Paul Stark Seeley, C.S.B., of Portland, Oregon
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
In the eleventh chapter of the gospel of Matthew Christ Jesus gives to the human race an invitation of hope. The invitation includes a great promise. These are his words, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." The Messiah's promise, of which Christian Science is reminding men, is to all who will come to that true knowledge of God, and the understanding of life taught by Christ Jesus. To all such, without partiality, here is an unqualified promise of relief and rest. Are you wondering where lies the path of truth? Christian Science will show you. Are you weighed down with sickness? Christian Science will lift the burden with God's healing law. Are you heavy-laden with a sense of grief or despair? Christian Science will bring to your heart a joy which earth cannot steal. Understanding, health, gladness, — these are the gifts of God which Christian Science is bringing to men.
The Roman Empire held under its control nearly all the civilized world when John the Baptist began, some twenty centuries ago, to preach to his countrymen, "Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." A simple statement heard, but by few, and understood by still fewer. The brief ministry of John the Baptist was quickly followed by the public appearance of Christ Jesus who began his epoch-making ministry with this same imperative command, "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Do you believe that Jesus knew what he was talking about when he stated that heaven is here? Do you believe he would have repeatedly made this statement if he had not known it to be absolutely true? Yet Jesus looked out upon the same world as those about him. He knew that Caesar reigned in Rome and that the world lay at his feet. But still he said, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand." I feel sure no one will contend that the material world with its Roman Empire, its Pharisees, its philosophies and magic, its sickness and death, was the order of things Jesus had in mind when he said God's kingdom is here. Jesus made any such conclusion impossible by indicating during his ministry that the things of Caesar and the things of God are opposites, by condemning all that the Pharisees stood for, and by overcoming sin, sickness, and death. He whose lifework was to inform men about God and His kingdom would neither condemn nor destroy anything which belonged to that kingdom.
Please note that preceding Jesus' startling statement that the kingdom of heaven is here was the command, "Repent." The Greek word translated "repent" means "to think differently." So the command is, "Think differently, for the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of good, is here, and by thinking correctly you will be able to find it." That which Christ Jesus proclaimed in the first century of the Christian era, Christian Science proclaims in the twentieth. "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Change your thinking, gain the true concept of God and of yourself, and you will find right here the harmonious order of existence for which God is responsible.
You and I are here this evening because a noble and devout woman, Mary Baker Eddy, was willing to obey Jesus' command and think differently from the common course of human thought. As the result of many years of prayerful study of the Scriptures, investigation, and experiment, she came to the place where the was able to discern the divine concept of creation and man, and then set forth what she perceived in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Mrs. Eddy did not discover a new truth, but she did discover the full import and the law of application of the mighty truths taught and used by Christ Jesus. She first discovered this Science, then through her writings and a wisely ordered church organization she founded it in the consciousness of men.
Let us note that Jesus' statement concerning the presence of God and His kingdom could not have been made if he had had no other evidence of existence than that which his eyes saw and his ears heard. These senses saw an order wherein his countrymen were under the Roman yoke, the Pharisees were in Moses' seat, and the human race was in subjection to sin, disease, and death. Jesus gave no weight to this order, but with his thought fixed on a higher order of existence he confidently said,"Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Jesus well knew the truth later declared by Paul, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard . . . the things which God hath prepared." If, then, we cannot perceive God and His kingdom with our eyes and ears, how are we to find Him and His creation? Through spiritual sense.
Perhaps we have never thought of having a spiritual sense. Nevertheless we have, and it is the most reliable sense we possess. This sense perceives the things that endure. The practice of kindness, honesty, or justice, if without selfish motive, is the activity of spiritual sense. So we see that every right thinking person is using spiritual sense in some measure every day. None of these God-qualities can be seen, heard, tasted, or felt with the material senses. The physical senses discern only our temporary material surroundings, whereas spiritual sense acquaints us with the ideas of Mind. There is within us this sense which discerns good and clings to it, and there is nothing about the operation that is physical in any way. By this spiritual, or right mental, sense, God, Spirit, is discerned and His laws understood. And it was because of went he discerned through spiritual sense that Jesus could say without qualification, in the face of a material world, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
Since we are to reason concerning God and His heaven, or creation, let us begin by considering first of all the question, What is God? If we are to have a God who is to be available to all He must be everywhere, not somewhere. For what good would anything be to you or to me if it happened to be in South America when we needed it very much in the United States? God must also possess the intelligence which can master evil. For how would we be benefited if we were to call upon Him and find He did not possess sufficient intelligence to help us overcome some perplexing phase of human discord? The only conceivable concept of God that shows Him to be everywhere, and to possess all intelligence, is the concept of God as Mind. Intelligence resides only in Mind, and for Mind there are no boundaries. Therefore Mind is everywhere.
