Kim thomWs on Old Poctrmcs tihmvy of t:he trheological ^tmimry PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY PRESENTED BY The L;state of Mrs. Rosa Davison EXLIBRIS try<^ - dike, /^^y- ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ 2 ORDER FROM « t CHURCH OF THE X 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2014 https://archive.org/details/newthoughtsonoldOOmurr_0 New Thoughts on Old Doctrines /<> ' ( DEC 15 1964 BY ss'i\^ W. JOHN MURRAY AUTHOR OF ASTOR UECTUUES, SIENTAI, MEDICINE, KECESSITV OF LAW, REALM OF REALITT, ETC. THE DIVINE SCIENCE PUBLISHING : : : COMPANY, Inc. : 113 WEST 87th STREET, NEW YORK, N. Y. "To whom then will ye liken God? or what likeness will ye compare unto him? "Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself, but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. "Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you. "For though there be many that are called gods, whether in heaven or earth ... to us there is but one true God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him. "The only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee. "Exalt ye the Lord our God, for he is holy. "God is Love, and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. "A Lord of truth and without iniquity. "He is thy Life and the length of thy days. "It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect. "In whose hand is the soul of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind. "Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory and the majesty . . . Thou reignest over all." Copyright, IS18, 'hv Vv . Jolin Murray CONTENTS PAGE The Changeless Reality 3 Self-Discovery 33 Love 58 Prayer In Divine Science 65 The Atonement 97 Life 129 God, The Banker 161 THE CHANGELESS REALITY "Every good gift, and everj' perfect gift is from above, and Cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." — JAaiES 1:17. When Jesus said, "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have known thee," he set forth in ven^ few words the great ignorance of the race concerning the most essential thing in the universe, which is "To know God aright," for this is Life eternal. Divine Science has come to emphasise the fact that in order to know God aright we must study, and meditate upon the essential Characteristics of deity. It is very evident that we have not kno^\Ti God aright, because we have not only not entered into Life eter- nal, but we have not enjoyed the peace and poise and power and prosperity to which w e are told the "sons and daughters of God" are so richlv entitled. [3] THE CHANGELESS REALITY "O heavenly Father, the world hath not known thee, but I have Imown thee!" Could it be that all who had gone before Jesus, and all who were living contemporaneously with Jesus, were so densely ignorant of the tme character of God? Is it not true that long before Jesus came, God was a household word all over the world? Tme, there were those called pagans who believed in many gods. Let us exam- ine some of the beliefs about God. At best all the race has had are its peculiar concepts of Deity. No man hath known God at any time and continued to live as a mortal, and knowledge of God in the fullest sense of the word seems to be quite impossible. But this does not deter us from the incumbent necessity of investigating for ourselves what God must be in liis essential characteristics. When Abraham came out upon the great scene of spiritual action, he came out from a people who believed in many gods. His father, the Talmud tells us, was a manufac- turer of gods. We say, "Imagine it! A maker of gods!" And we think that we [4] THE CHANGELESS REALITY are so far removed from that phase of igno- rance that we are not makers of idols, but if we examine the question scientifically, we find that we are just what the pagans were, — ^makers, manufacturers of gods. In other words, your concept of God is not mine, and my concept of God is not the orthodox Christian's concept of God, and the orthodox Christian's concept of God is not the Hebrew's concept of God at all. And so in reality we are makers of gods. Perhaps not of tin, of wood and of stone and golden gods, but gods nevertheless. He was a wise man and a great wit who said that "Ever since God had created man in his own image and after his own likeness, man had been striving to return the compliment." In the infancy of the race, in the attempt to return the comphment, men made God after their own image and likeness. They were brutal, carnal, material, and so they had a brutal and a carnal and a material God. If they wished to sweep a personal enemy out of the way, and had sufficient physical force, power, and strength to do it, [5] THE CHANGELESS REALITY they did so, and so they measured the power of God by their puny, finite power, and said, "If we can remove one enemy out of the way, God can sweep an entire nation out of ex- istence," hence the ciy, "O Lord God of Israel, destroy thine enemies from before thy face." Men had the idea that His ene- mies were their enemies, — or rather that their enemies were His. So they cried out to this personal God that He might destroy His enemies from before His face, when as a matter of fact they were men's enemies only, and enemies only in belief. Thus men have begotten in the infancy of the race a personal God, the Hebrew Je- hovah, a mighty potentate, a selfish, avari- cious, cruel, malicious, wrathful and jealous God, and also a personal devil. In our in- fancy we had two persons, a personal God and a personal devil, and then we gi*ew up into our youth where we began to change our views concerning God. We rose above the idea of personality connected with God, and substituted for a personal God and a personal devil, two gi'eat principles, — the [6] THE CHANGELESS REALITY principle of good and the principle of evil. We felt that we had made some strides in our education. We rather smiled at the man who thought of God in terms of personality, and rather ridiculed those theologies which emphasised a personal devil with horns, hoofs and tail; we felt that we had grown tremendously. We could listen no longer to the doctrine of a personal God and a per- sonal devil. Next we come to the approaching man- hood of the race, where Divine Science brings to our consciousness the great mathematical fact that principle in order to be principle at all, can only be one. There cannot be two principles forever warring with each other. Thus in Divine Science to speak of God as Principle, a cold, abstract, mathematical term to apply to this warm and pulsating Presence which we had been taught to speak of as God in the past. Here we incurred the hostility and the antagonism of those who saw this divine Principle as a mere speck upon the great ocean of humanity, as a something that had come to torment but not [7] THE CHANGELESS REALITY to educate them, and out of this came a great many discussions and dissertations. I remember a very noted clergyman who, when he found that certain members of his flock, having exhausted the systems of ma- teria medica, and having exhausted the power of their own prayers and their pastors also, began to turn to Divine Science for healing and for health. When the pastor dis- covered this departure from his pews of the most thoughtful people in his church, then discovered that it was only a question of time when the church would not be able to support itself, and he felt that he must pro- tect his church against this emigration of his best people, he set himself the task of presenting to his congregation the subject of divine Principle in all the hideousness and ugliness of a distorted imagination. I remember very distinctly one of this man's most telling points. He said, "These Divine Principle people have destroyed God. They have reduced God to a princi- ple. 'They have taken away the Lord and we know not where they have laid him.' [8] THE CHANGELESS KEALITY They are a godless people. They have re- duced prayer to bold, brazen affirmations. They consider themselves equal Avith God. Not only are they unscientific, but they are not Christian, and I warn you against iden- tifying yourselves with them." This was some years ago. Happily the pulpit is becoming more tolerant with the idea that Divine Scientists "have reduced God to a principle." But Divine Science has not reduced God to anything, and it cannot reduce God be- cause it proposes to do the very opposite to that. The purpose of Divine Science is to magnify the Lord, and if we do anything with the Lord, it is that we exalt him. We exalt God to the Principle of all principles, to the whole. This is not a reduction, but an exaltation of God. But we must know what we mean when we use the word principle, and if our clerical friend had taken the time and the pains to do what so veiy few intelligent men ever do, — because they assume that they know the meaning of all words that they use, — if [9] THE CHANGELESS REALITY he had taken the time and the trouble to look up in the dictionary the term principle, he would have seen that it is one of the very- finest synonyms that one can use for God. What does principle mean? I have with me the definition of the word "princi- ple" as it occurs in the Standard Dictionary so that you will know that I am not giving you my own definition : Principle, "a source or cause from which a thing proceeds, a power that acts continu- ously or uniformly; a permanent or funda- mental cause that naturally or necessarily produces certain results on all occasions." This is the definition of principle as it oc- curs in your Standard Dictionary. "A source from which things proceed, a cause, a changeless reality." Can you give a more comprehensive title to God than this? The Only Source, the Only Cause, the Only fun- damental Reality! The one great all-con- trolling omnipresent Principle of Being. If we were Hebrews, we would say, "The God of the Universe." If we were orthodox Christians, we would say, "The Father of [10 ]' THE CHANGELESS REALITY all mankind." But because we are striving to be philosophical Christians, and Christian philosophers, we say the Principle of Being. At first, of course, it is cold and abstract because it was not a term that was used in our older order of religious teaching, but when it is scientifically explained, I am sure that you will agi-ee that no better phrase can be used for the God of the universe, or Fa- ther of all mankind, than the Principle of Being. We have said that there are not two prin- ciples in the universe, a principle of good and a principle of evil. If Principle exists at all, it must be One, and this Principle can- not be dual in its operations. That is, it can not be good on one side of its being and evil on the other. Only a few days ago I read a prayer by one of tlie most intelligent men we have in this country^ a devotee of universal peace. He was talking to God as he might talk to an ordinary man. He said, "Oh, Lord God, we ask thee in all thy clemency and tenderness and affection to intercede with these conflict- [11] THE CHANGELESS REALITY ing nations to bring peace instead of war; to change the hearts of men so that love will take the place of hate and anger and mal- ice." He went on with this marvellous prayer, — a very good prayer under the old thought, but not at all consistent with our text from James the Apostle. James says that God is not a variable God, and that with him there "is no variableness neither shadow of turn- ing." God is "the same yesterday, to-day and forever." We are asking God to do for the nations what the nations alone can do for them- selves. Is it rash to say that God cannot prevent man from committing a sin if he is bent upon committing it? It is a necessity of the old theological dog- ma, that man is a free moral agent, that God, in bestowing upon man the distinguishing characteristics of mind, bestowed upon him, free moral agency. He gave to him will and domination and then left it to man to exer- cise these according to his own judgment, discretion and wisdom, or lack of it. [12] THE CHANGELESS EEALITY And so man in the exercise of these God- given faculties, wherever he is cooperating with divine Principle, is living in love and health and harmonj^, and not in pain, sick- ness, disease and death ; and wherever he has worked in opposition to the rules growing out of divine Principle, he has sown the seeds of unhappiness, misery, ill health and death itself. Therefore the responsibility rests largely, — ^may I say altogether and exclusively with man? There was a time when we felt that we could sin up to the very last minute, and then by our tearful petitions and aided by the accumulated prayers of our friends, we might ask God to remit the penalty due to our sins. Death-bed repentance we called it. Some of us had very little faith in it. The only destruction of sin there can be is not so much the remission of the penalty due to it according to Law, as it is in the ref- ormation of the sinner himself. There is a law back of sin. You cannot sin without suffering, and we cannot sin up to the last [13] THE CHANGELESS REALITY moment, and then ask God to push us un- ceremoniously into the arms of Abraham. It is not consistent with law. It is not con- sistent with love, not even the love of God itself. When we speak of God as Principle, while at first it grates harshly upon the ear, we see presently that it is far more loving than our old concept of God. Sometimes we are asked, "How can I pray to a Princi- ple?" I think that this is one of the com- monest questions that is asked of the student of Divine Science. How can I pray to a Principle? It seems almost impossible to pray to a Principle. In music, in mathematics, you don't pray to the principle of these, do you? How do you acquire musical knowledge, how do you acquire mathematical proficiency ? Is it not by conforming to the principle, by understanding its rules and working ac- cording to them, that you solve your prob- lems in music and in mathematics? It is identically the same in metaphysics, — iden- tically the same in true religion. For it is [14] THE CHANGELESS REALITY only as Ave understand the Principle of Be- ing, acquaint ourselves intelligently with its rules, that we can do what Paul the Apostle said we must do — "work out our o\Yn salva- tion," not with fear and trembling, but with love and courage. It is only as we become intelligently ac- quainted with God as the Principle of the universe, that we can acquaint ourselves with these rules that naturally grow out of the Principle, and then begin to solve our own problems. Because I take it, that this is the work of every man in the world. He is not to have God solve his problems for him, but is to solve his own problems according to the Principle. Is the principle of mathematics less loving because it places its whole self, its undivided self, as a servant of the child who is study- ing arithmetic, or at the service of the ac- countant who is working out some great mathematical problem, or of the engineer who is doing some very delicate work ac- cording to its rules? Is the principle of mathematics less loving, less generous and [15] THE CHANGELESS REALITY of less usefulness because it permits the stu- dent of it to solve his problems on any plane of mathematical experience with infallible exactitude? Certainly not. Is the Principle of Being, which men call God, less loving because it enables man everywhere and anywhere to work out his own salvation according to its rules? Is it less loving because it is not a personal God and more or less capricious? Let us consider the difference between the old thought God as person, and the New Thought God as Principle. The old thought of God as person, leads us into this peculiar belief, that if it were the will of God and we pray with sufficient intensity and earnestness, certain discomforts, dis- eases, depressions and discouragements might be taken away out of our lives. We talked to God as if he were a person situated somewhere in a far-off realm, surveying the world as the monarch of all he had created, and then we asked him to remove some ter- rible calamity from our lives, and, if we were very good, sometimes, — almost invariably, [16] THE CHANGELESS REALITY we ended our prayer with, "if it be thy will, Oh, God." It were presumptuous to ask him to do it if it were not his will, so we finished our prayer with that petition, "if it be thy will. Oh, God." And I submit it to you to analyse your own experiences, and to ask yourself how many times when you have prayed that prayer with all the earnestness of your soul, with all the intensity of your desire to be freed from something inimical to your inter- ests or health, — I ask you how many times you believed that your prayers to a personal God were really answered? How often have you consoled yourself with the belief that perhaps it were not best for you to have good health, perhaps it were not best for you to be freed from the clank- ing chains of poverty, perhaps it were not best for you to live at all, — and so you have tried to reconcile your condition with this concept of God. Over here another man without any prayer at all is perfectly well, perfectly [17] THE CHANGELESS REALITY healthy, perfectly strong and prosperous, while here you pray and petition, and beg and whine almost, to God and j^^et you go on in the same old way ! I ask if you have had very many answers to prayers along these lines. Then is it so wrong, so unchristian to sub- stitute divine Principle for a personal God, if by understanding this divine Principle, we can solve our own problems? Does this mean that we should cease praying alto- gether? Oh no, no, not at all. It merely means that we change the character of our prayer. The prayers of Jesus were not the prayers of John the Baptist. The prayers of Jesus were so wholly unlike anything that had ever gone up before his time, that we wonder what mysterious power there was in them, because they always bore results. Did he stand at the tomb of Lazarus and pray si- lently, and call for Lazarus to come forth? Lazarus came forth. But before he came forth Jesus said to those who stood by, "The Father hath heard me," and he addressed his [18] THE CHANGELESS REALITY heavenly Father and said, "I thank thee, Father, that thou hast heard me, for I know that thou hearest me always." Why was Jesus so sure, why was he so confident that God heard him always ? Why is the expert mathematician so sure, so con- fident of the principle of mathematics, that it will support him whenever he cooperates with its rules ? Because he has tried it. He has tested it. He knows it is unerring. He never thinks of accusing the principle of mathematics for any error that he may make personally. It never occurs to him to trace the errors on his ledger to the principle of mathematics. To him it is the most uner- ring thing in the world. And so it was with Jesus; it never occurred to him to trace the death of Lazarus to God. Other men might have thought that it was the will of God, and that for some wise and inscrutable pur- pose of his own God had taken this wonder- ful youth from these two marvellous women, his sisters. Men might think that, but not so with Jesus. The one fixed idea in the mind of Jesus [19] THE CHANGELESS REALITY was simply this. It is not the will of my Father that any one should die, but rather that he should be converted. Ever and al- ways before the mind of Jesus was a great fixed fact, and that fact was based upon the immutable Principle, the Principle of Life itself. Jesus understood the definition of principle. He understood it to mean "cause, source, origin, that from which things pro- ceed," and he also understood it to mean that it was without "variableness" or "shadow of turning." In other words, that it was the same "yesterday, to-day, and for- ever," and because it was the Life Principle, it had no death thought in it. Because it was the Life Principle it only recognised things like Itself. If men departed from Principle and followed the bent of their imaginations and reaped the consequences for so doing, that could never be traced to God. So Jesus interpreted the will of God ac- cording to divine Principle, and not accord- ing to the Jehovistic idea of God. It never occurred to Jesus that God could cause vic- tory to perch upon the banner of one army [20] THE CHANGELESS REALITY over against the contending army. And yet within your recollection and within mine, we have seen armies separated only by a very narrow river, in the dusk of evening when firing had ceased, whose chaplains knelt in prayer asking God that he might vouch- safe victory to their respective armies. Could God answer both ? Impossible ! That is always the trouble with going to a per- sonal God. Indeed, when we think of a personal God, we think of a capricious, vacillating Deity, who for some reason of his own, is going to confer a blessing upon one and a curse upon another. During the Civil War this happened with us, but it happens anywhere where men have this idea of God. One man prays for rain, another for sunshine. Surely a personal God can not answer affirmatively both of these prayers, because they are so diamet- rically opposed the one to the other. Do we not see that we have had a very feeble, — dare I say foolish concept of God? Have we not as the wit said, been striving [21] THE CHANGELESS REALITY from the beginning of all time to return the compliment, and