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
The lecturer was introduced by Mr. B. V. Kimber, First Reader, who stated:
From the beginning of recorded knowledge, men have questioned, "What is Truth?" Thinkers and philosophers of the various periods in the history of the world have attempted to supply the answer; but invariably, their answers have been based entirely on material suppositions.
About 80 years ago, the answer to Truth was presented to the world by Mary Baker Eddy: "God is Truth," as the basic principle of her profound and beautiful, Christian philosophy, known to all of us as Christian Science.
So tonight, Seventh Church of Christ Scientist, is happy to welcome you to hear a lecture entitled: "Christian Science: The Voice of Truth."
Our lecturer, Margaret Morrison, of Boston, Mass., is a member of the Christian Science Board of Lectureship of the Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Boston, Mass.
I am very happy to present, Miss Morrison.
The lecturer spoke substantially as follows:
The teachings of Christian Science are based on the greatest book in the world — the book men call the Bible. No other one book has so influenced the lives of men, their civic laws, their moral codes, their literature, their art. Where can be found more stirring records of history, more dramatic events, more significant allegory, more basic moral codes, truer prophecy, profounder philosophy, or rarer nobility and beauty of literature in poetry and prose? Thomas Macaulay, a master of the English tongue, has said of the Bible (the King James Version), "If everything else in the language should perish it would alone suffice to show the whole extent of its beauty and power."
To study the Bible for its stirring history, the unsurpassed beauty of its literature, or from the standpoint of mere faith in its religious doctrines, or superstitious regard for its seeming mysticism is not sufficient to bring to one an understanding of its true meaning and worth, and not for any of these reasons does it base the teachings of Christian Science.
It is the foundation of Christian Science teaching because through the spiritual interpretation of its history, its allegory and seeming mysticism, through the metaphysical study of its pages, one discerns the truth of being, fundamental cause and inevitable effect. Here can be traced the operation of that immutable law which, unopposed, governs man and the universe, that divine Principle which overturns and overturns but is never overturned.
The culminating demonstration of this divine Principle as recorded in the Bible is found in the immaculate conception and life of Christ Jesus, who by his words and works demonstrated the nature of this divine Principle, its goodness and power, the superiority of spiritual law over so-called material forces and conditions. The proof that the words and mighty works of Christ Jesus are understood is shown only in the ability, in some degree at least, to do these same works and thus to give proof of an understanding of the Bible. This is Christ Jesus' constant requirement of his followers.
Here then is the Book of books. For centuries mankind has found within its pages comfort, guidance, redemption, and healing. Men have sacrificed their lives to protect it from destruction, that the voice of Truth might never be silenced upon the earth. Truly has the Master of its teachings declared, "Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away."
The one in this age who saw the vision and heard the voice of Truth — who had a scientific appreciation of the Bible — is Mary Baker Eddy. This simple-living though cultivated New England woman with her intellect and deep spiritual intuitions was not satisfied with faith in the Bible and in the words and works of Christ Jesus. She knew that these works were founded on eternal, changeless law, and she must know the nature of the Lawgiver and the Science of the law. To this end she consecrated her life to research in what one of the greatest scientists in the present-day field of electricity has called "the laboratory of Spirit," discovering and demonstrating the laws of Spirit.
Even in her early childhood, Mrs. Eddy heard the voice of Truth, as did the child Samuel. And as the child Samuel went to the prophet Eli to learn why he had called him, saying, "Here am I," so at various times the child Mary went to her mother to know what was her wish. Finally the puzzled mother — a devout Christian — being assured by a relative that she too had heard that voice calling the child by name, told the eager child the story of Samuel and bade her answer the voice of God when it came again, as did that other child of earlier days. Later when the voice came again, obediently the child, Mary, replied: "Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth." Never again to material sense was the call repeated, but the desire to know God was never quenched in the consciousness of Mary Baker Eddy, and the voice of Truth kept calling her through all the vicissitudes of the human dream, through ill-health, poverty, sorrow, bereavement, faithlessness, and treachery. Ever clearer came that voice, guiding, upholding, supporting, enlightening, justifying her, leading her ever higher and higher until she reached the summit of divine Science, the pure revelation of God as Spirit, divine Principle, divine Love.