For example, if we sit in our homes and think intelligently, Mind is thus proved to be there; if we travel across land or sea and think good thoughts, Mind is thus shown to be with us all the way. One of the happy things about Christian Science is that it explains how near God is simply by showing that God is Mind, the author of every good thought. We do not have to take a single step in order to find God and His heaven. Our bodies do not have to move an inch. But we do have to make a move in our thought. The move is from the wrong to the right point of view of existence, from the material to the spiritual basis of thought. One mentally emigrates from the Land of Bad, where the giants of Poverty, Fear, Hate, and Sickness, seem to rule, to the Land of Good, where the only lawgiver is the all-loving and all-wise God.
In the everyday use of words much that is designated mind is wholly lacking in intelligence, and so is not really entitled to be regarded as mind. For example, there is no intelligence in hatred or fear, though these are often referred to as states of mind. The use of the word mind in this way is a misuse, though for lack of some other word we almost have to use mind in this contradictory sense, to designate that which claims to be mental activity, yet has no kinship with intelligence. This is the evil, or negative, sense of mind, named by Christian Science, mortal mind. Mortal mind is God's opposite. For as God is true Mind, the source of every wise and good thought, so mortal mind is the origin of all evil and of every evil thought. God, divine Mind, is the foundational fact. Evil, or mortal mind, is the basic lie.
True Mind is the same as true Love, for Mind, or intelligence, always expresses love and consideration. Suppose, for instance, that you were chosen to rule over a large kingdom. Would you not endeavor to see that kindness and justice were manifest toward your subjects? Would you not do all in your power to promote their happiness, health and well-being? You would feel you were governing wisely and intelligently — expressing Mind — only as you governed lovingly. Cruelty, tyranny and injustice would offend your sense of intelligence. So the all-governing Mind that is God is all-loving and conceives nothing that is unjust or unkind.
Now let us consider what the Scriptures have to say about you and me and what we really are, from God's standpoint. Right at the beginning of the Bible we read that man is the image of God. The word image means "representation." Then our true self is a representation of God, that is, a representation of true Mind. We live to represent, that is, re-present, the intelligence or good that is God. Do you feel that the collection of flesh and blood, called body, is representative of God? Can eternal Mind be represented by that which is often diseased, crippled, and always temporary?
Christian Science places no reliance upon this fragile, troublesome piece of mechanism called the physical body. Paul wisely said that he did not confer with flesh and blood for the reason, stated by him on another occasion, that flesh and blood cannot enter into the kingdom, or creation, of God. Christian Science shows that many of our troubles come from holding too many conferences with the body and allowing it to manage us instead of our managing it. ''Mortals," writes Mrs. Eddy on page 214 of Science and Health, "are inclined to fear and to obey what they consider a material body more than they do a spiritual God."
We say, Well, body, how am I to-day? Were you hurt by the north wind that blew upon you yesterday or did the rain on your feet produce a cold in your throat? Furthermore, the body is a bothersome partner. It insists on time to sleep, time to be fed, time to be adorned, and it localizes our range of activity. It becomes sick, incapacitated, and parts sometimes get broken which are not easily replaced. Is it not time for us to discover that man has an individuality superior to a physical body? Material sense says, I collect and blend together by physical forces, for a few years, some twenty chemical elements, and behold this is man! Do you believe that? Do you believe that this unthinking chemical combine is the representative of divine intelligence, true Mind? So far as God is concerned, the mortal body is a vacant domicile.