to make God in our own image and likeness? And what are we as we understand our- selves? Vacillating, changeable, now lov- ing, now hating, never the same from one day to another. Now protesting our undy- ing devotion, and to-morrow as jealous as can be, changing with every moment of time. What difference does it make if we have many gods, or one God of many moods? None at all. In order to have one God scientifically, we must have divine Principle which knows no change, which sendeth no evil into the ex- perience of man, which does not send sick- ness, nor poverty, pain nor perplexity; which is always the same, sending forth the qualities of its own nature. . That is why Jesus used the sun as the simile or symbol of God. It causes its rays to fall upon the just and the unjust alike. It glints into the hospital cot, into the prison cell, into the palace, into the hovel, — any- where where men will permit it, there it radi- [22] THE CHANGELESS REALITY ates for us. So it is with the great universal Principle, which is God, — there is no place where it is not. All we have to do is to lift the shade. The Esquimaux can work ac- cording to it, the Frenchman, the Italian, the Swede, — all can work with it as with the principle of mathematics. And one of the great beauties about it is that we cannot exhaust it. Every one can be using this Principle, solving his own par- ticular problems with it, without exhausting it. Is it then reducing God to a principle? Is it a reduction of God at all? Is it not rather an exaltation of God that makes Him immeasurable, omnipotent, omnipresent? These are questions we must submit to our sane thought. Divine Scientists are intelli- gent. If they were not intelligent, they could not be Divine Scientists. There is some difference between them and other fol- lowers. In other churches we may accept, but in this we cannot unless we investigate thoughtfully and prayerfully the very se- crets of being itself. It requires intelligence [23] THE CHANGELESS REALITY to do that. Non-intelligent men may be healed by it, but to be a Divine Scientist it requires intelligence to understand it, and we can never understand it until we realise that God is Principle, and that in calling God Principle, we have not reduced God in the slightest degree. On the contrary we have done just what the Psalmist said, — ^we have "magnified the Lord." What does the word "magnify" mean? I used to think in my old religious belief, that to magnify the Lord meant to praise God. The word "magnify" does not mean praise at all. Again we are forced to look it up in our dictionary, because as I said before, we use so many words without realising what they actually mean. We take it for granted that we know because they are in such common use, and as we use them every day, we con- clude naturally that we understand them. If a man should say to you, "Do you know what 'magnify the Lord' means?" you would say, "Certainly, of course. Praise the Lord." "Magnify" means, to make big. [24] THE CHANGELESS REALITY In Divine Science we understand this re- quirement of the Psahnist, "magnify the Lord," to mean that you should make God, this Divine Principle, so big that there is no room in the universe for anything but God, and so evil is non-existent; no matter how real it seems to be. We treat evil just as we treat errors in mathematics. Not as realities but as departures from principle, as the mistakes that men make in trying to solve the problems of life. We never think of attributing them to God. It never occurs to us. Outside of Divine Science, every evil and catastrophe we can explain in no other way, we say, "It is God's will," don't we? Of course we do. Divine Science is the great enlightener. It has come to rub the sand from our ej'-es and to pull back the curtain and reveal this great Principle, and in the light of these truths we are to save ourselves. Because, after all, that is what we are called upon to do. It sounds like a harsh statement to say that God will never save us. It is a sweeter statement to say that God has [25] THE CHANGELESS REALITY always saved us. For in the mind of God man does not need saving, for there we are as perfect as on the day he brought us into being. All this seeming imperfection has grown around us, and is nothing more nor less than the incrustation of error that we have indulged in, that we have believed in as Truth, and now comes the law of God to us and looses us and sets us free. Sometimes I think the ordinary man, — and I am an ordinary man, — is very much like a hyena in a cage, the door of which he thinks is locked, and he is walking up and down behind it with ceaseless regularity, de- siring to get out, but believing he is locked in. That is just where we are, we desire to get out of our sins, inclinations and sorrows, and believing we are locked in, we have to remain where we are. Then science comes and says, "You are not locked in at all. The way of egress is open to you. Put your hand upon the gate and pull it towards you, and walk out into the freedom of God." Realise your oneness with the infinite Wis- dom. Affirm it. Do not ask God to do [26] THE CHANGELESS REALITY something for you that you can do for your- self. Do not petition God to save you when He has ah'eadj^ placed within you the poten- tialities of your own salvation. God won't do it for us. God has done all he can for us. He has given to us power and light and in- telligence to do the thing ourselves. Can we ask more of God than this? He has given to us the very life of His life, the light of His light, the wisdom of His wis- dom, the intelligence of His intelligence. What more can we ask? Unless it be a mythical heaven, — which we do not want. What we want is to know that God is here, that the kingdom of heaven is within us. That is what Divine Science has come to reveal to us ; and if it has given to us the Principle of Being instead of the God of the Hebrews, or the Father of all humankind, — if it has given to us the Principle of Being that is within us and only awaiting our own expansion and utilisation, then I ask you if it has not given to us all, all ! It has not robbed us of a single thing ex- cept the things we do not need and do not [27] THE CHANGELESS REALITY require, — fear, discontent, ignorance. Our ignorances we are perfectly willing to be shorn of. Our ignorances are only like Samson's locks, the signs of foolish, physical strength. They do not mean anything. What have they ever done for us except to plunge us into misery, unhappiness and dis- ease and death itself? Then, again, let us think of the nearness of this Principle. It is in us now. When Ave thought of God as a personal God, was it not always a distant personage? Was it ever as near as hands and feet, as a poet has expressed it? Whenever you thought of God was it not of a far-away heaven? When you raised your hands before you in prayer, was it not a symbol that you were afar off, and that you felt God was far away? You do not have to look off into the distance to find the Principle of Life. It is within. We turn the gaze inward and find the Prin- ciple of Life there at work, and if it is not there at work, then we are dead indeed. If the Principle of Life is not at the very cen- tre and heart and core of your being, where [28] THE CHANGELESS REALITY is it? Is it some hidden, concealed, mystic energy that is working within you ? That is what we beheve in Divine Science. It is not a something that is working or operating upon us, or outside of us, but something that is welling up within us like a well-spring of life. That is what Jesus meant when he told the Samaritan woman what he was and said, "If thou hadst asked me for the water of life, I would have given it to thee, and if thou hadst drunk of the water, thou wouldst never have thirsted again." We know that "the water of life" that we draw with a bucket has to be continually re- plenished, but this "water of life" that Jesus spoke of is the understanding of God, it is constant communion with the invisible Force within us. The Principle of Being, — I like the phrase — philosophical, mathematical, ab- stract, cold, pulseless, inanimate to the un- thinking — a veritable flood of Life to those who grasp its real meaning — a great work- ing Principle, a something that we cannot [29] THE CHANGELESS REALITY be separated from a single moment and live. It is very God of very God. Then have we, I ask you in closing, have we reduced God? Simply because we speak of God as Principle, does this reduce God? Does it not rather magnify God? Does it not rather exalt him above the plane of all personality, and make him the great uni- versal Reality, which is neither he, nor she, but It? You cannot speak of God as he or she unless you speak of It as He and She both, the masculine and feminine Principle of the universe. Combining the courage, the strength, the power, the mastery and domi- nation of the masculine with the love, the tenderness, the sympathy and the compas- sion of the feminine in One, the one universal Principle, sexless, neither he nor she, but It, is perceived as the one Father-Mother God. The Principle of Being is nearer to us than that personal God we believed in yes- terday; the Principle of Being is that in- visible Force that is working within us for richness of life, for health, for strength, for [30] THE CHANGELESS REALITY peace, for power. We can no more be sep- arated from it than a smile can be separated from a face and left out in space, or a sun- beam can be separated from the sun and left standing as a solitary entity! It can no more be done. Man is ever one with the Principle of Be- ing, God is ever with us as we sit at home or walk abroad, yea verily, "In him we live and move and have our being." Now we can understand why it is nearer than our hands or our feet, — because it is the very thing by which we live. It is the very thing by which we move. It is the very thing by which we breathe. Separation from God is impossible. Take with you, I beg of you, this thought, and if it seems cold to you, and if it seems abstract and harsh to you, think over it so- berly, carefully, and then compare it with your personal God. And remember that Divine Science does not repudiate, does not belittle Deity. If it repudiates a capricious, a wrathful, and a jealous God, it does not repudiate [31] THE CHANGELESS REALITY God, it merely repudiates these attributes, these qualities, as not having anything to do with Deity ; and it gives back to us the Prin- ciple of Life and Love and the Principle of Success. [32] SELF-DISCOVERY "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: there- fore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall know him as he is. "We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not ; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not. "And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true, and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God, and eternal life. "Him that overcometh will make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. " SELF-DISCOVERY "After that day ye shall know that I am in the Father, and ye in me and I in you." — St. John 14.: 30. In the world of scientific discovery, there is nothing that is quite so important as the discovery of self. We are very much con- cerned about discovering new continents, new planets and North and South Poles; rarely ever do we bestow a thought upon the greatest of all these discoveries, which is the discovery of that which constitutes the reality of man. We seem to have innumerable selves. In fact, modern psychology speaks of multiple personalities. Every man seems to be a duality of selves at least. In some instances, as in the instance of Sarah Beauchamp, we have what we call a trinity of personalities, but there is in all of us a veritable gallery of personalities. Sometimes I am reminded of [35] SELF-DISCOVERY this when I look in shop windows and see a photograph of the same individual taken evi- dently at the same time in various positions. One looks at us directly, another casts a side- long glance at us and another has its back quite turned to us. This is one of the tricks of modern photography. We see seated at a table the same individual, but it looks like a veritable host of individuals. And so it is with this strange thing that we call the hu- man self, a 'peculiar mixture of moods, emo- tions, temperaments, sensations. We speak of ourselves as being ill one day and well an- other. We speak of ourselves as being ca- pable of doing almost anything one day, and the next day we are quite incapable of doing anything at all. Surely these con- cepts of self — which is all they are, by the way— cannot bear any real relation to the self that is. When all of these selves are paraded before our mental vision, when we sit on the reviewing stand of divine Intel- ligence and see these varied selves of ours that pass in review before us, we are inclined to smile because they are so peculiarly un- [36] SELF-DISCOA'ERY like what we want ourselves to be. The self of yesterday is not the self of to-day; the self of to-day is not the self of to-morrow; the self of our childhood, of our adolescence, youth and earl}^ manliood is a something upon which we look back very frequently with regret and wish that we might recall a great many of the things that the self of those days thought and did. The self of to-morrow, with its suggestions of old age and weakness, is not the self that we like to think about. And yet, all of these to- gether seem to form the composite photo- graph of the real you. What is it that sits in judgment upon all of these varied and various selves? Is it not you, you, your own very self? Are you not the reviewing judge, because back of all these varied phenomena of the self, there you sit calmly enthroned thinking about the days of your infancy, youth, middle life, if you happen to be getting along in years, or perhaps thinking of the time in your middle life when you will be that which you desire to be, or perhaps dreaming of what you de- [37] SELF-DISCOVERY sire to be in old age; all of these selves are paraded before you for your own examina- tion and review and criticism, if you please. Surely the self as knower must be some- thing different from the self as known, the self as knower must be something different from that which the self seems to be, because the self which seems to be is little more than merely physical, a body, if you please, with a mysterious Soul supposedlj^ inside of it, but back of all tliis strange parade of your own multiple personalities, there you are, the quiet, thoughtful, and I may say, dignified spectator of the whole phantasma- goria. It is you who are passing judgment upon the whole situation. And what is this you, for the necessity of self -discovery leads up to this giant inquiry — What am I? Where am I? Whence came I? Whither go I? — these are the questions which always perplex the inquir- ing soul. They never trouble the stupid person. They never trouble the confirmed inebriate. Nor do they ever trouble the chronic idiot. They are the questions which [38] SELF-DISCOYERY are always agitating the soul of him who would know, because he is the knower. He must know what he is ; not what he has been, not what he is going to become, but what he is, because this the science of ontology in- sists upon. In this it differs from the sci- ence of evolution. In this it differs from the science of immortality or theology. The science of ontology demands that a man know not what he has been in a past incar- nation, not what he is going to become in a future incarnation, but what he really is to- day, this moment, now; he must know him- self. The oracle of old is just as new as it ever was — know thyself. What is the most popular concept of self? Is it not that of one who apparently comes out of nothing into visibility and disappears again out of something into invisibility? Is it not that of a mortal who dances across the stage of human experience, entering by one wing and making its exit by another, ap- plauded perhaps or hissed, as the case may be, according to its successes or its failures, approved or condemned according to its [39] SELF-DISCOVEEY successes or its failures — and this by the self as knower? It is very evident that if we are to suc- ceed in life, that if we are to rise above the limitations of sense and time and trouble, we must come to a larger and a more com- plete understanding of what we are, because no man can know his capacities, his capa- bilities, until he knows what he himself is. And, when he knows what he himself is, then begins the slow, gradual ascent above what we call personal limitations, because when the individual comes into a conscious- ness of the reality of himself, then does he discover his potential powers, then does he realise his unity with that great Self of the universe which is God. The unity of man with God is not a new truth. It may be a new thought to some of us to-day, but a new truth — not at all. It was emphasised in the Upanishad long before the birth of Jesus. It was reem- phasised, reiterated and demonstrated, which is better, by Jesus. The recognition of man's unity with God is the basis of all [40] SELF-DISCOTEKY success. It is the very foundation-stone of al] that is great and noble and worth while in this world. The stream of consciousness upon which floats all the good, bad and in- different experiences of the individual is not the self, the body is not the self; nay, the mind is not the self. The body, which has repeatedly changed itself, according to physiolog}', which is not the self that it was last year, which is assuredlj^ not the self that it was in youth or childhood or before birth; the body, which, according to physi- olog\% has put off every cell of itself during the past eleven months, surely this is not the self. The evanescent, the ever-moving, the ever-appearing and disappearing, surely this is not the self. And yet, how many people think of it as the self, look upon it as the self, regard their state of life and health and strength by what they call bodily condi- tions, judging themselves by the bodily ap- pearances, doing exactly what Jesus said man should not do. The mind is not the self. Why? Be- cause the mind is mutable, the mind is torn [41] SELF-DISCOVERY between its varied and various emotions, now filled with fear and terror and again with courage, and hope, and strength; now pure, again impure; now thinking aesthetic, spiritual thoughts, to-morrow vulgar and unspiritual ones ; at the mercy of every wind that blows, whether it be a doctrinal wind or a wind of adversity or pleasure. Surely this is not the self! Self-discovery consists in getting back of the body, getting back of the mind which forms the body, to the divine Reality, to that immutable Center which is always one with the great, changeless Self of the world. When Jesus said, "I and my Father are one," the vulgar people of his day did not understand him, because it requires ears to hear; that is, it requires spiritual perception to take in such a wonderful spiritual truth. In like manner, the vulgar of to-day do not understand it. The "I" of you is indeed one with the Father, because it is that which has never known sin, has never known sickness, which is the direct consequence of sin ; it has never known anything but that which is [42] SELF-DISCOVERY true; it is incapable of beholding anything but the brightness of its own glory. It is like the sun; it sees only that upon which its vision rests. It never beholds the shad- ows of fear or failure, sin or sickness. It is always serene with the serenity of the great, universal Self. It is not to be touched, as the ancients said, by fire or flood. It is that center of man's being which is ever the same, like God, yesterday and to-day and forever. Until we find ourselves as a spir- itual entity, subject neither to birth, growth, maturity nor decay, we shall never know the self, we shall ever speculate about the self and that w^ill appear to be the self which is not; we shall be self-conscious, self-con- demnatory, self-approving, and all of the time that which we condemn and approve will not be the self at all, but the shadow cast by our wrong thinking ; the Self in real- ity remains ever the same. The self is never found by looking out- side. The self is ever found by entering into the great within. It is not enough that we quiet bodily emotions, it is not enough that [43] SELF-DISCOVERY we subdue bodily twitchings, it is not enough that we quiet turbulent thought, though these are the necessary steps leading to the great valley of silence. The silence is not the control of the body nor the control of thoughts by mental forces or powers quite so much as it is the deep, tranquil, self-con- scious communion with God. Out of this and through this and by this the mind be- comes tranquil and serene and the body re- sponds to it in terms of health and joy, glad- ness and power. Self -discovery is the most essential thing in the universe. Of what avail is it that we discover new planets, that we find the North Pole, of what avail is it that we discover oil, precious pearls in the sea and rubies in the mines? Of what avail is it that we convince ourselves that Mars is inhabited, if we have no spiritual sense of self? "For what shall it profit a man," said Jesus, "if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Soul