After definite and practical proof of the truth of this revelation by healing all manner of sin, sickness, and disease, Mrs. Eddy gave this revelation to the world in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." On page 126 of that book she writes: "The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in 'the straight and narrow way' of Truth." Later on in the same book she writes: "A Christian Scientist requires my work science and health for his textbook, and so do all his students and patients. Why? First: Because it is the voice of Truth to this age, and contains the full statement of Christian Science, or the Science of healing through Mind" (Science and Health, p. 456).
Although this voice of Truth
reverses the accepted so-called laws of materialism, it is fully proved to be
true not only by its flawless logic, but by its fully attested effects: disease
healed, sin erased, poverty vanquished, and harmonious living established.
The history of the material world gives a clear example of the effect on the lives of men when they accept astronomical truth in place of false beliefs regarding the solar system, and, however trite it may seem to be, it is well worth considering. At one time in its history the whole world believed that the earth was flat; that the sun revolved around the earth, rising in the east and setting in the west. The peoples of the world were governed by that belief with all its restrictions and limitations; its curtailment of activity, exploration, and progress; its fear of sailing beyond the horizon lest they might fall into empty space. But all the beliefs of all the ages never made a flat earth, never put a dent into its spherical surface. These beliefs never for an instant made the round earth absent. All the false beliefs of all the ages never interfered for an instant with the orderly rotation of the earth, nor did they for an instant stop or interfere with the law which governs its movements as a sphere. How impotent is belief!
But astronomical truth was not to be hidden, and was in time revealed to searchers of the heavens. The earth was found to be not flat. There came, too, a Copernicus, a Galileo reversing the misconception of a revolving sun. What scorn and ridicule met this discovery: "The sun does not rise and set!" "Are we not to believe the testimony of our senses?" the people cried. And what violent opposition came from the church, threatening with death those who might so flout the laws of God. But neither ignorance, superstition, nor threat can stop the unfoldment of truth — astronomical or spiritual.
Today practically the whole world believes in the reality of what is called matter. The majority of people believe that life, mind, is in matter, subject to its ills, restrictions, and limitations. They believe that man is a mortal, a person, existent in and dependent on matter for his life, his happiness, his health and sustenance. Many believe that Spirit or Soul is an ethereal essence of some kind imprisoned in a matter body, to be released by death into freedom and immortality. They believe that intelligence is in and subject to non-intelligence, to chance, to good or bad luck.
Mary Baker Eddy, that courageous and unselfed thinker, adventurously explored the infinite reaches of Spirit, divine Mind. She discovered and proved the allness, the oneness of Mind as cause and creator, omnisciently intelligent and omnipotently good. Facing the scorn and ridicule of the world, she had the unsurpassed courage to proclaim this truth in the midst of false beliefs and misconceptions. Charges of witchcraft were brought against her, and great was the mental persecution she endured. She remained faithful to her discovery and accumulated proof of its verity and the falsity of the idolatrous belief that there is a power called matter, the seeming source of laws of limitation and evil. This idolatry, a remnant of ancient mythology and its belief in a material intelligence called energy, must give place to the truth, the Science of Spirit, one God, omnipotent in goodness, indestructible in substance, and inviolable in order and harmony.
My friends, what is called matter or energy has no more reality than had a flat earth, and it is not the creator or arbiter of life. Life is Mind, matterless, fetterless, free. Spirit, Soul, is substance, never in or of matter. It is indestructible, immortal being. Intelligence is omniscience — omnipotent and omnipresent — and man is the immortal, individualized expression of this intelligent, infinite Being. This truth has never been absent, the beauty and symmetry of its perfection has never been marred, its law has never been interrupted, its power has never been abrogated.
My friend, no matter how many years you have believed it about yourself, or how many others have believed it about you, you never have been and never will be a mortal, a material person. You never have been and never will be, in truth, less than man, the immortal expression of God's being. It takes courage, my friends, fearless, joyous, shining courage, to accept and demonstrate this truth in face of the testimony of the physical senses, but this courage is sustained by omnipotent Mind, the compassionate tenderness of divine Love, until truth is victorious and Mind's allness is understood and made manifest.