Natural science, so called, asserts that physical man has evolved from tadpoles and monkeys. Orthodox theology holds, according to a recent declaration by our Presbyterian brothers, that this Adam-man was made by the Lord out of matter which had previously been made out of nothing. Evidently the matter-man is of doubtful lineage. This Adam-man, Christian Science teaches is the counterfeit or misconception of the true man. The real man is spiritual and God-like. His body is not material and destructible, but spiritual and indestructible. At the last supper Jesus said, "Take, eat; this is my body," referring not to the flesh, which he had previously said profited nothing, but to his spiritual body, the embodiment of right ideas, which we partake of and manifest in proportion as we think divinely.
Those who were in authority in the church in Jesus' time believed that man lives in a material body. Antagonized by the words and works of Jesus, they nailed his body to a cross, thinking that thus they could silence this man who taught that God had more power than matter, and that man with God's help could set aside the destructive processes of physical force. They tried their theory out, but it failed, miserably failed. And the reason was that he with whom they dealt understood God and they did not. So well did Jesus understand his individuality to be the indestructible expression of eternal Mind that in less than seventy hours he brought forth from the sepulchre, by the power of divine thinking, the same body which the forces of evil claimed to have killed. Thus did he prove that man, endowed with an understanding of Mind, God, is superior to the physical body and the physical forces which would assail and terminate his life.
The trouble is that men have been trying to solve their human problems by clinging in thought to a supposedly good God and a frail, oftentimes bad, or sick, man as constituting the real order of existence. This is like reasoning that the sun sends out shadows instead of rays of light. Reason is abandoned when we say that an altogether good cause can create an inharmonious and sinful man. We shall have to learn sometime, and the sooner the better for our own happiness, to think from the standpoint of a good God, and a Godlike man. That is, we must come to think of man, the representative of God, as possessing a nature and qualities that are consistent with the nature of God. Is there anything illogical in asserting that a good God must make a good man, and not an evil one?
In the human order men are desirous of representing their governments as ambassadors, or their fellow-citizens to legislative assemblies. Business men wish to become representatives of reputable firms. A satisfactory representative intelligently presents the ideas, or the goods, of the one he represents. Have you ever considered that we exist for the express purpose of representing supreme intelligence in thought and deed? How well are we representing our Principle, God? Is the sick man, the sinner, the unhappy man, a good representative of the all-loving Mind? Surely not. When we are displaying such goods we have forsaken our true occupation and have become agents for Satan, or mortal mind, dealing in such worthless goods as fear, sickness, and poverty, just the opposite of the good things which God has commissioned us to exhibit.
Isaiah expresses God's concept of us in the words, "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord." A witness is one who furnishes evidence of proof. Have you ever thought of yourself as the individual witness, or evidence, of God, the proof that God is? Try it, and if you keep trying, you will find that a new sense of manhood will presently begin to appear. Pindar has well said, "Learn what you are and become it." Christian Science says, "Learn that you exist to be the evidence of God, and be it." And being the witness of God is not a seasonal occupation. It has the continuity of eternity. Herein is true manhood, to bear living witness to the God who is our real Mind and Life.
The world is busy getting. Some are getting wealth, some fame, some power, some are getting sick, some getting discouraged. Christian Science is pointing the way to a truer order, the divinely intelligent order, wherein it is seen that man exists only to give, to give forth what God has given him, even joy, health, and useful being. As the sun provides all that each sunbeam needs to be a sunbeam, as the principle of mathematics provides all that each number needs to be a number, so Mind provides for man, as His representative, the health, activity, and understanding he needs to be an individual expression of intelligence. God alone is responsible for man and He fulfills His responsibility. All we need to do is to be willing to think and live as the sons and daughters, not of men, but of God.
Some months ago I was motoring with a party of friends through a beautiful section of Pennsylvania. It was a spring day full of glory. All nature sang a silent symphony of praise to the creator. Everything was giving! The sun above was giving light and warmth; the road beneath was providing an easy way of travel; the car was giving transportation and comfort; the friends were giving of their hospitality and kindness; the trees were giving grace and beauty; the flowers were giving color and sweetness; the birds contributed their song; the farmhouses were giving shelter; the cows were giving milk for food and drink. Road signs gave helpful direction. And then suddenly there came into view in the distance a group of white tombstones, glistening in the sunlight on the borders of a pleasing country village. The question came, Could they, too, be giving? Quickly came the answer. They are giving testimony of loving regard for friends still living, though not now seen. How good it was to think that!