means spiritual self. What doth it profit a man, indeed, if he acquire all the things of earth and all the joys of the ortho- [ 44 ] SELF-DISCOVERY dox heaven, if he doesn't know himself and his capacities and capabilities? Of what avail is it? What pleasure would an idiot find in heaven ? What pleasure would a sick man find in the orthodox heaven? All of the joy and all the gladness and all the peace and power in the universe consists in finding one's self. And, when the self is found, what do we find? We find God, because the discovery of self is really the discovery of God. The reality of one is the reality of the other, and herein lies the explanation of these wonderful, mystic words of Jesus, at that day, at that day when your eyes are opened to the facts of Divine Science, at that day when Truth dawns upon your awakened consciousness, ye shall know, know beyond peradventure, know beyond the shadow of a doubt, "that I am in the Father and the Father in me," I in you, ye in me and we in all. Here is the mystic statement of the inseverability of Realities. Here is the mystic utterance of one who knew that cause and effect and consequence are inseparable [45] SELF-DISCOVERY as is the sun and the light and the warmth thereof. Man cannot exist without God, and may I say without being accused of blasphemy, that God cannot exist without man? Ef- fect cannot exist without cause and neither can cause exist without effect. The Father cannot exist without the Son; neither can the Son exist without the Father. Here is the inseparability of God and man and the faculties and functions of the individual. When this truth concerning the self becomes more apparent to human consciousness, we shall see how impossible, how utterly and absolutely impossible it is for anything to injure the self. In moments of temptation, it will be the gi-and safeguard against diffi- culties, against pains, against perplexities; in moments of temptation, when the tempta- tion always comes to believe that self can in some wise be injured by some one else, by something else, by some event or prospec- tive calamity, when the temptation comes to believe that the self can become ill, poor and die — then arises this wonderful conscious- [46] SELF-DISCOVERY ness that says to the individual, the self is superior to all, the self is greater than all the selves that are paraded before us, because, after all, these are nothing more nor less than more or less imperfect concepts of what the self really is. We can conceive of ourselves as hu- man beings, mortal, mutable, and, accord- ing to our conception, we are, because verily, as a man thinketh in his heart so must he be in his external manifestations. We can con- ceive of ourselves as going through all the ramifications of human experience. We are born, we go to school, we graduate, we go into the great university of hard knocks, we suffer all kinds of tribulations and temp- tations, and then we marvel about what is going to become of us after death. All of these are speculations, foolish speculations, based upon foolish concepts of what the self really is. The old oracle, "Know thyself," was not amiss, after all, because to know the self does not lessen man's vigorous pur- suits of knowledge along other legitimate lines. It would not interfere with Peary [47] SELF-DISCOVERY going after the North Pole. It would not interfere with the legitimate pursuit of wealth. It would not interfere with the le- gitimate pursuit of pleasure. On the con- trary, it would add zest to inquiry. It would add to discovery strength and not fatigue. Men would pursue all their legitimate in- vestigations through the knowledge of what the self really is with greater power. We should increase not only in heavenly Truth but in worldly wisdom that is not illegiti- mate. As the soul expands in the di- rection of its own realit}^ the intellect also expands as a natural consequence. But how many men have developed the intellect at the expense of the soul! By the soul, I mean the self, the self that is at-one with God. If we could always keep before us, and may I say we can — I use the word if because it has been a habit with most of us to feel that we can't always retain a spiritual consciousness of ourselves, that we must occasionally go down into the depths, — we 7nust from time to time be im- pressed by one or many of these varied [48] SELF-DISCOA^RY selves of ours that parade before our vision like ghosts of the night. This is not so, how- ever, because there is a science, which, like all other sciences, requires concentration, which will enable the individual to rest sub- limely, serenely, comfortably in the thought of the reality of self as a spiritual entity. Some say this is altogether too idealistic, that this philosophy is quite apt to take an individual out of the world of common af- fairs, that this is quite apt to make a man an impractical visionaiy. My dear friends, it doesn't make an automobile less useful be- cause you see that the tank is filled with gasoline and that the machinery is in good running order. It doesn't make machinery in a factory less useful because j^ou take ex- cellent care of it and govern it from below in the engine-house. It ought not to make an individual less useful in the world because he is able persistently to contemplate his reality, his divinity. On the contrary, is it not the storehouse of refreshment? Is not the great Self understood a reservoir of strength and power and majesty and sub- [49] SELF-DISCOVERY limity? Is it not to this that you turn in a moment of fatigue for refreslmient, in a mo- ment of sickness for health, in a moment of temptation for a power of resistance? Is it not to this always that you turn? In some mysterious way, we seem to feel, long before we come into the larger study of things, that all of this that is transpiring on the surface is not us. The we of us, the m of the you of you and the / of myself seems to reason about all of these experiences, and we sometimes ignorantly or instinctively arrive at the conclusion that these are no more a true part of our being than is the wart upon the hand, — an excrescence, a sediment that is gather- ing in the water of life, a something that is interrupting and interfering with our nat- ural progi'ess. But, heretofore, in our ig- norance we have come to the belief that this was just as natural as the other part of it, that sickness is just as natural as health. You can't be well always, says one ; and the great majority say, "But you must die some- time or other." How persistently we have [5.0] 1 SELF-DISCOVERY argued for the necessity of death! And yet Jesus said, "If a man believe on me, he shall never taste death." Was he speaking of the physical? Ah! there is the thing, you see. IMy dear friends, when you come into the larger idea of the self, the physical dis- appears; the spiritual is all. When this fuller thought of man's individuality, of man's true ego dawns upon your conscious- ness, the physical disappears just as does your old garment, — you no longer think of the physical ; you live in the spiritual. All! says one, if you live always in the spiritual, the body is quite apt to suffer from neglect. For centuries men have bestowed the greatest care upon the body, and yet it has died, not from neglect but from over- care. We have pandered to it. We have patted it and comforted it. The flesh prof- iteth nothing. The flesh doesn't give life to the Spirit. The very reverse,— "the spirit that quickeneth" is the deep, under- lying conviction of the individual that the all of him from center to circum- ference is purely spiritual. That is what [51] SELF-DISCOVERY makes him immune, which renders him su- perior to the elements. He says of himself, "I am spiritual through and through; I am not physical and subject to physical laws. The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and disease and death." He takes refuge in the great truth that his self, his real self is di- vine, not mortal; spiritual not material. The discovery of the self, then, you see, is not the least important discovery in the world. Yea, though we discover all the planets in the planetary system, though we discover all the pearls in the sea and all the rubies in the mine and all the oil in the land and all of the new continents, and strange, mysterious hemispheres, and we do not find ourselves, of what avail is it? No wonder that Jesus, that simple man who reduced all these great complexities of life to simple utterances, said, "what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world," of what advan- tage is it; naked we came into it, naked we shall go out of it. Why lay so much stress on this little song and dance on the vaude- [52] SELF-DISCOVERY ville stage of human experiences, coming in at one wing and going out at the other? Why emphasise it? It isn't all there is of being. It isn't all there is of self. It isn't anything of being. It isn't anything of self. It is the great illusion, and yet it is so real to the majority, and because it is so real we suffer, we sicken, we die. Because it is so real, we minister to what we call the body, its passions, its pains — they are all catered to, loved and feared. And all of the time the self, as Emerson puts it, "lies there stretched in smiling repose," watching the great procession of things and not paying any attention particularly. The self of you is mighty and the self of you is in God; the self of God is in you. The self of God and you are in your neighbor, and the self of your neighbor is in you and in God. There is only one, Supreme Self in the universe. It can neither sin, suffer nor be sick. It is never born, never grows, never matures, never dies. It is always the same, and it is' this which sits in judgment upon that which comes into birth, grows, matures and dies. [53] SELF-DISCOVERY It is that which sits the silent, observant wit- ness of a lot of foolishness. What are you? According to one sys- tem, you are mud, made of the dust of the ground, a soul breathed into your nostril. According to another system, you are mind. Well, you may take j^our choice. No man, when the question is put squarely up to him, wants to be mud. No man, when he thinks seriously about himself, wants to think that he is confined to a mortal body subject to mortal laws. When you present the picture of the divine self, which is the only self, to an individual and his eyes are opened so that he can see what you are showing to him, then he says, "This is the idea of self I want. I want the self that is forever indissolubly connected with God. I want the self that never varies. I want the self that realises all the beauty and harmony and health and peace and joy in the universe. I want the self that can never be severed from the In- finite." We all do, and Divine Science has come to aid us in the discovery of this most important thing in the imiverse. [54] SELF-DISCOVERY When you are tempted to think of j^our- self as being sick, hereafter you are going to ask yourself what yourself is, and then you are going to ask if that self is divine, the im- age and likeness of God, the reflection of the One altogether lovely. You are going to ask yourself if that self which is the only self of you can be sick. When you are tempted to sin, you are going to ask yourself if that self, the real self, the immortal self of you, is subject to sin, and according to your answers, so will it be done unto you, because the answers will be in accord with Truth. The answer will be that you are not subject to sin, sickness nor disease. The an- swer will be forever and always that as the image and likeness of God, you are perpet- ually the same, yesterday, to-day and for- ever. Neither youth nor old age can affect you. Nothing can by any means hurt you, and that is what Jesus meant. But, the you to Jesus meant an entirely different thing from what the you meant to most of his hearers. The you to most of them meant that which is constantly shedding it- [55] SELF-DISCOVERY self, which is constantly giving itself off, as the rattler puts off its skin periodically, which is constantly sloughing away, which is not the same one day physically or emo- tionally — that was the idea of the you to most of the people. But that was not the thought in the mind of Jesus when he said, "Nothing shall by any means hurt you." He meant you in your entirety, — spirit, soul and spiritual body. The you is a most important thing. Don't let us forget it. Let us spend our days, aye, our nights in finding this self of ours, this changeless self which ever remains the same, which looks out upon the selves as so many parodies of itself. Maintain the attitude toward all of these personal selves of yours that you would maintain to just so many proofs of the photograph of yours that the photogra- pher sends home to you to-day or to-morrow or whenever you have your photograph taken. This you accept; that you reject. Why? Because you say, "That is not my- self at all. It isn't a bit like me." That is your divine privilege; it is your human [56] SELF-DISCOYERY privilege. If none of them look like you, then you return them all and don't give an order. If none of these concepts of your- self in your own mental art gallery measure up to your idea of self, put them out. If the proof that is returned to you from the photographer is that of a sickly person, put it out and declare, "I myself am well," be- cause now you know what the self is. This interpretation of the self is neither mystical nor mysterious. Neither is it far-fetched. It is based upon exact science. It is based upon the discovery of what the self really is, and when it finds lodgement in human con- sciousness, then the individual becomes a power, a minister of God in His righteous- ness, a self -healer and a healer of other men. No longer is he mystified nor misled by the things which appear to be, because always within, in the center of his soul, there is the consciousness of himself as the divine idea. This is salvation ; this is health, healing, har- mony. [57] LOVE The shortest definition of Love is given by John the Disciple, "God is love; and He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God." Jesus said, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." John 15: 13. How do we professing Christians apply this saving Love? We are not often called upon to lay down our lives for our friends, owing to the refining influence of the teachings of him who did this very thing. How often do we lay down the simplest things in life for our friends? It was the Samaritan with Love in his heart who was neighbor to the man. The priest and the Levite had love and law on their lips. They laid it down as a duty to be performed by others, but they themselves "passed by on the other side." The Samaritan "laid down his money for the care and keep of this bruised and beaten stranger. Love is not a something to be [58] LOVE confined to the narrow limitations of one's own immediate family and friends. Love is universal in its adaptations and it is only when we try to limit it to ourselves that we suffer. Inverted love is a mental stiletto by which we ignorantly and uninten- tionally commit mental and physical suicide. Love is like the sun in one respect, for it is only when it shines out from itself to others that it can be said to be performing its true function. If the sun could shine in upon itself as men become self-centered through self love, it would presently become self-ex- tinguished. The true nature of man is the true nature of the sun, both exist for the purpose of ex- pressing the highest and the best, but the sun never does what man is constantly do- ing, it never violates its true nature. We often hear it said that, "There is little love in the world," and "What the world needs is more love." Really there is an abundance of love in the world, and the only misfortune is that it is not properlj^ directed. We love things instead of thoughts, and [59] LOVE power instead of people. We are not lack- ing in love quite so much as we are lacking in wisdom to exercise it properly. We pray for more love when we are not giving the fullest expression to the love we have. We suffer from suppression. We stifle our best and noblest, and permit our worst and most ignoble impulses to occupy the field of consciousness, and then we won- der why we develop physical diseases. We do not see the association of anger and apo- plexy. We do not seem to realise that hate kills the hater, and that we die of the poison which our animosities have generated in the system, and not realising these facts we can- not understand that love is the only and in- fallible remedy. We do not need more love any more than we need more electricity ; all we need is to utilise love more treely. When electricity began to be used exten- sively, learned professors wrote long articles on the possibility of its exhaustion. We were told that the commercialisation of this marvellous force was devitalising the atmos- phere, and that it was only a question of [60] LOVE time when plant life and animal life would feel the awful consequences. Since that time it has been used and is now being used to assist plant life and to hatch chickens, and some go so far as to say that its use through mechanical devices will destroy wrinkles, restore genuine youth and produce longevity. Electricians tell us that this marvellous force is inexhaustible, that every demand that is made upon it only creates a vacuum which this ever-present force has- tens to fill. A wise man says: "The love we give is the love we keep." If we should say the cash we give is the cash we keep, we should have some difficulty digesting the statement, and yet there are those who can testify to the truth of this statement also. Jesus said: "Give, and it shall be given you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, shall men give into your bosoms: for what- soever ye mete it shall be meted unto you again." This giving, however, must be done in the proper spirit if we would receive as much again, for back of this is a law as fixed [Gl] as the law of the Medes and Persians, which rewards not according to gifts but according to godliness; not according to acts but ac- cording to motives. Love in human consciousness serves to enrich the soul of the benefactor while ministering to the needs of the body of the beneficiary. The highest love is that wherein it is seen that there is no beneficiary but the benefactor. This Truth is seen in those words of Jesus, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." "Love doth not behave itself unseemly." It is kind and courteous, gentle, and easy to be entreated. It fears not, for "Perfect Love casteth out fear." Where Love is, fear cannot be, and Love is the omnipresent God, therefore fear is a figment of the imagination and the nat- ural result of a belief in the presence of something apart from God. True love is equivalent to true knowledge, or a knowl- edge of Truth. It recognises no hate nor anger, no lust nor avarice. It sees only the brightness of its own character. It is too pure to behold iniquity, too chaste to indulge [62] in unchastity. Love destroys tumors as ef- fectually as it dries tears. It rolls away the stone from the sepulchre of discourage- ment and disease, and the individual who has been entombed through and by spiritual ig- norance walks forth into "The glorious lib- erty of the Sons of God." Have you, as student of Divine INIetaphysics, been called forth, as was Lazarus of old, from the damp and darkened chamber of hopelessness and helplessness? If so, then arise to your re- sponsibilities. Let the grave-clothes fall from your hands, and eyes, and feet and lis- ten to the final injunction of Truth, "Loose him, and let him go." You must be about your Father's business, but you cannot do this if you are bound by the grave-clothes of your past fears and limitations. The grave- clothes of reason must be cast aside, "laid down" in the presence of that revelation which bids you, "Go ye into all the world (of spiritual ignorance about you) and preach the Gospel (of the AU-ness of God) to every creature." These signs shall follow you if you believe in this Allness. "In my [63] LOVE name (in the name of omnipotent Love) shall they cast out devils (all seeming evil) ; they shall speak with new tongues (the tongues of the learned in Divine Meta- physics ) . They shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." So, then, after the greatest expression and expressor of Love this world has ever seen had given these powers unto men he was received up into heaven (the most perfect state of mental harmony) and sat on the right hand of God. That is to say, he entered into such a glori- ous realisation of what Love is as to make him invisible to those whose knowledge of Love is limited and carnal. As we grow in the spirit of Love, manifesting it in the healing of the sick and the comforting of the sorrowing, we shall grow "unto the meas- ure of the stature of the fullness of Christ." We shall see Love as Love is, and we shall be like It in thought and deed, here and now, "And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he (Love) is pure." [64] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE "What things soever ye desire when ye pray, believe ye have received them, and ye shall have them. "Before they call, I will answer. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giv- eth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. "But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. "For let not that man think tha+ he shall receive any- thing from the Lord. "If ye shall ask anything in my name, I will do it. "For your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before you ask him. "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. "And if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. "Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. "The effectual, fervent prayer of the righteous man avail- eth much. "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I know that thou hearest me always." PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE "Therefore I say unto you that what things soever ye de- sire, when ye pray, belie%e that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." — Maek 11:24. James, the Apostle, in his wonderful epistle says: "Is any man sick among you, let him call in the elders of the church, and the prayer of faith shall save the sick." You will notice that James says "shall save the sick." He does not say may, as we would to-day, but he makes a positive statement, ■ — "the prayer of faith shall save the sick." History records that for something like three hundred years immediately after the beginning of the Christian era, prayer was accredited a therapeutic value that it never had before, and with which it has never been credited since. Through ignorance of the facts many people feel that all spiritual healing by the power of prayer w^as limited to Jesus and his immediate disciples. So [67] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE they constantly declare that the age of mira- cles is past, meaning by this that healing by purely spiritual means, if it ever was successfully practised, has become a lost art. Or, if they believe the Theologians, de- clare that God never intended that spiritual healing should go on tliroughout the ages; that it was one of the outward or visible manifestations of unseen power intended by Jesus to usher in and emphasise the new order of things, the new dispensation. This being accomplished, healing by prayer was no longer necessary. Eminent divines in all churches, and we think Christians in every denomination, through strange and faulty reasoning have arrived at this con- clusion: — that spiritual healing was merely an impressive method used to make people understand the new dispensation, and that after this had been accomplished, there would be no longer any need for its con- tinuance. In fact, it seems to me that we sometimes imagine Christianity to have been ushered in by the use of magic; that in order to [68] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE gather an audience, Jesus had to indulge in a few spectacular performances. That is the idea that many of us have of the healing ministry of Jesus. It never seems to us that back of every healing recorded by the Nazarene, there is a law. We seem to feel that in some strange and supernatural way this unusual Son of God was gifted with a power that no other man in human history has ever had, to such an extent, at least. Divine Science has come to take the very marked hirnian instinct to praj^ out of the external and the occasional and to plant it in the soil of beautiful expectancy. We speak of the instinct of prayer and of man as a prajnng animal. We seem to differen- tiate ourselves from the beasts by this par- ticular instinct, the instinct of prayer. We say we have it and the animals have it not. We share one instinct in common with all animal and vegetable life, and that is the instinct of self-preservation; and we feel that self-presen-ation, so far as the human being is concerned, is daily dependent [69] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE upon prayer and the prayerful attitude of man. And yet when we look out over the world and hear of the innumerable prayers going up for health, strength, harmony and sub- stance, we are prone to think prayer is too infrequently answered. How often have we seen an entire nation setting apart a day for itself to pray for the life of a beloved ruler or president, threatened with death, that he might be spared and restored to health and strength; and yet he passed on like any other man, notwithstanding the fact that the accumulated prayers of the nation were piled up for his recovery. We in this country see this too often. Then over against this it does seem as though the bad man's bullet is more powerful than the good man's prayers. It does seem as if the as- sassin has more power to rid the earth of a good man than the accumulated prayers of all the Christians have to keep him here. These questions should give us pause, we think. Was there ever at any time in the history [70] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE of the human mind, a firm belief in the po- tency of prayer? Was there ever at any time on the part of men a sure confidence that their prayers would indeed be heard? Why should our prayers be so infrequently answered, and why should the prayers of Jesus and his immediate disciples have been so frequently answered? The question is, Did Jesus pray differently? Were the prayers of Jesus based upon a different premise from our own prayers? You remember when Jolm the Baptist's disciples came to Jesus. After John had been cast into prison, they came to Jesus and followed him and watched his so-called miracles. One day they said to him, "Mas- ter, teach us to pray as John taught his dis- ciples to pray." And then he offered up that brief and wondrous prayer that has ever since been called "The Lord's Prayer." A prayer which we unfortunately very poorly understand because part of it has been very poorly translated. Toward the end of the prayer, it reads as if Jesus had asked his Heavenly Father not to lead him [71] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE into temptation. You remember that it reads "Lead us not into temptation, but de- liver us from evil." These are the words as they appear in the ordinary version. They are not so in the original text: they are, "Leave us not in temptation, but de- liver us from the one evil." There does not seem to be very much difference, but on re- flection we see that we are not asking God "not to lead us into temptation." We are simply asking that "we be not left in temp- tation." The temptation is not from God; the temptation is from other sources, other causes, and comes mainly from within our- selves. "Leave us not in temptation, but deliver us from the one evil." That "one evil" became translated into a personal devil, and later into an impersonal evil. What is this one evil ? The one evil is man's belief in evil. The evil of believing in a power opposed to the omnipotence of God, the evil of believing in a personal devil, or an impersonal evil. In short, it is the one evil of believing anything that is not truth. It is the belief in a supposed power press- [72] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE ing ever against the actual power and pres- ence of Almighty God, and hence we can say with Jesus, "Leave us not in tempta- tion, but deliver us from the one evil," — de- liver us from the temptation to believe that there is anything but God. This belief is the seed and the root upon which the tree that bears such wretched fruit flourishes. We see a difference between the prayers of Jesus and those of John the Baptist. John the Baptist petitions, supplicates. Jesus affirms. And it is in this way that we wish to speak of prayer, — ^that is, positive affirmation. When Jesus stood at the tomb of Laz- arus, and the bereaved sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary, were weeping and be- moaning the fact that Jesus had not come earlier, feehng confident that had he come earlier their brother would have lived, — ^they said, "If thou hadst been here, my brother had not died." And he turned unto them and said, "Said I not unto thee, he that be- lieveth in me, though he be dead, yet shall he live?" And Martha said, "Yea, I know [73] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE that he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day." It seems to be a peculiar tendency of the human mind to postpone everything to the resurrection day, the last day, the judgment day. And Jesus turned to Martha and said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." And then he said, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me, and I know that thou hearest me always; but because of the peo- ple which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me." I say, "Lazarus, come forth." And history re- cords that Lazarus came forth bound hand and foot, and with the grave clothes about his eyes. Jesus adopted a method the very reverse of that which we adopt. He thanked God in advance for his blessings. We would have waited to see Lazarus out of the tomb and the bandages removed from his ankles and his eyes, in order to be convinced that truth had manifested itself. Jesus says, "Whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray, [74] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them." For this text I never found any satisfactory explanation in Old Thought. When I pray, I am to believe that I receive what I desire. Why pray then? Why pray if I believe that I have already received what I desire? In the Old Testament we read, "Before they call I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." These are mystical statements. Jesus spoke in parables, and here are the parables of Jesus with no convenient Jesus to interpret them. But Divine Science is penetrating beneath the surface of these marvellous words of the Master and discov- ering in some degree at least their hidden content. In Old Thought we pray for blessings to a far-away God, which bless- ings are to be imported to us from a place outside of ourselves, a far-away heaven. We beseech God to be merciful, tender and compassionate, when it is not the nature of God to be otherwise. We want God to shower blessings on us, to give us health and strength and wealth, always believing that [75] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE these are to come from outside of ourselves, never believing that we have already re- ceived them as the soil receives the seed of the oak that is to be; never really under- standing that it is within our power to work out our own salvation. And when I say work out, I mean that our salvation is within; otherwise we could not work it out. Most of us have tried to work it in, as we work in an oil by embrocation. What we have to do is to work it out, to feel con- scious that within us is the power to over- come sin, sickness, poverty, disease and even death itself. And so it is that we have gone on and on for centuries praying to an ab- sentee God to work out our salvation for us. In Divine Science we no longer petition, we no longer supplicate, but this does not mean that we no longer pray. A young minister once said of us that we are "a pray- erless people;" because we no longer repeat litanies and rosaries, or make genuflections or go through the rites and ceremonies the older churches teach. We are not a prayer- less people, though we are a people who no [76] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE longer indulge in formulae. If he knew us better he would not saj^ that we are a pray- erless people, but rather that we pray with- out ceasing, that we are constant in prayer, that we are constantly affirming the omnipo- tence, omniscience and omnipresence of God, for it is the affirmation of man's unity with his maker. And I take it that this was the prayer of Jesus — ^the deep and persist- ent affirmation of man's unity with God. Quite unlike the minister of to-day or the rabbi of his day, Jesus rarely knelt in prayer. We are somewhat amazed when we read the little narrative of the calling forth of Lazarus, to discover that there is no reference made to any petition whatso- ever. It is not said of Jesus that he knelt at the tomb of Lazarus and cried out in piteous appeal to God that he might be re- stored to his sisters, to whom he was so nec- essary. It is not said of Jesus that he asked those around him to unite with him in prayer for the restoration of life to Laz- arus. We do not find him crying unto God to be merciful and comxpassionate and ten- [77] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE der and to restore this youth to life and vigour. Telling Mary, "I am the resurrec- tion and the life, he that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live again," Jesus prays, "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me,"- — remember that Lazarus was still in the tomb, — "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I know that thou hearest me always, but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they might believe." Then he said, "Lazams, come forth." And Lazarus came forth. Soul answereth to soul, spirit answer- eth to spirit, and audible prayer was as far removed from the idea of prayer in the mind of Jesus, as the North is from the West or from the South. We find little reference made to audible prayer on the part of Jesus. His prayers were those silent contemplations of truth, those moments and hours of silent realisation of the presence of the inworking of the Holy Spirit. The prayers of Jesus were too big for words. Thc}'^ could never be put into formulae. I think that he would never have given out [78] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE what we call "The Lord's Prayer," were it not for the fact that his disciples asked for a formula, as we to-day ask for a formula. People come to us everj' day and ask us to give them some thought, some verbal statement. Why? Because it seems to be the only way by which they can hold on to an internal truth; to have an external af- firmation for it, an audible repetition of the words seems to be the one thing by which they can anchor to the thing they most desire to bring out. So Jesus gave them this simple prayer, "Our Father which art in heaven," and we must remember that Jesus had told his disciples where heaven is. He had told them that the kingdom of heaven is within. Now you know that the natural tendency of the twentieth century denomi- national christian when making that prayer is to think of something far away, "Our Fa- ther which art in heaven:" rarely if ever does he associate in his own mind with this remarkable statement the idea of omnipres- ence. "Our Father which art in heaven" — [79] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE Our Father which art away off, "hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come," and he asks that this kingdom come as if it were some strange importation from another planet. "Thy kingdom come" — thy king- dom which is ever resident in the secret sanctuary, hidden in every longing soul, to be manifested in the external, in our daily life. Thy will be done in the objective kingdom even as it is in the subjective kingdom. "Give us this day our daily bread" — give us strength and wisdom and understanding for the day. This has no reference whatso- ever to food. "And forgive us our sins as we forgive those that sin against us." So underneath all we are to be forgiven as we forgive others. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive." We are to be forgiven as wholly and just in proportion as we forgive other men. That is the law. We forgive ourselves in reality in the degree that we be- come forgiving. "And lead us not into temptation," — leave us not in temptation, but deliver us [80] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE from the one evil, — from the belief that there is anything opposed to the law of God. This is not a very profound interpretation of the Lord's prayer, but it is better to my mind than the other. The other was a prayer of postponement. The other was a prayer that led me to feel in some strange, inconceivable way, God was really leading me into temptation in order that my spir- itual muscles might be strengthened. Over against this we have those remarkable words of James the Apostle. "Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God; for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed." "Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." "God tempteth no man." Then why ask God not to lead us into temptation? What would you think of your own child if he begged you every day. Please don't lead me into temptation, Father or Mother? You, who are desirous onlv for his spiritual, [81] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE mental, moral and physical welfare? What would you think if your own child made continually, morning, noon and night, re- quests that you would not lead him into temptation? You would wonder if he were not a little bit touched! You have no de- sire to do anything but to lead him into joy and happiness and strength and vigour and manliness. Is it not amazing that for all these centuries we have been asking God not to lead us into temptation? Is it not amazing that we have accepted the blind dictums of theological leaders without ques- tion? The blind surelj^ have led the blind. Our teachers have been blind to the truth. Prayer with us in Divine Science is not petition. It is not asldng God to be God. It is not asking Infinite Life to be anything other than what It is. It is not asking God to do that which he cannot do, namely: change his mind. And is this not prayer as it was taught in Old Thought — an almost continuous performance of asking God to change his mind? I was taught that many things came into my life as the direct result [82] PRAYER IN DIYINE SCIENCE of the will of God, and then I was taught to ask God to remove these things or to change them, and I always ended my prayer with "if it be thy will,' O God." This was be- cause I did not understand what Jesus taught concerning the will of God. It was because I did not understand concerning prayer. I was taught to believe that through continuous and continual prayer, I could change the unchangeable will of the Almighty. That if he deemed it wise and best for me to be diseased and sickly and sorrowfid and suffering, I could hy suffi- cient prayer, and sometimes by asking the praj'ers of the church, bring about a change in this supreme immutable will, and that which God originally intended to do, he would not do. Is it not ridiculous that we should be taught in theologj^ that God is immutable, and that we should, at the same time, think or believe, and even communi- cate to others the idea that the immutable can be changed by persistent petition, when the very Bible says, "God changeth not." God is law; immutable, fixed, irrevocable [83] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE law. Not all the petitions ever uttered can change the will of God ; but we must know what is the will of God. Some of us have been told, I, for instance, that it was the will of God that my child should be taken from me, and I accepted and believed it. I was a firm believer in ecclesiastical author- ity. I believed almost everything. Why? Because I had been taught when a child not to argue concerning the mysteries of the church. That if certain things happened too deep for my shallow mind to under- stand, I must accept them and the riddle would be solved some time, perhaps after death. I was told that my child was taken away from me to teach me a lesson; it was the will of God. I am not the only one who has been told this story. And then one day I found in the New Testament these words of Jesus, and I could not reconcile them with my previous teaching; — "It is not the will of God that one of those little ones should perish, but that they should have everlasting life." I have no doubt that the theologians of that day believed that it was [84] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE the will of God that Bartimeus should have been born and remained blind. Consider for a moment that Jesus came here ex- pressly to do the will of the Father; this is what he said, "I came to do the will of my Father which is in heaven," and when Bartimeus there by the roadside cried out to him, "Jesus of Nazareth, save me," the disciples said, "You are making too much noise, he has other important work to do, don't bother him." And he cried the more, "Jesus of Nazareth, save me." And Jesus stopped short and said to his disciples, "What does he want?" They answered, "He is crjnng out to thee, he is blind." So Jesus turned back and asked the man, "What would you have me to do?" Bartimeus re- plied, "That I receive my sight." Jesus said, "Go thy way, realise that God is the sight of your eyes, and you have it. It is yourself." He did not pray God to restore sight. He sunply showed the man inwardly, by spirit- ual contact, that he was then manifesting that sight, that inner sight, which is the sight of God, and he saw. Now if Bartimeus was [85] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE blind according to the will of God, and Jesus came to do the will of his Father, is it not strange that Jesus should revoke that which is so popularly believed to be the will of God? And again, if it be the will of God that you and I should be sick, what right have we to pray about it at all? Why peti- tion God for recovery or restoration to health and strength when perhaps it is his will that we should