The misconception of life in matter, or energy, Jesus declared was of the devil and abode not in the truth; and in the book of Revelation, that great revelator of Truth, St. John, speaks of that old serpent or devil "which deceiveth the whole world." From this false premise has been evolved a great fabulous realm of human so-called knowledge — knowledge based on this false testimony of the physical senses, on human, material theories and doctrines. Speaking of this knowledge, Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 196), "Man has 'sought out many inventions,' but he has not yet found it true that knowledge can save him from the dire effects of knowledge." Physical scientists themselves, the proponents of this knowledge, are beginning to stand aghast at its fabulous structure and question, "What next?" That they are approaching, within their own ranks, an answer to this question is indicated by a statement made by Dr. Edmund W. Sinnolt, Dean of Sheffield Scientific School, Yale University. He says: "Let us face the fact that what the world must have is a fuller cultivation of those qualities which are best termed spiritual. . . . For on their strength depends our own survival." (As quoted by Erwin D. Canham in the Christian Science Sentinel of July 16, 1949.)
Mrs. Eddy saw the next step. She writes in Science and Health (p. 534), "The Son of the Virgin-mother unfolded the remedy for Adam, or error; and the Apostle Paul explains this warfare between the idea of divine power, which Jesus presented, and mythological material intelligence called energy and opposed to Spirit." Recently from one of the large manufacturing firms came an amusing bit of advertising. It declares that according to the theory of aerodynamics, through "laboratory tests and wind tunnel experiments" it has been proved that the bumblebee cannot fly. It says: "This is because the size, weight, and shape of his body, in relation to the total wing spread, makes flying impossible. But . . . the bumblebee, being ignorant of these profound scientific truths, goes ahead and flies anyway — and manages to make a little honey every day."
If the "ignorant,"
humble bumblebee could be educated to accept these would-be laws, these
"profound scientific truths," he would either wear himself out trying
to accomplish the impossible, to lift his heavy body with his wee, inadequate
wings, or sit down and disintegrate in despair and helplessness. Is this not a
good illustration of the effect on mankind of education in false material laws
— the false belief that their strength and energy, their powers of endurance,
their wisdom and success, are dependent on and are limited to material
conditions of body and environment? How often their wings seem too fragile to
carry their hopes, their aims and aspirations.
But there is hope for mankind, whose sham wings seem too fragile to carry their hopes and aspirations, for John says prophetically, "The accuser [this deceiver] of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." What has cast down the accuser? Even that mighty declaration of truth given in the Christian Science textbook (p. 468), "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation." No longer can the accuser deceive one who hears and obeys the voice of Truth.
The accuser may even now be
accusing you of being sick, even sick unto death. Don't believe it, my friend.
It is an utterly false accusation, and you are not to be deceived by it. The
accusation may be that you or those you know are getting old, losing their
faculties, that someone, even you, may be poor, ill-tempered, dishonest,
lacking in intelligence, unloving or unloved. These are false accusations, all
of them, and the accuser is cast down. The truth is revealed that divine Mind
is All-in-all. This is the Mind of intelligence and wisdom, of justice and
equity, of life, love, and peace, of joy and gladness. It is infinite Mind,
therefore there is nothing outside of itself. Anything claiming to be unlike
Mind is the deceiver, and the deceiver is cast down.
On page 63 of Science and Health we have this word of truth: "In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. . . . Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being." The life of man, then, and everything that pertains to his life, has its source in and is maintained by Spirit, God. Everything that emanates from that source is good and in the nature of its own source. It cannot be otherwise. James asked this telling question, "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" In truth the ideas of divine Mind constitute the identity of man and the qualities of Spirit the substance of man. The nature of man then is altogether good as is its source,
No divine idea of Mind, no holy quality of Spirit, is ever subject to matter, at the mercy of so-called material laws, or dependent on material conditions. Joy is a very precious one of these eternal qualities. True joy never finds source in material sense and is not subject to personal whims or attachments. Joy is a radiant, unprecarious, self-existent divine quality. How safe then is our joy! Peace, too, is a spiritual quality of Mind. This peace is inviolable; it is not at the mercy of the seeming power of warring human wills in family or in nation. If is not invaded by cruel edicts, nor shattered by seemingly destructive forces. True peace is indestructible in the substance of Spirit. How safe then is our peace, the peace of man and the universe. True wealth is a quality of Mind, everywhere present, infinite in being. The infinite represents quality, not measurement; so true wealth is measureless, the inexhaustible outpouring of ideas and qualities. This wealth can never be taken from us. It can never be lost, depleted, or stolen; never jeopardized by speculation or unwise investment. This wealth belongs to each one of us in its ever-flowing abundance. Let us accept this wealth of divine ideas and qualities and invest it in joyous service. Let no one accept the accusation of being poor or in want. How safe is our wealth!
