Wentworth Byron Winslow – God Will Do It

 

CONTENTS

True Culture by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Kingdom of Plenty

The Coming of the Christ

“Praise” and “Prays”

Jesus and His Friend Lazarus

The Book of Life — The Pigmy Mind

More About the Ambassador

True Consciousness

God Broadcasting His Word

The Prayer of Works

Rejoice

“All Is Infinite Mind and Its Infinite Manifestation”

The Promised Land

Balaam’s Ass

The Vacuum

Spiritual Sense

Consider the Lilies

Metanoia

Body

The Emperor

The Theater

Christ’s Kingdom

It Is at Hand — My Spirit

The Arrow and the Shadow

he Universal Me

At Peace

Angels

Mediation

The Reapers

Believe the Gospel

The Law of Love

That Power Called Life

Stop, Look, Listen

The Book of Life — The Perfect Mind

The Light of the Word

Substance

 

TRUE CULTURE

The highest culture is to speak no ill;
The best reformer is the man whose eyes
Are quick to see all beauty and all worth;
And by his own discreet, well-ordered life,
Alone reproves the erring.
When thy gaze
Turns on thine own soul, be most severe.
But when it falls upon a fellow-man
Let kindliness control it; and refrain
From that belittling censure that springs forth
From common lips like weeds from marshy soil

Ella Wheeler

 

THE KINGDOM OF PLENTY

There is a remarkably plain tale to be found in II Kings 6, commencing at the 24th verse and running through to the end of the following chapter. When the spiritual import of this story is unfolded, we find that we suffer solely from our false beliefs and not from the thing believed to be true.

The story opens with the children of Israel in the City of Samaria under a state of siege. The Syrians have encamped without the gates and set up a blockade, thus prevent­ing egress from or ingress to the City, with the result that all supplies have been cut off from the Samaritans.

The Syrians here represent personal sense, or mortal mind, and the Israelites typify the Christ or the followers of the one Mind, God. There may be no authority for the word “Israel” being based upon the two words “is real,” but at least it is true that whoso­ever glimpses that which is spiritual, or real, is one of the children of Israel, or Is-real; while the enemies of the Israelites invariably are the believers of the unreal, of matter, material force, sickness, sin, death and other evils.

The inhabitants of the City of Samaria found themselves deprived of food and water, until unmentionable food was sold at unheard of prices, and conditions grew so desperate and dreadful that one poor woman actually boiled her own son and devoured him.

When things had come to this state, the King of Israel (earthly sense) accompa­nied by a courtier (fear and doubt) sought the help of Elisha, the prophet, representing Truth, and, having stated the case to him, was bluntly told by Elisha that his tale of famine and distress was wholly mythical and unreal; while the truth was that where this kingdom of Famine was supposed to be, there was in fact the kingdom of Plenty. To prove this he said, “Tomorrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.” Whereupon the courtier (fear and doubt) demurred, saying in effect, that for this to occur a miracle must come to pass and the very windows of heaven be opened; which caused Elisha to tell him that when it occurred he, the courtier, as a result of his skepticism, would behold the fulfillment of this prophecy, but would not partake of it.

Then came a message from God. An angel is, “God’s thoughts passing to man: {Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy); and is not that which we have believed an angel to be — a sort of human personality with feathered wings. Angels are hovering about us all the while, even as our mothers used to sing to us in childhood days:

Oh, rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, mother is near,
Then rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye, nothing to fear,
For angels of slumber are hovering near,
So rock-a-bye baby, mother is here.

But these angels are messages from God which hover about us or “abound in the spiritual atmosphere of Mind” {Science and Health) in an endeavor to enter the con­sciousness of the receptive. These angels appear as a rule to the meek, lowly and humble, as witness Mary and Jesus. Luke puts it in this humorous way when he says: “Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word of God came unto John” (not to the high priests, but to the meek, humble and loving John).

On this occasion the word of the Lord came to four lepers, outcasts in every sense, and probably no one could have been more meek, humble and lowly than they. These unfortunates were living in quarantine just outside the City gates, segregated in the customary manner of that age. To them came this message, or angel from God, com­manding that they should go over into the camp of the enemy. Immediately the carnal mind turned a deaf ear to this, and registered a protest against any such action, averring that it was sure death to obey. But the awakened consciousness reasoned out that to stay where they were, or to attempt to enter Samaria, was certain death with no possibility of escape, while though death seemed to face them if they went over into the camp of the enemy, nevertheless there was a possibility of life being spared, and there only might find food and drink. So these lepers went over into the camp of the Syrians; but when they arrived at the camp there were no Syrians to be found, the camp was deserted, and all sorts of supplies were available to them. The Syrians had-disappeared. The blockade had been lifted. The children of Israel were free to come and go as they pleased.

This is typical of error of every sort. It is never to be found when sought after, for it is pure illusion—an illusion of false sense, and even without the recognition of the allness of Spirit, or Mind, when one seeks after matter, he finds what? — nothing. Witness the search for matter and for what it is. Lord Balfour was wont to say, “Matter has finally been explained by being explained away.” When sought after, matter cannot be found. Why not? Because there is no matter. All is Mind.

After surfeiting themselves with whatever they wanted, the lepers returned to the gate of the City and sent word to the King of the good news. However, he believed the report to be a hoax, “too good to be true,” and a trap into which he did not propose to fall. On further consideration, however, he consented to send out a reconnoitering party to investigate, which was done; and it reported back confirming the good news, whereupon the whole populace rushed forth for the food and water they so badly required. It was at this time that the courtier (fear and doubt) saw the fulfillment of the prophecy, but was trodden under foot and killed before he was able to partake of the abundant supply.

Jesus, too, found that the good news of a gospel of a God of Love which he brought to the world, was unacceptable at its face value. When he told the people that the “Kingdom of God is at hand,” they also thought it “too good to be true,” and refused to believe him. Jesus, however, dealt with this unwilling sense to take him at his word in a most practical manner. Through the power of God he healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the multitudes, and said in effect, “Very well, if you cannot believe me when I tell you this great truth in so many plain words, ‘believe me for the very works’ sake. In other words, he meant simply that if they couldn’t believe him when he told them the truth plainly, that they should try it out for themselves and see if it would work; because if it is a fact that the Kingdom of God is truly here, and man really the Son of God with all the rights, privileges and prerogatives of the Son of God, then if they would try it out on that basis, it would work as he had averred it would. When the Samaritans tried it out as related, they found that it worked; and when those who heard Jesus, tried out that which he said was true, they too found that it operated; and so today anyone else who tries it out, will find that it will work.

To return to our story, however, why was the price of food so unwarrantably high? Why did the people die? Why did the woman commit such an unnatural act? Certainly not because of any lack of food or drink, not because there was a famine, for there was an abundance available at all times; certainly not because of a blockade being set up by the Syrians, for when sought for, the Syrians were not to be found. What then? It was solely because of the Samaritans’ own false beliefs that they were blockaded which prevented them from obtaining the necessary supplies. When those false beliefs were obliterated by the truth, the believers in beliefs were no longer in bondage to those beliefs, and very naturally partook freely of the supply which had been available all the while.

To make this illustration clearer, there was a sailing vessel becalmed in the dol­drums over a long period of time. Finally all the fresh water on the ship was consumed and the crew began to experience the most terrible vicissitudes. Some died from thirst, some threw themselves into the ocean and were drowned; in fact, all suffered great torture, until after a while there were left but a few sailors of the original crew. At this point there was a steamer sighted some thirty miles away and the remaining sailors signaled frantically to it, “Bring us freshwater, we are dying of thirst.” To the sailors’ amazement, the steamer kept right on its course and signaled back, “Dip and drink, you are in a sea of fresh water.”

Personal sense then averred that this was “too good to be true,” and insisted that to dip and drink would produce even a worse condition than that which already existed; but awakened consciousness which received the angel message accepted the fact that if they didn’t try it out to see if the information was correct, there was no alternative but certain death; therefore the proper thing to do was to try it out and see. As David sang: “O taste and see that the Lord is good.” So they dipped their bucket into what seemed to them to be salt water and tasted it, whereupon it proved to be fresh and sweet. The sailors were opposite the river Amazon which is amazingly wide at its mouth and throws an unbroken body of fresh water miles upon miles out into the salt ocean before it dissemi­nates itself into the sea and becomes salt. The sailors’ false belief having been obliterated, they drank of the fresh water which had always been available, and so were saved from impending disaster.

The question again immediately arises, why did those other sailors suffer and die? Certainly not because of any lack of water, nor because the water was undrinkable and salt, for none of these things were true facts, as they were in the midst of fresh water all the time. They suffered and died for nothing whatsoever other than their own false standpoint they believed the water was salt and could not be used. When the false belief was obliterated by the recognition of the true facts, the remaining sailors were instantaneously freed from supposed bondage.

We suffer for no reason whatsoever than that we believe the Kingdom of God is not here. We look out upon this wonderful Kingdom of Spirit, Mind, and under the influence of the carnal mind, or evil suggestions, we believe we see the kingdom of matter with its accompanying evils — even as the sailors looked out upon the fresh water and believed it to be salt water; and as the Samaritans looked out upon great abundance and believed they saw famine. Nevertheless, this kingdom of matter with all its evils, irrespec­tive of what they may be termed, is wholly unreal — as unreal and illusive as was the presence of salt water or famine. As the crew on the steamer beheld the fresh water, and as Elisha saw the abundance of supplies in spite of all the testimony to the contrary, so we should behold the Kingdom of God, Spirit, Mind, and the things therein in spite of all the supposed adverse testimony As the recognition of the true facts destroyed the false viewpoint of the sailors and the Samaritans, so this same recognition of the Truth will destroy the false beliefs that we are in the kingdom of matter, and the destruction of these false beliefs by the eternal Truth will set us free; as Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

Jesus was a transparency for Truth, Mind, God, to speak through, and though it is related that he spoke the above words, yet really it was Mind which so spake. Mind, or God, is the only Doer, the only Actor. Man manifests Mind, or God. God spoke through Jesus because he was sufficiently transparent for Spirit to speak through; and though to all intents and purposes it was Jesus who spoke. Nevertheless, it was really Mind speaking with authority and it was this same Mind which did the “works.” Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing,”… “but the Father [Mind] that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works,” and, “My Father [Mind] worketh hitherto, and I [man] work.”

God spoke through Mrs. Eddy because she was a transparency through which the Truth found utterance. Her consciousness was open and readily admitted the angel which spoke and said, “When one’s false belief is corrected, Truth sends a report of health over the body” (Science and Health) If we suffer at all, we suffer from our false beliefs and from nothing else. These false beliefs need to be obliterated. This is done “by recog­nizing the supremacy and allness of good.” {Miscellany) There is no other way As the Truth is perceived that the Kingdom of God is actually at hand now, this recognition of the true facts destroys all false beliefs to the contrary, and the “Truth sends a report of health” everywhere; or as Mind says, speaking through the transparent Jesus in his direct and inimitable manner, “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.”

Then we are enabled to say, as Mind speaks through us as it did through Christ Jesus, “Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk”; “Peace, be still”; “Sit down” and be fed (to thousands); “Thy faith hath made thee whole”; “Lazarus, come forth”; and “all these things must come to pass.” Not because we say so, will they come to pass; but because they are so; for it was not because Jesus said so that Lazarus lived, but it was because Lazarus lived that Jesus said so.

In fact, one does not have to say these things at all in order that the sick, sinful, troubled or even the dead may become whole; for as the truth of God flashes into con­sciousness, it goes to the remotest part and reports the truth. Whereupon he who is receptive to this angel message finds himself well and strong and the recipient of the things of God and does those things which are right and proper for him to do.

The Kingdom of God is here, at hand, now. Dip and drink. “Too good to be true,” say you? Then if this be so and you cannot believe the word’s sake, “believe… for the very works’ sake.” Try it out and see if it won’t work. How shall this be done? There are many ways, but it is difficult to tell another just how he or she should try it out. The following will illustrate what is meant:

A man had to meet a large interest payment on a mortgage. This man had a great number of clients who did not pay their accounts. The date of payment approached closer and closer. One morning he entered his office expecting certain checks to arrive, but the mail disclosed nothing of the kind. It did, however, yield a letter from an old colored minister who had been nearly killed in an automobile accident. He was a dear old gentle­man, serving God in his own peculiar way, maintaining a little school for colored children, and from the hospital he appealed to this man for a few dollars. The one who received the appeal, facing this large interest payment, threw the letter quickly into the wastebasket as he ejaculated, “Impossible!” Then came the angel message: “Why, here you are daily talking of the presence of God to all comers, telling them that the Kingdom of God is actually here as a concrete fact, with its substance as well as life, health and peace. Why then don’t you put into practice that which you are teaching and at least try it out and see if it won’t work for you?”

So he retrieved the letter from the wastebasket, opened his check book and started to write a check for two dollars to send to this old man. Then the thought came to him, “Why not make it ten dollars? Surely after all these years of preaching the Kingdom of God you can do that much. Why stop at a niggardly two dollars?” No sooner thought than done, and the check was enclosed in a cheery letter to the minister of the Gospel.

As he was about to close the letter, the door opened and in walked an old friend to whom the man had been teaching daily of the Kingdom of God with its plenty. This friend was in a pretty bad fix financially. Bankruptcy stared him in the face. He had a note in the bank for $26,000 which the bank said must be reduced either by $2,500 cash, or he must put up that amount of additional collateral, or it must be taken up in full—none of which seemed possible at the time. He hadn’t been able to draw anything for some several weeks for his household expenses, and the following day he had to pay off his staff in his office, and there appeared to be no way to do so.

To him the first man said, as he greeted him pleasantly, “Give a couple of dollars to this man” — and related the story. The newcomer replied that under the circumstances what was asked was impossible and then related his hard luck story. The man then told him that if it were true: “Give, and it shall be given unto you: good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again,” then it might be well if he tried it out to see if it wouldn’t work, assuring him also that it was a most worthy case. So the latecomer produced two dollars, the last of three which he seemed to require for his personal expenses to get to his office and about the city. These two dollars were pinned to the check and the envelope sealed. Their talk that morning was along the same lines and finally he departed carrying away with him some vision of the Kingdom of God as a concrete actuality wherein “we live, and move, and have our being.”

In the next mail came several checks which more than covered the mortgage interest due, and in the course of a few hours the other telephoned in saying: “A most remarkable thing has happened. My mail brought me a check from a foreign country for sixty-five pounds from a firm that I had long since given up any hope of liquidating its indebtedness to me; several smaller checks came in from other places round about, and which more than suffice to clear the checks in my office; but best of all a customer came in and purchased the collateral attached to my note at the bank and I have just been over there and taken up the note for $26,000.”

“To morrow about this time shall a measure of fine flour be sold for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.”

THE COMING OF THE CHRIST

The Christ comes at such a time as one is ready for it, no matter what one may be doing or where he may be. It does not necessarily come to one through attending church, studying, reading or praying by word of mouth. It comes when one is about his Father’s business. It does not come by cudgeling the brain, by concentrated thinking, or by any method of the human mind. In fact, it comes only when the human mind is stilled, when one is fulfilling the Master’s injunction to, “take no thought,” or, as Mrs. Eddy says, “si­lence the material senses.” (Science and Health) It does not require the presence of a person, although it may come through a person, but the Christ operates as well with as without a person, and as well without as with a person.

Elijah made this particularly plain to Elisha (I Kings 19:19-21). When the Christ came to Elisha, he was not in a synagogue praying; he was not pondering deeply or concentrating thought on spiritual things. Not at all. He was about his own business, which is always the Father’s business, ploughing the fields behind twelve yoke of oxen. If one is ploughing with one yoke of oxen, he is a pretty busy, man; but consider how busy Elisha must have been ploughing behind twelve yoke of oxen! He certainly had no time to do any thinking other than to attend to his business, which, as has been pointed out, was God’s business, as is every other good business. And while he was thus engaged, the Word of the Lord came to follow him.

At this point the human, or mortal mind, tempted him to delay things a bit (to think it over), and there came into his consciousness the very natural thing to do, namely, to say good-by to his father and mother, so believing that Elijah had spoken to him when his mantle fell upon him (the Spirit of the Christ operating through that personality known as Elijah had come upon him), he followed after Elijah and asked him if he might “kiss my father and my mother” farewell. Whereupon Elijah said in effect, to him: “Why do you ask me [Elijah]? What have I [Elijah] done unto you? Return again, or go back to Him whose voice you heard — God, the I AM, the Me, The only I, or US — and ask Him.”

Elisha immediately perceived that it was not the person, Elijah, but the Christ operating through a person; or, he perceived that Elijah, as beheld by him, was God in manifestation, or God manifesting Himself through him, Elijah, to him, Elisha. Then he forthwith followed God, and became one of the great prophets of God. The mantle of Elijah had fallen upon him in very fact.

Later on, when a “double portion” of the Spirit of Christ, as manifested through Elijah, fell upon Elisha, we find the same expression used, and with that increased under­standing, or Christ-mind, he was able to part the waters of Jordan and pass through them dry-shod. Elisha then no longer looked to Elijah’s personality, but to God, to the I AM, to the Me; and, returning, he literally “burned his bridges behind him;” he slew his oxen and with them made sacrifice to God and made a feast for the people. In other words, he was through with his old manner of life and from thenceforth was to be about another phase of his Father’s business, and a prophet of the Lord.

Evidently Jesus was so familiar with the story of Elisha’s induction into the life of prophecy, that later on, under similar circumstances, when a certain man averred that he would follow him, and, tempted by the human mind to hold on to what he had rather than to trust God implicitly, saying “Suffer me first to go and bury my father,” Jesus said: “Let the dead bury their dead, but go thou and preach the Kingdom of God;” while to another, under practically similar conditions, he said: “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

It is seldom that one is inducted into the greater works of the Kingdom of God through intensive study, through concentration of thought, through forcing one’s self to attend church, lectures and other similar “calling of assemblies,” or by prayer of words. Isaiah makes this perfectly plain in Isaiah 1:11-19, where he says that such things are an abomination and a weariness unto God; thus pointing out to us that the Christ comes to us and calls us to follow when the human mind is stilled (not trying to do something of itself), when the material senses are silenced, and when we “take no thought,” as Jesus so succinctly put it.

It came to Jacob in a dream, to Joseph the same way; it came to Paul while he was honestly (as he believed) striving to destroy the followers of Christ. To Moses after eighty years of strenuous striving and concentrated thinking had failed utterly, while attending to his cattle out on the ranch, when the human mind was stilled, God appeared to him, and, without a question hardly, he laid down the work at hand, “burned his bridges,” and went forth on his Father’s behest to bring the Children of Israel out of bondage.

Peter, James and John, fishermen busily engaged in their daily labors, heard the voice of God speak to them and “they forsook their nets, and followed him,” becoming from that time forth no longer fishermen, but “fishers of men.”

Likewise with Daniel; for Daniel had fasted (from the world or earthly sense) and prayed (recognized the ever-presence of God) for three weeks. Finally, as it is related in Daniel, “was I in a deep sleep” (dead to the call of the world or the use of the human mind), whereupon the Christ came to him and said: “Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.”

There may be sought from the Bible many like instances where the Christ ap­peared — sometimes one way and sometimes another—yet, always there seems to be the requirement of the stilling of the human mind with its seemingly interminable thinking, thinking, thinking, before the Christ, released from the tomb of human thinking, will arise and become the Savior. “For the Son of man cometh [the real man appears] at an hour when ye think not.”

“PRAISE” AND “PRAYS”

“Praise” and “prays,” though spelled differently, practically mean the same and sound the same. When one gives praise, he prays; and when one prays, he gives praise. It was the custom of the disciples and of Jesus to sing praises to God in psalms and otherwise, and it is related that on the last occasion when he met with all his disciples they sang Psalms 113 and 114 as we now know them. In the nineteenth chapter of Luke, verse forty, we read that Jesus said when importuned by the Pharisees to command his disciples to cease their singing and praising God, that “if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out,” indicating the great importance which Jesus laid upon the praise of God.

Further importance of praise to God is to be found in the sixteenth chapter of First Samuel, where King Saul is visited by some kind of an affliction, or an “evil spirit” and which was exorcised or healed through the ministrations of David, that “sweet singer of Israel,” who was also “cunning in playing,” and who, when the “evil spirit… was upon Saul,” played to him, whereupon “Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.”

Paul tells us that we should “be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

In Exodus 15, we find one of the most wonderful paeans of praise to God by Moses followed by Miriam his sister, unexcelled perhaps only by Jesus, who prayed, in part: “And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.” And in II Samuel, we have another paean of praise to God by David, who said: “The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my savior; thou savest me from violence. I will call on the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies.”

David also wrote some one hundred and fifty psalms, magnificent, beautiful, and with them the world has praised God for hundreds of years. Every church has its hymns of praise to God, but perhaps it is fair to say that since the time of David, there has never been a collection of hymns and praises to God so wonderfully suited to the purpose as the Christian Science Hymnal. It has taken the tunes and the words from wherever they came, irrespective of who or of what denomination, provided, of course, that permission was secured where this was necessary, and placed them where anyone may share in praising God by singing the hymns contained therein.