be weak and debilitated? I never saw the absurdity of these things, I never saw the ridiculous incongruity of them until I began to study along these lines and saw that the will of God is not a mutable weather cock moved about by the petitions of people everywhere, but that God is fixed, immutable law, and that law is Love. So I kept on praying and I never got an an- swer so far as any visible evidences were concerned. And this history is not peculiar to myself, I am sure. Is it not common experience? How are we going to solve this difficulty? Is it possible that we, like the disciples of old, are going to turn to him and say, "Lord, teach us to pray?" [86] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE We, who have prayed from our infancy up, are going to ask to be taught to pray in such a manner as to receive the blessings that were promised to him that prayed righteous- ly. We must become as little children, and learn all over again. As a little child I was taught to pray at night, so were you, — "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray thee. Lord, my soul to take." That gave me a picture of a God that was going to snatch me perhaps during the night, and sometimes I did not sleep for fear of it. That was the Old Thought. The New Thought is this: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I know that God his child doth keep. I know that God, my life, is nigh ; I live in Him and cannot die. God is my health, I can't be sick. God is all love, unfailing, quick. [87] i PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE God is my all. I know no fear, Since life and truth and love are here." My dear friends, this is a brief way of de- fining the difference between the Old and the New Thought prayer. One is the sup- plicating, petitioning kind, which asks God not to do something to us wliich he has no idea of doing; the other is the same, strong affirmation of the great triumphant fact that God is our life and we cannot die, that God is our health and we cannot be sick. It is the assertion of the real over against the apparent. It is the affirmation of our indis- soluble connection with all that is good and pure and permanent and changeless. It is a different order of prayer, and it is more gratifying. Now the question arises naturally, and often occurs to people who come to us for help, — "If this is effectual prayer, why can- not I pray for myself and get well?" How often we hear thisl I have no doubt the people of Jesus' time asked the same ques- tions. "If the only method by wliich Jesus PEAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE restored the sick is the method of prayer, why cannot we pray just as well as he?" He never objected to it. I have no doubt he said, "You can. You can if you pray intelligently." The only difference between our prayers of to-day and our prayers of yesterday is the difference between intelli- gence and ignorance. All down the ages we have lived and moved and breathed in an ocean of infinite Life and Love and Truth, and have not been able to convert it into concrete mani- festation. Jesus took the invisible, utilized it and brought about visible results. We ad- mit that God is everywhere, and then pray to him as if he were really afar off, and not here at all. We are twisted. James, the Apostle, says: "A double minded man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that man think that he shall receive any- thing of the Lord." What does he mean by "double minded?" Perhaps you have read it a thousand times — most of you more than that, and what is the meaning these words convey to you? "A double minded [89] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE man is unstable in all his ways. Let not that man think that he shall receive any- thing of the Lord." No; so long as he is double minded, he will get no results. We are double minded if on one hand we believe in the omnipotence of God, and on the other hand we believe in the potency of evil. We are not single minded. W^e do not realise in our silent prayer that there is no potent in- fluence in the universe other than the Holy Spirit of Infinite Life. We pray to be pro- tected from the hate of one, the envy of another, the jealousy of men. We admit with our minds a thousand things that have no place and no power in the Infinite. We are not only double minded, but multiple minded. It is only the single minded man who is promised that his prayers shall be heard. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," says the Bi- ble. "The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man." A righteous man is a man who thinks right, and a man who thinks right is a man who admits there is but one supreme power in the universe, but one real [90] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE actual presence in the universe, and holds to that in spite of all appearances; and he affirms constantly, "There is nothing here but God, Good." I know appearances are dead against us. But so it is in the world of astronomy. We say that the earth revolves upon its axis and that this disproves the assumption of a ris- ing and a setting sun, a moving sun. I am stating an astronomical fact, but my senses will not corroborate it. The profoundest astronomers in the world see the sun coming up and see it going down with their eyes, but their reason corrects the notion that it moves. "To the eye of vulgar logic" there is a rising and a setting sun. In the realm of "pure reason" there is no such thing. We are called upon to cling hard to the fact. "When your reason and your senses con- flict, cling unto your reason," says the wise man. You do so in every other department of investigation, why not in the Science of Spiritual investigation? If Jesus had admitted the reality, the un- changeability of the witliered arm, do you [91] I PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE suppose he could have cured it? Jesus saw with the inner eye what the senses of man can never reveal. He saw the perfectness of the man as an idea in the Divine Mind, and this equipped him with power from on high to bring about so-called miracles. But they were not miracles at all. He was not setting aside any law ; he was co-operat- ing with and demonstrating the law. If by miracle we mean the setting aside of law, there is no such thing. If by miracle we mean the evolving from within ourselves of a divine Principle, of an ever-present force or energy or law, then there is a miracle. Jesus merely utilised what other men had lived and moved and breathed in ; he utilised God. That is what Edison is doing to-day. He is utilising that which we have lived and moved and breathed and been carried about in — God. The senses bear no more testi- mony to electrical energy than they give to the presence of God. Is this any reason for denying the presence of electrical en- ergy in the universe? Not at all. Then are we justified in denving the presence and [ 92 ] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE power of God simply because we cannot see his presence with the physical eye? No. Does Edison petition electrical energy to manifest itself as light and heat and motive power ? Not at all ; he is too wise for that. He finds out the laws of electricity. He finds out the means by which this unseen and in\asible force can be converted into seen and visible results. These are the pray- ers of Edison. Wonderful prayers. He has blessed the world with them. We do not petition the Principle of Be- ing; we simpl}^ learn its laws and co-operate with them and manifest our God-given dominion over our sense of limitation. Our privations are transmuted into privileges, and our difficulties become opportunities. We affirm "I am one with thee, O God!" with all it implies. "I am one with thee, O God, the Principle of life and happiness, truth and power. I am one with thee, O Principle of Life! I am one with eternal Life!" You, too, can say with Jesus, "I and the Father are one." The effect and its causes are inseparable. "Nerve me, O [93] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE God," says Emerson, "with ceaseless affir- mation of my divinity." These are our con- stant prayers. We are "Instant in prayer." Whenever temptation arises to suggest that we are mere mortals, suhject to mortal law, so-called, subject to finite limitation, then we are nerved to ceaseless affirmation, to our oneness with God. We do not raise our hats or kneel in the streets or in the churches, but is this any reason for assert- ing that we are a prayerless people? Oh, Jesus was wise! He said to men, to the people, "Ye pray that ye may be heard of men," — then, turning to his disciples, he said, "Don't you pray that way. When you pray, enter into your closet, into the secret sanctuary of your own souls, and when you have shut the door — closed your senses by becoming conscious of the om- nipresence of God, pray to that inner Prin- ciple of Being that reposes at the very cen- tre of yourself, and your Father which seeth in secret shall reward you openly." That which took place in secret will pres- ently be seen in the visible. If you want [94] PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE health, beheve that health is the constant, persistent state of your being, and presently you shall manifest it in your body, but you will never manifest it in your body so long as you believe in an importation from with- out. So long as you believe that you have not got it, and call upon God to give it to you by some strange external method, just so long will you never get it. But once re- alise that it is within you, bubbling up like a well of life, once realise that it is your natural normal state, given you by God and sustained by the law of God, and then you will begin to sa}^ "I am well, I am strong with the strength of the Holy Spirit;" and you will become stronger through your af- firmation of God's truth. These are your prayers — affirmations of truth. Take two boys out in the world ; one with nothing but will power, and the other with nothing but prayer and no will power, which will succeed? Think you all the prayer in the world can make a musician? or an elec- trician, or a mechanical engineer? It takes prayer plus performance, and performance [95] I PRAYER IN DIVINE SCIENCE is always based upon affirmation — "I am, I can." These are the prayers in Divine Sci- ence. They are the moral affirmations of our divine possibilities. Let us affirm our divinity. Let us pray without ceasing. Let us daily affirm our spirituality, our strength, our life, our power to succeed. Let us not exist in the sense of limitation, but rise above it, rise above it by the all-conquering consciousness of our unity with God. "I will pray with the Spirit ; I will pray with the understand- ing also." In the omnipresence of God, we have all good, and it is ours eternally. As soon as we recognise our possession of good, we have the use of it. We can consciously possess only what we realise and claim. We recognise this all good, and accept it with thanksgiving. We also apply to our daily living the good we have received. "And all things whatsoever ye ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive." "Be sober, watch unto prayer, continue instant in prayer, and the God of all sub- stance shall supply your needs." [96] THE ATONEMENT "I and my Father are one. "If that which ye have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, ye also shall continue in the Son, and in the Father. "That they all may be one; as thou. Father, art In me and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. "Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more. "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. "For in him we live, and move, and have our being. "Christ in you the hope of glory. "For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. "Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. "And ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's. "He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." E THE ATONEMENT "Hereby know we that we dwell in him, and he in us, be- cause he hath given us of his spirit." — I John 4: 13. This subject of the Atonement is one of such general belief, and yet one so poorly- understood, especially in the world of denom- inational Christianit}^ that when one comes to study what the world calls the New Thought, or Divine Science, or Primitive, or Apostolic, or Applied Christianity, at once there arises the question : What of the atonement? So profoundly does the old thought hold to the atonement that the seeker hesitates very frequently to take ad- vantage of the healing efficacy of Divine Sci- ence and kindred philosophies, because some one has said that these do not believe in the atonement. I want to make it as clear as possible that we not only believe in the atonement, but [99] THE ATONEMENT through our studies we have come to a more glorified consciousness of what the atone- ment means. We not only believe in it, we understand it, in some degree and to some extent. If our views have changed concern- ing it, they have not changed for the worse, but rather for the better. We have, I be- lieve, a more satisfying concept of what the atonement really is. The belief in the atonement did not origi- nate with Jesus. When we begin to investi- gate the doctrine we find it as old as the human mind itself. Go back as far as we can in the history of the race, and we find a belief in a necessary atonement. Far back in the Dark Ages, when man had innumer- able gods, more or less vicious, more or less wrathful, angry, and jealous, there arose the necessity of atonement. The very earliest record we have is that which is set forth in the older Scriptures. In the Christian Bible, or the Hebrew Testament, we find the rites and rituals of a particular day, called the Day of Atonement, amplified and set forth with unerring accuracy. In a changed form [100] THE ATONEMENT the ceremony still exists among the Hebrew people. In order to arrive at a more satisfying idea of what atonement means, it might be well for us to look back and see what it has meant to the race in the past. It has passed through many stages; and various and al- most innumerable concepts have been held by the mind of man, beginning, I think, with that definition of atonement set forth in our lexicons as appeasement. Atonement originally meant a method, a ceremony, or a means by which Deity was placated. The means by which the race at that time sought to appease the wrath of the Infinite, was to off er up innocent bulls, rams, goats, pigeons, and other living creatures. The earliest description we find of the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament, tells of the ceremonial use of two goats ; the blood of one was offered up as the first appease- ment of the wrath of God : this was the slain goat. The other was the scapegoat, over wliich the hands of the priest were held, and upon whose back was placed all the sins of [101] THE ATONEMENT the children of Israel; the goat was driven off into the wilderness, away from the haunts of men, and its own kind, either to live or die in solitude, as the case might be. It had done all that was required of it. The scapegoat had borne away upon its inoffen- sive and innocent back the sins of the chil- dren of Israel. As we come down through the Old Testa- ment we find a gradually changing concept of the atonement. We find the major and minor prophets alike declaring that the nos- trils of God are offended by the odours of the burnt offerings that the children of Is- rael are offering up to him on their mounts of sacrifice. We find the minor prophets, especially men like Hosea, Micah, and Amos, upbraiding the children of Israel be- cause of their belief that they can appease the wrath of the Infinite by any such method or procedure. But we find the Hebrews still clinging to rite and ceremony, to the old-established or- der of things, from which they cannot seem to get away. Even when our intellects be- [102] THE ATONEMENT come persuaded of the error and foolishness of any practice, we still continue observing the old rite and ceremony with our custom- ary annual regularity, so tightly does habit hold the soul. The new dispensation changed nothing. "V^Tien Jesus came, he found the Jewish thought of ceremonies still obtaining even in the minds of those who came to him for his teaching. They still believed in the wrath of God; they still believed in the necessity of appeasement. So, we find our New Testament writers placing an emphasis on the atonement which it should not have received: it is merely the interpretation born of their own preconceived theories. If at one time the wrath of God could be appeased only by the offering up of animal sacrifices, now nothing short of the innocent blood of his own beloved Son would suffice. And to-day, after two thousand years of Christianity, we find, to a greater or less de- gree, this peculiar theory concerning the atonement still holding the mind. Men still [103] THE ATONEMENT believe that the innocent blood of Jesus was shed for the remission of sins. To these it seems as if the belief were based upon Scrip- tural truth. But we must remember that those who came to Jesus were men whose minds still held the old idea of the sacrificial atonement, for which at one time an animal sufficed. And since they thought God must be appeased in some way, we find them nat- urally using their old theories for present purposes. Here we find that greatest of all sacri- fices, the innocent Jesus, suffering for the sins of his people, not only those of his time, but yours and mine. There are those who believe that he died in order to save them from the consequences of their own sins; that all they have to do is to profess to believe in the sacred name of Jesus, to believe that they are washed in the blood of the Lamb, and all their past errors and mistakes and sins will be wiped out by this vicarious atonement. Divine Science does not uphold this the- ory. It does not believe that the glorious sacrifice of Jesus' self was a personal sacri- [ 104] THE ATONEMENT fice by the way of atonement for your sins or mine. We alone can do this — none can do it for us. If we have taken the atonement out of the category of appeasement and brought it into the category of reconcihation, we have made little progress indeed. The idea which ob- tains largelj"- among modern theologians, is that the purpose of Jesus' great sacrifice was to reconcile God to man. If, in the begin- ning of the history of the race, we merely sought to appease the wrath of God through the off ering up of animal sacrifices, and now through the death of his well-beloved Son we seek to reconcile God to the race, we still have not made much progress. The whole teaching of Jesus was the ex- act reverse of this. The whole burden of his song was that man should become reconciled to the law of God. The reconciliation was not on the part of God, but on the part of man : this was his whole teaching. He came not to make atonement, but to interpret it. He came not to go through a certain bloody sacrifice in order that this [105] THE ATONEMENT atonement might be brought about, but to acquaint us intelligently with the definition and the possibilities of atonement. We have three definitions given of the word atonement. The first is apjieasement; the second is reconciliation; and the third is unification or unity or at-one-ment. It is this last interpretation which Divine Science prefers to use. Separate the word atone- ment and you find at-one-ment, which means being at one, not atoning for. The whole purpose of Jesus was not to die or to atone, but to make clear, to exemplify, man's at-one-ment with God; this was the real atonement of Jesus. Perhaps, j'^ou argue, it was the purpose of his Father to offer up his beloved Son as a sufficient expiation for our sins and all the sins of the race. It might seem so; just so long as we regard God in the light of a sym- pathising, loving, human parent, and no more, just so long we shall hold this idea. Let us suppose that a mutiny breaks out aboard a battleship in war-time. Let us suj)- pose this mutiny threatens to hamper the [106] THE ATONEMENT fleet and destroy the particular ship on which it takes place; let us suppose, in addition, that the mutineers are arrested and tried. We all know that the usual sentence pro- nounced under such conditions is the sen- tence of death. Suppose that aboard this battleship is the Captain's only child. This son goes to his father and says: "I realise, Father, the das- tardly conduct of these sailors; I realise the evil consequences that may follow if such outbreaks are not stopped. But I also real- ise their ignorance, and that therefore they ought not pay the penalty of their offenses; I off er myself in their place. I off er myself as a sufficient appeasement of your wrath. I offer myself as a sufficient substitute for their bodies." When you look at it from the point of personal sacrifice it is wonder- ful, marvellous, glorious. "Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." But, suppose the father accepts the son's offer! No matter what we think of this son, no matter how gloriously we conceive of his [107] THE ATONEMENT character, no matter how we magnify his love and self-sacrifice: what shall we think of the father ? What should we think of the human parent who accepted as a sufficient