On we sped. The hills and mountains gave messages of strength and stability; the valleys told of the productiveness of humility. Than we came to a mighty river which had, through the centuries, been wearing down the slopes of hills and mountains preparing on its erstwhile banks the even grades where men now lay their ways of travel. All was giving. False sense was giving way, and Mind was revealing that all creation, including man, was, and is, just to make Love manifest. No sense of selfish striving was there, no competition, no lack. And the giving was so vital, so joyful, so fearless, so free. It was a faint glimpse of the heart-throb of divinity. What was thus perceived on this one day but hints what we all may perceive each and every hour, even that order of creation wherein every created thing lives to give, to be the witness of the unselfish, living good that is God.
Man, in order to be the living witness of God, or Mind, must be in conscious accord with God. The sunbeam could not bear witness of the sun for an instant were it separated from the sun. So with man and God. But men believe they are separated from God, that God is somewhere instead of everywhere, and that the somewhere where God is, is somewhere that they are not. It is the teaching of Christian Science that the true individuality of man is inseparably united with God. The Bible informs us that Abigail realized this when she said to David that his life was bound in the bundle of Life with God. Jesus stated the relationship thus, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me," meaning that his consciousness was of and in the Mind which is God. Paul helps us to see how dependent man is upon Mind when he says that we are not sufficient of ourselves to think anything, but our sufficiency is of God. Consider this: that we are not able to think a single thought except by the action and volition of the Mind that is God.
On page 202 of Science and Health is this important observation, "The scientific unity which exists between God and man must be wrought out in life-practice, and God's will must be universally done." Jeremiah once said, "The way of man is not in himself." Until we awaken to realize that we are eternally linked by active thought-forces to indestructible Mind and thus begin to let our relationship to God appear as a living fact, we can possess no enduring health and no lasting happiness. Indeed the effort to obtain happiness and health while out of agreement with our God is like trying to get the electric light to shine without turning on the current. The thought-forces which carry health and happiness flow from God alone.
We find God and our agreement with Him as our hearts are filled with thankfulness for what He has done. The Psalmist writes: "Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name." Every moment there is something for which to be thankful. If we seem at times to be in difficulty and darkness, let us remember the nightingale, which sings even in the night. Its joy transcends the shadows. So can ours.
On every hand are the gifts of God for which we should be constantly grateful. This building which gives us shelter, the homes of comfort from which we came, the means of transport which brought many of us and will take us home, our country, our schools, and churches; these are a very few of the blessings at our right hand. Then there are the men and women who help supply our needs, and whom we seldom see, the ones who work on distant farms, in factories, mills, and on the railways. Some plant and harvest, some manufacture, some ship and bring to us the things we need. From all the earth good comes to us. Are we grateful to the One who gives to them and to us? Remember that neither they nor we are able of ourselves to do or think anything. The Life and Mind of each and all is God, the All-in-all.
Everything that is truly useful and good is the gift of God, Love. The useless thoughts and things we do not have to accept. It is related that Lincoln once said, "I like to stroll of an evening through the shopping district of Washington and look into the store windows, for I see there so many things that I can get along without." Christian Science shows us that there are many things we can get along without, things we once thought we must have, such as colds in winter, hay fever in summer, and almost anything in between. Through the discovery of our oneness with God, universal good, we realize our rights to those noble, better things, such as health, happiness, success, which intelligent Love has provided for us.
Exemption from evil centers around the question of self. Which conception of self am I going to accept as real, the material and perishable, or the spiritual, harmonious, Godlike, and eternal? Am I going to be an unprotesting victim of evil, or am I going to think and to live as the witness of God? We cannot do both. No one can walk in opposite directions at the same time. Most automobile accidents in our cities result from someone's failing to give right of way. All of our personal troubles are due to our failure to give right of way to the thoughts of God. God and good things are the fact. The devil and evil thoughts are the fiction. There is no bridge between. As we perceive the spiritual fact we dispel the evil fiction. While we believe the fiction, or lie, we cannot perceive the fact, though it be at our right hand.