David was constantly singing his praises to God. His known psalms of thanksgiv­ing and gratitude to God must have been few in comparison to those spontaneous ebulli­tions of song which sprang from him as he went about his daily affairs, whether tending his sheep or as King of Israel, or when engaged in other duties between these periods. We know that he sang and danced while he was taking the ark up to the City of Jerusalem, we know that he sang and played as he alone could play in those days when he was in the presence of King Saul; and the writer does not have to stretch his imagination when he listens to this “sweet singer of Israel” as he sings out in the hills and valleys while watching over his flocks. Can you not hear him? Can you not peer into the past and hear him praising and giving thanksgiving to God as he expresses his gratitude for His goodness to him?

It is said of him that after his anointing to be King of Israel by Samuel, the prophet, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” Can you not see him sitting near his flocks, perhaps carrying his harp with him, maybe not, but singing away at the top of his voice, happily and lustily composing the words as he goes along, the sound of his voice broken only by the occasional bleating of the sheep? Who knows but that he composed that immortal psalm as he sat out there in the fields of Palestine:

The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
For thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
Thou anointest my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Perhaps as he sang this wonderful song, there was a sudden commotion in the flock, a pitiful bleating of a lamb, a sinister snarl, and as David looks up from his praise to God, a tawny mass flashes past him, and he sees that a lion has snatched a lamb from the flock. We have his own description of the occasion as he stands before Saul immediately preceding his defeat of Goliath, in answer to the King’s statement: “Thou art not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him: for thou art but a youth, and he a man of war from his youth.” David said: “Thy servant kept his father’s sheep, and there came a lion… and took a lamb out of the flock: And I went out after him, and smote him, and delivered it out of his mouth: and when he arose against me, I caught him by the beard, and smote him and slew him.” David said, moreover: “The Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear [he had had a similar experience with a bear], he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.”

Paul tells us that: “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him,” and so they are; but if we follow the command of God, the one Mind, as David did, it will inevitably be seen that the wisdom of God will prove itself to be so. David had stilled the human mind by praise to God, and when the unforeseen occurred, it found him ready. This is exactly what Jesus said we should do: “Take there­fore no thought for the morrow [the future]:… Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Here we have David singing praise to God as he sits quietly on the hillside watching the flocks. He has no sense of impending danger; everything seems to be quite safe, and peace reigns everywhere. He could not have protected himself specifically against what was about to occur for he knew nothing whatsoever about it. But he sang praises to God! Thus he stilled the human mind, and as he did so, the divine Mind was in the ascendancy. Then came the commotion, the bleating of the lamb, the rush past David of the lion with the tender little lamb in its mouth. The human mind knew not what to do; but the human mind was gone, if not wholly, in great measure, and the divine Mind knew exactly what to do, and David turning to it automatically obeyed. It was foolishness to the human mind, but it was the wisdom of God. And it worked, as it will always work.

It is related of our Leader that she told this story to one of her trusted workers in her home at Pleasant View. She said in effect that once an old man crossing on the ocean was requested to sing a song, which he did, and in somewhat of a quavering voice sang, “Nearer My God to Thee.” When he had finished another old man came forward and asked him if he were not on guard a certain night at a Confederate post, to which the man replied he was. ‘‘Well,” the second old man said, “I was a sharp-shooter in the opposing army; it was moonlight; I crawled through the grass, laid down, peered through the dark­ness and saw you silhouetted plainly against the sky. I took deliberate aim and was about to fire, when you let your rifle fall from your shoulder and rest upon the ground and looked up into the heavens and sang that same song, ‘Nearer My God to Thee. “Clearly the song rang out through the stillness of the night, and I could not fire the shot. I crawled out of the grass and retired to the shelter of our ranks.” The first named man said: “I remember it well. I had been marching up and down, up and down, now and then, as posted sentinel, peering out into the darkness, eyes and ears alert for any danger, which might come along, when a sudden premonition of something wrong somewhere came to me. I peered out into the night, but all was quiet. Nevertheless, I scented danger but knew not what it might be; so I rested my gun on the butt, and turning my face to the skies, sang the song.” Then the two old veterans shook hands and went out on the deck.

This is something like the same feeling David must have had as he watched over his flocks on the mountain sides of the East. Anything might happen, lions, wolves, bears might attack his flocks, marauding bands of robbers might descend upon him, but “Suffi­cient unto the day is the evil thereof,” and so he protected himself in the only possible way to protect oneself— by praise, thanksgiving and gratitude to God, his heavenly Father— and just as the Confederate soldier was shown what to do, so David was shown what to do also and with the same measure of success.

Habakkuk sings: “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds’ feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places ”

Throughout the whole Bible, we find great stress laid upon praise to God. Praise to God is prayer. It stills the human mind. David sang: “Be still, and know that lam

God” “Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.” He knew that the human mind must be stilled. Praise acts upon the so-called human mind, stilling it. Ultimately this human mind must be wholly stilled, and place given to the one Mind, the Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” or the Christ consciousness. When the human or mortal mind is stilled, true consciousness rushes in and takes command, steering the body into health.

There is a remarkable example of this in I Samuel, where King Saul was told to “go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” In this Biblical history the Amalekites symbolize the human mind which is utterly to be destroyed. Saul, however retains of the Amalekites the King and the best of the cattle and sheep, the latter to be sacrificed to God. The result was that he lost his kingdom, while Samuel who dis­covered just what he had done, completed the utter destruction which Saul had failed to do. Everyone will lose his kingdom who does not utterly have done with the human or mortal mind.

This human mind must be destroyed in toto. When the army marches off to war, the band plays martial airs: “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “The Washington Post,” “Tipperary,” “On the Way to Dublin Bay,” or other light, stirring music. It never plays, “Nearer, my God, to Thee,” “Home, Sweet Home,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” or any sort of air which would tend to cause the soldiers marching off to battle to think of home, of mothers, wives, children and other things they love, for this would break down the morale; but those martial, stirring tunes are played, and this lifts the human mind out of those tender thoughts, and into thoughts of fame, honor, glory and victory. Of course, this is just one phase of the human mind overcoming another human mind, the good in human consciousness overcoming the evil in human consciousness, the tender and loving overrid­den by the animal, warlike and brutal. But all this is the human mind only at best.

Praise to God, however, such as we have presented to us in the Christian Science Hymnal, in the Psalms, such as Paul referred to when he said, “in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” or other spontaneous songs of praise to God, do something more than the foregoing, for these do to the human mind just what Samuel required should be done to the Amalekites: bring about utter destruction to it; for this human mind which is “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” must eventually be cut down root and branch.

In Revelation, at the time Babylon falls, and before and at the time when the Kingdom of God is revealed, we find the “four and twenty elders” worshipping God and singing, “Amen; Alleluia” to the “voice” of praise to God “of much people in heaven,” who sing, “Alleluia; Salvation, and glory, and honour, and power, unto the Lord our God:” and then “a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, both small and great;” and then “the voice of a great multitude, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth,” and so it goes throughout the whole Bible. Not only goes it through that book, but wherever any denomination has a book of prayer, such as has the Church of England in its “Book of Common Prayer,” there is to be found constant prayer and praise to God. This is just where the importance of the Chris­tian Science Hymnal is seen. It enables us to sing praises to God; it invites us to sing praises to God. The beauty of the hymns, the tunes, the very book itself, presents to us a ceaseless opportunity to praise God. The writer sits down each morning with his new hymn book and, at the risk sometimes of disturbing the neighbors, sings those hymns in praise to God. It stills the human mind, and in some measure, rends the veil which hides the Kingdom of God.

It is related that when at the time of the crucifixion Jesus rent the veil, that the saints arose out of their graves and walked about in the city and were seen of men; and it is a fact, that when we individually rend the veil by praise to God, thus stilling the human mind, the saints, or spiritual ideas, will arise from their graves in our consciousness wherein they have been buried under the debris of the human mind and its thinking, and will walk in the city, or our consciousness, and will be seen of others—and this is true healing.

That praise is prayer, the highest form of worship, cannot be doubted for an in­stant if we believe the message of the inspired Revelator to this age, who said, in Miscel­laneous Writings’. “How shall mankind worship the most adorable, but most unadored — and where shall begin that praise that shall never end? Beneath, above, beyond, methinks I hear the soft, sweet sigh of angels answering, ‘So live, that your lives attest your sincerity and resound His praise.

JESUS AND HIS FRIEND LAZARUS

Lazarus was a great friend of Jesus. So were the sisters of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Jesus often visited at their home. Profane history tells us that he used to sit on the roof at night with Lazarus and tell him of the Kingdom of Heaven; but evidently he was never able to make Lazarus fully understand or feel that the Kingdom of God was actually at hand.

It was because of this that Jesus wept at the grave of his friend. He wept not because Lazarus was dead (because he wasn’t dead), and even if this were so, why should Jesus weep when he knew perfectly well that Lazarus in a few moments would be up and about and mingling with them again alive, well, strong and happy?

He wept because having been in such close association with these particular friends, and having taught them so patiently and persistently and constantly of the Kingdom of God (and perhaps had taught them more than he had anyone else) then if they were unable to apprehend what he had taught them, what was to be expected of those others who had only heard the message in a more or less desultory way?

Was his mission to be a failure? It was this thought which caused him to weep. Think of it! Lazarus, his close personal friend, to whom he had talked of the Kingdom of God time and time again, could so lose sight of the teaching of eternal life that when Jesus had gone only a few miles away for some purpose unknown to us, Lazarus should have sickened and died during those few days of Jesus’ absence in the adjacent city. How little he had grasped of what Jesus had taught. No wonder he wept!

Jesus loved these people. If then those whom he had so dearly loved could not grasp the facts he had so clearly set before them, was it any wonder that he wept in the face of the evidence that they had not done so?

It is evident that the sickness of his friend, Lazarus, weighed heavily on Jesus. When the news was brought to him first he exclaimed : “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God,” meaning thereby that Lazarus would not die, but that the glory of God would be shown forth in life—in his recovery. Even though Jesus made this scientific statement of the Truth, there no doubt was presented to him constantly the opposite con­tention, for daily reports in all probability came to him of increased danger of the inroads of the disease, until finally word came that Lazarus had died.

Now death is no more real than any other discord, so Jesus kept right on using spiritual sense in the endeavor to perceive the truth of being or act from the standpoint of God, Mind, the only true intelligence. Jesus said: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him,” so he must reach that same viewpoint if he would heal Lazarus; and up to this point in this particular instance he had not done so, otherwise Lazarus would not have died.

It is ridiculous to say, as some have said, that Jesus let him die deliberately in order that he might raise him after four days and so destroy the superstition that the soul did not leave the body permanently until after that time.

Jesus was most loving and to thus permit sorrow and grief to settle upon those whom he loved so very dearly would be far beyond comprehension. That then must be dismissed as utterly without foundation, in fact, leaving us with the only possible explana­tion of Lazarus’ death—that until Jesus actually attained the spiritual viewpoint whereby he was able to present Lazarus alive to his friends, he was so overwhelmed by the seeming realities, he was unable to reach that high spiritual altitude which is necessary under all circumstances to do what is set forth as healing the sick or raising the dead; and so, without that complete spiritual help, Lazarus passed away under whatever the disease might have been.

Finally, however, Jesus did attain that spiritual viewpoint, and he knew that Laz­arus lived in spite of the testimony of the material senses and all the mass mesmerism to the contrary, and thus filled with the Holy Ghost he returned to Bethany, the home of Lazarus.

We must recollect that Lazarus is not dead, for if it be true that all live unto God, then Lazarus lived unto God, and could there be better authority for believing that Lazarus lived than that of Infinite Intelligence? All that had been buried in the grave was the false belief of a dead Lazarus. It may be asked then: “If that which was buried was but a belief, an illusion, where was the living Lazarus?” A fair question. The answer is that just as the carnal mind conjured up a belief of a body and saw it placed in the grave, so it failed to see the living Lazarus; for the carnal mind, when it believes it sees something in one place, cannot possibly believe that it sees it somewhere else.

Jesus perceived the living Lazarus; the others saw the dead Lazarus, the Lazarus they believed had died. Lazarus, however, was nearby; he had not gone anywhere; so when Jesus met Martha, a conversation something like this went on (remember that Mar­tha was “dull of hearing” [spiritually dense]): She said, “If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” Jesus knowing that Lazarus lived, yet perceiving that Martha and the others believed him to be dead, said, in effect: “You will see Lazarus again.” Martha in despair, answered: “Yes, I know I’ll see him on the last day at the resurrection;” but Jesus said: “That is not what I mean at all. I mean that the Christ-man is already resurrected and is alive, and if you will but listen to me and believe what I say, you will see him alive again, for if one will understand what I tell him, though he had believed himself to be dead, yet would he live again;” to which Martha made another evasive and unbelieving answer. Mary too said about the same thing.

Then Jesus directed that he be shown where they had buried him — the dead Lazarus—and demanded that the stone be rolled away from the grave. At this, Martha, spiritually dull, said: “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” Martha couldn’t smell the sweet aroma of Spirit which was so evident to Jesus, couldn’t smell the sweetness of Life, of Love, of health. Jesus smelled it, saw the Life, felt the presence of God who is Life, heard the quiet throbbings of that same Life; and so he was able to say: “Lazarus, come forth,” and Lazarus appeared not only to Jesus himself, but to the others who were looking on in amazement at the scene before them, for under the light of the Christ which was present with Jesus, they saw the things of the Kingdom of God, just as when one enters a dark room and turns on the electric light, there are seen the things which are in the room.

“Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of

God?”

THE BOOK OF LIFE – The Pigmy Mind

Let us suppose that the story of Robinson Crusoe falls into the hands of a race of pygmies which had never heard of the outside world, nor had seen anything other than their own kind. The book is discovered to be most interesting, and the little fellows secure the rights to film it and produce a picture. In due course the work is done, and when it is presented it is found that the characters, Crusoe, the cannibals and Friday, are about two feet high and everything else accordingly

It so happens that you walk into the cinema where the picture is being shown, and it, of course, causes great merriment to you. Nevertheless, the story is most fascinating; so you likewise secure the rights to film the story. When it is completed, the author is invited to see the production, and on his way to this preview, he drops into the pigmy theater to see the other production. It causes him even more merriment than it caused you, and he wonders how anyone could possibly have conceived of such a thing after reading his book.

Then he steps into your theater for a preview of your picture. This, of course, is better, and he says so, for therein Crusoe and the others are depicted as men of usual stature and everything else accordingly; but, nevertheless, the picture is a long way from what he, as the author, intended the story to be when he wrote the book.

You have made Crusoe to be a dark-haired, thickset, black-eyed, stocky fellow, whereas the author believed him to be tall, fair, blue-eyed, slender and an athlete. You have depicted Friday as a Negro, thick-lipped and fiat-nosed, bowlegged, and with kinky wool, whereas he was a Nubian, black as coal, but built like an Adonis, with a body from head to toe that looked in action like a statue. As for the dog, it was not a Newfoundland, but a mastiff; the parrot not red and yellow, but a blue and green bird; and so on with nearly everything else you have portrayed. There is, then, but one way out of the difficulty, and that is to call the author in to get his viewpoint, and as and when this is done the picture is completed and as it should be.

Mind wrote the Book of Life, and it immediately fell into the hands of the human mind, which at this time was what might have been called a pigmy mind, a small mind, almost destitute of intelligence, and correspondingly materially-minded. As a result the first filming of this picture of the Book of Life was a most astonishing world —, antedilu­vian it is termed—wherein we find apelike men of the Cro-Magnon or Neanderthal type, and great animals—mostly bodies with small heads indicating materialism and little of mind—known to us as Ichthyosaurs, Brontosaurus, and Dinosauria, and all living on the very lowest plane of existence mid swamps, slime and such like. Later on, of course, as intelligence, or more of mind, begins to permeate human consciousness, there gradually is evolved a better picture, or world, until today we have the world as it appears to us.

At this point, the Author, God, Mind, looks down upon the world and sees, as we find in Genesis: “God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually,” and so it was not at all the picture which the Author, God, Mind, depicted in the Book of Life.

I like to think of a scene in a theatrical production called, “Green Pastures,” played by a company of colored people, wherein God is depicted as a benevolent and kindly old colored gentleman, dressed in a dusty, black old-fashioned frock coat somewhat worn at the elbows. His office is furnished with an old roll top desk, revolving chair, and the other things which go with such an office, and which had just been dusted by two angels, col­ored mammies, whose wings rather than heads were covered with dust cloths. Through a broad window he looked down upon the earth and beheld what was going on there.

So when God looks down upon this human version of the Book of Life, He says, “Your presentation is far, far better than the antediluvian world which I observed some long time ago, but it is still a far, far cry from what I as the Author intended. Whence came old age, war and pestilence, famine and hardships? Whence came greed, hatred, avarice, fear, worry and other evils? I never wrote such in the Book of Life, for such things are not in my mind and I cannot manifest (reveal) what I have not in mind. You have done well, very well indeed; but still it is a long way from what I intended it should be. The whole picture must be retaken and an entirely new version set forth; then it will be all right.

“True, the human mind has benefited somewhat by its experiences, but it has been most unwilling to let go of its own viewpoint and adopt the Author’s, which must be done. At different times, I have sent My servants, or prophets, with the good news; but in the main you have refused to listen to them and have rejected their teachings; you have beaten them, stoned them and driven them out wounded and bruised. Then I sent my son and him you treated shamefully. You not only rejected him, but you crucified and killed him, and now there is but one thing for me to do. I must come myself (Luke 20:9-18), so here lam, and from now on if you would put on the correct version, you must listen to Me to what I have to say; and not only listen, but you must heed what I say, forgetting your own preconceived ideas of human policies, human ways, human wisdom and human methods. Thus the perfect picture will appear. Then indeed will “The kingdoms of this world… become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ. ’”

It does not require a great stretch of the imagination to see that the pigmy mind must give up its own personal and preconceived ideas, with its pigmy thoughts and opin­ions, its pigmy ways, its pigmy wisdom, and the pigmy policies of its pigmy mind, if it would advance to the point of human understanding in which you find yourself; but if it refuses to listen and heed what you have to say and point out to it, it would have to stay down in the pigmy mentality.

It is so with us today, for if we continue to entertain the human thoughts (good or bad of the tree of knowledge) and opinions, ways and methods and policies of men, we shall never be able to attain that viewpoint of the Author, God. In other words, we shall not “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” and so we shall go on seeking things from this false viewpoint until at last, through much tribulation, we shall be forced into the giving up of those human thoughts and ideas, ways of men and senses earthly. Then will the Christ arise within us and become our Savior, saving us from whatever we need to be saved.

MORE ABOUT THE AMBASSADOR

Paul says, “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God”—be at one with God.

Out of the mouth of the ambassador issues the voice of his country. He cannot speak of himself, or of what his personal or private opinions may be for he takes his orders from his country, from his government, and makes his utterances as directed by that gov­ernment or country. Self, so far as he is concerned, is out, and the country of which he is ambassador is in. No matter what may be his personal opinions, his troubles, his predilec­tions, all these must be forgotten when he becomes ambassador, for he is, as ambassador, entirely separate from his personality and is now the representative and the voice of his country.

It is reported that at one time we had in this country a remarkable man by the name of Bill Thompson, mayor of Chicago. This Bill Thompson amused the whole coun­try, and perhaps himself, by constantly attacking England and its King. He used to say such things as, “I’d like to tweak King George’s nose.” He was quite a harmless individual and what he said never hurt anyone; there was not the slightest antagonism evinced in the matter; on the contrary, his actions may have served even to bring in a new crop of votes. If King George ever heard of these sayings, he was most likely as amused as anyone else.

Now we shall suppose by a good stretch of the imagination that this man Thomp­son was appointed ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and so was no longer Th­ompson, the mayor of Chicago. Consequently he was no longer free to make such un­called for utterances, for he was now the mouthpiece of the United States of America, and could no longer speak from the standpoint of Thompson, mayor of Chicago, no longer speak as a freeborn citizen of the United States, but he must speak only the word of the United States of America.

He may be presented at court and about to meet Their Majesties, the King and Queen; he may be clad in silken hose, knee breeches, and feeling within himself that he is several different kinds of a foolish individual; he may be looking about him and seeing the old-fashioned pageant which is being carried on with such pomp and splendor as is un­equaled in the world, being quite unaware of the motive and purpose of the whole perfor­mance, when the suggestion might come to him that he would like to shout, “I’ll tweak the king’s nose.” This suggestion, however, which came to him would be set aside, and he would refrain from indulging it in any way, and instead act as one who is the representative of the United States of America and its ambassador.