Intelligence is a primal quality of divine Mind. The student of Christian Science learns to find his intelligence in his at-one-ment with the infinite source of intelligence. So doing, he frees himself from any limited, personal sense of intelligence derived from materiality, the size and condition of what is called a brain and biased by personal interests or human planning. Thus accepting this intelligence from its divine source, he knows that under no conceivable human circumstance can he be separated from the guidance of divine wisdom, which will direct his every thought and deed to righteous, successful, and rewarding decisions, decisions that must bless not only himself, but everyone concerned. How safe is the intelligence of man!
In Science we can speak of the love of Love (a synonym for God). To many love is the holiest quality of Spirit. Love, reflecting its divine source, is pure, impartial, impersonal. It is never at the mercy of lustful desires, the faithlessness of personal attraction. True love is selfless, therefore fearless, blissful and free, infinitely tender and compassionate. Love is law, and above all, Love is intelligent. Without intelligence, love would not know how to be loving. Love is indestructible in the substance of divine Love. How safe then is reflected love, which inseparably companions life!
My friends, health is a quality or state of Mind, never dependent on nor subject to bodily structure or conditions. It is the wholeness, completeness, indivisible harmony of divine Principle. This true state of health is never affected by the illusions of the senses, which claim to attack it by disease, weaken it by sickness, imperil it by climate. True health is never at the mercy of what is called nerves; it is never governed by so-called medical laws. This true health is indestructible in the substance of Spirit. How safe then is the health of man! On page 167 of Science and Health we read this great truth: "The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."
This is the healing power preached and practiced by Christ Jesus. This God-inspired man, Jesus of Nazareth, demonstrated the power of the Christ, Truth, to displace the claims of evil with the verities of good; to heal all manner of sickness and disease. He proved that through his understanding of divine Principle he had complete command over all the forces and elements of the carnal mind, which we call matter. So the man Jesus is given the title of Christ, of Christ Jesus. This Christ-power he declared to be available to anyone who believed on him, who understood and obeyed his teachings. Today this healing power is reinstated and demonstrated by Christian Science. This health is ensured by omnipresent, omnipotent Principle and is wholly apart from any superstitious belief in the power of a non-intelligent drug or the unenlightened belief that the ills of the so-called human mind can be remedied by the same mind, the seeming cause of its own ills. Therefore Christian Science has no affinity whatsoever with mental psychology, with psychiatry or psychosomatics.
Today the medical profession, generally, is inclined to agree with the statement Mrs. Eddy made many years ago — that fear is the fountain, one of the fundamental causes of disease. She says in the textbook that if you succeed in wholly removing the fear, your patient is healed. All honor is due and is given to that noble body of men and women who today are endeavoring to quiet or erase the fears of their patients; but one may ask to what Principle do they turn the thoughts of their patients, to what power that assures them they have no cause to fear? No mindless drug can allay fear. The so-called human mind which engenders the fear can find no reason within itself to make the fears groundless. Here the voice of Truth speaks to allay these fears with sufficient reason, declaring God, the one great and only creator, to be divine Love, the All-in-all, infinite good. Divine Love cannot and does not either create or permit to exist anything that fears or needs to be feared. As divine Love is infinite, anything claiming to exist apart from and unlike Love is delusion, an illusion of the senses, without existence, the false accuser; and the accuser is cast down. To divine, omnipotent Principle, then, we turn the trembling, fearful one that he may find rest from his fears. Humbly and with intelligent trust one turns from the illusion to divine Principle, God, to learn the truth. In proportion as one is thus scientifically, lovingly freed from fear of evil he is released from the claims of evil. He learns to see evil of any nature as an illusion, without a past history, a present actuality, or a future development. Man can no more be separated from the Principle of his own being than a seven can be separated from its multiplication table.