The world says, The material sense of self expressing evil and disease is not good and it is not right, but it is very real. Christian Science says, The material sense of self expressing evil and disease is not good and it is not right, therefore it is not real, for only that can be real which is good and right. Can there be lawless reality? Yet that is what human thought contends for when it asserts that evil is real.
Let me call your attention to the fact that Jesus' many proofs of God's presence and power showed that the apparent nearness of evil is not the slightest reason for accepting it as legitimate and real. The mistaken concept that two times two are five does not harm the true concept that two times two are four, no matter how many people believe the misconception. No more does the misconception that evil and its laws are the real order of life change the true conception that reality is good and its expression.
A bold liar shouting lies in your ear does not convince you that the lies are true by reason of the noise he makes, or by reason of his physical nearness. You are too well informed of the truth to be deceived. So Jesus was too well informed about the creation of God, the only true creation, to be deceived by the lying counterfeit creation to which sin, pain, and evil testify.
Recall how Jesus healed the ten lepers in a moment of time when they and their fellows had believed for many years that leprosy was an incurable disease. The thought which conceives disease is all that calls it incurable, but such thinking takes no account of divine law and the power of God. Neither a sick man nor an incurable disease has ever been conceived, nor are either supported, for an instant, by the intelligence that is God. Jesus proved this so many times by destroying all manner of sickness that we should bow in shame at the meagreness of our faith in God's healing power.
On a certain Sabbath day Jesus came to the synagogue and saw there a man with a withered hand. To the man himself and all those about him the condition was a reality, and incurable. In their thought there was no appeal to a higher power from the verdict of material law. Jesus thought differently. He knew that God and His heavenly order of creation are here. Jesus did not examine the hand, nor manipulate the muscles, nor ask how long the man had been so. He simply told him to stretch forth his hand, — make normal use of it, — and it was made whole. The remedy was not medical nor surgical. It was the remedy of Mind.
What do you suppose Jesus was thinking of in order to cause those withered tissues to become healthy in an instant? In place of the commonly accepted belief that man is the offspring of matter, and in it, Jesus knew that the true selfhood of man is spiritual and perfect, the idea of the Mind which he lives to express. He well knew that in the divine order there is nothing to conceive or support a withered hand. He knew that the material laws which claimed to support it are illegitimate and lacking in real authority, and that they must give way before the Word of God and the thinking which knows that God, infinite good, made manifest, is all that has real being. He knew, too, that the hatred of the Pharisees was powerless to prevent the operation of this divine law, for man's harmony and health are concepts of divine Mind. These conditions human opinion cannot give or take away. Jesus' correct view of man displaced, in some degree, the incorrect view and the result was a normal hand.
Jesus had no accumulation of material wealth, yet he was the richest man who ever trod the globe. In his heart were everlasting treasures, — treasures of joy, of love, and of spiritual understanding, — which could not perish or be stolen away. He never had an unsupplied need. Every human want, from the manger in which he was born to the garments with which he came forth from the sepulchre, was immediately supplied. He knew the love of his Father, Mind, to be sufficient to provide fully for His Son.
On one occasion a large company, numbering five thousand, had been following him for three days. At the end of that time he felt that they should be fed, but the visible supply of food was five loaves of bread and two small fishes. There was scarcely a loaf for a thousand. Jesus took the food, looked to heaven, blessed it, and gave to the multitude. To the surprise of all, save Jesus, there was enough food for every one.
When Jesus looked to heaven, as the Bible states, he did not look up to the sky, for there is no heavenly condition up there. Heaven is found not by lifting our eyes skyward, but by turning our thoughts Godward. This is what Jesus did. He turned his thought away from material testimony to the ever-present God and so realized the allness of divine Love and Love's ever-operative cure for Her own, that error's lie of want dissolved, and the monads of matter became subservient to the intelligent purpose of Mind to provide for its own. The solution of every human problem is found in the dissolution of some false belief. Jesus here proved by the power of Mind that in the universe of God lack is unknown, unthought, unexpressed.