Jeremiah was ambassador to the world from the Kingdom of God. He seemed to be troubled at this time—suggestions of evil were coming to him and caused him to cry aloud to God, “Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? wilt thou” [recollect that he was talking to God] “wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?” And God Himself answered him, “If thou return” [you see, he had permitted himself to get out of hand as ambassador and had reverted back to Jeremiah the human being with the human mind; self had asserted itself as though Thomp­son the ambassador had allowed himself to become Thompson the mayor] so God said to him, “If thou return” [that is, return to Jeremiah the ambassador and refrain from being Jeremiah the human being with the human mind and so let the “I” go unto the Father, or live as being Jeremiah the ambassador of God’s Kingdom] “then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me” [meaning that then will I bring thee again into the Kingdom of God and thou shalt stand before me as the ambassador of the Kingdom of God, or the image and likeness of God]: “and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth:” — that is, if you take that most precious thing, (the “F’ or Ego, the most precious thing there is, for it is God Himself, or the Christ, God manifest) if you take this most precious thing, the “I,” from Jeremiah the human, from Thompson the mayor, and return it to where it belongs to Jeremiah the ambassador or to Thompson the ambassador, to God Himself, for the ambassador stands in the place of God; that is to say, take this precious “F from that thing which appears to be discordant, sick, unhappy, afraid, dis­couraged, etc., and return it to God, which the “I” truly is, then “thou shalt be as my mouth” — then will you, the ambassador, actually be the very mouth of God speaking forth the Word of God.   ‘

“Let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them;” that is to say, let the evil suggestions present themselves to you over and over again if they will, but don’t you permit them to become real to you or recognize them as being real; or, to return to our illustration, when Thompson the mayor intrudes himself upon you, the ambassador, and would have you shout, “I’ll tweak the king’s nose,” you must refrain from being Thompson the mayor, and be as you really are, Thompson the ambassador, and act accordingly.

“And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brazen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee: for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible

Could there be a better decree?

Be then an ambassador of Christ, an ambassador of the Kingdom of God. Go forth as such. Let self go by the board, and so be the very mouth of the Kingdom of God speaking forth the Word of God and nothing else. Unless the government of the Kingdom of God instructs you what to say and do, say nothing and do nothing, and wait patiently until those instructions come; then say and do as directed.

Let the suggestion come to you – “let them return unto thee” in the endeavor to make you speak and act evil, or to have your old self preponderate —,“but return not thou unto them:”—do not believe them, nor assent to those evil suggestions, but be the ambas­sador of God, and speak and act only as God directs you.

TRUE CONSCIOUSNESS

There is no mortal mind. Mortal mind, carnal mind, personal sense, or whatever it may be termed, is not mind at all; it is the absence of Mind, the one Mind, the Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” “the God [or Mind] of Abraham, the God [or Mind] of Isaac and the God [or Mind] of Jacob,” the universal Mind. “When we fully understand our relation to the Divine, we can have no other Mind but His,… and no consciousness of the existence of matter or error ”

“Consciousness of matter or error” is an impossibility with this one Mind. “No consciousness” is unconsciousness. So-called “consciousness of matter or error” is really, and to put it simply, “unconsciousness of Spirit.” When one is said to be using mortal mind (or being conscious of matter or error), the truth is that he is not using mortal mind at all, for there is none to use, and he is not “conscious of matter or error,” but he is not using the one Mind, or is “unconscious.” “The consciousness of good has no consciousness or knowl­edge of evil; and evil is not a quality to be known or eliminated by good ” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Mortal mind is only the non-use of the one Mind. It is not something, but nothing; you are not doing something but have failed to do something. The remedy then is always most simple; start doing something – “Be ye doers of the word [not mortal mind], and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.” Start right in now to use the one Mind; or, as Jesus said, “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free,” just as light dispels its absence, the darkness.

Darkness is not something; it is nothing or only the absence of light; when the light comes (is cognized), the absence of light (darkness) vanishes like a dream; when con­scious (of Spirit, for one cannot be conscious of nothing or matter, the absence of Spirit) one cannot be unconscious. You cannot be conscious and unconscious at the same time, any more than you can be in the dark and in the light at the same time. Light always dispels the darkness; consciousness dispels unconsciousness.

Suppose you are in trouble of some sort; in other words, are conscious of matter or error. Being conscious of matter or error is, of course, unconsciousness of Spirit. If this is so, then, that you are in trouble, the very moment that you become conscious of Spirit, or use the one Mind, you are freed from unconsciousness, or from the so-called con­sciousness of error. “Mental darkness is senseless error, neither intelligence nor power, and its victim is responsible for its supposititious presence.” {Miscellaneous Writings)

GOD BROADCASTING HIS WORD

Jeremiah 1:4-10

Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee … I knew thee; and before thou earnest forth … I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

Then said I, Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child.

But the Lord said unto me, Say not, I am a child: for thou shalt go to all that I shall send thee, and whatsoever I command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid of their faces: for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord.

Then the Lord put forth his hand, and touched my mouth. And the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put my words in thy mouth. See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy, and to throw down, to build, and to plant.

Isaiah 51:16

And I have put my words in thy mouth, and I have covered thee in the shadow of mine hand, that I may plant the heavens, and lay the foundations of the earth, and say unto Zion, Thou art my people.

Isaiah 52:1, 6-10

Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come unto thee the uncircum­cised and the unclean. Therefore my people shall know my name: therefore they shall know in that day that I am he that doth speak: behold, it is I. How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace: that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation: that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Break forth into joy, sing together, ye waste places of Jerusalem: for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem. The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.

John 3:34

For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

Deuteronomy 18:18-22

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And

it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken?

When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken, but the prophet hath spoken it presumptuously: thou shalt not be afraid of him.

Isaiah 59:21

As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and forever.

Isaiah 55:10, 11

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and retumeth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

THE PRAYER OF WORKS

At this time I bring to you a message of good cheer, and if perchance at this period of the world’s career, it may appear to you that you are not the recipient from your heav­enly Father of those things to which, as His Son, you are surely entitled, such as health, peace, life, love, happiness, and an abundance of all good things which He is pouring forth to you in great profusion, the only possible reason is because you have failed to make the proper contact with Him, the great Giver of All Good, through a prayer of works and not of words.

To illustrate: Suppose I had a sewing machine, a heater and a lamp, all of which are run by electrical current. I have made the proper contact by plugging into the main power plant, but the devices fail to work. It is of no avail that I should pray to the man at the main power plant and tell him my troubles, nor to telephone to him and talk with him about them. If, perchance, I managed to get his attention, he could only say in effect: “It is my good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (of electricity in this instance); “I know what things you have need of before you ask me;” or, “Before you call, I will answer; and while you are yet speaking, I will hear,” and “I am sending out from the power plant millions of volts, much more than you accept.” This is about all the man at the power plant could say, for it is not up to him, but up to me to pray aright and thus make my contact. The foregoing is but a prayer of words; what is required is a prayer of works.

The thing for me to do is to examine my wiring. The wire which carries the electrical current to the various apparatus is made up of a great number of little wires; if these are broken, the current will not pass through to the many electrical devices. A number of these wires may be broken and still the current will pass through in the required volume, but if a sufficient number become broken the current ceases to such a degree that the devices will not perform as they should. The wires must be mended, made one, where­upon the current will pass through as it should, and the sewing machine will run merrily, the heater will send forth its warmth, and the lamp will light. This symbolizes the prayer of works and the result thereof.

The only power is God. He is the Main Power Plant, and always He is “pouring forth more than we accept.” (Science and Health) If we do not take advantage of His beneficence, the fault lies with us and not with Him. If, for instance, we are not getting the life, love, health, peace, happiness and abundance of good things which we as the Sons of God are entitled to receive, it is no use to pray to Him by a prayer of words, for it is a prayer of works that is needed. James, Jesus’ brother, said: “Shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works;” and “Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

How shall we pray this prayer of works and make the contact with omnipotence, God, the only Power. It is of no use whatever praying to God and asking Him in one way or another for what we want, for if we might get His ear, He could only say in answer: “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” with all those desirable things, of course, “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him;” or, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear;” and I am “pouring forth more than we [you] accept.” It is your part to accept what “I” have liberally given to you, for, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

How then is it to be done? By a prayer of works, not words. The Main Power Plant, which is God, is doing Its part and it is up to us to make the connection. Like the wires which make the connection in the illustration, so we make our connection with the divine Power through a lot of little wires as it were, wires of gentleness, tenderness, kind­ness, politeness, courtesy, good nature, good temper, good sense, good taste, good hu­mor, good cheer, joy, mirth, laughter, gratitude, generosity, patience, faithfulness, consid­eration, constancy, affection, tolerance, courage, and love. And when these wires be­come sundered by failure to express them, through fear, anxiety, worry, hatred, dishon­esty, stubbornness, laziness, and a thousand and one other futile human tendencies, the result is that we fail to receive the divine current which brings us life, health, peace, happi­ness and an abundance of good things; whereupon when we appear to be lacking in any of these good things, it behooves us to mend our wires or mend our ways. The doing of this is the prayer of works.

Then we shall find that this prayer of works, giving thanks, praise and glory to God by action and not by words, will cause to flow to those of us who practice it that divine current, the love and power of God, and so bestow upon us health, peace, love, life, happiness and an abundance of all good things; while ill-health, fear, worry, dearth, death and other troubles will vanish from our lives, our homes and our other environments.

REJOICE

God Himself spake all these words, saying: “I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any things that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me [turn away from Me]; And shewing mercy [healing and salvation] unto thousands of them that love Me and keep My command­ments.” (Exodus)

It is not the author who is thus speaking. Were it so, what has been said would be utterly worthless for healing or saving, but it is the actual Word of God being broadcast through this insignificant person, and so it carries with it the omnipotence of God. The author is but the radio or loudspeaker, and God is broadcasting His own Word to you or anyone who will dial in and obey instructions.

“Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven,” Jesus said. Heaven is here and now. Rejoice much more even than if you heard over the radio that you are the winner of a great prize given by some corporation. You would quickly and easily believe the announcer when he broadcasts that you were the winner, and you would at once commence to rejoice although the prize was not yet in your hands.

So now, believe God, the Announcer, just as easily, quickly and confidently, who has broadcast that you are the winner of the great prize of the Kingdom of Heaven and all that goes with it; “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The announcement is made! “Rejoice and be exceeding glad!” All that remains for you to do, is to go about your business and your heavenly Father will search you out and award the great prize to you.

Rejoice! REJOICE! REJOICE!

“ALL IS INFINITE MIND AND ITS INFINITE MANIFESTATION”

The great demand on each individual is to get into his consciousness the eternal fact that “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation…” (Science and Health) There is no other thing or God, no other mind or Mind, no evil, sin, disease, death, no trouble or error of any kind; nothing except “infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation,” and these are one. Which one? God or man? I shall say God. Mind is—and man or the creation is manifestation. There you have it. The “All-in-all.”

There is no other manifestation other than the manifestation of Mind, or God, or Good, or Spirit. Anything else which appears to be, is simply illusion or dream, and we must see to it that we keep awake and do not dream. You cannot think wrong, cannot use the carnal mind, or mortal mind, or personal sense, because there is no such thing. All that happens when you believe you use the carnal mind, or do some wrong thinking, as we term it, is not doing something; it is simply the non-use of the one and only Mind, which is Spirit, Soul or God.

It is as though you had your hand in the light, whereupon there is cast a shadow or manifestation. Withdraw your hand from the light and the manifestation ceases; there is no shadow. Your hand is in the darkness; it is not in some other kind of light which causes the hand to cast some other kind of shadow; not at all. You have simply forsaken the light, and so, being in darkness, the manifestation is gone. To get the manifestation, or shadow of the hand, again you must put it back into the light, and when this is done, the manifestation appears instantly, just to the degree that the light is shining; poor light, poor shadow; brilliant light, brilliant shadow.

Similarly, with the light of the Christ, or the light of Mind — as the sunlight reveals the things of this mundane kingdom, so the light of Mind reveals the things of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Mind, the kingdom of Spirit. The necessity then is to keep in the light of Mind; thus we behold the manifestation. We keep in this light by using spiritual sense, or by utilizing the one Mind; not merely by thinking, but by knowing or having the thoughts established, and the only thoughts which can be established are the thoughts of Mind or the truths of that Mind. “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

When you think wrongly or use the carnal or mortal mind, or personal sense, as you believe you do, you do not in fact use that so-called mind at all for there is no such mind to use; neither do you think wrongly, because there is no mind to so think. All that happens is that you fail to use the one Mind, the Christ-Mind, your Mind, my Mind, the Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” the only Mind there is, the Mind or “God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” —the universal Mind.

You have simply withdrawn yourself from “the brightness of his [God’s] glory” (Hebrews), from the light of Mind, and so are in darkness, and as a result there ceases to be any manifestation, at least so far as you are concerned. There is not some other kind of light in which you find yourself when you withdraw yourself from the light of Mind and whereby there is cast some other kind of a shadow or manifestation in the dark; of course not. In the darkness of the illustration there ceases to be any manifestation or shadow, and likewise in the darkness (not perceived) of spirituality there ceases to be any manifesta­tion, for you at any rate; for to be sure, the manifestation can never really cease because there is no place or never a time where God is not. “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (I John)

You have this Mind, are using this Mind, are glorifying God, or are in the light of Mind, when you are thinking rightly—by which is meant that you have established certain truths of God, or Mind, in your Mind, the only Mind, the universal Mind, which is God, omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent. Then just to the degree that this true thinking or establishment of thought takes place, just to that degree will these truths be manifest, “For as he [a man] thinketh in his heart [Mind], so is he.” (Proverbs)

THE PROMISED LAND

Entering “the promised land,” the Kingdom, or presence of God or Good, is accomplished through recognizing a “promised land” to enter. The “promised land” “cometh not with observation,” said the wise Hebrew teacher, for the “promised land” is here now, and does not have to come or be brought here by any method or by any means. This “promised land,” or “My kingdom,” is already here to be observed or seen.

Well, then, if it be here, where is it? And how is it to be seen? And how is it to be entered as it were? I will tell you. It is everywhere, and the way to see it is to look for it. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” said this same teacher. It must be looked for first, last and all time. Moreover, you must turn from looking elsewhere; you must be single-eyed.

If you had been born in London and came to this country to live and took the “oath of allegiance” to the United States of America, you would be required to foreswear allegiance to all princes, potentates and powers, particularly to the King of Great Britain in this instance. You would forsake the old country and cease to look for or to the things of the Kingdom of Great Britain, and instead you would look for or to the things of the United States. You would be subject to its laws and live therein.

Well, you are in the “promised land,” the Kingdom of God. You have emerged from the kingdom of matter; you cannot be in two places at once. Being in this Kingdom of God, Spirit, it is your business to act as though you were there and to look for the things of that Kingdom. Let the world of matter, which has been your abiding place for so long, be done with, and “let the dead bury their dead.” You have renounced your allegiance to the material kingdom and have pledged allegiance to the Kingdom of God, and so are no longer under the jurisdiction of the former kingdom, but under that of the latter.

You are like a butterfly. It was once a grub, a worm, a caterpillar. It crawled along on the ground and saw but little of that. However, after a while it crawled into a cocoon, and out came the butterfly. Does the butterfly hark back to when it was a worm? Does it try to get back into the cocoon? Not at all. It lets “the dead bury their dead.” The old kingdom of caterpillar is gone, the caterpillar is gone. The butterfly is here in all its beauty and grace and flies high in the rarefied atmospheres of the same world in which the grub lived, but he does not see or have anything to do with that which the caterpillar saw or did. The butterfly flies high, and that is what we want to do, as Jesus said in Luke 14:10, to go to the wedding but be sure to “sit down in the lowest room” (meekness and humility), so that when “he [the Christ] that bade thee cometh, he [the Christ] may say unto thee, Friend [God is our only Friend], go up higher.” Where are we to “go up higher”? From that “Second Degree” in Science and Health on page 115 (the use of the tree of knowledge, of both good and evil) to the “Third Degree” on page 116, or to the recogni­tion, as here now, of the “promised land,” the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of the Christ, and to the utilization of the divine Mind, or divine consciousness only.

When one of New York’s leading society women was over in France, at Tours, during the War, it was part of her duties to entertain the Army. One evening she was dancing with a nice young man from New York, so she said to him, “I hope that when you return to New York after the war, you will come to call on me. I shall be delighted to see you.” The man said, “Why, thank you very much. I will be glad to do so, but I do not know who you are. What is your name?” “Oh,” she replied, “I am Mrs.     .” The young chap looked at her for a moment, then mischievously cocking one eye, said, “That is right, Lady, always fly high!”

Well, I want you to fly high too. Be a butterfly, come out of the cocoon or the caterpillar stage. Stop looking at limitation, idleness, poverty, sickness, matter, evil and such things of the world of matter. “Let the dead [past] bury their dead.” Did you ever hear of a butterfly saying to another butterfly, “I came near not being here at all. One day a turkey gobbler came by looking for grubs and worms, and if it had not just happened that I hid under a huge green leaf, he would have gobbled me right up”? No, never would he say such a thing. The butterfly never harks back to the days when it was a caterpillar or a worm; he has come out of that life and entered a new one; so have you. This is the Kingdom of God and you are in it even though you may not feel perfectly sure about it. Nevertheless this is true, and you should act like an inhabitant of the Kingdom of God, or that “promised land.” Be a butterfly; do not be a grub; stop mulligrubbing about in the earth and rise into the rarefied atmospheres of the Kingdom of Spirit. Look up and not down. Do not have one wing pointed up and the other down. Point them both upwards and fly high and then higher still. Look for the things of the new kingdom, or that “prom­ised land.” It is here. You have come out of the cocoon of materialism, so look for this Kingdom of God and you will find it because it is surely here.

You must, however, keep right on looking for it; otherwise you will never find it. Do not let yourself become discouraged because you may not find it at once; the butterfly could not fly at first. Jesus said, “because of his importunity” will you be given that which you ask for.

I once found a butterfly just emerging from its chrysalis. I held him in my hand as the cocoon dropped away. He had no wings; then they began to sprout as I watched. First, two little tiny wings, soft as down, appeared and grew a little as I watched; then two more little wings started out, the four growing until they were full sized. Then they grew strong, and the little butterfly commenced to stretch them out and they took on added beauty and color, grace and strength. He did not yet know how to fly in his newly ac­quired kingdom, that same kingdom wherein he had been all the while, but now he had an entirely different viewpoint of it. Still he could not fly; he tried, however. He fluttered those beautiful wings, hopped about on my hand a little, tried the wings again, hesitated, and then he took the plunge into the air, rocketed down at first as though he would fall, and then finding himself in his kingdom he arose, and from that time he flew. He never returned to his chrysalis state; he “let the dead bury their dead.”

You must do the same. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, you must “arise—go up higher”’ (from material or earthly tendencies) to the recognition of His allness, and you too will find yourself soaring into the blue sky of the kingdom of the Christ, looking out from and not up to the stars.

Once there was a great famine (of spiritual sense) supposedly caused by a three years’ drought. Elijah was one of those men who lived in the Kingdom of God, or in “Heaven right here, where angels are as men, clothed more lightly, and men as angels who, burdened for an hour, spring into liberty, and the good they would do, that they do, and the evil they would not do, that they do not” (Miscellaneous Writings). He was surrounded by people who lived in that same world as he did, but could not see the Kingdom of God or the “promised land” as he did—just as the butterfly lives in the same world as the grub which cannot see and soar as the butterfly does.

Elijah was called upon to end the drought (as the Elijahs of today should be called upon and with as sure results), and so he sought to see this kingdom with its plenty, knowing that the result would be that there would appear whatever was needed to bring peace and harmony into visibility—in this instance, rain (or the water of cleansing, wash­ing away the materiality or the false senses). But this kingdom was not to be seen so easily; he too had, as it were, to try his wings. At first there was not a sign of rain, nothing but a cloudless sky with a blazing sun; so he sent his servant, Gehazi, up the mountain (always “up higher”) to look for a sign of rain. Gehazi returned and reported not a sign. Undaunted, Elijah sent him up again, telling him to go seven times if necessary. Six times did Gehazi go up the mountain top (the same mountain we all must climb up to — divine Consciousness), and six times he saw nothing but the blazing sun and the cloudless sky. But the seventh time he reported back that he saw, “a little cloud” no bigger than “a man’s hand” (I Kings), and in a moment more, the rain came in a deluge and the famine was over. The Kingdom of God or that “promised land” had appeared, and appeared in the very practical way as the needed rain. It always does appear in the practical way as needed, be it whatsoever it may be.

Keep on looking for the Kingdom of God. Keep on looking for the Kingdom of Good. Keep on looking for “the promised land.” The Kingdom of God is the Kingdom of Good. Do not look for evil, for trouble, for want and woe; do not look for sickness, do not look for discord. Always and forever look for good — look for rain if rain is needed, look for a job if you need a job; look for health if you are in need of health; look for life, look for love, look for peace, look for the Kingdom of God and His Christ. If you keep at it, if you go up the mountain—advance to that “Third Degree”—seven times, you will see it, because it is right at hand. The Kingdom of God is not a fairy tale. It is a fact.

BALAAM’S ASS

The story is interesting. It is related in Numbers that Balak, King of the Moabites, typifies evil. He sends his Princes and honorable men to Balaam, the prophet of God, asking the latter to curse the Israelites who represent good and who threaten to overrun Balak’s kingdom, even as good always tries to overcome evil.

Balaam understands that the only intelligence is Mind, God. He understands, as Jesus stated so clearly in later years, how to let the “I” go unto the Father, or Mind. Balaam, like Jesus, was at-one with the Father, or at-one with Mind. He had, as Paul said, that mind, “which was also in Christ Jesus.” He knew how to carry out those instruc­tions left to the world hundreds of years subsequently by the Master: “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me,” meaning that he must lift the “I,” or Ego, out of the body, out of man, out of matter, out of the creation, out of the earth earthy, and lift it up into Mind, God, where it belongs, and so not worship and serve “the creature more than the Creator ” He knew that he must speak and act from the standpoint of Mind, God, to be a transparency whereby the truth might utter itself through him, or the light of the Christ shine through him, thereby revealing the things of God and His purpose.