My own first physical healing
through the ministry of Christian Science was that of chronic nervous
indigestion which had made my
life miserable for several years. All known material remedies had been tried,
but the difficulty continued to grow worse until I found myself on a most
restricted diet, in a state of constant fear of food. This difficulty was
healed instantaneously, completely, and permanently by this idea of truth which
came with sudden and inspired enlightenment: "There is no sensation in
matter, either in the food I eat or the organs supposed to digest it."
From that instant food of any kind has held no terror for me.
You may say that this was merely a nervous disorder and could be healed in materia medica, but Christian Science is no respecter of disease. Recently a young man who introduced me at a lecture told me of his healing experience. This young man was suffering from what materia medica calls visceroptosis or fallen abdominal organs. The physicians said they had no cure for him and advised him to wear a harness as a relief, which he did. One or two other prescriptions were advised and tried, but with no help. Then Christian Science came into his life, and the healing began through reliance on Principle. These verses from the Bible came to him, he says, as a voice: "I girded thee, though thou hast not known me;" "Gird up now thy loins like a man." The voice of Truth indeed! Several attempts were fearfully made to do without the harness, but it was each time put back after a few days trial. One morning as he put the harness on, it broke in his hands. To use his own words, he said, "O.K., God." The harness was never again put on. Thus the healing began and was completed. The omnipotent law of divine Principle governing man and the universe was indeed found supplying the human need and girding him with strength and healthful vigor. That young man is today active in business, having finer health and greater strength than he had ever known. This same young man, through his understanding of Christian Science, brought healing to a brother who was under the medical verdict of a short time to live because of a dread disease for which as yet materia medica has found no cure.
The attitude of the human mind toward these seemingly miraculous healings is well illustrated by that of some young children in a Christian Science Sunday School. The lesson for the week contained the story of Jesus' raising of Lazarus from the dead. The teacher, a friend of mine, asked the children if they believed that could happen today. One child very promptly said, No, she didn't. Another said she was not sure — perhaps it could. A third one said. Yes, she believed it could, but she would be awfully surprised if it did.
Today there is much great and unchallengeable proof that Christian Science is fulfilling its primal mission of taking away the sins of the world by the redemption of individuals from the seductive and destructive delusions of false desires and appetites. Neither the threats nor blandishments of material sense can frighten or entice the individual who knows his true being to be wholly spiritual, complete, satisfied, perfect, and safe in the substance of Soul.
Here in divine Science is to be found that precious thing called equality for which men have sought and fought throughout the ages, in ways of war, through legislation, arbitration, and distribution of material wealth. But equality can never be found in the realm of matter — of misconception, the belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter. This in itself is the basis of inequality. Equality is not to be found in the illusory universe of persons with inequalities of mind, intelligence, capacities, aims, and purposes. Equality is found only in the spiritually mental realm. Qualities of character cannot be legislated, enforced by arbitrary laws. No sentimental emotion or sympathetic mesmerism can bring about an equality which does not exist in actuality of thought and conduct.
In the effort to bring about equality by material measurements, there is danger of making an ideal of mediocrity and leveling all things down to the ordinary and material rather than up to the ideal and practically spiritual. While there must be equality of justice, equality of opportunity for all, there must also be recognition of the fact that ignorance is not in equal scales with enlightenment, and the one who refuses enlightenment may not be allowed to set a standard or establish a law for the one eager and ready for higher standards of thinking and conduct. There is no equality between right and wrong, high ideals and low levels of thinking, and in the intermediate lines of justice there cannot be equal rewards for those two standards of thought and action.
But the voice of Truth assures us of Spirit's law of equality which is ever operative and inviolate. This law has never been interrupted in its operation, has never been reversed, never for an instant been stopped by the mental misconceptions of life in matter. None of the seeming inequalities, injustices, struggles and strikes, or cataclysms of war has for an instant interrupted divine Love's imperative law of impartiality in expression of its blessings.
In this divine Love, which Jesus called "Our Father" and which is the source of all good, is indeed found true equality — equal intelligence derived from the infinite source of intelligence, divine Mind; equal love and joy and peace ever flowing from their infinite source, divine Love; equal supply of beauty and bounty from the inexhaustible source of Spirit; equality of health, the expression of the indivisible wholeness and harmony of divine Principle.