When confronted with the false arguments of limitation, if we would look to heaven, as Jesus did, instead of into the bottomless pit of error, — the unfounded beliefs of evil, — we would find as he found that Love has already provided fully for man's every need. This provision becomes evident in the proportion that Love reigns within us. Jesus knew that the bounty of Love nullifies the robbery of evil. Limitation denies wisdom and impugns love. Limitation is the essence of matter and era. Evil argues limited supply, limited happiness, limited life, limited activity, limited understanding, limited capacity, limited everything. It is the firm of Evil and Company, Limited! This evil partnership has been adjudicated by Christian Science and found bankrupt. It has no assets, no place of business, no reliable, business connections, and its dissolution is rapidly being accomplished.
A Christian Science treatment includes denial of the claims of evil and affirmation of the facts of being as known to God. A lie when answered by truth becomes silent, whether the lie be a slander or a sickness. In Revelation John saw that the dragon, typifying all evil and sickness, was cast out, not by drugs, nor by a surgeon's knife, but "by the word of their testimony." This is the method of Christian Science, the hearing of true testimony as thought and word, testifying aright of God and His man.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus counseled his followers, "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay." One meaning the word communication is "reasoning!" The command is thus seen to mean that our reasoning, or thinking, should be, "Yea, yea; Nay, nay." Such is the practice of Christian Science. The Christian Scientist agrees with, thinks "Yea, yea," with the harmonious, divine order, and so affirms what is true. He denies or thinks "Nay, nay," to the claims of evil, and so denies what is untrue. He clings to the true and harmonious conception and repudiates the discordant misconception of existence. Christian Science treatment applies to every need. It heals sickness, does away with sin, brings clear judgment in business, and a happier atmosphere in the home.
Suppose you attend a movie which is most displeasing. You feel that it must be stopped. How can this be done? To try to rub it off the screen would do no good. The one sure way would be to turn off the electric current that is running the picture-machine and supplying light and power for the entire operation. So it is with the bad mental pictures of failures, sicknesses, family troubles, and so on, that the carnal, or mortal, mind would produce on the screen of consciousness. The only way to be rid of these disturbing pictures is to cut off the current of evil suggestion, stop the evil mentality, the devil from operating in our thinking. We can all do this. It is done by the courageous and persistent denial of any mind that is evil, and the affirmation and realization of the allness of God, divine Mind.
The time to wage war on evil is the instant it appears. If we are dilatory our mental home is soon filled with the devil and his camp-followers, and we have doubled our work by our negligence. It makes no difference what phases of evil may seem to confront us, we may rest assured that for every evil suggestion there is an angel, a God-sent thought, to reverse and silence it. Honesty and humility will keep the door of our consciousness ajar so the angels may always enter.
Christian Science teaches that the thinking which originates with and expresses divine Mind is true prayer. Mrs. Eddy has written in her work entitled "No and Yes" (p. 39): "Prayer is the utilization of the love wherewith He loves us." What does this mean for you and me — to utilize the love of God for us? Well, it means first of all that we recognize this love as a real, vital, living fast, not a theological theory. In order to recognize and appreciate this love we must ever keep uppermost in thought our true self, discern what we are, and why we are, and our relationship to God and to each other. When we are thinking thus we are utilizing the thoughts of truth which the love of God imparts to His witnesses.
Every thought of unselfishness, mercy, kindness, justice, helps to unite the one who thus thinks with the source of such thoughts, that is, God. We use God's love as we use the love-thoughts and the understanding with which He provides us. Prayer is thinking the thoughts of good that acquaint us with Love's heaven, rather than accepting the suggestions of evil which hold us in matter's hell. Coleridge caught some glimpse of the meaning of prayer when he wrote:
"He prayeth best who loveth best
All things, both great and small."
And going further with our reasoning, we see that we utilize God's love as we trust Him, as we become willing to let His Mind, and no other, rule our consciousness, let His will be our law, His hand be our guide.
Probably we hardly begin to realize as yet the scientific import of prayer. True prayer is the open door from earth to heaven, the thought-link that connects us with God and our fellows. "Behold," writes John, "I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it." Man, the living representative of the living God, is forever provided, through his ability to think divinely, with instant access and unhindered approach to the Mind that makes and sustains him, the Mind that is his Life, his intelligence, his friend!