substitute for mutinous sailors his own inoffensive child? Yet, is not this the thing we have under- stood of the atonement: that God sent his only begotten Son into the world to die in order that we might live? What we want to do is to take the atone- ment out of the category of dispensations, and to relieve our minds of the thought that it was a providential occurrence. If it had been a providential occurrence, if he were predestined to it, Jesus would not be entitled to quite so much credit as we have been in the habit of bestowing upon him; because, if a man does what he is destined to do, and is given the strength and the grace to go through with it, there is not so much that is praiseworthj^ : he could not do anything else. If this is true concerning Jesus, is it not equally true concerning Judas, who be- trayed him? If it was a predestined tragedy [108] THE ATONEMENT or drama, intended to work out for the good of the race, why consider Judas the villain in the play, with hissing and execrations? ^\Tiy should we go on down the centuries hissing one who was selected by the Great Playwright himself for the part, for a part that no other man in the universe could play? Why should we go on perpetually applauding another for playing the charac- ter that was destined for him originally? Why should w^e applaud if the words he speaks were put in his lips and mouth, if the strength were put in his limbs, and the cour- age into his heart ? What credit is it to him, or what discredit to the other? These are questions for the thoughtful mind to pon- der. We believe in the atonement as the most necessary thing in the universe, but we can- not believe in it as we used to. So we take the third definition of the word, "to make at-one with." ISIay I say that Jesus did not die quite so much to appease the wrath of God concerning the other children of God, as to appease the wrath of men? May I [109] THE ATONEMENT say that he did not die quite so much upon a demand on the part of God, as upon the part of men? According to our old teachings, we believed that God handed Jesus over to the world and said to the people of that time, "Crucify him! Crucify him!" But, if you study the New Testament carefully, you will find that it was the Pharisees who said "Cru- cify him!" Why did they demand the blood of the innocent Jesus ? Because he had proclaimed a great truth which was so contradictory and in such direct and utter opposition to any- thing they had ever believed before, that they at once proclaimed him a blasphemer. He declared the truth of the atonement. He never participated in a sacrificial ceremony, but he sought to make clear what the atone- ment was, and to define it as the at-one-ment of man with God. So he said, in the words of our text: "I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." The moment he voiced this beautiful thought, the Pharisees said: "Crucify him! He maketh himself to be one with God, equal with God! Crucify [110] THE ATONEMENT him!" This was the first thing that dis- turbed and angered, or irritated them, this conviction that since he assumed more than any other man in the world had yet as- sumed, he was declaring himself to be equal with God! Since that day we have gone on believing that the thing had to be done, the crucifixion gone through, and that according to divine dispensation. Perhaps it was necessary for it to take place, but not according to divine dispensation quite so much as according to human ignorance and human anger. We are told it was his own Heavenly Father and not the Pharisees who preor- dained Jesus to the crucifix. It was the Pharisees who were agitated into a state of mind which demanded the blood of this in- nocent man. Then his own disciples, who had just enough of the Jew left in them, just enough of the old order of thought left to make the idea a natural one, conceived of his death as an atonement. Instead, it was the manifes- tation of his at-one-ment with the great Infi- [111] THE ATONEMENT nite Life. He was too great to kill, but in order that other men might know the truth, he laid down his life. The idea of the at-one-ment of Jesus is the idea of a tremendous love. All of the glory goes to Jesus because he did what he did not actually have to do, though some of us feel that he was obliged to do it; but in his own words, he said, "I have power to lay down my life, and power to take it again." He might have avoided the crucifixion if he had wished. He might have avoided all the harrowing and harassing conditions that preceded his crucifixion. It was not an in- cumbent necessity that he should die for you and me. He merely assumed the responsi- bility of jjroclaiming a great truth at the cost of angering others, at the cost of being misunderstood, at the cost of being misrep- resented and crucified. Always you will find Jesus speaking of his Heavenly Father as Love, Infinite Love. You will find him illustrating the great love of God in a speech to a few Pharisees stand- ing about: "What man is there of you, [112] THE ATONEMENT whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?" Will God answer your prayers by giving you the very ojDposite thing to that for which you cry? To the mind of Jesus, God M as Love. If he prophesied his crucifixion and death, he also prophesied his omti resurrection and as- cension. But his prophecies of suffering were based, not so much upon the actions of a divine Providence, as upon the actions of men who did not understand him. If any one were to bring a new idea to the world to-day, he would be perfectly justified in proclaiming the fact, though the idea would not be adopted at once. Perhaps men would so misunderstand his motive that they would persecute him; they might hand him over to the authorities, or regard him simply as a harmless lunatic. Because he realised that man would not understand his mission, knowing also the nature of the men of his day, Jesus was able to prophesy his own de- struction, his own crucifixion. He knew the men of his time were so [113] THE ATONEMENT grossly ignorant as to be terribly vindictive. He realised if he said anything contrary to their fixed beliefs, anything that angered them, they would immediately rise against him and clamour for his blood. A man may proclaim almost any kind of a belief to-day and no one would think of crying "Crucify him!" But the customs of that far-off day were different, and Jesus knew, when he came and overturned one of their most cherished institutions; when he proclaimed an atonement that did away with blood sacrifice altogether, and made it a process of growth rather than a sacrificial offering; he was going to incur the venge- ance of the priests, because he was going against the established order of over two thousand years. He knew he was going to incur the anger, the hostility, the antago- nism, the hatred of the Pharisees ; though we are told that the common people heard him gladly. But those who cherished as their lives the rites and customs and ceremonies; to whom the sending of the scapegoat to the [114] THE ATONEMENT wilderness and tlie offering up of a bloody- sacrifice was necessary, were aroused. Let us study the meaning of the atone- ment, and note its effect on the people of that day, with regard to its resulting in making them better men. When the mem- ory of the atonement, the ritual and the cere- monies were over, they went back to their fields and stores, to their false balances and usury and crookedness, only waiting another Day of Atonement to wipe it all out; only waiting another poor scapegoat to be sent into the wilderness to atone for their of- fences, century after century wiping out their misdeeds once a year. What wonder the minor prophets pleaded: "Of what value are your bloody sacrifices? They are a stench in the nostrils of God." Now, let us take the atonement of Jesus. Does each man, who believes in the atone- ment of Jesus, feel that the offering up of the blood of our Saviour has made sufficient recompense to Almighty God for his par- ticular sins? Has it? Does the Christian belief in the atonement, the offering up of [115] THE ATONEMENT the innocent blood of Jesus, save us from the penalty of our own wrongdoing? If it does, then the atonement is right as the theolo- gians put it. If the blood of Jesus was of- fered up for the remission of your sins and of mine, then the penalty due our sins has been remitted through this wonderful, mar- vellous, and most inexplicable sacrifice. But, even when we believe in this inter- pretation most perfectly, we go on our pe- culiar ways, living our peculiar lives, stand- ing up to-day and falling down to-morrow; therefore, nothing has been altered or remit- ted. It must mean vastly more than this; hence we take the third definition of the word: to unify, to make at-one-with; to es- tablish connection between the individual and the Universal ; to reveal to man his unity with the great Deific Principle. This was the only idea of atonement in the mind of Jesus. I do not think that it ever occurred to him that his dying on the crucifix was going to relieve you and me from the penalties of our own sins, or that we could be washed in "the blood of the [116] THE ATONEMENT Lamb," as we have used this phrase, if we meant to go on living a L"fe of recklessness and sinfulness, then at the last, could say: "I believe in Jesus, I am washed in his re- deeming blood." That would not put us in the kingdom; mere belief will not do us any good. It must be more than that. Jesus said: "Be- lieve in God, believe also in me." He might have gone further and added: "Believe in yourselves; believe that you, too, are the sons of God, and believe it so thoroughly that you will act according to your belief; this will bring about the atonement." We do not believe that God will be angry with his own children. We do not believe that he has to be reconciled to us. We know he has no grudge against us. If we realise the fact that we are spiritual beings and not material, that we are now the children of God, gradually we are brought into at-one- ment in consciousness, and M'e become con- sciously at-one with the All-Good, the Per- fect, the Permanent. This is the idea of atonement that Divine [117] THE ATONEMENT Science is bringing to all men. This is tak- ing it out of the sacrificial, out of the low, the vulgar, the gross, and bringing it up into the beautiful and the holy. It does not do away with the atonement; it beautifies it; it makes it a spiritual state to you and to me. We believe also in sacrifice, but not in blood atonement. We believe that if we sacrifice our evil habits on the altar of Infi- nite Love; if we sacrifice our lusts, our an- ger, our jealousies, our wrath, our indolence; that we shall then be more alive to the great fact that God is not a wrathful God, not a jealous God; that He does not require ap- peasement, nor to be reconciled to us, be- cause God has no grudges and holds none against us. Does it shock some of you to know that it is impossible to offend God? It might, considering the fact that you as children were taught that whenever you committed a sin you did offend God, con- sidering the fact that perhaps you are now teaching your own children that whenever they commit a sin they are offending God. [118] THE ATONEMENT It is just as impossible for man to offend God by sin as it is for man to offend the principle of mathematics by creating mathe- matical errors — just as impossible. Our mis- takes could not offend God in the slightest, any more than the errors of a musician aff ect the great principle of musical harmony. It goes on the same, yesterday, to-day, and for- ever, and is never aff ected by any deviation whatsoever on the part of the musician. The principle of mathematics is never changed in the slightest degree as a result of the er- rors which children make in schoolrooms, ac- countants make in banks or other places. So it is that your sins, your errors of thought and conduct, have never and can never of- fend God. That is the great beauty of the thought of God as impersonal Divine Prin- ciple. We do not have to reconcile the sun to let its rays shine upon us. We do not have to reconcile the sun to an object in a dark alley; all we have to do is to move the ob- ject, and place it in the sun's beneficent rays. All we have to do is to move out of [119] THE ATONEMENT the darkness, out of our spiritual ignorance, to be taken out, if you prefer, from this be- lief in the necessity of any one man in the universe atoning for any other man's sins. Perhaps you are wondering what I am thinking of the wonderful sacrifice of Jesus? Perhaps you are wondering if in my own mind I am belittling it? Only a few pages back I said that he did not have to do it ; it was not an incumbent necessity placed upon him by his Heavenly Father. He did it vol- untarily, and herein, to my mind, lies the great grandeur of the character of Jesus, that he did that voluntarily which perhaps you and I could not be dragged into doing. He did it by the exercise of a tremendous love, which you and I are trying to culti- vate, and, I trust, with some small measure of success. He realised that there was no other way out of it. To withhold the truth from the race to save his own life would have been cowardly. To proclaim the truth and take all the terrible risk of so doing in order that you and I might know the truth, was [120] THE ATONEMENT heroic, but from the standpoint of a provi- dential dispensation, not necessaiy. Some one has said that responsibilities gravitate in the direction of the man who is willing to assume them. I want you to bear that thought in mind. It is a good thought. You cannot have lived long nor had much experience if you have not seen the truth of the statement. The big men in the world are the men who have been willing to assume responsibilities. The little men in the world are the men who never wanted to assmne responsibility. Jesus was one of the greatest men in the world and he assumed the greatest and big- gest responsibility, the responsibility of pro- claiming the at-one-ment of man with God, and at the very real risk of being accused of blasphemy, a death-penalty crime in his day. The people of the time were not so gener- ous to contrary views as they are to-day. They did not try him for heresy, though they proclaimed him to be a heretic; they de- manded his blood, and their demand was heeded. [121] THE ATONEMENT But what to them was the finish of a man, was to him the beginning of a principle. What to them was the destruction of his Hfe, was to him the opportunity for the exercise of his constructive faculty. He took an op- portunity to prove the supremacy of life over death, of love over hate, of truth over error. And so he has handed down to you and to me the possibility of one man, though falsely accused, doing something by which all men might be benefited and blessed. You see, I am reverently trying to take the atonement out of the category of com- placent necessity and put it where it be- longs, on the plane of individual responsi- bility voluntarily assumed. He took it up as his part in the great f)lay of life and car- ried it out like the man he was. This is, to me, the great glory of the character of Jesus. He manifested all the godly qualities in the fulness of their beauty, grandeur, might, and power, because he did what he was not required, but what he thought was right; he did it to establish the fact that you and I and the man down the street are at one with God. [122] THE ATONEMENT Jesus established the new dispensation and the new idea of the atonement; infinitely greater than offering up his own body on the crucifix was the offering up of himself, and when I say himself, I mean his human self, his human appetites and pleasures, in order that he might take on divine attributes and joys. Atonement means just this to you and me. We have always been one with God. If we are not conscious of it, it is our misfor- tune. If we do not realise our at-one-ment, it is a pity. But once we do begin to realise it, in the degree of our realisation, we begin to live, in accordance with our one-ness. We begin to live like God, in the godly, higher nature. That is the only possible proof of at-one- ment. A mere belief in the atonement does not help us. A million can believe for one who can prove it, even in the smallest de- gree. Jesus not only believed it, he exem- plified it. In every act and thought of his life, in everything he did, he showed his unity with God. In laying down his own [123] THE ATONEMENT mortal life, while proclaiming immortality through the resurrection of Lazarus, he not only lived the Life, but demonstrated it. It was not merely a beautiful life, it was a pow- erful life. It was Creative Life. It not only healed the sin-sick soul, if you believe the Gospels, but it healed the sulf er- ing soul of its bodily infirmities. Because the power of God was with him, it not only brought comfort to the sorrowful, but strength to the weak, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf. He did, not what he was ordained to do, but what he assumed as his part: the proclamation of the truth. This, perhaps, changes the colour of the atonement, but it is far more satisfying to us in Divine Science than the old belief that the blood of bulls and goats appeased the wrath of a far-away God. It is far more satisfying than the idea that the innocent Son of God offered up his own life on the accursed cross in order that we might avoid the consequence and punishment of our sins. It becomes beautiful the moment we think of it as the proclamation for every man [124] THE ATONEMENT in the universe, that consciously or uncon- sciously, he is the son of God. The great change that is necessary is the change in consciousness. Of what avail is it to be free and not to know it? Of what avail is it for a man to be in a prison cell with the doors unlocked so that he could walk out, if he is not conscious of the fact that the doors are unlocked? After years of imprisonment, labouring under the con- tinual belief that the door is locked and ut- terly impassable, he wUl conclude that it is his home for the rest of his life, and will never make an attempt to leave it. If, in the secrecy of the night, some one had turned the lock and suggested to the prison- er that he come out, and the prisoner should walk up and down his cell, just as he had always done, hearing but not accepting the suggestion, labouring under the belief that the door was still locked, would he not be free and captive at the same time? And would not his captivity be the captivity of his ignorance? The race, for the most part, is stalking up and down in the cage of [125] THE ATONEMENT spiritual ignorance. The lock was turned some centuries ago by Jesus; but, through misinterpretation, we have come to feel that we are just as much prisoners to the senses, just as much captives to the body, just as much slaves to sensation, as the race ever was at any time in the world's history. We go up and down performing the same tired, weary walk, century in and century out, never knowing that we are free, never real- ising that we can come out into the great broad daylight and sunlight of the presence of God, because we do not know that we are at-one with God. We feel that we must atone for our past, and so we must; but not to God. At first it may seem blasphemous for a self-confessed sinner to proclaim his unity with God. But is this self-confessed sinner ever going to be anything other than a sin- ner so long as we proclaim his separateness from God? If because of evil habits and poverty he has allowed himself to be held away from God, when he begins to consciously feel he [126] THE ATONEMENT is one with the Infinite, he knows that he is not a sot, but a spiritual being, that he is not a drunkard, but a manifestation of di- vinity. Does not this consciousness circu- late through him, strengthening him and mending every nerve of his body, and does it not show in his face? Is it not from this and through this that he begins to Hft him- self above his past, getting away from his dead self, to arise and go to his Father? Just so long as a man believes himself at odds with God, just so long as he feels he can never become one with the Infinite, just so long he will continue to be a drunkard, and poor and sick and diseased. It cannot be otherwise. At-one-ment with Life and Truth and Power and Peace comes through the realis- ing sense of our at-one-ment with the In- finite, and not through a belief that some one else has paid the penalty for our crimes. Your reformation and my reformation depend upon the realising sense of our spir- ituality, followed by the determination to [127] THE ATONEMENT put that spiritualitj?^ foremost and prove it, demonstrate it. To do this we must feel consciously at one with the Deific Power. This is the atonement. The only sacrifice that is necessary is the sacrifice of our pre- conceived theories, our mistakes, our errors of judgment, and our ignorances. These things, which are not necessary to our well being, to our happiness, to our health, we are to offer up on the altar of Love. Thus we shall find our true sense of at-one-ment. "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. "And every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure." [128] LIFE "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemna- tion; but is passed from death unto life. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. "He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. "Because I live, ye shall live also. "In Christ shall all be made alive. "As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself: "For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light. "And this is life eternal, that they might knov) thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. "My words are life to those that find them, and health to all their flesh. "For to be carnally minded is death: but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. "I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil. "Therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." LIFE "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testinaony, that he pleased God." — Hebrews 11:5. Life, without doubt, is the most serious of all the subjects with which the human mind has to deal. It is so serious that in all gen- erations and among all people it has been approached from every possible angle, and men have studied life from protoplasm to infinity. Through the science of evolution men have studied life from the mineral to mind; biologists have made remarkable dis- coveries in the phenomena which we call visible or objective life; all of v/hich shows that the human mind regards the study of life as the most essential in the universe. When I say the human mind, I wish to be understood as meaning, in this connection, the progressive mind, the thoughtful, in- [131] LIFE vestigative, divinely curious, mind; because, there are those to whom life, unfortunately, is not something to be studied, to whom life is not a thing to be scientifically or wisely directed, but something to be waded through as best one can. There are those, and I sometimes think they are in the great majority, who feel that life is rather a game of chance, something that they do not know anything about, something they con- fessedly admit they cannot know anything about. According to their own logic, they are here without their own consent; accord- ing to this same logic, they are just as un- ceremoniously removed hence. To such as these, life is therefore a transient experience which begins with infancy and ends with death, whether through old age, disease, or sudden accident. This is the popular idea concerning life: the human experience em- braced between that part of life which we call the cradle period and the other which we call the coffin period. Life is vastly more than this. The larger interpretation of God and the newer thought [132] LITE of things are bringing us to a fuller sense of the clearer interpretation of life. Without this clearer interpretation, life is hardlj'^ worth living. It is fraught with chance and change. If we are inclined to be pessimistic at all, cast down by personal experiences, we regard life as a rather toilsome, tiresome sort of thing; we regard this invisible world of ours as a veritable vale of tears, something we would like to get through with as quicldy as possible. Therefore, life must be studied, not from the merely biological point of view, nor from the physiological, nor the intellec- tual, but rather from the purely spiritual; because, after all, the only point of view we can get of life which is really scientific, is the spiritual. Even the so-called material scientists are arriving at this conclusion. INIodern chemistry is revealing to us that matter is neither life-giving nor life-sustain- ing; that it is not something which acts upon, but something which is acted upon, and this by an invisible, underlying princi- ple which one might as well call Life, or God, or Spirit, or Love, as anything else. [133] LIFE It is the invisible Reality of which all exter- nal manifestations are but so many projec- tions into space. These are the conclusions that modern physical science is arriving at. And so we see that modern material sci- ence is arriving, by the slow, tortuous intel- lectual method, at the same conclusion Jesus reached by the more direct intuitional meth- od of the Holy Spirit. After all, life is invisible. No one has ever seen life. You cannot touch, taste, smell, see, hear, or feel it. Life is like mind in this: none of the senses can take cogni- sance of it. All that we have ever seen of life are its visible manifestations. So most of us have studied life from the standpoint of its visible manifestations, just as most of us have studied nature from the standpoint of her visible manifestations; we have taken nature's convulsions, as well as nature's beauties, as evidences of what she is capable of accomplishing. We have regarded na- ture as benevolent on the one hand and ma- levolent on the other, constructive on one side and destructive on the other — all be- [134] LIFE cause we have watched the natural or visible manifestations of what we call invisible na- ture. When it comes to studying life, we take it from this same objective point: we look with eyes. We see it coming into birth. We see what we call life, gay, pleasant, and joyful, or sad, unpleasant and sorrowful. We see it ending in death. And this, in the past, we have been pleased to call life, is nothing more nor less than the imperfect manifesta- tions of it on the visible plane. The science of ontology, which is superior to the science of biology, evolution, or physiology, sug- gests to the inquisitive mentality — the divinely curious mind — the necessity for studying life at first hand and not accord- ing to any of its visible manifestations; we are therefore called upon to study life from the standpoint of the purely spiritual or the purely scientific. Life is not what we call life. Jesus said that hfe eternal consisted in a knowledge of the only true God. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true [135] LIFE God." Life eternal consists of knowledge. There are those who are perfectly satisfied with the manifestations of things. For in- stance: A man will go into a room, touch a button, see that the room is suffused with light, and never stop to question the phe- nomenon. It is nothing to him. His sole interest is to see that the room is properly- lighted, his sole care to touch the button; everything is done for his convenience. But there are those divinely curious persons who are not satisfied with the phenomenon, they are not satisfied that the room is suffused with light at a mere touch of a button. They must know why; they must investigate the science of it. Why does this i)henomenon take place? The mentally indolent man says: "It is nothing to me. I do not care why or how or by what method or science it takes place. All I am concerned in know- ing is that it does take place. I am satisfied to have the light." But when the switch will not work, it is the divinely inquisitive man who is able to rectify things. The other man [136] LIFE must either remain in the dark or get the assistance of some other person. Thus it is with hfe. The mentally indo- lent man does not care anything about life in the abstract; he is more concerned about life in the concrete — how to enjoy it, how to get the most out of it, and almost invari- ably from a merely physical point of view; how he is going to cater to what he calls life, representing to him nothing higher than the merely physical; how he is going to enjoy himself without suffering the consequences; how he is going to indulge his passions with- out going through the necessary aftermath of j)ain. These are the things that trouble his mentality — beyond them, he has no other concern. Life is not physical. For those who be- lieve that the sustenance of life dejiends upon the physical, we can again call modern sci- ence to our aid to convince them of their mistake. It is comforting to know that twentieth century science is corroborating first centurj'- Christianity. It is very com- forting to me to know that men like Sir Oli- [137] LIFE ver Lodge, Lord Kelvin, and others, by sci- entific, intellectual processes, are arriving at the very same point of view Jesus held so many hundreds of years ago — that life is not sustained by matter. This is made very clear to us when we take the grosser form of physical foods. Men graduate away from what we call the material : the mineral food, the things of the earth ; and we see how very much more neces- sary the fluids are to man's physical life. It is demonstrated beyond peradventure, that water is more necessary to the sustenance of physical life than is solid food; that is, we can live longer without mineral food than we can without water. Again, we go up into the element of air; we can live longer without water and mineral food than we can without air. And now the physical scien- tists tell us that back of the air, without which it is impossible for us to live, or move, or breathe, there is that imponderable ether, which is as much more refined than air as air is more refined than the vegetable or the mineral. There are those who are now be- [138] LIFE ginning to tell us that the ether corresponds to that breath of God which is spoken of in the Bible. It is the medium by which men live and move and breathe, and without which men could not do any of these things. Consequently, we see that even on the plane of the purely physical, the sustenance of life depends more on the invisible things than on the visible. When this lesson is learned, as it is being slowly but surely learned in almost every department of thought, men will eat less and live longer. The day has gone by when physical life is to be sustained by the quantity of food. It is even now among the naturapaths and others a question of quality. We are eating less; we are enjoying better health, and there is an increasing longevity on the part of the race, all because we are getting away from the idea of the merely physical and ma- terial. The text that we have chosen for our dis- course is tremendously interesting: interest- ing from the fact that though it has been accepted by many, it has been ridiculed by ^ [ 139 ] LIFE many others. Ridiculed by those who do not understand its spiritual significance, it has been accepted with the same lack of under- standing, just as unquestionably as the man who accepts the fact that there will be light in a room if he can touch an electric button. We have accepted these great facts in Bib- lical literature unquestioningly, and yet back of them all, there is a spiritually scien- tific import, which, when understood, will enable us to do in the degree that we under- stand it, just what Enoch did. It is said, "By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death." By faith! The word faith has come to have a very narrow mean- ing; to most of us, it represents a sort of blind trust, a confidence in something that we cannot understand, an acceptance of something that we cannot unravel. We think of this peculiarity of mind as responsi- ble, in the early days, for the strange mani- festations of men hke Elijah, Enoch, and Jesus — a blind trust in an invisible force or power; when, as a matter of fact, the word faith in the original Hebrew meant knowl- [ 140] LIFE edge. If we substitute the word knowledge for faith, we shall read it in this way: By- knowledge Enoch was translated that he should not see death. It is by knowledge that we are all trans- lated. The word translate means to change, to be removed from; by knowledge we are changed. Our opinions change from day to day as the result of exact knowledge or sci- entific demonstration. We are removed from our old conceptions every day that we think. We are taken away from things, which yesterday we regarded as true, and transplanted into a new atmosphere. Through true knowledge, Enoch arrived at the conclusion that life was sustained from above and not from beneath. He realised that life is far more than the merely mate- rial, infinitely more than the merely intellec- tual. He penetrated beneath the surface of things and reached the very foundation of what constitutes life. Thus he saw that life is and always must be — God. The more he could know about God, the more he would know about life. This is why Jesus said, [141] LIFE "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God" — the only true Life. Regarding life from the standpoint of the physical, we never know God, we never know what life is, and so we are told Enoch was translated because he had faith or un- derstanding of a Divine Principle. In another part of this wonderful testi- mony to eternal life or immortality in the flesh, we are told that Enoch walked and talked with God : that is, Enoch lived the di- vinely contemplative life; he felt a sense of nearness to the source of things. He per- suaded himself of the great fact that his life was God, and the more fully he became persuaded of this fact, the more fully he began to live his life, his spiritual life, his real life, because, after all, a man has not two lives. He has not a physical, mortal life, which begins and ends, and another spiritual and immortal life, which neither begins nor ends. This lesson we must learn sometime, somehow, somewhere ; whether we learn it now in this chamber of the Father's [142] LIFE house, or in the other after what we call death, does not make any difference, except that it is wiser for us to begin here. We must learn that life is one, not two; we must learn what life is, and then we shaU begin to live it: live it fully, gloriously, profitably, painlessly. The only sense that most of us have had of life has been that of mortal existence — a sort of coming in at one wing of the stage and going out at another, a passage through, but never anything fixed or permanent. INIortal life has been the only sense of life we have ever had; because of this, we have never really received from life all life contains for us. After all the only life is the spiritual life and this holds true, not only after death, but now. Of course, there are those who doubt life after death; but most of us are perfectly willing to admit that immortality is a fact which will be proven, which wull be demon- strated after we die. But this was not the teaching of Jesus. We are told that the mission of Jesus was to bring life and immortality to light. Now [143] LIFE when you bring a thing to light, you make it manifest. It was to bring immortality to light, to reveal to humanity the great fact that immortality is not a post-mortem ex- perience but a present possibility, that he came. Jesus had not added to the world's knowledge at all if he merely came to preach immortality after death. The Pharisees be- lieved it, the ancient Egyptians believed it; the Israelites from time immemorial had be- lieved in immortal life after death. What Jesus came for, then, was to reveal immor- tality now, to bring it to light, to make of it a personal attainment in this day and in this generation. He demonstrated it in his own experience; Elijah demonstrated it; Enoch demonstrated it. Most of us, especially in the older churches, are prone to regard these experiences as deviations from the natural order of things, when, as a matter of fact, they are nothing more nor less than the ex- ternal manifestation of an internal coopera- tion with the Divine Principle. They were not strange and unusual experiences that could never be demonstrated again. They [144] LIFE were the natural results of men's under- standing of the principle of life and their own identification with it ; and wherever men have understood the science of life from a purely spiritual point of view, infallibly, longevity has been the result. To understand life as purely spiritual here and now, and to live the life purely spiritual here and now is to avoid a great many of the painful consequences that go with the opposite belief. To overcome fear is, perhaps, the greatest necessity to-day. What a hindrance it is to our success in life, to the enjoyment of peace, to happi- ness and to health ! What a terrible sin it is ! To stigmatise fear as sin is hardly consistent with our old teaching, and yet to those of you who have studied the New Testament, it must be very apparent that John the Apostle regarded fear as the most vicious of all sins. He puts it at the very head of all sins: "To the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and the sorcerers"; he speaks of these as all being outside of the kingdom, meaning by the [ 145 ] LIFE kingdom, the Idngdom of happiness and joy. The fearful! He headed the list with these. When we say that fear is a sin, we speak advisedly, because it is a lack of trust in that supreme Life which is God; it is a lack of faith in one's own divine possibilities. It brings with it lack of control over one's emo- tions, over one's sensations, over one's af- fairs. It is blighting, demoralising, diseas- ing, and death-dealing. How overcome it? The one great thing that enables us to conquer fear is the reali- sation of what life is, to realise that life is perpetual, indestructible, eternal, and forever spiritual; to realise that nothing can deprive us of it. Without it we would not be. Life is the foundation, the superstructure, the divine reality of each and every individual; separated from it we cannot be. When once this great fact dawns upon the consciousness of the awak- ened mind, fear subsides; we know that there is no death; we know that life is the unbreakable reality. At first it is merely an intellectual thing. Then, as we walk and [ 146] LIFE talk with God, who is Life, and dwell upon the great facts of being, it becomes a spir- itual possession. Ills disappear, diseases flee, health springs forth speedily, strength increases, and life becomes a joy because we know now its indestmctibility. We know now that it is not confined to that period af- ter death or before birth, but is that which knows no break; not even human birth nor human death can interfere with it any more than the putting on of the lights and turn- ing them off can interfere with electric energy. You do not change the unchange- able electric energy of the universe when you turn on the lights or turn them off again, when you run the elevator up or bring it down again. That is static. Electric energy is the same, yesterday, to-day and forever; all you do with it is to appropriate it and to stop appropriating it. All that we are doing here on this plane of consciousness is appropriating life — uti- lising it, if you please, and frequently very poorly. We are here to utilise life, and we utilise it in very much the same manner as [147] LIFE we utilise electric energy; we turn it on and we turn it off again. We enjoy it or we put it out ; we practically do as we please with it, because we are the individuals who give direction to that energy which we call life or the spirit. That is our function in life. We shut it off through fear, we enjoy it through courage. Enoch was translated. The discouraging feature about this text is that sometimes we read it as if it were an instantaneous experi- ence with Enoch. We read it as if it were some strange and unusual proceeding which took place in a night, when, as a matter of fact, the translation of Enoch had been go- ing on from his early youth. By degrees, he had become better acquainted with life. The fact that he walked and talked with God reveals the other fact that he was a contem- plative individual, that he thought of life from its purely spiritual point of view and in its purely spiritual aspect, and because of it life became to him boundless, unending, most enjoyable. Jesus' resurrection, his ascension, and res* [148] LIFE toration of life to Lazarus, and to the daugh- ter of Jah'us, were all indications of a pro- found knowledge of what hfe is. Jesus knew that the life of Lazarus was God; he knew that the life of Jairus' daughter was God ; he knew that his own life was God, and by reason of his knowledge, he demonstrated his sjiiritual life, on what we call a material plan. He objectified his knowledge of truth and he said to you and to me, in that won- derful but somewhat mystic book of Revela- tions, "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." The book of Revelations is mystic, but it is not on this account meaningless. On the contrary, who has eyes to see may see; he who has an understanding heart may un- ravel the divine mysteries and may find for himself on these sacred pages the science by which he may hve longer and more enjoy- ably. "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Overcometh what ? That is the great question. What are we to [ 149] LIFE overcome? In the old churches we know that we are to overcome sin, and by sin we mean those crude and gross and coarse forms of licentiousness. We know that we are to overcome the murderous instinct, the thieving instuict, the adulterous instinct; we know that we are to overcome the lower pas- sions and the lower vices and viciousness of the carnal mind. But Jesus meant infinitely more than this. He knew that even when men overcome these low animal tendencies, they have not j^et overcome their fear of death. They have not yet overcome their belief in a life apart from God. They still believe in a physical life which can begin and end. Even though men have overcome all of these lower instincts, even though men are what the world would call strictly moral men, they are nevertheless unright- eous. That is, they are unright in their judgment. They have not overcome their belief in death. Until we overcome that be- lief all of our lifetime we shall be