Here each one may have all the love, all the joy and peace, the intelligence, the substance and glad activity he will acknowledge and accept as his true consciousness. This spirituality is practical, because in spiritual reality alone is to be found unity with the omnipotent forces of good. In the truth, then, of one God, one infinite divine Mind, and one man, the infinitely individualized expression of this one Mind, is found equality for men and nations.
As we become obeyers of the truth, we find ourselves employed in prayer, the ceaseless, joyous prayer of spiritual understanding, the prayer of praise, the answered prayer of reflected good. In the reflection of divine Mind and its perfect, divine qualities is found the answer to all true prayer.
In this prayer there is to be found no "Yes — but" attitude of thought. Let us be aware of that mischievous little word "but." When we make a clear, positive declaration of truth, let us not shut the door on the demonstration with a "Yes — but." Many times one shuts himself out of the kingdom of heaven with that little phrase. Most frequently one hears it used in this way: "Yes, that is true — but I must prove it." Let it be understood that we prove the truth because it is true. It is not true just because we think we have proved it. Our seeming to prove or not prove does not affect the truth, does not make it less or more infinitely and eternally true. Let one accept willingly and wholeheartedly; let him declare boldly and with conviction the spiritual counterfact of any material counterfeit, with no mental reservation of "but"; let him continue in the truth, rejoicing in it in spite of the threat of the false evidence, and he will find the truth proving itself and making him free. Jesus did not say, "Ye shall know the truth — but you must prove it." It is the truth that does the freeing, or proving. It is its own activity and is ever fulfilling its own law of harmony in the exact proportion that it is known and lived.
Then let us seek the kingdom of heaven for its own sake. Let us seek Truth for the sake of Truth — not for what we hope it may do for us materially. Let us seek Love for Love's sake — not for the blessings we think it may bestow. Let us accept joy for the sake of joy, and peace for the sake of peace, and for the harmony and healing their presence may bestow upon others. In this way consciousness is left free to receive divine Love's own answers. We may be sure that the so-called human harmonies and necessities will be met specifically and generally — in full, inevitable, and overflowing measure. A spiritual law is always a law, inevitable, never outgrown and never outmoded. Jesus declared that law when he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." This is the law today and forever.
The world, my friends, has great need of prayer. It needs to hear and understand that great statement of Truth to be found on page 170 of Science and Health: "Spiritual causation is the one question to be considered, for more than all others spiritual causation relates to human progress." As men accept this truth that Spirit is the source of all substance, all good, they will base their economic structure on true values, Spirit and its substantialities. Then they will waken from the dream of recurring cycles of inflation and deflation, prosperity and poverty, boom or doom. Poverty will no more be known in any land.
They also will understand Paul's statement to the Corinthians when he says, "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." Men will then understand that a seeming power susceptible of both good and evil is no power because it is continually divided against itself. Then will the making of carnal weapons, using the suppositional destructive forces and elements of matter, cease, and the nightmare of war be at an end.
In the world of today there is a confusion of many voices. Their clamor at times seems to be deafening. The so-called human mind has invented many devices by which to make its voice heard, blatantly, insistently, seductively, appealing to the intellect, to the senses, to the emotions, and to the superstitions of its own supposititious being. But never can the voice of Truth be silenced or unheard.
Friends, Truth is demanding that men awaken from the misconceptions, the stupefying and stultifying illusions of the senses, demanding that they accept the revelation of reality. It is saying to each one of us, "'Awake thou that sleepest,' and put on your garments beautiful, the mental Life-giving garments of Truth and Love." These garments are not only beautiful but the most useful and practical of all garments, strong, seamless, and enduring, for glory and for beauty. They are woven of spiritual substance, of intelligence and dominion, wisdom and joy, peace and power, of health and immortality.
Utopian, you question, a dream? No, my friends, not a dream but an awakening — an awakening to the kingdom of heaven at hand. If you question its actuality, remember the answer of Jesus to those who questioned it of old; "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." Hear once more the voice of St. John: "The accuser of our brethren is cast down." "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ."
[Delivered on an unknown date in Seventh Church of Christ Scientist, Kansas City, Missouri, and published in the Johnson County Herald of Overland Park, Kansas, Feb. 22, 1951.]