Balaam receives the message from Balak, and tells the messengers that he will take the problem to God or Mind. In doing this he let the “F go unto the Father, surren­dered his personal sense of things, or the human mind, to the one Mind, establishing thus the one Mind and blotting out the human mind, even as light destroys darkness. Doing this it of course became perfectly plain to him that he could never curse anyone or anything but must bless one and all; so he sent word back to Balak that he could not “go along” with him at all, nor would he curse Israel or consider such a proposition even for a moment.

The writer has a very clear recollection of how he taught his body (that “silly ass”) to smoke and drink and do other evil things. He well remembers how it protested against such treatment, how sick it became, and revolted from what it was compelled to undergo; or, in other words, it saw “the angel of the Lord standing in the way,” just as Balaam’s “ass saw the angel,” even though the owner of the body had not vision enough to behold the angel pointing out the right way.

It is pitiful when one ponders over this perverted teaching and its effects upon the body, and observes the sights which are familiar to all of us—old men who have failed evidently to continue teaching this “silly ass ” or body, athletic and other normal activities —but who have instead pursued the indulgence of evil habits of one kind or another until the good habits have been displaced altogether, leaving perhaps a doddering old man who clings to his pipe, whiskey or other unnatural stimulants.

Balaam, having “saddled his ass,” mortal mind or body, is now “in the saddle” rather than the one Mind, so we find Balaam forcing the ass to do what he wishes it to do namely, to “go along” with Balak and his followers. Even the ass knew better than to do this, and “saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way.” So, perceiving the error, it rebelled at being forced to do what it perceived to be wrong, and turned out of the way and went into a field rather than continue along the wrong path. Balaam then beat the ass or forced him to “go along” (made him continue on the wrong path) until finally the ass got into a “tight place,” just as we all do, and ran up “against a stone wall;” being unable to go further, it laid down under Balaam, just as when we have pushed the body to the very limit it, too, lays down under us and can go no further.

At this point the ass spoke to Balaam, so the story runs. Of course, the ass never really spoke. Mind alone speaks, acts, sees, hears, etc. But Mind always has to be manifested, so to Balaam, though Mind spoke, the words seemed to come from the ass. Just as when Mind speaks, as it does always, the words seem to come from the lips. The greatest discovery the world has ever known is that, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.” (Science and Health) God said: “Let there be light: and there was light. ” Of course! For if the light had not appeared or had there been no manifestation, God, Mind, would not have known that that which it had decreed had come to pass. Mind must be manifested; cause must have an effect, or there would be no cause, for a cause without an effect would not be a cause. Mind is cause; manifestation is effect. The effect is that which reveals cause to be cause; the manifestation reveals Mind to be Mind. Otherwise we would have a causeless cause, or an unconscious consciousness, or a mindless Mind, which is absurd. In this instance, Mind spoke and there was a manifes­tation. Balaam saw the manifestation as the ass speaking. He saw, as it were, “through a glass, darkly,” as Paul says so well.

The ass said unto Balaam, “What have I done unto thee, that thou hast smitten me these three times?” Just as the body, not in so many words, says, “Why are you forcing me to do these unnatural and harmful things? Have not I always been a good body to you ever since you came into this world? Have not I always been willing to do whatever you asked me to do? Have I not run races for you, played, laughed and done whatever I have been capable of doing for you, and have I not done it willingly and gladly? Why then compel me to do these horrible things?” So the ass protested, and after a little time we read that as he forced the ass along, Balaam began to suffer, and this, waking him to the true facts, caused him also to behold “the angel of the Lord standing in the way,” or caused the light of the Christ to break through into darkened mentality.

The word translated “salvation” in the Scriptures is the Greek word “soreria,” and means literally “a safe return, a safe return to the Father, Mind.” We have seen how Balaam let the “I” go away from the Father, let his Ego go away from Mind, God, and go into the creation, into man, when he gave power to the material rewards promised him by Balak. “Mind is God. omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,—that is, all power, all presence, all Science,” {Science and Health), Life, Truth, Love. So when Balaam let the power go into the promises of rewards of gold, silver and honors, he was taking the “I,” power, intelligence, etc., out of God, Mind, where they belong and putting them into man, the creation, and thus, like the prodigal son, he let the “I” go away from the Father and went “into a far country,” far away from God, Mind, where “no man gave unto him,” and so fed on husks, or suffered.

At this point he “saw the angel of the Lord standing in the way,” or, in other words, the Truth appeared to him. He saw where he had erred, that he had let the “I” go away from the Father, and so had become a prodigal or sinner, or “had missed the mark,” which is what the word translated “sin” really means. So, said he, “I will get me back again,”—“I will arise and go to my father” — or, he surrendered himself to God, letting the “I” go back to Mind where it belonged, or acknowledged that all power, life, love, health, peace, substance and harmony “are inherent in this Mind,” God only, and never had been nor could be in matter, man, the creation.

Discarding, now, all thoughts of going along with Balak, and perceiving clearly his error in having done so, he asked the angel if he should return to his original place from whence he had followed Balak. The angel answered him in the negative, as it will be answered to everyone who, perceiving his past errors and wishing to cease committing them, asks if he shall go back and start over again. To him the angel will always answer that to go back is impossible, for, as Mary Cary said: “A finger once shook, is shook,” or an error committed is behind one, is past and gone, should be forgotten, never returned to or even referred to, except, of course, only insofar as one may make retribution for such. The thing to be done is to start from the point where one now finds himself and go on from there. This is just what Balaam did.

Divine Mind is now seen to be “in the saddle” again, and Balaam proceeds to bless the Children of Israel with most wonderful blessings. It is evident that Balaam had largely lost his vision, but now it is coming back to him gradually, for we see that instead of perceiving from the lowly standpoint of a darkened material sense, “he went to an high place” in spiritual consciousness. The literal translation of the foregoing is that he went to a “barre height,” which indicates that he could not at first ascend to a great height in spiritual consciousness, but it was not long before he rose still higher, and we find him on the “top of Pisgah,” which commanded a fuller and broader view of spiritual things and wholly overlooking the wilderness. As he does this, Balak, or the carnal mind, believes that the different viewpoints will enable Balaam to see eye to eye with Balak, and the temptations follow thick and fast upon Balaam’s heels. This is typical of what we are at times tempted to do when we have tried to give someone a false impression of a mutual friend. How that listener who is loyal to the absent one listens and then defends that absent one, whereupon, the accuser retails some other falsity about the one who is not there, and the one addressed takes the stand for the accused more firmly than ever until finally the accuser gives up in despair and is forced to listen to blessings on the absent one rather than the expected and desired cursing.

We now find divine Mind wholly “in the saddle,” the “F’ having gone to the Father, Mind. Balaam has turned from the promised gold and silver and high honors of materiality, refused to give power to those false gods, and denying the worship and service of the creature, worships and serves the Creator. Thus he becomes a transparency through which “the Sun of righteousness” shines forth and “comes with healing in its wings” (Mes­sage to The Mother Church for 1902), and gives forth those wondrous blessings on the Israelites which came to pass in due course.

Let us then let the “I” go unto the Father; let all power, life, love, intelligence, substance, everything that is good, go unto the one Mind, thus correspondingly taking them out of matter, the creation, or man; and as we do, so we shall find that we shall no longer live on husks, but will be welcomed back into the Father’s house, the Kingdom of Heaven, and be blessed by Him.

THE VACUUM

“He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.” So said Job.

Definition of “vacuum” — “Space absolutely devoid of matter.” Science and Health says: “Matter is Spirit’s contrary, the absence of Spirit,” and also refers to “the nothingness of matter.” No person has ever been able to produce a perfect vacuum.

An airplane is held up in the air above the earth not, as generally supposed, by the speed of the level plane compressing the air beneath the wings and riding on it, but by the speed of the plane and slant of the wings tending upward, which produces a vacuum above the wings; whereupon the plane is anchored to the vacuum as firmly as though it were hooked on to a star. Let the plane get off the level or slacken speed, and the vacuum is lost proportionately; and when the vacuum is gone, the plane will fall to the ground and crash, unless it has been high enough to enable the plane to be righted and gather speed again; whereupon the vacuum will be once more created and the plane solidly fastened to the vacuum and again safe.

It remained for Mrs. Eddy through a revelation from God to discover, long before airplanes were invented, that matter is but the “absence of Spirit” — God. It must there­fore be evident that the presence of God would constitute a vacuum—a place “absolutely devoid of matter.” Literally then the plane, like the earth, “hangeth upon nothing” – the “nothingness of matter”’ or, better still, it is “sustained by Spirit.” (Science and Health) Jesus was thus sustained when he walked on the water—was borne up by Spirit, God; and so was Peter until he let matter come into his consciousness and so lost his vacuum.

A speeding plane with its wings tending downward could never rise and create a vacuum; nor could we, when consciousness tends earthward, empty consciousness of material beliefs and create a vacuum and so be “sustained by Spirit.” We must speed not only forward, but upward like the plane taking off, or as Mrs. Eddy said as she relayed the Word of God as follows: “The bird whose right wing flutters to soar, while the left beats its way downward, falls to the earth. Both wings must be plumed for rarefied atmospheres and upward flight.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Then if we slacken not, but speed onward and upward away from the earth earthly, we shall create the vacuum or the “nothingness of matter,” and correspondingly the actual presence of God, Spirit, will be there to lift us higher and higher, and we shall be held safely in “the everlasting arms.”

In the plane we set the wings to ascend and speed along the earth trusting air, the more ethereal, thus creating the vacuum which holds the plane in perfect safety hooked into the “nothingness of matter.” Similarly do we speed along the journey from sense to Soul and from bondage to freedom, leaving the material by refusing to entertain human thoughts and opinions, the doctrines and theories of men and all the preconceived imagi­nations of the human mind, and, trusting the spiritual by living the Truth in praising and glorifying and giving of thanks to God for “His wonderful works to the children of men,” we shall find that we have created a vacuum — a place “absolutely devoid of matter,” which is really the reception of the Christ, or the second coming of the Christ—the actual presence of God. Thus do we leave the earth earthly with its discords, pain and sufferings, and find ourselves in the Kingdom of God and the recipients of God’s wonderful blessings.

No person of himself can ever produce the absolute “nothingness of matter” or a vacuum. It can be done only by the presence of God or Spirit. Jesus said: “I do nothing of myself’ (meaning Jesus the person); it is “the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (the presence of God), just as light dispels darkness. It is an utter impossibility for a person through human endeavor, or the action or thinking of the human mind, to create this vacuum or to stop his own thinking. The human mind could not possibly do this; but if one will refuse to entertain the human (leave the earth earthly and praise and glorify God, and give thanks by living according to Principle, by becoming evangelized or by living an evangelical life) he will find that even as darkness is dispelled by light ,so the human mind with its materialism will disappear, always and only as one ascends by living evangelically; this he does by keeping the commandments of the Lord his God.

“Now therefore hearken, O Israel, unto the statutes and unto the judgments, which I teach you, for to do them, that ye may live, and go in [now] and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers giveth you. Ye shall not add unto the word which I com­mand you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Behold I have taught you statutes and judg­ments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (Deuteronomy)

SPIRITUAL SENSE

The Kingdom of God is here; moreover, it is as plainly perceived as the things of this material kingdom. As a matter of fact there is but one Kingdom, the Kingdom of God, and that which we are pleased to designate the material, the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom, is merely the material viewpoint of the one and only spiritual universe, the King­dom of God, Spirit.

In Genesis, first chapter, we find the true and spiritual description of the Kingdom of God, and therein man having dominion over all. In the next chapter we find, not a description of a material viewpoint of the. spiritual universe, the Kingdom of God and of man who is really spiritual and perfect; not a description of a material viewpoint of spiritual things.

James says in his own clear way: “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was;” meaning, of course, that we look into the mirror and behold ourselves as material personalities, or get a material viewpoint of ourselves, and then go our way and forget that we are really and truly the Sons of God, spiritual and perfect.

Paul tells us the same thing, too, when he writes to the Corinthians: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face : now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” Paul also tells the Romans, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.” By this, of course, he means that we should no longer entertain that material view­point and so behold things materially, but through spiritual vision we should transform ourselves, as it were, into what we really are—the spiritual Sons of God.

When I was a boy, I lived in my hometown of Fredericton, New Brusnswick, Canada, where Benedict Arnold lived for many years after the War of the Revolution. My ancestors were loyal to the British Government, which was natural under the circum­stances, for the first Winslow in America, and his son after him, were made Governors of Plymouth Colony, and the British Government conferred many favors and honors upon the family constantly. So the teaching of those members who lived in the Maritime Prov­inces were more than tinged with loyalty to the British Crown. Consequently I grew up to believe that Benedict Arnold was a fine English gentleman, a man of excellent repute, one who had served God and his country well, a man to be sought after and associated with, an honest, loyal English gentleman and Officer. I was also taught to believe that John Paul Jones was a pirate who should have been captured and swung from the yard arm. And as for George Washington, well, the very mildest desert for him was that he was a British renegade who should have been court-martialed and shot.

In time, I came to these United States of America, the first Winslow ever to return and take up his permanent abode in the United States of America, and as I walked about, I noticed statues of George Washington, John Paul Jones, but none whatever of Benedict Arnold, which struck me as being odd, to say the least. However, in time, something of the facts began to seep through this mind of mine, and I learned that Benedict Arnold was a traitor, that John Paul Jones was a great sailor and hero, and that George Washington was a patriot of the first water, a fine, honorable, upright gentleman, Father of his country and first President of the United States, and so I began to see them in a new light.

These men had not changed at all, in this new light of mine. It was my viewpoint which had changed. I had been “looking through a glass, darkly” and so saw them in the manner first described, but now they had become “transformed by the renewing of your [my] mind,” and I beheld them as they really should be seen.

It is the same with us. We have been taught to behold spiritual things from a material viewpoint, and now we must learn to perceive those things of the spiritual king­dom from the standpoint of the spiritual senses.

In order to do this we must begin to cultivate our spiritual senses. How shall this be done? How shall we cultivate these spiritual senses? Just as we would cultivate our material senses; just as we have become motor-wise and are becoming air-wise. In short, by using those spiritual senses.

For instance, take the renowned and great Ignace Paderewski. He started out to behold the kingdom of Music, so he had to cultivate his musical senses. He did this by using the primitive things of the kingdom of Music. He learned his notes; having mastered this most primitive thing of the musical kingdom, he proceeded to practice. He practiced, and practiced, and practiced, until after a while he was able to play a Bach fugue or a Beethoven sonata, and to perceive not only for himself, but for others, or dispense to others, the wonderful themes of that kingdom of Music as perhaps few others have been able to do.

If we would cultivate those spiritual senses which enable us to behold the things of the Kingdom of God, we must start off with the primitive things of that kingdom, or we must learn our notes, as it were. These primitive things are in part gentleness, tenderness, kindness, politeness, courtesy, good temper, good nature, good sense, good taste, good humor and good cheer, joy, mirth, laughter, gratitude, generosity, love, affection, faithful­ness, constancy, contentment, consideration, tolerance, obedience to Principle and not person, and so on.

After this it becomes necessary to practice constantly these things, to practice, and practice and practice, until finally we, too, can behold and dispense the wonderful chords and themes of the Kingdom of God just as Jesus did, and dispense spiritual health, spiritual life, spiritual supply and substance, and spiritual peace.

To the onlooker it may have seemed that physical life, and physical health were restored, material food supplied to the hungry multitudes, and a raging storm ceased at his command, and to all intents and purposes this was so. But the actual fact of it all was, though it was thus perceived through the physical senses (as we have previously had pointed out to us to be the non-use of the spiritual senses) that under the light of the Christ even those materially minded persons saw something of that true Kingdom of God, with its peace, harmony, plenty, and eternal life. The whole was but the direct result of being “not conformed to this world,” but being “transformed by the renewing of your mind ” Jesus made this plain when he said, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid ” He meant that he brought not that evanescent peace which the world gives, but that peace which is eternal.

So begin now to cultivate those spiritual senses which are yours. After a while you will see as Jesus saw and behold those wonders of the spiritual universe, the Kingdom of God, which are right at hand and available at all times and under all circumstances. As Jesus grew in spiritual wisdom and spiritual stature so you will grow, and as this growth or advancement comes to you, you too will perceive the great chords, symphonies, motifs and themes of Spirit; and not only this, but you will be able to dispense these spiritual ideas to others, and thus give to the world your share of service in the betterment of mankind.

CONSIDER THE LILIES

Keep turning to the Kingdom of God. You should do this as naturally as a flower turns to the light, water and air, which is its kingdom. A flower needs things to make it grow to be strong, sturdy and healthy. Its needs are its diseases, just as our needs are our diseases. Disease, or dis-ease, is the lack of ease, the lack of health, the lack of some spiritual thing. When we need something, or lack something, we are diseased. A flower’s needs are its diseases, of small moment at first, but if those needs are not filled when they appear, the need, or disease, grows worse. If, for instance, it needs water, its disease is thirst, and if this need is not filled, it will droop and die. It is so with us also. When the flower turns to its kingdom, its needs are supplied and it is healed. When we turn to the Kingdom of God, our kingdom, our needs are supplied also, or our diseases are healed, which is the same thing; and this is what is conveyed to the writer when the Revelator to this age said, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” (Science and Health)

The flower has no brains, no carnal or mortal mind, and so it turns untrammeled to the light, air and water, its kingdom, and it is supplied with whatever it needs. It should be so with us, but we are handicapped with brains, the carnal or mortal mind, and so we are deflected from the Kingdom of God, turned away from our natural source of supply and fail to get what we need. We, therefore, learn how to have in us that mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” just as the flower has this Mind. “The only intelligence or substance of a thought, a seed, or a flower is God, the creator of it.” (Science and Health) It was this to which Jesus referred when he said: “Consider the lilies how they grow; they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these,” meaning, of course, “Consider the lilies which have but one Mind—they are taken care of though they toil not, neither do they spin; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory [the glory of the carnal mind, clad in his intellectuality, his human wisdom and knowledge] was not arrayed in the Christ-mind [the Mind of God] like one of these,” and so did not turn naturally to the Kingdom of God, and finally went the way of all flesh.

Try, then, to have this Mind, the Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus,” and you will turn naturally to the Kingdom of God, your Kingdom, and all your needs will be supplied whatever they may be.

METANOIA

In Matthew 3, verses 2 and 8, we find these words spoken by the Master: “Re­pent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” and “Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance ” Both of these words, “repent” and “repentance,” are translated from a word in the Greek, “metanoia.”

The translation is not literally correct, for this Greek word “metanoia” means, “change your mind,” or “change your mind, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand;” and “bring forth therefore fruits encumbent upon a change of mind.”

For many years the writer has known that the translation as found in the Bible was not exactly what was meant by Jesus, but believing that the Science of Christianity was a system of right thinking, and then finding another translation setting forth that the true translation should be “a radical change of thought,” he was satisfied at the time that this is what Jesus intended to convey, to wit: “Have a radical change of thought, for the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Now, when one “changes his thought,” he does something within his own human mind, but when one “changes his mind,” he permits the human mind to fall into innocuous desuetude (harmless disuse), whereupon the Christ-Mind arises in him and becomes his Savior.

During the past thousands of years no one believed that there was any other mind for one to have than the mind which came into his possession when he was born, and that this mind if cultivated might become a great mind. Jesus knew better than this, and so did Paul, and doubtless many others, but the rank and file of humanity continued to so believe until the Revelator to this age, Mary Baker Eddy, came to the fore and made plain to the world that there is a Mind, which Mind was and is God — the only Mind, in fact; and that the so-called human mind (not truly a mind at all but rather the absence of Mind) must be laid aside, stilled, permitted to fall into disuse, whereupon to the degree that this came to pass, the Christ would arise in whomsoever did so.

This is what the Word of God spoken through Isaiah set forth; “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace,” and, “Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David [of him that is beloved of God], and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts [the automatic power of God] will perform this.”

We have become accustomed to say, “I changed my mind,” but when we so said we did not in any sense mean that we had really changed our mind; but we meant that whoever said this had simply changed the thoughts within his own human mind. This was natural enough when we believed that each one had a mind which he carried with him from the cradle to the grave. But when Mrs. Eddy came with her wonderful revelation that, “Mind is God” and that there is “but one Mind,” and that the human mind is a counterfeit of this “one Mind,” which counterfeit has to be given up, then we began to understand that it was not a matter of changing the thoughts within our human minds, but was the “take no thought” as Jesus said; to still the human mind; stop our own thinking; or, “silence the material senses;” thus rolling away the stone of materiality and permitting the Christ to arise and become our Savior.

Jesus was most emphatic on this point. In his greatest dissertation, the Sermon on the Mount as it is called, he over and over again emphasized this, and said, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink;” take no thought “for your body, what ye shall put on [the body]”’ and “Take therefore no thought for the morrow [the future].” He did not say to think right about it or to change your thoughts about it, but to take no thought whatsoever. Moreover, he ridiculed the possibility of our thinking being in any way potent to do anything, by interpolating, “which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” To which, of course, the answer is always in the negative. He used this word “metanoia” as we have it in the Greek, though no doubt he spoke in the Syrian language; or, in English, said “change your mind.” So we find him telling us not to do our thinking, but to stop it, or to “take no thought,” whereupon the Christ-Mind would arise in us, and taking possession would assume the government hitherto stupidly arro­gated to ourselves; from thenceforth the government would be upon His shoulder, with consequent harmony in every way.