The thinking which utilizes God's love is conscious of the fact that this love is impartial and has provided equally for one and all. Our brother is endowed with the same rights that we are and has the same qualities of being that we have. His well-being is as much a matter of God's loving concern as is ours. Not one of us can ever find that state of consciousness which is heaven so long as we halfway feel that some brother is just a little outside of the heavenly order. If some brother seems hidden behind a screen of false selfhood, be sure the good is there anyway, for God is his creator. Like the seed hid in the dark earth, his usefulness may not yet have become apparent, but it will. God will see to that. Be glad for what the future has in store. How can we be united to God and be at odds with one of His creatures, or representatives? Said Jesus, "If thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift."
If we had a window-pane to clean and there were pitch on both sides of it we should not feel that our work was done until both sides had been cleaned. Little light could come through if but one side were cleaned. So it is in the cleansing of our consciousness. We must needs remove the wrong concept both of ourself and of our brother before the light of truth can come in.
Paul expresses most beautifully the oneness of creation when he says, "Ye . . . are builded together for an habitation of God." Please take this with you. Here is an idea of God, even the right idea of creation, which Mind gives to us. Let us ponder it, love it, live it. In this habitation of true consciousness are all men, all nations, all races, and all generations. All are loved of God and united by His love to one another.
In a book recently published, Professor Charles F. Kent of Yale and Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks of New York University refer to the thoughts of God as more potent than gravity and dynamite. Christian Science, since its discovery by Mrs. Eddy in 1866, has been making practical use of these divine thought-forces, and with most beneficial results. Review the world's history since the advent of this regenerative agent and you will see facts that are more than remarkable. Though met with bitterest of opposition from the church and from medical practitioners, this Science has now won its way until the healing of the sick by the power of divine intelligence has become a generally accepted fact. Many reputable physicians today recommend Christian Science to those they do not relieve. Medical practice is revising its administrations from a material to a mental basis. Orthodox theology is forsaking some of its man-made doctrines. Some orthodox churches are saying that the sick should be healed by prayer. Longevity is increasing. Church unity is appearing. Educational methods are being transformed.
The rights of the masses of mankind to political and industrial freedom have come to be universally recognized. Thrones have crumbled and crowns have fallen until tyranny and despotism have all but disappeared from organized government. The United States has repudiated the liquor traffic, a thing inherently evil, and has so taken a mighty step toward the emancipation of men from the illusion that any evil thing can be stamped with legality. The equality of man and woman is becoming recognized by church and state.
The races of the Orient have felt this universal leaven and have struck their tents, no longer satisfied to move in the grooves of the past. The caste system is attacked. China, India, Egypt, Turkey, are on the move toward better things. The Moslem world, with its teeming millions, is making its readjustments and starting on the march which Mind impels, though the goal may, as yet, seem dim and distant even to its leaders.
In the realm of invention there has been an extraordinary quickening of activity since the advent of Christian Science. Our means of transportation have been multiplied and accelerated. Communication with our brothers near and far has developed to undreamed-of lengths. Space is each day less of a barrier, and Whittler's lines have come true:
"For lo, the fall of ocean's wall
Space mocked and time outrun
And round the world the thought of all
Is as the thought of one."
But the most notable of all the signs of progress toward a realization of the truth of the Master's statement that the kingdom of heaven is here is the world-wide movement for universal peace. What was believed beyond the range of hope a century ago is now seen to be within men's reach. What has changed? Not the law of peace, nor the way to attain peace. These have always been here. It is the thinking of men that has changed, and only Mind-power could change that. Evil is not now so much feared, hatred is not so much condoned, selfishness is not so widely tolerated. Could aught but a divinely mental power work such mighty changes.
In no period of human history has the human race progressed and developed as it has in the last sixty years. Is there not some reason? There is, and the reason is that a group of enlightened thinkers are utilizing the power of divine intelligence more constantly, more scientifically, and so more effectively, than men have used this spiritual power since the days of Christ Jesus. "The world," writes Mrs. Eddy, on page 224 of Science and Health, "feels the alterative effect of truth through every pore." The visible results show superstition and ignorance of God dissolving, lethargy toward spiritual things disappearing, fear giving way, matter becoming more and more subjugated to Mind, the false bondage of sickness and sin broken, and the day hastened when He whose right it is will reign in the lives and consciousness of all, and Jesus' words be proved true, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
[1932. This transcript takes the place of a previous report on this site that was about half as long.]