parent myth must be mythical in nature — even in embodiment. This is the man of whom the prophet Isaiah wrote when he said, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" Wherein, indeed, except in the idolatrous assumption of two creators and two creations, an illogical and non-intelligent premise from which to think. Then one should never look to the physical senses to tell him what kind of man he is, what kind of health he has, how his faculties are functioning, what his environment is, or what is his character.
In spite of what is called animal magnetism, the lure of the senses to look to them for life, health, substance, and happiness, one who knows God will turn resolutely away from sense testimony and intelligently know himself as he is known of God. He will know his health to be in Spirit, the reflection of the holiness or wholeness of Soul, and held in immutable harmony by divine Principle. He will learn that he sees and hears because he reflects the all-seeing, all-knowing Mind. He will no longer ask of the physical body how well he can see or hear; how well material eyes and ears are functioning. Man sees with Mind, not matter; and seeing with Mind, he sees with intelligence, with delight, with beauty, with love and peace. He sees ideas rather than objects. He knows as he is known and sees as God sees. This truth is a law to the human sense of sight.
This truth is illustrated by a case of healing of blindness through Christian Science. Failing to find help or hope from materia medica, a man turned to Christian Science for help. After a few weeks treatment, great improvement was marked, but there seemed only a partial healing, which did not satisfy the consecrated practitioner. One day she was led to ask this man if there was any strained or ruptured relationship between him and those dear to him. He admitted that for three years he had not spoken to his son, with whom he had quarreled.
Such a sacred sense of love filled the practitioner's thought at that moment that she was able to impart this to the man and asked him to write to his son and express all of the love which he knew he was reflecting from God right that minute. This he did the same afternoon and sent it air mail to California, where his son was living. The father lived in an eastern city, and in just three days he had a loving letter from his son, written the same day the father sent his letter off to the son. The son had felt the healing touch of love thousands of miles away and had written to his father.
Great was the joy of that man, and while rejoicing over Love's victory, he discovered his eyes were completely healed and he could see perfectly. This healing was permanent. He had learned to see as God sees, with Love.
This is but one of the many proofs given in Christian Science today, that the health of man is not in or of matter, a physical body. It is of Mind, and as thought reflects God's thoughts, health is found to reflect God's holiness or wholeness, eternally unimpaired and unimpairable. Then what about man's character or nature? It is even the reflection of God's nature. The only man there is, is the man of God's creating, His exact image and likeness. What then of the common man of whom we so constantly hear today? Now the word "common" has two accepted meanings: "that which implies qualities below the average" and that which pertains to a joint source "which is had in common, shared alike by all."
Jesus, in his ministry, did not appeal to any particular class of men. He knew all men as equally in need of understanding Truth. So, to all men alike, ruler and nobleman, pauper and Magdalen, he brought the gospel of the nobility of man and demonstrated its reality. He did not say; "if I be brought down into the street," but, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."
It is worthy of note that our Leader has not in all her published writings used the word "common" in defining man. She has used the word a number of times in its higher significance, that which pertains to a joint source. In "Miscellaneous Writings" she says (p. 18): "Thou shalt recognize thyself as God's spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious 'male and female,' as of spiritual origin, God's reflection, — thus as children of one common Parent, — wherein and whereby Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine 'Us' — one in good, and good in One."
Who then is the common man? He is the man who shares in common with all existence the nature of the one creator, divine Mind. This man may be seen everywhere if one looks for him with the eyes of spiritual discernment, the eyes of Love. The senses may say that we are seeing a very common man, discourteous, uncivil, sick or sinful, inebriate, deformed. Let us turn from the senses and see in Science the man of our common Father. If our vision is clear enough, there will be lifting up out of the street of the senses to the mount of transformation, where man knows himself the son of God, reflecting the nature of God in purity, intelligence, nobility, dignity, and joyous liberty.
In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" Mrs. Eddy gives this message to Christian Scientists (p. 188): "As you work, the ages win; for the majesty of Christian Science teaches the majesty of man." Thus, in the revelation of Christian Science, is fulfilled the promise of knowing even as also we are known — as sons of God.
As Christian Science spiritualizes every human concept viewed in the light of its teaching, so it spiritualizes the concept of prayer. It lifts it out of the suppositional mental realm of man separated from God, pleading for help, into the reality of man at one with God, with His completion and goodness. It enables one to find prayer one with the power that fulfills prayer. Then, to pray aright, one must understand true power aright, the power that is called God. Thus learning to know God, we learn to know power which leads to fulfilled prayer.