How is this to be accomplished? By refusing to entertain human thoughts or opinions, by refusing to recognize the human mind and its vagaries, by refusing to argue for or against its suggestions, for to do this is to look into the sepulchre; whereas to look away from it, to turn to God, the one Mind, to see God everywhere, rolls away the stone from the door of consciousness and permits the Christ within to arise and become the Savior.

Then, and then only, do we surrender this human mind, and the government is on the shoulder of the Christ. Listen to what God says, through Isaiah, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts”

Surely then, if this be so, that God’s thoughts are not the human being’s thoughts, and of course never will be, and if those thoughts of God are higher “as the heavens are higher than the earth (than your thoughts),” it is high time that we stopped thinking our foolish thoughts and surrendered our thoughts to God, the one Mind, or “changed our mind.”

BODY

Paul says: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own.” In other words, you are not your own concept of yourself, not what you believe yourself to be.

The greatest modern thinker of this age, Mary Baker Eddy, defining the word “temple,” says that it means: “Body; the idea of Life, substance, and intelligence; the su­perstructure of Truth; the shrine of Love; a material superstructure, where mortals congre­gate for worship.” (Science and Health)

This then is the writer’s sense of what it means: What? know ye not that your body is not what you have been believing it to be; it is not your concept of yourself, but it is the “temple of the Holy Ghost”; it is “the idea of Life” and not subject to sickness or death, but is living; it is “the idea of… substance” and so is eternal and not subject to discord and decay; it is “the idea of… intelligence” and so is not an unintelligent believer in sickness, sin, death, poverty, lack or other evils, but it is the intelligent knower of the truth about God, man, and the universe. It is “the superstructure of Truth” and so is not constructed of matter or error; it is “the shrine of Love” and so all that is lovable and good is enshrined in it and there cannot possibly be anything of evil such as sin, disease, death, poverty, etc., enshrined in it. It is that which God has given to you and He cares for it in the tenderest and holiest manner at all times and under all circumstances.

You are not “a material superstructure” where mortal thoughts congregate in the brain or elsewhere therein to worship it, coddle it, medicine it, massage it or manipulate it, bow down to it or idolize it or make much of it in any way; not at all that body which you have been believing yourself to be—your own concept of yourself; but you are now “the idea of Life,” or God’s idea of Himself.

THE EMPEROR

There was born into the world a little baby who was an Emperor. He grew until he could creep just like any other little child. One day when the nurse was bathing him outside in the sunshine on a hot summer day, she turned away for a moment. When she turned back again this little Eastern Emperor had disappeared — vanished into thin air. The whole country was searched, north, east, south and west, but to no avail. Everything possible was done to find him, but finally the boy was given up for dead.

The thing which had happened, however, was most simple. When the nurse turned away from the child, he crept out of his little tub, crawled through an opening in the hedge which surrounded that part of the Imperial grounds, and in another moment he was out­side. Just then there passed a slave, who seeing the little naked baby picked him up and took him not to his home, for he had none, but to his wife, and they brought the boy up as a slave.

The poor little chap underwent the most terrible vicissitudes. The life of any slave is bad enough, but that of an Eastern slave is worst of all. He never knew what it was to have a roof over him, to have clothes or decent food. He slept out in the cold and heat, in the rain, snow and sleet; his covering, if he had one at all, was an old piece of bagging, but usually he went about naked. He was beaten, overworked and underfed and generally eked out a most wretched existence; yet at eighteen years of age he was a fine, strong, stalwart, healthy boy, tall and handsome.

Then he was discovered.

A man came to him and told him that he was the Emperor, that he was in his own Empire, that everything he saw about him, and vastly more, was his, all the people were his subjects, and moreover he was entitled to all the rights, privileges and prerogatives of an Emperor in his own Empire. The boy could not believe it and said so, but the man assured him that this was a fact and added, “If you do not believe me for the words, ‘believe me for the very works’ sake. ’” (John) The boy replied to this, “What do you mean by that?” The man answered, “I mean just what I say, Sire. If you cannot believe me when I tell you the truth in so many plain words, that you are the Emperor, then see if it will not work, because if what I say is true and you are the Emperor in your own Empire and have all the rights, privileges and prerogatives as such, then it will work.” The Emperor asked then what he should do in order to see if it would work, and the other answered: “What do you want to do?” Whereupon the boy said: “I want money, clothes, food and such like.” And to this the man said: “Order those things to be brought to you, and if the command is fulfilled, you will surely know that you are the Emperor and that it is true.” The boy then issued the order, and immediately the things asked for were brought to him in abundance, and he felt within himself that what had been told him was the truth. Shortly after that he was able to take his place on the throne and govern his people.

Now suppose you had been called on to “treat” or pray for this boy, suppose you were as great a metaphysician as Jesus was, and that the boy himself requested you to help him, how many treatments would be necessary for you to give him in order to make this boy into the Emperor? Think it over a bit before reading on. How many? Ponder it a bit. The answer is none at all. He does not need a single prayer or treatment because he is and was and always will be the Emperor. What is needed is that he be taught the truth, — that he is the Emperor and is in his own Empire with all the rights, privileges and prerogatives of an Emperor, and that he can act accordingly.

This story, as a matter of fact, is to be found in the very first chapters of the Bible, but under a different terminology. Instead of there being born into the world an Eastern Emperor, we have born into consciousness the real man, the Son of God, the Christ-man, the Emperor of the Empire of Spirit, or the Prince of the Kingdom of God. There he is, made in the image and likeness of God, having dominion over all things, dwelling in the midst of this wonderful Kingdom of Spirit wherein “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.” This man is spiritual, perfect, bountifully supplied and has everything he can possibly require. That is the first picture.

The next picture we have presented to us shows him as lost, not out of a tub, but in a mist. The third picture shows him, not as a slave in an Eastern Empire stripped of all he is entitled to, but as a slave to matter stripped of everything good that he is entitled to as the Son of God, absolutely naked and bereft of everything good. There he is in the Kingdom of God, now called the Garden of Eden, surrounded by everything that is need­ful to him such as vegetation, trees, rivers, streams, hills and valleys, gold, silver, precious stones, everything and anything that one could wish for his benefit, and yet, there he stands stripped, naked, deprived of everything that is his to make him happy.

Then God finds him and asks: “Where are you?” The man answers and says: “I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” Whereupon God speaks in astonish­ment saying: “Who told you that you were naked? Where did you get such foolish ideas? Who told you that you were deprived of all the good things of Life?” The man answered: “The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she told me.” God then causes him to bring her out from her hiding place and asks her: “Who told you all this foolishness about being naked, stripped of everything that is good? Where did you get this knowledge?” And she said in effect, that it was the serpent, or the carnal mind, that told her. Whereupon God said: “That is wholly nonsense, and there is not a bit of truth in it. Man is the Son of God and lives in the Empire of God; he has dominion and everything therein is his ” Or as the Bible says, “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:” But God adds: “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Or, in other words, “Everything in the garden is freely given to you. It is all good. Man is the Son of God, he has dominion and all is his, but do not let yourself believe that materiality is real or that evil exists, for the moment that you do so, you die or forfeit your rights, privileges and prerogatives of the Kingdom of God and so believe yourself to be stripped of everything that is good and is rightfully yours,”

Jesus knew all about this. He knew that man is the image and likeness of God, and that he has everything that is good — good health, good sense, good humor, good taste, good nature, life, love, abundance and such like.

One day a man was brought to him who had been paralyzed for thirty-eight years who said he wanted help. Jesus said: “Why, man, you are the Son of God in the Kingdom of God, and have all the rights, privileges and prerogatives of the Son of God.” The man answered: “I cannot believe it.” Jesus said: ^“Well, son, if you cannot believe me for the words, ‘believe me for the very works’ sake. ’” The man answered: “What do you mean by that?” Jesus answered: “I mean just what I say—that if you cannot believe me when I tell you plainly in so many words that this is the Kingdom of God and that you are the Son of God, enjoying all the rights, privileges and prerogatives to which that Son is entitled, then, if you cannot believe me when I say this, try it out and see if it will not work, because if it really be true then it must work.” The man asked: “What shall I do?” Jesus looked at him and said: “Why, man, what did you come to me for?” He replied: “I want to walk. I have been paralyzed for thirty-eight years. I want to walk and be able to go about like others. Help me to do so.” Then Jesus said: “Well, then, my son, exercise the rights, privileges, and prerogatives of the Son of God in the Kingdom of God and take up your bed and walk. Try it.” The man obediently tried to do so and immediately he was healed.

A blind man came to him. He asked for help. Jesus said: “Why, my son, you are the Son of God in the Kingdom of God and right at this moment you enjoy the rights, privileges and prerogatives of the Son of God.” The man answered him: “Sir, I cannot believe it. ” Said Jesus again: “My boy, if you cannot believe me for the words, ‘believe me for the very works’ sake.’” “What do you mean by that?” asked the boy; and Jesus said: “I mean just what I say to you, that if you cannot believe me when I tell you in so many plain words that you are the Son of God, perfect, harmonious, spiritual, having dominion, and enjoying all the good things of the Kingdom of God, then try it out or see if it will not work, because if it be so then it will work.” The boy said: “What shall I do?” Jesus said: “What do you wish to do?” The boy answered and said: “Sire, I want to be healed. I have been blind ever since I was born. I have never seen the trees and flowers of which I hear others speak; I have never seen the green grass, the blue sky, the rivers and streams as others do; I want to see; Lord, open my eyes that I may see.”

Then Jesus said to him: “My young friend, use the rights, privileges and preroga­tives which are yours as the Son of God and open your eyes and see. Try it.” The boy tried to do as he was told and went away seeing.

Try it yourself. If it be true that the Kingdom of God is here — and it is here— then it will certainly work.

THE THEATER

Paul says: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renew­ing of your mind .”

What did Paul mean when he said this? In the theater we have a projector; within this projector we have a light and a film. On a screen in front of the projector we have a picture; the picture, however, is not on the screen — it is within the projector and is projected onto the screen. This is why it is called a projector.

Mind, or consciousness, is a projector. The thoughts therein are the films; the light, such as you have, is the light of the Christ. Everyone has some of this light; it is “the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” (John) Without this true Light one would have no being, no existence. The world which you see about you, your body, your friends, the trees and flowers, whatever we call the world, is the picture; and just as the picture previously referred to was not on the screen but within the projector, so this world is not outside as it appears to be, but is within consciousness or Mind, and is projected from it.

If we do not like the picture on the screen, there is no use trying to change it by dealing directly with the picture, but we must come within the projector and change the film, and then the picture will automatically change. Likewise, if the situation which faces us in the world is discordant, if we appear to be sick, sinful, afraid, distressed in anyway, there is no use whatsoever in dealing directly with the world itself, but we must come within consciousness and change the thoughts or films. Then shall the world, or world picture, take on a different appearance—commonly termed healing.

Now there are two ways in which to change these films. One is the right way and the other is the wrong way. One is a pseudo science called the science of right thinking, and which is wrong; the other is the Science of Mind, or the Science of Mind healing. The first is what Paul said not to do; the second is what he said to do. “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The mere changing of the films is but a performance of the human mind as it is called, and by the by, this human mind, or carnal mind, is not a mind at all, but rather a negative proposition for there is really but one Mind—this Mind which is God.

When we change the films, or thoughts of this human mind, those thoughts which have been dispensed with may at some time recur. For instance, in our world picture there was once an epidemic of yellow fever. In course of time the film was changed and we killed off a lot of mosquitoes, and, lo, the yellow fever picture disappeared leaving in its place a healthy situation. Another time we had the bubonic plague and still another time smallpox and diphtheria. Then we changed the films, or thoughts, killed off a lot of rats, discovered certain serums called antitoxin or vaccine, and, lo, again we had a different picture and healthy conditions appeared where before there had been disease. These later pictures have more or less persisted up to this time, but at any time there is the danger held over us that similar epidemics may occur, and thus we may experience the return of the same old films in the projector.

But there is the better way and the right way. Throw out the projector itself with the films which pass through that particular machine and in its place use the only true projector — the one Mind — the Mind which was also in Christ Jesus. “Be not con­formed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Don’t change the thoughts, or films, of the human mind from evil to good, and which are liable to return at some later date, but do away with the human mind with its thoughts of good and evil altogether, and in its place have the one Mind, the only Mind, with its Christly films or thoughts automatically operated by the one Mind Itself. Then the world will appear to take on better and better conditions and these better conditions will never relapse into evil conditions of any kind, because there are no such films or ideas in the Mind which is God, nor can those evil films be passed through the one Mind under any circumstances whatso­ever. Like a cinema projector which admits a film of one particular size and will not permit another film of different measurements to pass through it, the thoughts of the carnal mind will not pass through the Mind which is God. Therefore when once the one Mind projec­tor is established, its thoughts or films continue to throw out a picture or a world eternally good and harmonious. Then we have not been “conformed to this world [mind]; but have been “transformed by the renewing of your [the] Mind,” the one and only Mind which is God Himself.

Nor is this Mind operated by man; rather, man is operated by God, the one Mind, the governing Mind, showing forth just exactly what Paul meant when he spoke these wonderful words.

CHRIST’S KINGDOM

The Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of His Christ, is here now, and so “cometh not with observation.” Why not? Because this Kingdom is here (is at hand) now and so does not have to come at all. It is here; it is at hand; here for us to observe or behold; not to be brought here as a result of our observation or seeing. “We live, and move, and have our being” in this spiritual universe, or the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom of His Christ. Accordingly then there cannot be a material universe, material bodies or material senses. The reason these material things appear to be here, or a part of us, is as Paul says so admirably, we are seeing “as through a glass, darkly.”

It is an accepted fact today that there is no such thing as darkness, that it is but the absence of light. Sometimes we speak of total darkness, but there is no such thing as that either, for there is always some degree of light, just as we refer to a vacuum, meaning thereby the total absence of air; but the total absence of air is unknown as it has never been attained. There is always a degree of air as there is always a degree of light. The less light there is (cognized) the darker is appears to be.

If we entered the tomb of one of the old Egyptian Kings before it was opened, we would find ourselves in what would be termed total darkness. This, however, would not be the fact, for as it is well known today, there must always be some degree of light. We could easily prove this too, for as we stood in the midst of the wonderful treasures which are to be found in those ancient tombs, we would be unable at first to see anything; then gradually as we peered about the tomb, our eyes would become accustomed slowly to the conditions, and we would observe or perceive a little of what was there, a very little doubtless, but still a little. This proves that there is some light else, we should not have been able to see at all, for it requires light to “make manifest.”

If we should bring into the tomb a light, a very faint light at first, just a bare glow, gradually increasing it to a dim light, and then to a brilliant light, we would see more and more distinctly until finally the wondrous treasures would be seen in all their marvelous beauty, color and form. In the “total darkness” we might have conjured up ghosts and hobgoblins, or other weird things. Perhaps under the dim light we might have even be­lieved that the ghostly inhabitants were about to attack us; but as the light grows brighter and brighter, we would see the things which are really there; the treasures would not have “come with observation.” No, not at all. They were there all the time, waiting to be observed. Nor would the ghosts and hobgoblins disappear, for never having been there, how could they disappear?

Similarly we are in the Kingdom of God, and about us are all the wonderful things of that Kingdom. That we do not perceive (or observe) the things of the Kingdom of God is because of our inability to cognize them with our spiritual senses in the dim light of the Christ which we possess. We have no physical senses; we are not two men, one spiritual and the other material, one having material senses and the other spiritual senses. No, no, not at all.

There is but one man, and he has spiritual senses; he can only cognize the things of the Kingdom of Spirit; there is no other kingdom. As Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world,” so we too must say the same. Education may teach us to say, “My kingdom is of this world, the animal, vegetable or mineral kingdom, the world of sense,” but this is not true and is not true teaching. Such a kingdom does not exist and has no being. There is but one kingdom, the Kingdom of God. We do not see or observe the things of the Kingdom of God because we have such a small amount of the Christ-light, and therefore the spiritual senses do not function to their fullest degree. Under this dim light we see indistinctly the only things there are to be seen — these things of the Kingdom of God. Being unable to see clearly that which is right here to be seen, we conjure up ghosts of materiality and hobgoblins of sin, disease, death and other troubles. We do not see them, however, even though we so believe, because they are not there to be seen. The only things which are there to be seen are spiritual things—the things of the Kingdom of God.

Under this dim light of the Christ, we have a limited view of the Kingdom of God, but dim though that light be, and limited the view, nevertheless, we are using the spiritual senses for we have no other. As we conjured up the hobgoblins and ghosts in the tomb while actually looking at the wonderful treasures in that place, so now looking at none other than the things of the Kingdom of God (for there are no other things to behold), marvelous things of Spirit, such as Life, Love, peace Joy, intelligence, mirth, laughter, happiness, health, abundance, supply and so forth, we conjure up weird and impossible evils known as sin, disease, troubles of one kind or another, and death. As a matter of fact they are no more present and have no more reality than have the hobgoblins and ghosts which we believed we saw in the Egyptian tomb.

We conjure up a material universe consisting of material persons and animals, trees, flowers, earth, hill and dale, and so forth, but they have, as matter, no more exist­ence than the weird illusions of the tomb. All there is to them materially is the darkened vision.

We are using the only senses we possess, which are spiritual and perfect, and with these senses we can see only good and spiritual things. So in order that we may cognize better, we must have more of the Christ light; and as this light comes to us, flooding everything of the Kingdom of God with its light and brilliancy, we see better, hear better, feel better, taste better, and smell better. Thus we lose sight of the hobgoblins and ghosts of evil as the marvelous treasures of the Kingdom of God loom into view, until finally we see and cognize it in all its pristine beauty and loveliness. “Self-renunciation of all that constitutes a so-called material man, and the acknowledgment and achievement of his spiritual identity as the child of God, is Science that opens the very floodgates of heaven.” (Miscellaneous Writings)

Our sole business then is to get more of the light of the Christ in order that with these spiritual senses we may see more and more clearly the things of the Kingdom of God, which include peace, Love, Life, harmony, joy, health, supply, substance and suchlike.

How is this to be done? In the simplest manner. Use these senses, these spiritual senses, to behold the things of the Kingdom of God. As we peered into the Egyptian tomb under the dimmest of light and saw the vague outlines of the treasures therein, now we must peer into the Kingdom of God under the light of the Christ so far as we have it, at good things, at spiritual things. Cultivating the spiritual senses we shall see at first some­what vaguely the things of the Kingdom of God, but continuing to use the spiritual senses, or the Christ, “the encumbering mortal molecules, called man, vanish as a dream.” (Mis­cellaneous Writings)

As we cultivate these spiritual senses, the light of the Christ appears to become more and more brilliant, until finally we shall see plainly the things of the Kingdom of God, or the Christ, of that spiritual Kingdom, Life, health, peace, Love, supply, substance and such like, and with the assurance which is born of understanding we, too, can say, with Jesus, “My kingdom is not of this world.” “He is bravely brave who dares at this date refute the evidence of material sense with the facts of Science, and will arrive at the true status of man because of it.” {Miscellaneous Writings)

Jesus did this. He was conscious of Life, health, peace, harmony, and so forth. He used his spiritual senses, and with them he beheld the Kingdom of God at hand. He recognized no other kingdom and for the simplest of all reasons, there is no other. “And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good.” If this is not God’s Kingdom of Good, or the Kingdom of God, then what is it?

IT IS AT HAND — MY SPIRIT

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech. 4:6). My Spirit, your Spirit, his Spirit, her Spirit, everybody’s Spirit, the Father within, the Christ. Not within your body, but within your consciousness, which is you. This Spirit is within, and without, it is everywhere. It is the “I,” the “I” of you and me, of everyone; it is the Ego, the Mind, God, Spirit; and as Isaiah sets forth: “the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee. ” That is it, “in the midst of thee.”

It is that which keeps you alive, keeps the world alive, makes the birds fly, the fishes swim, and the planets revolve in their courses; it makes the sun shine, the waters flow and the stars twinkle. It is wonderful: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Won­derful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of David [him who is beloved of God], and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever. The zeal [the automatic power] of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” (Isaiah)

My Spirit which is “in the midst of thee!” When you say, “My God.” “My God have mercy upon me,” or “My God heal me,” you unconsciously conceive of God as somewhere outside and afar off, as a great person or power, maybe, who will work some kind of a miracle on us —’’poor worms of the dust.” Now, if instead of saying, “My God,” you will say “My Spirit,” then you will seemingly bring Him within, which is as it should be. My Spirit which is “in the midst of thee,” not in the middle of your body but “in the midst of thee,” in the midst of your consciousness, which is you; inside and outside too, every­where. I AM here, I AM there, I AM everywhere.

You do not have to look for a Messiah somewhere outside, but inside, within. He it is that does the work – “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works,” Christ Jesus said. “Not by might, nor by power [of the human mind or body or matter], but by my spirit’—My Spirit, your Spirit, everyone’s Spirit; the Christ within; that Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus.” My Spirit will heal, the Word will be made flesh; “In my flesh [while I appear to be living in the flesh] shall I see God,” Job declared, and Jesus said, “I and my Father are one,” not two, but one.

THE ARROW AND THE SHADOW

As I stood waiting for the elevator to take me up to my offices, I watched the arrow which indicated the position of the elevator. As the arrow revolved or stopped, its shadow moved or stopped with it. The shadow manifested or shadowed forth exactly whatever the arrow did or was.

It would have been utterly impossible with all the power on earth at one’s com­mand to do anything to the shadow. Nothing could affect the shadow save only the arrow itself. One might corrugate the wall behind the arrow and the shadow might appear to be deformed; but this would be deception, for the shadow would not have been changed in the very least and would be just as before the background was disturbed.

One might take out the whole wall serving as a background and the shadow might appear to have vanished, but it would still be there the same as ever. So long as the arrow remained, just so long would the shadow remain. The shadow could hold no communica­tion with the arrow, but any communication must be from the arrow to the shadow, for the shadow is obedient to the arrow and not the arrow to the shadow. Move the arrow and the shadow moves; stop the arrow and the shadow stops; bend the arrow and the shadow bends; straighten the arrow and the shadow straightens.

The shadow corresponds to man, the universe, the body, the environment. The arrow corresponds to God, Soul, Mind, Spirit, Principle, etc. —’’The only I, or Us” {Science and Health)\ “Thought passes from God [arrow] (The interpolations are the author’s.) to his man [shadow]; but neither sensation nor report goes from material body [shadow] to Mind [arrow]. The intercommunication is always from God [arrow] to His idea, man [shadow].” {Science and Health) When God moves, the shadow moves, or the manifestation moves—man and the universe moves—not otherwise.

Nothing anyone can do to the shadow will affect it in any way. The background may be taken away from it and it may be said to be dead, to have disappeared, to be lost, etc., but it is as surely there and untouched as it was before so doing. The background may be materialized or the viewpoint be otherwise changed; it may be limited in health, life, or otherwise, and it may be perceived as material, sick, poor or otherwise discordant, but it is as surely spiritual and the perfect shadow or manifestation as it was.

No other so-called power exercised upon it has the slightest effect upon it. Shadow or manifestation it is, shadow or manifestation it remains. As God, Spirit, Soul, Mind, Principle is “the same yesterday, and today and forever,” so is the shadow “the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Does the shadow appear to be material? It is, however, just what it was—the shadow or manifestation of God, Spirit, and hence is spiritual. Does the shadow appear to be dead, lost or to have disappeared? It is still there, just as it was, for its life is God, its being is God and can never be lost. Does it appear to be without substance—supply? This too is impossible, for it has whatever can change the manifestation or shadow from what it was, is and ever shall be—namely, the shadow or manifestation of Spirit, Soul, God, Mind, the “I.” Science and Health empha­sizes this point and says: “By its own volition, not a blade of grass springs up, not a spray buds within the vale, not a leaf unfolds its fair outlines, not a flower starts from its cloistered cell.”

God is, shadow is; God has, shadow has; God does, shadow does. God, Spirit, Soul, is the “I” or Ego. It controls the shadow or manifestation. “The I is Spirit” {Science and Health)’, “It is the spirit that quickeneth [giveth life]; the flesh profiteth nothing” (John); “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts” (Zech.) From the true standpoint of the “I” as being what it is in fact, namely Spirit, God, Soul, etc., the “I am” claims its rights and presses its claim as shown in Science and Health: “I am Spirit. Man, whose senses are spiritual, is my likeness. He reflects the infinite understanding, for I am Infinity. The beauty of holiness, the perfection of being, imperishable glory,—all are Mine, for I am God. I give immortality to man, for I am Truth. I include and impart all bliss, for I am Life. I am supreme and give all, for I am Mind. I am the substance of all, because I AM THAT I AM.”

Live from the standpoint of the “I” as being God, Spirit, Soul. This gives the true background and not a false background. No longer then does the shadow appear to be material, sick, sinful, etc., but it appears as it really is—the shadow of Spirit, God, or the manifestation of Mind. “I am the God [Spirit] of thy fathers, the God [Spirit] of Abraham, and the God [Spirit] of Isaac, and the God [Spirit] of Jacob” (Acts); and as Jesus well said: “For he [God] is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him [unto Spirit].”

Let go of the limited background, the background of materiality, of limitation, of every false belief, all of which produce a false limited or material background against which the shadow or manifestation seems to be sick, dead, limited, poor or otherwise discordant. This false background is obliterated by refusing to entertain human opinions, methods, ways and means, all the false theories of the earth earthly, ail the false presenta­tions of a false human consciousness, in fact, by stilling the human mind or silencing the material senses . Whereupon to the exact degree of success in so doing does the Christ arise in us, or the Spirit rest upon us; and so, with Spirit or the true and real “I” or Ego in the foreground, in the background the shadow or manifestation will also show forth those good things, as health, peace, life, love, abundance, or what not.

THE UNIVERSAL ME

“Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.” This Me is God. Isaiah writes, “Before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me”; “Look unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.” And Christ Jesus said, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My burden is light.” Over and over again in the Scriptures and elsewhere in spiritual writings do we find the instructions to turn to and rely on this I AM, or Me. “I AM the light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John)

Whoever contacts Me will find health, peace, Life, Love and an abundance of all good things, just as when we contact the kingdom of Neptune, we get wet or partake of H2O and a little salt; or when we contact electrical power, we get a shock. So when we contact Me, we partake of the constituents of the Kingdom of God, such as health, Life, Love, peace, abundance and everything good, “for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

The world has come to the point of understanding that there is an intelligence which governs all things, and that this intelligence is God, Mind; not the human mind, of course, but the one universal substance or Mind—the one Mind. This Mind is that Mind “which was also in Christ Jesus.” It is God, the Father; it is the Me of Christ Jesus, not the personal body which of itself can do nothing, but the I AM, or Me. “Come unto Me,” make your contact with Me, and I — the I AM or Me — will give you rest. This Me is your Me; it is mine; it is everybody’s. When one makes this contact with Me, he contacts the universal Me, as David sang, “The Lord said unto my Lord,” or the universal Me speaks to the individual Me, or the universal Mind speaks to the individual Mind.

One makes this contact not by wordy prayers, not by silent prayers, nor in fact by prayer of any kind that may be predicated on or based upon some evils which are to be eradicated, but by a prayer of works, or by living spiritually (being what you are now—a spiritual being). Then one naturally becomes harmonious and acts, walks, sees, talks, hears, feels, tastes, smells, and thinks naturally and rightly, as the birds fly or as the worlds roll about in space without any effort on their part whatsoever. Just as the birds fly right side up and never upside down, nor the worlds clash in their courses, so one whose individual Me contacts the universal Me, does whatever he does rightly and never wrongly, a perfectly natural procedure.

This is the Science of God, or Mind. There is not a so-called Science of right thinking as has been advocated, sometimes by peoples religiously inclined or mayhap by a brain trust or others. Whatever that may be, it is only the emanation of the human mind, the only devil there is or ever will be. It is that mind which causes all the troubles on earth, the mind which attempts to do its own thinking, and of which Solomon spake and said:

“For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” To this the human mind has answered, “If troubles have come upon us by our thinking, this thinking must be wrong; therefore if we do some right thinking, the evils shall be remedied.” But Solomon did not say and did not mean that at all. He meant that all of man’s thinking, good or bad, was evil, the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” of which we have been warned against partaking.

To emphasize this point that there is no Science of right thinking, but that there is a Science of God, Mind: In the former a person endeavors to do some right thinking in order to counteract some wrong thinking, or its results. This accomplishes little, if anything, although to be sure it is evident that the world is better as a result of right thinking than it would be from wrong or evil thinking, and doubtless this is a step forward; but the fact is that this does not solve the problem and still leaves us at the mercy of changeable human thinking, which finally ends disastrously.

In the Science of God, Mind, however, the whole endeavor is changed. Instead of a person trying to think himself out of his troubles, he tries to eliminate himself entirely, tries to get himself out of the way, or “deny himself’ as Jesus put it; he surrenders the false self completely by dying daily to that self. Or, as Jesus also said, he endeavors to “take no thought;” to stop his own thinking, or tries to still the human mind; whereupon to the degree that he succeeds in so doing, the contact is made and the universal Mind, or Me, or the Christ, comes to his assistance and becomes his Savior, saving him from whatever he needs to be saved. He has, in other words, “rolled away the stone,” more or less adamant by reason of eons of human thinking, and the Christ which has been entombed within his consciousness, or hidden away under the debris of the human mind, or lying dormant, arises and comes forth as the Savior. The resurrection (from earthly senses) has taken place.

This is wholly in accord with the teachings of the Scriptures. Hear the word of God recorded by Isaiah, “Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near : Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.” Surely then if “My thoughts,” or God’s thoughts, are so much higher than your thoughts, and “My thoughts,” or God’s thoughts, are not your thoughts (and never can be), would it not seem the part of wisdom to forsake our puny, human thinking and let this universal Mind, or Me, take possession and do what it will? “The so- called law of matter is an immoral force of erring mortal mind, alias the minds of mortals.” {Miscellaneous Writings)

Mark well what Jesus had to say about this very thing, the cessation of human thinking: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on,” and “Take therefore no thought for the morrow [the future].” Then to emphasize this instruction he interjects, “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” which is as if he had said, “Canst thou by taking thought do anything?” And the answer is No. In Luke he makes the following statement: “the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not or, the real, harmonious spiritual man appears. To emphasize the point that we should stop cudgeling our brains in the endeavor to do something of ourselves toward the solution of our difficulties, he said: “Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that

Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Plain enough, is it not? Yet not satisfied, he further emphasizes it by saying: “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” Could language be more concise or plain?

Making one’s contact with the universal Me, or God, may be illustrated by dialing a great broadcasting station. Each one is individually a receiving set, and God, the one Mind, is the broadcasting station. There is just one point on the dial where one can make the proper contact with the station desired, as Jesus said: “Enter ye in by the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat. Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

For instance, suppose we wish to dial a certain station on the radio and hear Admiral Byrd at Little America. There is just one place on the dial to do this effectively to get perfect reception. Around the whole circle, however, are other stations from which are broadcast all manner of things that we do not wish to hear, and if we dial to the right or the left we not only lose “Little America,” but bring in those other stations with their jazz, stories, advertising and other undesirable broadcasts. Careful dialing, however, will en­able us to avoid this and bring in the right station.

So must we dial God, the one Mind, or Me, and this is done by living the life of the Christ, as Jeremiah dialed God and heard: “Thou shalt call me, My father; and shalt not turn away from me.” The better we do this, the more accurately and sharply do we tune in and receive the good things of God’s Kingdom. On every side of this point of contact, around the whole vicious circle, are the imitative stations of the human or mortal mind with its deceptive thinking; and if we do not dial God accurately by living an evangelical life according to the laws of God, “true and faithful” as John says, we shall find ourselves receiving the broadcasts of sickness, sin, death, poverty, and other troubles. Therefore we must dial and stay dialed. Paul says, “Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage;” or, keep dialed to Me and do not dial out, becoming entangled again in the meshes of the human mind and its thinking. In dialing Me, and Me only, we are “putting off the hypothesis of matter because” we are “conscious of the allness of God” (Miscellany), or of that one station K.O.G.

Then all will be found harmonious and God will reign—“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and he shall reign forever and ever” (Revelation)—for we have made our contact with the universal Me.

AT PEACE

Rising early, I looked from my window and, lo, a wondrous star like a great jewel hanging in the heavens, gorgeous, brilliant, shining, silvery! It seemed as though I could pluck it from the skies. As I peered out into the waning night and saw this wonderful thing, I said, “Surely God is glorifying Himself,” and as I said this, something spoke within me and said, “What, God glorifying Himself in matter?” I replied, “Why, no, God does not glorify Himself in matter, but it appears so to me today because I see ‘as through a glass, darkly, ’ but some day I shall see spiritually, or ‘face to face, “and if what I see appears to me today to be beautiful, then when I see spiritually will it appear millions of times more beautiful.”

This satisfied me, and I turned away as I prepared for the day’s work. After about another half hour I found myself looking out toward the east again, but my Star of Bethlehem had disappeared, and in its stead was one of the most glorious dawns I have ever wit­nessed. There it was with its blues and greens, its gold and yellows, browns and pinks and reds, the purples and silver; in fact, every color possible to the imagination; and in addition to this, all blended into still more delicate colors, vivid, yet soft and sweet.

In front of this background were the green shrubbery with the red berries for a foreground, and flitting about were the birds up early for their breakfast. Once again I said, “Surely, God is glorifying Himself; He is manifesting Himself; He is showing forth Himself; revealing Himself.” It may be that I perceive this manifestation, or the glory of God, as trees and flowers, birds and berries, as sunrise or sunset, as people or material things, but nevertheless I am beholding God showing Himself, for “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Science and Health); and there is nothing to behold except God, the Author and Creator of all things. I am beholding God just as I am beholding the mind of the author of Robinson Crusoe’s world when I read the book expressing the author’s mind in those ideas making up the world of Crusoe; for when I behold God’s creation of ideas, I am seeing the Mind of the Author, God Himself, ex­pressed through those very ideas.

Then came the angel to me, flitting somewhat indistinguishably at first, as perhaps when one dials into a foreign station and can only pick up a little of the broadcast, but goes right on searching to dial in more sharply, and the angel said, “Surely the Lord is in this place,” and in a moment more, “This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven,” and after a little more there came this message distinctly, “Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of!”

Then I, who had been troubled and worried, was at peace.

ANGELS

Jesus was in great trouble, as recorded in the twelfth chapter of John, and he said, “Now is my soul troubled;” “Father, save me from this hour,” and, “Father, glorify thy name.” Of those “that stood by,” some “said that it thundered,” but “others said, An angel spake to him.” God said, “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Then was Jesus strengthened and at peace.

The article on “Angels” in Miscellaneous Writings sets forth, “It is a spiritual idea that lights your path,” and “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies,” the supply being whatever is necessary. Man is “the child of His care” {Science and Health), and He cares for us by giving to us “spiritual ideas,” and so causing an “intercommunication… from God to… man.” “Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind. The intercommunica­tion is always from God to His idea man.” (ibid) Yet, nearly every Christian Scientist is trying to work it the other way about, by setting up an intercommunication from man to God—an utter impossibility.

The human mind must be stilled, whereupon the Christ-mind, or an angel from God, or a spiritual idea, will “fly” to your assistance. It is not an easy thing to wait for an idea (spiritual) to present itself, but difficult though it may be, that is the only way. One must “wait patiently on God,” who will not fail you. “I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved [argued with].” “For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie; though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.” Another translation of this is, “The vision has its own appointed hour. It is ripening. It will flower. If it be long, then wait, for it is sure, and it will not be late.”

This is the only way to do. There is no other way. “I am the way,” Jesus told us. The message comes from the “I,” Soul, Mind, Spirit, God, and does not come from the receiving set, man. It is as foolish to try to send messages from man to God, as it would be to try to send a broadcast from a receiving set. The intercommunication is always from the sending station to the receiving set, never the other way about. “The intercommunication is always from God to His idea, man,” and “Thought passes from God to man, but neither sensation nor report goes from material body to Mind.” {Science and Health)

Jeremiah had learned to still the human mind, and thus let the Christ-mind, or an angel from God, come to his assistance. On one occasion, an angel from God spake with him and said: “If thou return [if you will return the T unto the Father, God, Soul, Spirit, where it belongs], then will I [this same T] bring thee again [into the land of health, peace, life, love and abundance], and thou shalt stand before Me [shall take your stand before Me, the same T]; and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth [the Word of God will be relayed by you as a simple radio and not as of yourself]: let them return unto thee [let the error whatever it may be return and present itself again and again to you, if it will]; but return not thou unto them [be careful that you do not accept those suggestions of evil by recognizing them, for all that error would have you do is to recognize it under whatever disguise]You fall right into the trap which error lays for you when you battle against it, work against it, pray over it, or “treat” it, for then you are certainly using the human mind, the divine Mind being of “purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab.) “And I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall: and they shall fight against thee, but they shall not prevail against thee; for I am with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord. And I will deliver thee out of the hand of the wicked, and I will redeem thee out of the hand of the terrible.” (Jeremiah)

Moses, that grand character, learned too how to still the human mind of both its good and evil thinking, and to let that Christ-mind, or the angel from God, lead him when he heard the angel speak: “Wherefore criest thou unto me? [with the human mind] speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward [to the use of the divine Mind, or spiritual sense only].”

Zechariah also heard the angel from God speak to him when he, too, was troubled; he heard the angel of the Lord tell him to unclothe the Christ of the “filthy garments” of Joshua, and to clothe Joshua with the Christ, or a “change of raiment.”

Jacob, as we all know, when he had learned to still the human mind, or stop using the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” visioned the ladder with the “angels of God ascending and descending on it,” with messages from our Father to him. These angels from God came to him when he laid down the human I and let the “I,” God, Mind, Soul, take possession. Always the intercommunication was from God to man, never man to God; always from the sending station to the receiving set.

Thus it is that in using, or “eating of,” the tree of life only, do we hear the angel of the Lord speak.        .

MEDITATION

If one ponders for a moment, he will readily admit that Edison was in the kingdom of electricity; that is, he lived in it. One will also admit that if Edison was in that kingdom, so is everyone else, be he an American citizen, or an Australian aborigine, for the kingdom of electricity is no private enterprise, but it is universal and omnipresent on this earth.

Doubtless, however, Mr. Edison received a greater benefit from the electrical kingdom than others, for the simple reason that he continually used the things of that kingdom, and habitually meditated thereon, whereas others failed to do this. If others would seek the kingdom of electricity with the same earnestness and indefatigability as Edison did, they, too, would receive similar results.

Anyone who is at all familiar with the life of Jesus must admit that he was in the Kingdom of God, lived in it and of it. If this be admitted, it must be admitted that we are all in the Kingdom of God, be we Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, Barbar­ian, Scythian, bond or free, for Jesus did not claim that the Kingdom of God was any enterprise of his. He asserted over and over again that it was universal, omnipresent and free to all just in the degree that one sought it. “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you,” he said; and he spoke also of God being not alone his Father, but as your Father and my Father.

Others have not received the benefits accruing from being in this Kingdom to the same extent that Jesus did because they have not sought after and used the things of the Kingdom of God as he did. The beneficial effects will be found to .be ours in the exact proportion that we diligently seek after the Kingdom of God and use the things thereof, no more, no less.

The things of the kingdom of electricity which are so familiar to us all today were not made or created by Mr. Edison. Not at all. They were discovered or invented. The word “invented” means discovered, coming as it does from the Latin root word meaning discovered. These great and marvelous things of the kingdom of electricity always have been here, waiting for someone to discover them, someone who had sufficient persistence and faith to seek them out.

So, too, the things of the Kingdom of God, from the infinitesimal to the infinite, have been here and right at hand, waiting only for someone with sufficient wisdom of the Christ to behold them and show them to a troubled world awaiting its redemption.

Jesus discovered the things of the Kingdom of God. The things of the Kingdom of God have been present down through the ages, and always will be so, but each one of us must discover the Kingdom of God for himself One may listen to tales of the Kingdom of God, believe in them perhaps, but some time, in some way, each must discover the King­dom of God for himself. Others have discovered the kingdom of electricity; others have discovered the Kingdom of God; others will continue to do so, but no one can discover these kingdoms for another. We may be told of them, even use them somewhat, but each must discover the kingdom of whatever it may be for himself.

Columbus discovered America, it is claimed, but the writer discovered it also, as has each one of us. It was old to many, but a new discovery to us when we made it, though probably it did not seem anything new or extraordinary, but just a natural thing. We were here and using the country called America long before we discovered it, and then one day we discovered that it was America. In the same manner must we discover the Kingdom of God.

As a matter of fact, electricity has been here always and used somewhat by people in exceedingly small ways, such as scuffing the foot along a rug and making a spark; yet, it was not until about 650 B.C. that an old Greek, called Thales, who lived in Miletus, discovered that there was a kingdom of electricity. He rubbed a piece of amber on a piece of dry fur, and bright blue sparks were emitted. Others had made sparks too, but they attributed nothing to it, but Thales meditated upon it.

Meditation has a peculiar quality. It carries one out into the unknown, and soon that unknown becomes the known. For instance, Watt saw the teapot lid rise and fall under the influence of the steam. So had thousands of others many, many times, but they never thought anything about it; just took it as a matter of course. Little Jamie Watt, however, meditated upon it. Maybe something like this: The steam caused the lid to rise because of the compression of the confined steam. When the lid opened up under the pressure and the steam escaped, the lid fell into place again. Now, if I could boil water inside something like a cylinder creating steam and confining it therein, then the pressure when it reached a certain point, could be made to shove a piston forward. If then, when the steam escaped, a spring of another expanding pressure of steam could act to send the piston back again, I could have a self-propelling vehicle. Thus meditating, he was carried out into the then unknown field of the steam engine, and before long that unknown became the known and commonplace.

So Thales meditated on the phenomena which he had seen, and out of that medi­tation and his slight use of the things of the kingdom of electricity have grown not only the name “electricity,” for thus he named it from the Greek word “elektron,” meaning amber, but all the marvelous things of the electrical kingdom which have since been discovered. There are yet many, many more wonderful things to be discovered by those who meditate.

Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Abraham, Jacob, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Jesus the Christ, Mary Baker Eddy, and many others, have told us about the Kingdom of God, even as Thales, Lord Kelvin, and others have told us about the kingdom of electricity. However, we are not so much interested in what they say as we are in what our Edison has discovered and said of the kingdom which he discovered; and neither are we so greatly interested in the sayings of others as we are in what Jesus the Christ tells us of his King­dom, in which he lived and moved and had his being. He tells us many, many times, of that Kingdom of his; tells us time and time again to search for it, and not to stop searching until we find it. He knew that it was a Kingdom to be found, or he would not have been so insistent in our searching for it. He also knew that each one had to discover his Kingdom for himself; no one could find it for another, for did he not also say that because of our “importunity” we would be given that same Kingdom that he lived in? Then, as others have discovered other kingdoms, and Mary Baker Eddy the Christ Kingdom, ponder and meditate on the things of God, and you, too, will find before long that what was an un­known kingdom is now a known or recognized kingdom—the Kingdom of God.

THE REAPERS

Christ Jesus once gave the following parable to his followers: “The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field; But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my bam.”

“His disciples came unto him saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man [your true self]; The field is the world [human consciousness, your own consciousness]; the good seed are the children of the kingdom [spiritual ideas]; but the tares are the chil­dren of the wicked one [wrong thoughts, fears, wrong desires, worries, anxieties, morose­ness, forebodings]; The enemy that sowed them is the devil [the universal false beliefs of error, nothing personal at all; you must be careful to keep them quite impersonal, and not to attach them to people, places, or things]; the harvest is the end of the world [the end of that false state of consciousness, the end of believing in good and evil]; and the reapers are the angels [spiritual ideas flying to and fro in your consciousness; the light of the Christ; intelligence; the Truth coming to you]. As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire [cleansing, purging]; so shall it be in the end of this world [the only way the end of this world ever comes, to each one individually, through spiritualization of consciousness]. The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; And shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears [spiritual sense] to hear, let him hear.”

The above is parallel to the statement, which is the Word of God, in Science and Health, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Savior saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.”

This is what one who claims to be a true Christian Scientist should do. He should, in spite of all the testimony against him, continue to behold the perfect man, “where sinning mortal man appears to mortals.” No matter how material a thing may appear to be, the fact is that it is spiritual and perfect, and some day the light of the Christ will shine forth so brightly that under that light there will appear harmony where there seemed to be discord, health instead of sickness, peace instead of pain, and normality instead of abnormality. This same Word of God in Science and Health says, “One only of the following statements can be true: (1) that everything is matter; (2) that everything is Mind. Which one is it?” The answer is indubitably, “… everything is Mind.” This then being so, why should we be continually fooled into believing that there is matter? To believe that there is matter is to be led into all sorts of trouble, whereas to know the truth, we are instantly set free.

It is something like coming into a room where there is a hat and a coat hanging on a hat rack. By reason of an insufficiency of light, the one entering the room believes the form in the comer is a burglar, and from this false belief dire results may occur. In the attempt to flee from the supposed burglar (which is simply the creation of his own false viewpoint, or the devil if we care to so term it), one may trip and be rendered unconscious or even meet with a fatal accident, attributing it all to the presence of a burglar who is not there. If one, however, instead of yielding to what his material senses tell him, will hold fast to the true facts, then as one becomes accustomed to the dim or peculiar light under which he stands, the object will become more and more distinct until the seeming burglar fades out entirely, and in its stead shows forth the true facts, namely, a hat and coat hanging on a coat rack. To this way, of course, there are no attendant evil effects. That one then, standing firmly, has recognized the truth and the truth has set him free.

BELIEVE THE GOSPEL

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye [turn from your evil beliefs of life in matter to the recognition of that kingdom], and believe the gospel .” If this kingdom, as Jesus said, “is at hand,” where is it and how does one find that kingdom?

This kingdom can be found only by using the spiritual senses. This Kingdom of God is plainly visible to these spiritual senses, but never, oh, never, can be discerned by eating of the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” or the use of the material senses. That which appears to us through what are called the material or physical sense, is not a sense world, but is a non-sense world.

There were two men walking through a wood. One, an artist, the other a hodcarrier. Suddenly the artist, stopping, said to the other, “Oh, look at those marvelous colorings! The blues, the greens, the yellows, the browns, the purples, the reds, are they not wonder­ful?” The hodcarrier, looking toward the place indicated, stared for a moment and then said, “I do not know what you are talking about. I see nothing over there but the sun shining through the trees on an old dead stump and some leaves ”

Why did not this man see what the artist saw? The colorings were certainly there plainly enough to be seen, but unlike the artist, the hodcarrier had not cultivated his artistic sense.

Once there was a man who made a lot of money in California. He retired from business and started to travel around the world. His first stop was at Niagara Falls. His wife was with him. She was a spiritually-minded little woman; he was just a good-natured business man. There they stood at the foot of the Falls gazing up at the magnificent spectacle. After a moment the little woman lifted up her hands in sheer ecstasy and exclaimed, “Oh, John! Is not that the most wonderful thing in the world? Does it not remind you of God and ‘His wonderful works to the children of men’? Does it not remind you of His infinitude and power? Does it not, John?”

Her husband looked puzzled for a moment, and then said, “It reminds me that I forgot to turn the tap off in the kitchen before we left California.”

Evidently this man had failed to cultivate those higher senses which enabled his wife to behold something other than the merely material aspect of the Falls.

Jesus beheld the things of the Kingdom of God more than anyone else in the past, so he was able to say to us, “the kingdom of God is at hand;” behold the things of that kingdom: believe the gospel; believe what I say; believe my message from our Father. In that kingdom which “is at hand,” are to be found food, drink, clothing, houses; life, abun­dance, plenty, affluence, health, peace, joy, harmony, the substance of Spirit itself; all that one would expect to find in the realm of a Father who is Love itself. We can all say who have found that kingdom which “is not of this world,” as the little spiritually-minded woman from California said, “Is it not wonderful?”

He who has not yet found those ears that “hear what the Spirit saith,” can only reply, “We do not know what you are talking about,” even as the hodcarrier said. We see only matter with its attendant iniquity, sin, sickness, death, want and woe. Why do we not see that kingdom at hand which Jesus so plainly saw and lived in? It is because we have not cultivated the spiritual senses as he did, and which are ours as surely as they were his. The greatest metaphysician of this day and age, the Revelator of those same higher senses, has said, “… the power of healing was not a supernatural gift to those learners [Jesus’ students], but the result of their cultivated spiritual understanding of the divine Science, which their Master demonstrated by healing the sick and sinning.” (Science and Health)

Jesus constantly cultivated his spiritual senses by refusing to recognize anything but the spiritual senses, and so was able to behold the true being where others saw only matter and its pleasures and pains. Where others believed they saw evil, Jesus recognized only good; where others saw sickness, lack, and death, he refused to see anything but that divine consciousness and refused to live anywhere but in that divine consciousness, thus he recognized only health, abundance, affluence, and Life.

This, then is what we are to do if we wish to obey his commands, “to repent,” and “to believe the gospel.” We are to cultivate the spiritual senses and go about it just as we would cultivate any material sense, such as the musical senses, the artistic senses. How? We must become more and more spiritually minded by utilizing the things of that Kingdom of God which he said “is at hand.” As we continue diligently to use these spiritual senses, through meekness and humility, and the establishment of the laws of God in our hearts, we perceive, as Jesus did, that Kingdom of God which “is at hand” today, now, and we “believe the gospel.” We “believe the gospel” because it has taken on a new meaning, a spiritual sense, through which the entire Word of God is discerned as that which is, and not that which is to come.

The angel of the Lord appeared to John and said: “Seal not the sayings of the prophecy of this book: for the time is at hand.”

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand,” said Christ Jesus.

THE LAW OF LOVE

In the Bible, it is related that on an occasion during Jesus’ sojourn on this earth, “a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? How readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.”

Here we have Jesus’ own statement that obedience to this law, the law of Love, results in eternal life, which necessarily must include the overcoming of sin, disease and death. Paul, too, says that he who obeys the command of loving one another “hath fulfilled the law.”   .

What is this law of Love, this law which if obeyed insures life eternal? In the year 1866, Mary Baker Eddy discovered this law of Love, and named it Christian Science. She did not in any sense make this law of Love, any more than the Pilgrims made America. They discovered it, for it was there all the time. Mary Baker Eddy, the Revelator to this age, discovered the law of Love too, for it was here all the time.

Law that is true law is ever-operative, unbreakable, impersonal, unvarying. The moment one breaks a law, that law ceases to be a real law. Let us take the law of gravitation. It is impersonal, unvarying and ever-operative, and though it has been set aside, nevertheless for the purpose of illustration it will serve. So, too, with the law of light with regard to the sun. If one complies with the law and has an unobstructed view of the sun, he will receive its light and heat. He must. He cannot help it. It is law. So, too, with the law of gravitation. If you obey this law, and stand out under the broad heavens during a shower, the rain will fall on you and you will get wet. You must. You cannot avoid it. It is law.

It matters not whether one complies with the law advertently or inadvertently, consciously or unconsciously, the results are unfailing, because it is law. One might be forced into the sunlight or into the open air wholly against his will, but the result would be just the same as though that one had gone forth of his own accord. In the first instance, he would receive the light and heat from the sun, and in the second, he would get wet. It must be so, for it is law.

It is not within the power of the law of gravitation or the law of light to prevent one from receiving the heat and light or raindrops, provided the person has complied with the law. The business of the law of gravitation is to pull straight, and the business of the sun is to emit light and heat. So, the law being obeyed in either case, that one who is obedient will obtain the results. Jesus recognized this fact, and expressed it in his own manner when he said, “For he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” Why? Because it is according to law.

Now, Mary Baker Eddy, this sweet New England woman, had from her youth striven to know more about God, and as a result of her consecration to good, her purity, her love and her sincerity, she was unwittingly obeying the law of God, or the law of Love. Others, such as Wesley and Luther, have unwittingly obeyed this law by similarly conse­crating their lives to doing good, and as a result have received the benefits invariably following such obedience. So did Mrs. Eddy, the Revelator to this age, and on a memo­rable occasion when she suffered a so-called fatal accident, she, by reason of obeying inadvertently this law of Love, became a recipient of God’s wondrous beneficence and was instantly healed.

Mrs. Eddy, through study and research, had acquired wisdom, and on this occa­sion she knew that she had fulfilled some law. She knew that nothing would occur unless according to law, and so, right here differing from all other beneficiaries of the law of Love, she set herself to find out what this law was which she had obeyed unknowingly. To do this, she secluded herself for several years, withdrew from society, devoted her time to the study of the Bible, and practiced what she understood until she actually discovered this unfailing law of Love, and also found out the exact rules whereby was to be obeyed. Much, then, as a child practices the law of gravitation did she practice the law of Love, until she was at last convinced that the Truth had been revealed to her. After proving it by healing the sick and sinning, and by doing good generally, she gave it to a waiting humanity in the book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

Now, what is this law of Love which she discovered, and how can we obey it? It is the law of loving God and our neighbor as ourselves, which being done, is obedience to or the fulfillment of this law of God, and the results are sure and certain. It is the Golden Rule, or the very foundation of Christianity which Jesus gave to the world. It is the law of Christianity, for to obey the law of loving God and our neighbor, she discovered, is to see or be conscious of God and man aright. Not as a personal God, by which is meant a humanized God, and not as a human material man called a mortal, who is subject to sin, disease and death, but to know God as infinite Mind, good, Love, Principle, Spirit, and man as image, idea or likeness of this infinite impersonal Mind. To do this is to love God and our neighbor, and to practice constantly that Golden Rule, which alone heals.

Paul said, “Owe no man anything, but to love one another,” or to put it in the affirmative, “We owe to every man that we love one another.” We owe it to each and every one that we be not deceived into believing the false evidence of the material senses, which tell us that man is subject to sin, disease and death. Rather should we be aware of what man is, and perceive him as our Father’s image, or become conscious of man as the Son of God.

It is related of John that in his latter days, in Patmos, when addressed, he would invariably say in reply to any question, “Little children, love one another,” which is no less plain than to say in the vernacular of today, “You who are as little children in the apprehen­sion of the law of Love, always recognize only the spiritual sense of man when the counter­feit is presented to you, as it constantly is.”

It is set forth in Science and Health the rules of loving God and one’s neighbor as one’s self. More than this, Mrs. Eddy has worked out the whole scheme of evil’s attempt to foist itself upon us as a reality. Plainly she shows forth the nothingness of evil in every guise and disguise, and does this by holding fast constantly to the allness of God or good. It, therefore, is but a matter of study and practice on our part. We should try out the Principle and rules set forth in Christian Science, and because it is according to law, we will find that when this law of Love is obeyed, it is unfailing in its results.

It is not to be expected that we should obey this law of Love as naturally today as we obey the law of gravitation or light, because we have not been educated up to it, but we can start at this very moment to act in accord with this law of Love so far as we understand it. Jesus obeyed this law of Love as naturally as we obey the law of gravita­tion. He commenced as a child to practice it and when he arrived at the age of about thirty, he was as absolutely sure of the results of obedience to that law of Love as we are today sure of the result of obeying the law of gravitation.

We studied this law of gravitation from the moment we became conscious; as babies when we lost our rattles, we noticed that they fell down; they did not go up. Later, we learned to look for them and other things on the floor, and not on the ceiling. Soon, when we tripped, we learned by experience to put out our hands to protect our little noses, until after a time we automatically obeyed this law of gravitation in our every act.

We must become little children again in regard to this law of Love. By practicing it on every occasion we will soon find uniform results; and when we are tempted to fall into the error of believing man to be what he is not, we will learn to put out our hands, or manifest spiritual power in obedience to the law of Love; thus preventing the impending fall.

It is said that the law of Love is efficient only when wrong viewpoints, or the result of wrong viewpoints, are to be overcome; but what of some real condition, some real case of sickness, poverty, discord which has occurred without the preliminary wrong view­point? Christian Science boldly states, and without fear of successful contradiction, that no evil of any kind whatsoever can occur without the preliminary of wrong viewpoints, and hence is always antidoted by the law of Love.

To obey the law of Love, to love our neighbor as ourselves, is to be set free from the bondage with which Satan has bound us. This is the very law which Jesus said he came to fulfill, not to destroy. The laws which he seemed to set aside or destroy were only material laws, laws which he refused to recognize as real laws, and hence was not bound by them in any way. In fact, he broke every known so-called law of matter, and thereby proved that either he was not stating the truth when he said he had not come to destroy, but to fulfill; or else he meant that the only law to be recognized as law was the spiritual law of God, the law of Love, which neither he nor anyone else could possibly set aside. Yet, Jesus was very careful to obey the laws of the land. He paid the tax according to law, and he was particular in obeying the laws of what might be termed the health board, for when he healed the lepers he said, “Go shew yourselves unto the priests”

True prayer is utilizing constantly this law of Love.

THAT POWER CALLED LIFE

The world little realizes what it owes to the one who taught it to turn from matter to Spirit. In Science and Health, we find in what is known as “the scientific statement of being,” the following: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all ”

Jesus said, long before, “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth,” and, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.”

Even long before this time, Isaiah had said, “Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else,” and “Cease ye from man^ whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?”

Again, in these more recent days, we find, continuing the above quotation in Sci­ence and Health, “ .. man is not material, he is spiritual.”

Yet, in spite of this plain teaching, extending over a period of many years and down to the present time, we continue to believe that man is material and not spiritual. This material man is a good deal like a radio. Both depend on a power outside of them­selves to make them go. One is called electricity, the other is called Life. Both have, as it were, a center of distribution. One is called a battery, the other is called a heart. Both have a system of distribution. One is called wires, the other is called veins and nerves. Both of them have loud-speakers.

There comes a time in the life of a radio when the loud-speaker begins to emit sharp, staccato, and discordant sounds or squeals, and we are prone to say that there is something the matter with the battery. There is no truth in this, for there is nothing at all the matter with the battery. What it does need, however, is to be recharged, to have more of that power which it requires to make it go, called electricity. What do we do in such a case? Do we pour something down the loud-speaker and expect it to be a cure-all? Not at all. We would not think of doing such a thing. We simply plug into the main power house, whereupon the power called electricity flows gently into the distributary or battery, from whence it is sent over its system of distribution to wherever needed, and before very long the loud-speaker resumes its functions.

Similarly, there comes “a time in the affairs of men” and man’s loud-speaker emits sharp squeals and staccato notes, saying, “I am sick,” which we interpret to mean that the human being is in trouble of some sort; we shall say for our purpose, something is the matter with his heart. However, as with the radio, there is nothing the matter with the heart at all. All that is needed is more of that power called Life. What do we do in this instance? Most of us have been educated to call a doctor, and he curiously enough proceeds in a manner exactly opposite to the method used with the radio and prescribes medicine, which is to be poured down into the poor man’s loud-speaker, believing medicine to be some sort of a cure-all. Anyone who has submitted to this form of treatment, and contin­ues it, has invariably died, not perhaps just at that particular time when the doctor was first called, but ultimately.

That which ought to be done is, as we did in the case of the radio, simply plug into the head Power House, the omnipotent and omnipresent God, whereupon the Life which is God will flow gently into the heart, or center of distribution, as it were, and then to wherever in the body it may be required. As Paul tell us, “For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asun­der of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Very soon, under this Christly method the loud-speaker is heard to say, “I am well.”

Several years ago in a small village on Long Island, there were two men carried home dying of heart disease, so the physicians said. The first man believing that his life depended on his heart and heart action called a physician, who believed the same thing. The physician prescribed a lot of medicine which was to be poured down the patient’s loud-speaker, in the hope that it would cause his heart to act normally. The patient, his wife, two trained nurses, and the doctor carried out the latter’s instructions to the letter, but without avail. In a few days the patient had joined the great majority, shortly afterward was buried, and has long since been forgotten except perhaps by a very few.

The other man also believed that his life depended on his heart and heart action, but his wife believed in the power of God to manifest Himself through man, and, at her earnest request, instead of calling a doctor, he called a Christian Science practitioner, who very soon arrived on the scene.

The first thing that the practitioner did was to tell the patient that his life did not depend at all on his heart or the heart’s action, but just the contrary — his heart and his heart’s action depended on his Life, which is God. Then instead of prescribing some kind of matter to be poured down his loud-speaker, he told and taught the patient to plug into the Head Power House, which is God. With the help of the practitioner, and the conse­crated work of the man’s wife, through prayer and meditation and the utilization of the things of the Kingdom of God, this was done.

As a result of this scientific recognition of the power of God, the absoluteness of God, the omnipresence of God, which is Life, that Life began to flow to the so-called patient, and in a few days he was back at the office functioning normally as heretofore, and he has so continued for years.

In Jesus’ words, “My kingdom is not of this world.”

STOP, LOOK, LISTEN

No one is, or ever was, healed by a process. Jesus never healed by virtue of the words which he uttered. When he spoke to Lazarus the words, “Lazarus, come forth,” Lazarus obeyed. It was not because Jesus said so that Lazarus lived; it was because Lazarus lived that Jesus said so.

The words which Jesus uttered are not of any particular moment so far as their healing efficacy is concerned. It was the life which Jesus lived that brought out the healing; in fact, it had all to do with the healing. He might have said anything or nothing at all, and still the applicant for healing would have received what he asked for; but if he or another had believed that the healing was the result of certain spoken words, and had tried to heal himself or another by the repetition of those words, no healing would have taken place.

It is the presence of the Christ which heals. Nothing else. One does not attain the presence of the Christ by a course of reading, or through teaching, even though the teach­ing be predicated on the reading of the Bible, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the lesson sermons, or other Christian Science literature. The truth comes by revelation. “Truth is a revelation” (Science and Health), and “Truth is revealed. It needs only to be practiced.” (ibid). As this truth is revealed to one, he will find it set forth in those most wonderful books.

However much it may appear that we attain the Kingdom of God by the perusal of books, it is not so, and a moment of thought will make it evident. Suppose one were cast away on a desert island where there were no books, no reading matter whatever, it is most certain that that one could attain the Kingdom of God. However, having thus attained, on being supplied with the aforesaid books, if read and studied, he would corroborate that which he had already ascertained to be Truth.

Like the Jews of Berea, who “received the word [of God] with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so” (Acts) Jesus made this perfectly plain, when the translation is correctly made, that one does not attain the kingdom by perusal of sacred writings, and rebuked this theory rather pointedly when he addressed those students of the Scriptures who evidently thus claimed they could find life eternal. He said, “Ye search the scriptures; for in them ye suppose ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life.” By reason of the common belief that one could thus find the kingdom or immortality, the translators of the King James version fell into the same error, and made the translation quite different from what it should be. They made it appear, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life,” making it a command to search the Scriptures; whereas Jesus was pointing out the error, “Ye search the scriptures for in them ye suppose ye will find eternal life.” He goes on to say that in them, of course, one would learn of the Christ, but tells them plainly that the way to find this eternal life is to “come to Me,” the Christ.