Men have generally looked upon God as an unknown quantity, a capricious deity, sending good and evil upon His creation, according to His will. Men are not yet freed from this mythology and the superstitious belief that sees God operating through what are called forces of nature. They give these forces Adamic names and stand in awe before their own falsities of belief. Can an almighty God be divided against Himself or share His power with the opposite of Himself? Has He not said, "My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images"? The power of God, Spirit, who of creative necessity is good, is law and intelligence, is not found in any material force or element, assuredly not in the splitting of atoms, producing earth-blasting and most horribly destructive detonations.
True power is in the indivisible oneness of almighty Mind, its divine ideas and spiritual qualities; in the perfect intelligence which could neither create nor permit an element the opposite of itself; in Love divine, whose beneficence is expressed in beauty, impartial joy, and blessedness; in Principle, whose immutability preserves eternal justice and righteousness. Power is to be found only with the one God, who is of "purer eyes than to behold evil."
One man there has been, the man Christ Jesus, who perfectly understood God as Spirit and who demonstrated the power of Spirit, proving it to be good alone. He set aside every so-called law that material sense has imposed upon itself. What is called the law of gravity was set aside by his understanding of divine Love, which knows no weight of fear. Material laws of production were set aside by his understanding of Spirit as the only substance, whose ideas were ever available to meet the human need. He set aside the so-called law of death by his understanding of eternal Life, self-existent and incapable of extinction. Time and space ceased to exist to his understanding of omnipresence. He demonstrated this power as immediately available. And he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also."
Thus Jesus taught us to pray. He taught us the dynamic power of spiritual qualities and their effect on mortal beliefs. He taught us that Love is dynamic, and that when divine Love is reflected in love, it dispels the shadows of fear, hatred, sickness, and sin, individually and collectively. Answered prayer, indeed! He taught us that peace is dynamic — dynamic in its very quietude and stillness — the peace which our Leader says is "spiritual; never selfish, stony, nor stormy, but generous, reliable, helpful and always at hand" (Miscellany, p. 121). The presence of this dynamic peace, always at hand, is found stilling the seemingly troubled waters, dissipating fatigue, and lifting into rest, the rest of prayer fulfilled. Joy is dynamic. True joy, the joy of Spirit, is instant and constant, self-sustained, fadeless, heavenly, unprecarious, and sturdy. This joy, realized as consciousness, dispels depression, discouragement, weakness, and despair. Potent prayer, indeed!
Intelligence is dynamic, dispelling confusion, vacillation, and indecision. This divine intelligence is ever present to be reflected, as Jesus proved when confronted by the Pharisees and Sadducees, who sought to trap him with the subtleties and sophistry of their traditional teachings. Again a potent answer to prayer.
My friends, this Christlike manner of prayer while almighty in power is simple withal — and most readily understood by the humble in heart. Love, peace, joy, intelligence! When one accepts these divine qualities and others akin to them, as ever at hand, as indeed his very being, and allows them to govern his thinking and acting, he finds fulfillment of prayer through at-one-ment with God, with power omnipotent. He finds the kingdom of heaven within and walks his heaven-on-earth way humbly and gladly as the son of God, conscious of fulfilled prayer.
"God is love." These three words understood in their tender significance, their omnipotent law, will remedy every ill, every threat, every would-be curse that the carnal mind in its enmity against Love can suggest. God, the omnipotent One, the only creator, is Love. This means that man is the expression of Love, is cradled in Love, provisioned by Love, immutably governed by Love, and maintained in immortality by Love divine. This is immutable truth, to be known and demonstrated by men, and is the fulfillment of all promise.
God is Love! Seeming hate and ill-will cease for the one who finds refuge in Love. He sees his would-be enemy as well as himself included in that Love, each equally dear, equally endowed with blessings, equally gifted with confident ability. He finds enmity displaced by neighborliness, good fellowship, and good will.
God is Love! How gently the words fall upon the restless one, the self-willed one, the one imposed upon, the burdened one. Oh, then, dear friend, be still and hear the tender message, "God is Love," and the good will of Love is the only will. It is done in earth as it is in heaven. This assurance quiets fear, eases tension, and, yielding to Love's good will, you find yourself at rest and the kingdom at hand.
God is Love! How searching is the power of these words! How incisively they light up the seeming depths of lust, cruelty, dishonesty, vanity, false appetites, pride, and hypocrisy, showing forth the falsity of all enmity against good, its empty boastfulness, its nothingness, and revealing the verity of man, joyous and pure in sinless being, whom God, Love, indeed rejoices to call His own.
God is Love! Almighty are these three words when scientifically understood. Mighty to free from pestilence and war, from sin, disease, and death; for Love is law, lawgiver, and law-enforcer, imperatively demanding that all be found within its infinite beneficence, transcendent grace, and power. On page 520 of Science and Health stand forth these inspired words: "The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!" In this royal law of Love is the fulfillment of all promise.
[Delivered Aug. 5, 1951, in The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and published in The Christian Science Monitor, Aug. 6, 1951.]