One cannot instruct the divine Mind. In Isaiah, we find, “Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him?” This being the fact, why endeavor to teach the divine Mind? And why attempt to teach the human mind, which at best is but a myth, wholly unintelligible, impossible to be taught anything permanently, much less those spiritual things which are of God? Moreover, whatever this mind may imbibe must be thrown into the discard with that same mythical human mind which is but the absence of the divine Mind, that absence being purely supposititious. Note what Mrs. Eddy has to say concerning the uselessness of attempting to teach this human mind any­thing, “How true it is that whatever is learned through material sense must be lost because such so-called knowledge is reversed by the spiritual facts of being in Science” (Science and Health) Certainly the divine Mind has no need of information, inasmuch as it already knows all. “Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already compre­hend?” (ibid) Then why persistently study and endeavor to educate this human mind which is to be educated out of itself? Why cultivate that which must be utterly destroyed?

We must still the human mind, and let that mind be in us “which was also in Christ Jesus ” We must, “Be still, and know that lam God” As we still this human mind by refusing to recognize any but the spiritual senses, then does the Christ or divine Mind arise in us and becomes our Savior, saving us from whatever we need to be saved.

Picture yourself in Vienna, ensconced in your hotel suite. You have your guide­book with you and are studying it intensively preparatory to your visit to Europe. You look up from your perusal of it and, addressing your companion, say, “Oh, the opera is on tonight. Let us go and hear it.” At once you lay down your guidebook, dress and wend your way to the opera house. You do not remain in the hotel and continue the diligent study of the guidebook. Not at all. Should you do this, you would never hear the opera, and would never really know that it had taken place, except through the hearsay evidence of others who had attended the performance. If you would enjoy the opera, it is not sufficient to read of it in your guidebook, but rather must you lay the book aside and listen to the opera yourself

You have been reading your guidebooks, the Bible and Science and Health for years; you have faithfully perused the lesson sermons and other Christian Science litera­ture, and if such work would have enabled you to attain the goal of the Kingdom of God, it would have been accomplished long, long ago; but no matter how diligently and inten­sively you have pursued this course, you cannot find the kingdom that way.

We have searched the scriptures seeking eternal life, as Jesus said, and have found therein the tale of the Christ; we have discovered the records of others who have found their way into the kingdom, and their descriptions of what they found therein. But if we would find eternal life, we must “come to Me,” must have Me, the I AM, God, the universal Mind-substance revealed to us individually. Then, if we will, we may do as those “noble” Jews of Berea did, “searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so,” which we have discovered are so.

We must make our contact with the I AM, or Me, of which the Word says, “This me is Spirit.” {Science and Health) There is but one way to do this and that way is to live an evangelical life, or the life of the Christ. The Kingdom of God must be entered by each one individually, and no one can do this for another. This recalls a reported story of Mary Baker Eddy and one of her friends in Christian Science. It appears that one Monday, on Mrs. Eddy’s way downtown in Boston, she met this friend, and having greeted her, said, “I did not see you in church, my dear, yesterday.” “No,” answered the friend, “you see my husband is a traveling man and he did not get home last Saturday until very late. As he wanted to sleep and rest; I did so, too.” Mrs. Eddy answered, “Quite right, my dear, but recollect this, that we do not go into the Kingdom of God the way the animals went into the ark, two by two.” The fact is, that each must find one’s own way into the kingdom. “He [Jesus] did life’s work aright not only injustice to himself, but in mercy to mortals, — to show them how to do theirs, but not to do it for them nor to relieve them of a single responsibility.” (Science and Health)

These guidebooks are simply the records of those who have already attained this Kingdom of God, and they tell us of that experience in attaining that kingdom, blazing the trail for us. Of course, we do not necessarily require a guidebook at all, for they who first blazed the trail had none, but our gratitude should go forth to those who have provided those guidebooks telling of the blazed trail, thus making the attainment less difficult. Nev­ertheless, we must travel the road ourselves, each one individually, and to do this we must sometime lay down the guidebooks and take up the journey, staff in hand, to make the “promised land.”

If one persists in interminably reading and re-reading almost every moment in the day and night, how can he expect to hear the voice of God which is saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased,” except insofar as the human mind may be inadvertently stilled as one reads and studies with the human mind. This stillness of the human mind enables one to hear the voice heretofore unheard, but which has been uttering itself all the while.

When you left your hotel in Vienna, you may not have known just where the opera house was to be found, so you sought the needed direction from some native who was familiar with the route. In the Kingdom of God, you are satisfied that therein are to be found health, life, love, abundance, plenty, and you know too that “it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom,” and you may have need of those things; but like Job, you cry out, “Oh that I knew where I might find Him!” Then is the time to “stop, look, and listen.” Then is the time to stop the mental gymnastics of the human mind, to be still, and to listen and watch for Him. Inquire of Him, your Ego, the “I” or Me, which is always with you and can never be separated from you. Ask of Him, follow Me, look to Him, to this I AM or Me, and He will direct you to where those things are that you should have.

Certain it is that you cannot hear the voice of God while busying yourself with the education of the human mind, by constant reading and study by that mind. Solomon had this to say of the folly of it, “Of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.” You cannot hear the voice of God while attending to the wants of the human mind, any more than you can hear the opera and enjoy the opera while deeply engrossed in a guidebook.

Like John, we must hear “a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the taber­nacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them.”

THE BOOK OF LIFE – The Perfect Mind

We shall suppose the author of the book of Crusoe progresses in his work, and coming to a certain point, he turns to you for your opinion of the story. He reads it to you as far as he has gone and then outlines what he proposes to continue with, which has nothing whatsoever in it about Friday and the cannibals.

As you listen you are thrilled, in common with nearly everyone who has since read it, and when your opinion is asked, you have no hesitation in saying so, but you venture to point out that the great human interest would be enhanced if another character was added to keep Crusoe company. He has, of course, a dog, a parrot, and a goat; but you believe that if he had a human being for a companion, it would give the story a still greater human interest.

You suggest, therefore, that it would be a good idea to have a black man brought to the island by cannibals who would prepare to serve him for a feast; that Crusoe would rescue him and kill the cannibals; whereupon from this time on this man “Friday,” as he is called, becomes his devoted slave, friend and companion. In addition to this, you also suggest that Friday bring with him a radio broadcasting set.

The author grasps the idea and its possibilities, except that about the radio of which he knows nothing, and proceeds to embody it in the book of Crusoe. In the finished product we find the suggestion adopted in its entirety, except, of course, that of the radio, which, not being in the mind of the author, could not be manifested. It might be said of Friday, the character as he appears in the book, that he had been healed of the radio habit.

Similarly the “I” or Mind, the Author, who writes the Book of Life, has as an amanuensis, let us suppose—in this instance, a practitioner or healer—who presents or suggests that he add another character to His Book of Life—a patient, a sick and sinful or otherwise troubled patient. This Mind, God, is “of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity,” and so cannot entertain or write into His Book of Life, a character embodying those evils, any more than could the mind which wrote the book of Crusoe embody with Friday such a thing as a radio; and just as the character Friday appeared in the book without the radio, so the so-called patient or character is written into the Book of Life, perfect in every way, and ,of course, freed from his supposed evils or troubles of whatever nature they may have been.

This is the way the healing of the Christ goes on. The character introduced into the pure Christ-consciousness partakes of, or reflects, or is characterized according to the measure of its Christliness; just as when one, dry and parched, plunges into the ocean. That one would be just as he was, except that he would be no longer parched and dry, but partaking of the constituents of the ocean, H2O and a little salt, he would become wet.

“Perfect love casteth out fear,” says John, and this is true because it is not the nature or character of that “perfect love” to be afraid; nor is it the nature of the ocean to be

dry or parched, and neither is it the nature of the Christ-consciousness to be sick, sinful or otherwise evil. “Perfect love casteth out fear,” so the perfect Mind in which “we live, and move, and have our being” automatically obliterates evils of every kind no matter what they may be called.

The Author, Mind, God, speaking through His character, the amanuensis, or prac­titioner, or healer (not, mind you, the practitioner speaking himself, but the one Mind, God the Author, speaking the Word of God) may then say, “Grace, mercy, and peace [good health, good appetite, plenty and good success] be unto you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus [Savior] Christ.”

And so it is.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

A plague of darkness so intense that it could be felt! Yet there was light in all the houses of the children of Israel! Because they attributed all power, presence, and intelli­gence to God and trusted in Him. There will always be light for the spiritually minded, those who hear the voice of the Christ saying: “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” Rudyard Kipling in one of those bursts of Soul, shown forth at times by great poets in their writings, says:

At two o ’clock in the morning, if you open your window and listen,

You will hear the feet of the Wind that is going to call the sun.

And the trees in the shadow rustle and the trees in the moonlight glisten,

And though it is deep, dark night, you feel that the night is done.

While the earth brings forth abundantly, more so than at any previous time, be­cause of God’s munificence and bountiful goodness to the children of men, still the world at large finds itself in great trouble and distress. Why? Because it forgets to turn for relief to the only place where permanent relief can be found—to the Giver of all good gifts. Amid all this confusion, the words of our Master ring down through the centuries and into the ears of the people at practically every service and form of Christian worship: “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

To those who may see little farther ahead, the world is journeying through a wil­derness betwixt matter and Mind, and the difficulties and struggles which are being expe­rienced are simply the travail attendant upon the birth into consciousness of the under­standing that it is really God, or Mind, which controls, and not man, or the machinery of man.

It is a fact, as Jesus taught, that the Kingdom of God is an ever-present reality, here and now. The material kingdom is only a false sense of that which is truly spiritual. We peer through the glasses of materiality and behold materially that which exists as Spirit, just as we look through blue glasses and see everything as though it were blue. This false material sense has determined to hold the spiritual in bondage, and must be plagued before it will let go.

The plagues, which visited the children of Israel and their overlords the Egyptians, passed over the Israelites leaving them quite unharmed, while denuding their captors of everything supposed to be of value in this world. This is symbolic of every individual who tries to free himself from the bondage of the material senses. The Egyptians represent those personal senses, while the children of Israel symbolize spiritual sense, the former endeavoring to hold the latter in bondage.

The first plague which visited them, and which this age has already experienced, was the turning of water into blood. In the Scriptures water almost invariably indicates spirituality, and blood generally signifies a material sense of life. The spiritual streams of the pure waters of life are forever flowing into the consciousness of the world. Through channels, such as the Scriptures and literature based on them, through books, magazines, newspapers, radio, screen and stage, there is an endless stream outpouring into human consciousness which should be altogether spiritual and good, but which has been so con­taminated by material sense that in large measure it has been “turned to blood” or ren­dered undrinkable, unfit for quenching the world’s thirst for spirituality.

For ages the Bible has been interpreted more or less from a material standpoint, though there has burst forth at different times some scintillating light which has brightened and continues to brighten the heavens and the earth. The commentaries on that inspired book have dealt largely with the phenomena of physical life and its concomitants. The attendant literature which should spread the good news, or gospel, has been contaminated by the same materialism. Books, radio addresses, motion pictures, seldom contain more than a crass material viewpoint; and a cursory glance through the columns of a large majority of magazines and newspapers shows a dearth of spiritual things.

Nevertheless, God is never without His witness. There has always been someone who has held fast to the spiritual, bearing aloft the banner of Truth and keeping the light of the Christ constantly lighted. So it was when the Egyptians were plagued by the turning of the water into blood, the children of Israel were never without clear, sweet water to drink. In this and other ages, when gross materialism has crept into the streams, always there have been those same spiritually-minded souls, and their explanations and interpretations have kept the streams, at least, measurably cleansed of the contaminating influences. Those who have turned to the teachings of the spiritually enlightened messengers stand undis­mayed with them in the midst of turmoil, darkness, poverty, war and rumors of war, and wait patiently for the universal recognition of the presence of God and the operation of the power of good in our everyday human affairs.

The next plague was the visitation of frogs. Frogs are croakers. One does not have to travel far afield to be aware of the presence of these croakers in the land, for, like the poor, they are always with us. Those who should be teaching the love of a good and beneficent God, and who should be setting forth the facts of eternal life, are holding up to the gaze of the people certain eventual death for all, and this in spite of the Master’s declaration, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death” (John 8:51), until there has settled on the world a plague of frogs (croakers) unparalleled in the experiences of the past. This, too, when the Creator has caused His creation to bring forth in greater abun­dance than ever before in the history of the world.

Nevertheless, he who is spiritually minded stands firm in his recognition of an ever-present loving Father. Even though he hears these dismal forebodings on every side of him, he remains complacent and maintains a consciousness of the true facts of being, that “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity,” and, undisturbed, awaits the outcome with the certainty of coming good.

Then came the plagues of the lice and the flies. These would seem to indicate intense irritation. The whole world has been unquestionably in a state of irritation, as far back as history carries us, even from the time of Cain and Abel until now, when peace seems almost impossible of attainment. The world’s present irritation is so marked that its inhabitants are beset with fear, and the ultimate establishment of “on earth peace, good will toward men” seems as far off as ever.

We now come to the plague of the murrain on the cattle, horses, flocks, and herds, which were the mainstay of the wealth of those days. When this came to pass it may possibly have dawned upon the consciousness of the Egyptians that “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” and “It is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” Though this be the fact, the title never passes from the Father to the recipient, but continues to inhere in the Father. When one is deluded into laying “up for yourselves treasures upon earth,” it is not long before he finds out that he has usurped the prerogative of the Almighty, put man in the place of God, and he has become an idolater. Whether these facts may have dawned upon the consciousness of the Egyptians or not, it is true that everything belongs to God, and when the substance of the Egyptians was wiped out, it was clearly shown that reliance on material things, rather than on the spiritual, was wholly nebulous. Once again matter had been plagued and its resolution to hold Spirit in the clutches of matter was loosened.

We do not have to look far to see that the plague of lost wealth is upon us now, for today values are brought down to such a low level that nothing seems to withstand the onslaught. Riches of every sort and kind, stocks, bonds, property of whatever nature, which we have been educated to regard as wealth, has faded away until little, if anything, is left to those who have believed that they must accumulate substance for themselves if they would continue to live and be happy.

Then came another plague—boils on man and beast. There is perhaps nothing which signifies inflammation so markedly as a boil. Today the world is inflamed to a degree probably unheard of in all history. Touch the world at the particular point of inflammation and it fairly writhes with pain and squirms with rage until one is tempted to wonder if order will ever be brought out of the seeming chaos. No one can successfully dispute that this plague is upon us; yet amid all this inflammation, the spiritually minded look on, quietly aware of its unreality, attending to their daily affairs, quite certain that “God is in heaven,” and all is right with the world—that God still governs. They know that under the light of the Christ a way will appear and, as of old, “by day in a pillar of cloud, by night in a pillar of fire” will guide and show them how and when to go forward. If a Red Sea faces them, they know that it will open and they will pass through it on dry land once again to safety, while the enemy seeking to destroy them will be swallowed up.

The next plague was the further destruction of any remaining material wealth or substance. Hail and lightning came destroying whatever may have escaped from the former plagues, for whatever cattle, horses, flocks, or herds which may have been saved and were still in the fields, together with all growing crops belonging to the Egyptians, were swept away by these destructive forces.

To cap the climax, there followed another plague, the visitation of locusts in such myriads as had never been seen before, devastating the land and laying it bare of every green thing which perchance the hail and lightning had passed by; leaving the whole coun­try, far and near, utterly barren of anything which might have been termed material wealth or substance.

Then came the plague of darkness — darkness that could be felt. “Men’s hearts failing them for fear.” Today history repeats itself and we find this world stumbling about, terrified, conjuring up in the darkness of fear hobgoblins and specters of all kinds, wars and rumors of wars, want and woe, burdens ever growing heavier and heavier; yet so unnecessary, for in the midst of it all, there always has been a way out, that way being the spiritual way. Until man ceases to turn to the material and learns to seek the spiritual, chaos and darkness will continue to reign, and the prodigals will continue to live on “husks” because “no man gave unto” them, and this for the simplest of all reasons, because man has nothing of himself to give, and can offer no solution to the problems which present themselves to the world.

There yet remains one more plague experienced by the Egyptians to come upon the world before it will recognize the Christ rule of the Kingdom of God and its existence here and now, wherein “all the earth is mine,” saith the Lord. This final plague is the destruction of the firstborn, “from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon,” and “even unto the firstborn of the maid­servant that is behind the mill.”

This doesn’t mean that the firstborn child of anyone must die. Not at all. It means that the materialistic beliefs which present themselves first and foremost in consciousness must be destroyed in everyone, and in their place must be established the firstborn of Spirit. It means that instead of having primarily in consciousness beliefs which indicate that we rely on matter, that matter is substance, is living, intelligent, and sentient, that we are material and live in material bodies, are subject to the whims of matter and other material­istic viewpoints, we must behold the things of Spirit, or Mind, and recognize the Truth which makes us free. We must, in fact, be spiritually minded, depend upon Spirit only, and live as of and in the Kingdom of God, Spirit.

This plague is here. Those who have attained this state of spiritual consciousness, to which all must ultimately advance, have already destroyed their firstborn of matter, and find it is a perfectly feasible and natural operation to “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus,” and to recognize the spiritual facts of God, man and the universe, at all times endeavoring to behold something of the realities of the Kingdom of God.

In the last analysis, everyone must advance to the degree where he is able to turn constantly to the Kingdom of God, and find more and more of the riches and innumerable blessings which a great and beneficent Father has bestowed upon all with unstinted hand. The world at large, however, still submerged in its erroneous beliefs in matter with its concomitants as real and substantial, and still worshipping the golden calf, has yet to be visited by this plague whereby the firstborn of matter will be shown to be utterly unreal, a dream soon told, a world of myth, a mirage, or a world of nonsense (non-sense). Then the firstborn of matter will be destroyed, and at the same time will appear the truth of being, or the firstborn of Spirit, and this will be the guide, for “a little child shall lead them.”

The angel of the Lord shall come once more and destroy the firstborn of material­ity. He will pass over those who have already slain their materialistic beliefs, leaving them in perfect safety, even as in the days of Pharaoh the angel of the Lord “passed over the houses” of the Israelites on whose side posts and lintels were to be seen the blood of the lamb. Today the blood of the Lamb, the mark of the Christ, or the light of Mind, will be plainly seen written upon the face of him who has given birth to the firstborn of Spirit, and the result will be perfect safety in all ways and conditions, even though the rest of the world may struggle in the toils of materialism until they, too, are finally loosed.

This spiritual idea is already conceived and is “The last appearing of Truth… a wholly spiritual idea of God and of man, without the fetters of the flesh, or corporeality.” (Miscellaneous Writings) Exactly what its nature may be other than that it is spiritual and is of Mind, “knoweth no man, no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”

SUBSTANCE

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Mai.)

In other words, bring all good, wholesome thoughts or spiritual ideas into your storehouse (or consciousness), that there may be meat (real substance) stored away there. Then when error of any kind, sin, sickness, death, poverty, or trouble of whatever nature, tries to make you believe a lie about man or the universe (which is wholly spiritual and wholly good, wholly healthy, living and harmonious in every way) you may at once draw on these good thoughts (spiritual ideas) or truths which you have stored away for just such purposes, and so instantly reject the evil suggestions irrespective of the disguise in which they present themselves to you.

“And prove me,” or demonstrate the Christ, Truth, and see “if I will not open the [very] windows of heaven [itself], and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it”’ a blessing of life, health, love, peace, joy, plenty, happiness; in fact, a blessing of everything that is good and necessary to man’s happiness and well being.

God, our Father, has promised this, and GOD WILL DO IT.

“Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord”

AMEN

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

According to remarks that Mr. Winslow has written about him­self in his books, he lived as a boy in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. He was edu­cated to some extent in England. He was apparently from a very wealthy family, for he writes, “Many years ago the writer started out to play a part in the world. He has everything necessary to make a success of his part and make it a happy one. He had a father, highly respected, with a pedigree unexcelled, who gave him a first-class education; who put him into what was considered one of the finest positions leading up to an honorable career, if advantage were taken of the opportunities present; who gave him the entree everywhere that was worthwhile having an entree to; in fact, who started him off with advantages far beyond the ordinary. Instead of taking his part, however, the writer traveled along another road of his own choosing, and finally became ill, until some thirty-five years ago he was given up to die, and this verdict was pronounced by some of the best physicians in New York.

“About this time he heard of the wonderful might of the Lord to heal and save, and, though little impressed, sought out one who professed to heal through this power. This man told him to ‘put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof’ (Paul to the Romans), and showed him how to take his part; and, as he did so, he became wholly healed and well.”

Mr. Winslow was listed as a practitioner in The Christian Science Journal from 1906 through 1938. His office for many years was at 16 East 43rd Street, in New York City. He published his first book in 1937, and his name was no longer in the Journal in 193 8. Since he wrote three more books, we might assume that he lost his listing in the-Journal for publishing a book without the approval of the Christian Science Board of Directors in Bos­ton. His last article in his last book, God Is Doing It, is on the Manual, and in reading it, one can see that he most likely was excommunicated from the Church he loved so dearly and served so faithfully. At the same time, he seemed to realize that the advancing student of Christian Science sooner or later outgrows organization and leaves behind membership in the Church in Boston in order to bring to fruition his full potential as a student of Christian Science.

He had three articles published in the Christian Science Sentinel:

 

“Is Matter Slowly Dying?” (1904) Volume 7, Number 16, page 244

“The Wisdom of Modest Statement” (1905) Volume 8, Number 18, page 277

“The Christian Science Practitioner” (1906) Volume 11, Number 35, page 685

 

The End