in bondage to the fear of it. The righteous man is just as much afraid [150] LIFE of death as the unrighteous man, except that he has a changed hehef concerning it. He is not nearly so afraid to meet his God as is the unrighteous man, but he believes that he can only meet his God through death. He does not realise that he may walk and talk with God on this plane of consciousness. He believes that death is the necessary ma- trix of immortality. He believes that the experience of death is the only means by which he may enter into the presence of that Eternal Life which is God, when, as a mat- ter of fact, it is totally inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus, "That they might know thee, the only true God; this is life eternal." I^ife eternal consists in spiritual under- standing, and that must begin here. The more we get of it, the more life we shall have. In ancient literature, we read some- thing that is really interesting concerning this "tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God." Ancient literature and ancient art picture the tree of life as having its roots in the air, apparently attached to nothing, with its fruit-bearing branches lean- [151] LIFE ing in the direction of the earth ; our picture, the modern representation of the garden of paradise, or the garden of Eden, represents it with its roots in the earth, with its fruit- bearing branches extending upward. The idea of the older mysticism was that hfe is not sustained by sinking the roots of thought into materiahty ; rather is it sustained by hf t- ing the roots of thought in the direction of the Holy Spirit into apparent nothingness, and yet into the great somethingness of Life; "into the very womb of ether," say the old literateurs, there to conceive grand ideas which presently bear fruit: fruit not so much for self-support as for the support of the race. The contemplative soul is that which re- gards life from the standpoint of the purely spiritual, extending the roots of its thought in the direction of the upper world, the spir- itual world: God, if you prefer; drawing its sustenance from the Divine, transmuting into the human, feeding humanity upon that which it derives from Divinity. It is a very pretty picture and not at all hurtful and in- [152] LIFE jurious. Rather is it explanatory of a great deal that M^e now dream about. We are not so much to be fed upon the things of earth as we are upon that bread which cometh down from Heaven. Jesus said to his discij)les : "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." His life was sustained more by Divine contemplation than by physical exercise or material food. If we would live the same life and live well and long and helpfully to humanity, we must be fed from the very same source. Our tree of life must have its roots planted in the Divine. We must draw our refreshment from the great Water of Life, which is God, our sustenance from the meat of the Spirit. Then, and then only, shall we know what life really is. We shall become translated, changed from a belief in a necessity of de- pending upon matter to the consciousness that Spirit is the only thing that sustains and supports. The translation will begin in a small way; it will go on and on and on, until we, too, may taste of the glorious hope and the glorious achievement of Enoch. [ 153 ] LIFE This seems impossible because so few have done it in the world's history, but a wise man once said : "Whatever the human mind can conceive, the human mind can accom- plish." When Jules Verne conceived the idea of submarines, only adventurous youths took any interest in it; when the idea of navigating the air was conceived, wise men shook their heads. The theologians said it was exercising a prerogative which did not belong to man, invading the territory which belonged alone to God, and must eventually fail. It was seeking to dominate an atmos- phere for which man was not originally in- tended, which belonged to the birds. And what do we see ? We see the dream of Jules Verne actualised — demonstrated in a bar- barous manner, perhaps, but demonstrated. We see the air dominated, controlled, uti- lised, in a way that we would not prefer, but nevertheless actualised. Whatever the human mind can conceive, that it can accomplish; this has as much ref- erence to translation and the overcoming of what we call physical death and to the dem- [ 154 ] LIFE onstration and the bringing to light of im- mortality in the flesh as it has to aviation or submarine warfare. One is just as possible as the other, the only reason for its not be- ing more fully demonstrated is, as Balzac once said : "It has hitherto lacked its man of genius to demonstrate it." Balzac seems to have forgotten Jesus and Enoch and Elijah. Levitation is as much a possibility as avia- tion. The only reason why it is not more generally accomplished is because it is not more generally studied. Translation is a possibility. To the vulgar mind, of course, it is not. Why should it be ? Has any great accomplishment ever been possible to the vulgar mind? But to the awakened con- sciousness, it is a demonstrable possibility. We are living in an age when we are be- ginning to say, even in the world of physical science, "I do not believe anything is impos- sible." Why? Because we have seen so miany things demonstrated before our very eyes. He is, indeed, an incredulous man who would suggest that anything is impos- sible. [155] LIFE So many marvellous things have tran- spired in the last twenty-five years, that we are ready for anything on a purely physical plane. We dominate all earth, water, sky, sea. All things are possible to the man who believes they are possible. Enoch believed translation was possible ; he believed that he would not see death if he became more in- telligently acquainted with life. He demon- strated it. I am quite prepared to believe it, because I have seen this same law in part demonstrated. I have seen impending death frustrated. I have seen life lengthened bj'^ the dissipation of fear. Therefore, if you can totally overcome fear, you can overcome death, because death is produced by fear. Physicians agree with us in this. Jesus knew that it was the pre- disposing cause. He knew that if he could destroy the fear of death he could destroy death itself; we know to-day in Divine Sci- ence, if we can destroy the fear of disease, of poverty, and of pain, we can destroy this trinity of evils. We know it because we know that fear is the mother seed. We [156] LIFE know that fear is the procuring cause of these mental and physical maladies. Destroy it and they disappear. What is the antidote for fear? A knowl- edge of the truth. Jesus said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." If you know the truth about any- thing you are free from the tendency to err. If you know the truth about life, you are free from the tendency to be afraid of death; if you are not afraid of death, you will neither invite nor attract it. Fear does both. Fear is the magnet which attracts poverty, pain, disease, death. To overcome fear, we must know the tmth, and we must know the truth about life. What is life? Is it material or spiritual? Has it beginning and ending, or is it im- mortal? Is it that which we cannot see, or that which we do see? What is life, after all? Life is the unseen verity of every man's being. It is the invisible Reality and Sub- stance, from which he can never become sep- arated, even though he put off his mortal body. Live he must; there is no such thing [157] LIFE as death. Somewhere, somehow, he must live, because he is a part of Life itself. When this becomes more intelligently un- derstood, we shall lose our fear, and the con- sequence will be a fuller life, the life more abundant, the life more pleasurable, the life more enjoyable. The fact that it is a spiritual life and does not tend to cause thought to gravitate in the direction of matter, or materiality, or sensuality, does not change the fact of its enjoyableness. He who lives most is he who lives best; he who gets most out of life is he who understands what life is, and under- standing what life is, knows it to be purely spiritual. He walks, he talks with the Spirit, and God takes him: that is. Life ab- sorbs him, Life enfolds him, Life encom- passes him. Life breathes through him. He is an instrument through which Life mani- fests itself. The fear of death never comes to him who knows what Life is; he knows that all experiences are so many links in the great indestructible, unbreakable chain. To live is a delight to the man who knows what [158] LIFE life is: not going to he but is this very- moment. Threats, intimidations, have no weight. lie feels the consciousness of a Divine Presence, he knows that his life is indestructible and eternal now; this gives him courage to live it beautifully, cheer- fully, happily. Nothing can hinder such a man from entering into the larger, fuller appreciation of his own divine possibilities. Then let us study life from the purely spiritual point of view. Let us realise that it is that which is unseen, that which we carry about with us, that from which we can never become separated: "Neither height nor depth, nor length, nor breadth, nor things present nor things to come, can sep- arate us from the love which is in Christ Jesus," the life which is spiritual. This was the dictum of Paul, the Apostle, who said: "We shall not all sleep" — that is, we shall not all die, but in the twinkling of an eye we shall awake; we shall put on immortality now ; we shall become translated. This is what you are doing in your bodies. You are putting off mortality and putting [159] LIFE on immortality while you breathe. You are casting off old cells and growing new ones, by a perfectly unconscious process to your- selves. Why not surcharge every new cell with the thought of eternal hfe, with the thought of indestructible immortality? Why not think of life as a purely spiritual thing so that each cell, as it takes the place of the old cell, shall come to perform its function harmoniously and perfectly, strong and vig- orous, until it gives place to a newer and liigher and better cell? This is immortality: the replenishing of the human body by the transformation of the human thought ; the renewing of mind at the fount of thought; having the roots of thought in the direction of the Spirit; bear- ing the fruits of that contemplated life in health and strength and joy and power, abundant here and now. Purely spiritual, never material; purely immortal, never mortal; purely infinite and inexhaustible, never finite and exhaustible; increasing your energy, your vitality, your power: this is Life! [160] GOD THE BANKER "The Lord shall open unto thee his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto thv land in his season, and to bless all the work of thine hand: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, and thou shalt not borrow. "Yea, the Almighty shall be thy defence, and thou shalt have plenty of silver. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. "The young lions do lack, and suflFer hunger: but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing. "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed. "^'ea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase. "Thou openest thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. "Riches and honour are with me; yea, durable riches and righteousness. "That I may cause those that love me to inherit sub- stance; and I will fill their treasures. "There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches. "Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase. "By humility and the fear of the Lord are riches, and honour, and life." GOD THE BANKER "My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." — Philippians 4:19. The close connection between righteousness and riches has received httle emphasis from the time of Jesus down to the present day. All too frequently we have been treated to sermons adopting the belief that righteous- ness and riches are rarely found together. The poor man takes some consolation from the belief that piety and poverty are often found in very close company; so common has this experience become, that we have come to associate poverty with piety. There are those in the world who believe that it is impossible for a man who is righteous to be- come rich. They tell us a righteous man sel- dom acquires anything. And yet we have abundant testimony from both the Old and the New Testaments to prove that the asso- [3] GOD THE BANKER ciation between righteousness and riches is so close that where we find a lack of riches, or a lack of prosperity, or a lack of comfort, we should seek the cause. Only yesterday men believed that God was the cause of poverty. There are those champions of other men's poverties, who would have us believe that it is the sharp spur of necessity which drives men to do the great things in life; when they become suc- cessful and prosperous, incentive departs and art goes by the board. These men take a few isolated cases. They pick out some of the great artists in the world, and tell us what they accomplished in the days of their poverty, and how little they accomplished when they became prosperous. This may be true in certain individual cases, but art has been perpetuated largely by the men who have been successful, not by the men who have been failures. Art, music, literature, and science have all been perpetuated by men who have refused to be carried away on the waves of prosperity. For one artist you may cite who has given up his art and lost [4] GOD THE BANKER his incentive because he has become suddenly successful and prosperous, you can cite an Edison, a Ruskin and a host of others, who, notwithstanding the fact that they have suc- ceeded in life and become prosperous, or are prosperous, have continued their arts and sciences with the same indefatigable zeal they would have given had they been the poorest men in the world. It is not always prosperity that destroys incentive. Poverty has destroyed a great deal more. The lash of poverty has destroyed courage and hope and ambition and desire; if we could count the cases where budding genius has been nipped by the effects of prosperity or the frost of poverty, the latter would so far ex- ceed the few exceptional instances of pros- perous men who have given up their arts or sciences because of their prosperity, that there would be no comparison. It is ridic- ulous to assert that prosperity, as such, has an injurious effect upon art, or literature, or music. I know of no more blighting thing in the world than poverty, notwithstanding our [5] GOD THE BANKER early teaching that it is a virtue, and, al- though some have assumed it as such, never- theless there is a phase, and a side of it, that is not tolerable. That is not poverty which permits a man to leave the world and seek a cloister or a monastery where his wants, such as they are, are anticipated ; where the cares and respon- sibilities of commercial life never touch him ! That is prosperity of a kind. Wherever a man's wants and needs are anticipated and he knows that to-morrow morning he is sure to get his breakfast, provided he is living, and that to-morrow night he is sure to have his bed, provided he still lives, there is no poverty. There is poverty where a man is clashing with the hard things of the world and, regardless of his efforts to make good honestly and legitimately, is nevertheless not always sure that he is not going to suffer want and lack. So it is in Divine Science: we are striving to rise above poverty, even as we are striving to rise above pain. I know there are those who feel that re- Ugion should never be used for purely mer- [6] GOD THE BANKER cenary purposes. But that which actuates an individual to rise above want or disease is not a mercenary purpose. It is his di- vine right. If you follow closely the read- ing from the Old and New Testaments, you will see that there are innumerable prom- ises of wealth and abundance and riches, to the righteous man, to the godly man. "No good thing will he M'ithhold from them that walk uprightly," says the Old Testament. What is the matter with us that the su^;- gestion and the claim and belief in lack so frequently knock at our doors? It is largely a question of belief with most of us. Manj' of us were born into poverty. Many of us were raised on the saving habit. The word economy has been dinned into our ears from our earliest childliood. No matter how much money you acquire, economy is a sure harbinger of a certain kind of poverty, be- cause it breeds a spirit of limitation. It breeds the thought of contraction. "There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing." There is that one who ac- quireth great wealth so far as money is con- [7] GOD THE BANKER cerned, and yet is poor in spirit. Such an one has not time to enjoy it, does not know how to spend it. "There is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches." We have been prone to spirituahse this text. If a man were to become absolutely poverty stricken, and yet were rich in the grace of God, he maketh himself poor because he keeps his cash in circulation, and yet he hath great riches of enjoyment, of pleasure: I do not mean reckless abundance. The man who knows how to keep his cash in circula- tion rationally, is going to get more out of it, is going to get more out of life than the man who endeavours only to hoard and to save and to accumulate. We must needs learn the sacred art of distribution. But we can never learn it until we realise that as children of God we are exempt from pov- erty, even as we are exempt from pain. This is one of the lessons we are learning. We are learning that we have a right to be free from this distressing disease — that we have a right to be free from poverty, because it is a disease. It is the mother of those [8] GOD THE BANKER hellish twins, sin and sickness. How often men have been tempted to barter their honour, and women tempted to barter their virtue to escape it? Instinctively we rebel against povertj\ And when we read the Bible carefully we find that poverty is the immediate consequence of wrong tliinking, unrighteousness. We find that it is not a divine visitation, and we also find that there is a way out of it. Di\^ne Science is lead- ing us into this great way. When Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free," I think he also included poverty as one of the things from which freedom was needed, be- cause he must have known the dire conse- quences of poverty. He was just as keen a sociologist as our sociologists of to-day; the more they penetrate beneath the surface of social conditions, the more convinced they become that drunkenness and harlotry and theft and greed are all more or less trifles to this, the great mother of all evils. There was a day when we declared that poverty was the dii'ect consequence of drunk- [9] GOD THE BANKER enness. Jane Addams declares the very op- posite is the truth — and surely no one can speak with more authority than Jane Addams; she declares that drunkenness is all too frequently the effect of poverty. Those of you who have ever tested its bitter grip know what temptation it has brought with it. How easy it is for a man, at least for a short time, to lose the sense of lack through imbibing liquor ! How easy it is for a woman to lose for a time the sense of lack, through the taking of mor- phine! Oh, if we could look into the souls of men, of the people who are victims of these habits, I am sure we would find that pov- erty has driven the majority of them to this degradation. No man to-day turns to whis- key or morphine from sheer love or inclina- tion. The taste is cultivated as time goes on, for in most cases anxiety or great sor- row has driven them to it ; all too frequently, Jane Addams tells us, it is poverty. It is one of the greatest enemies of man. We are told expressly that we must fight [10] GOD THE BANKER these enemies, the enemies of true peace, of true purity, of true perfection, of true love and all happiness. We are told one of the great causes of poverty is ignorance. We are told that, wherever communities are lifted out of their ignorance through enlight- enment, through educational advantages, their poverty begins to decrease. Sociolo- gists, who have watched the upward trend through these advantages, give us this as their firm conviction. Those of you who employ men, place a premium upon enlightenment. Ignorance commands a very low wage. I know that to- day you can get a great deal of muscle for very little money. But when you come to buy mind, it is a different question. Men of mind place their own value upon their own minds. Men of muscle have other men's valuation placed upon their muscle, and so, after all, there is the question of mind versus muscles. It is a question of in- tellect. It is a question of soul. It is a question of the spiritual nature of man, and the cultivation of all these qualities of soul, [11] GOD THE BANKER mind and spirit are the necessary means by which the individual and the community are to rise above its condign misery and per- sistent poverty. Other escape there is none. Therefore I can readily understand why Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He included poverty in this freedom, for until we are free from poverty there is very little chance for us to live. There is no free- dom. A life harassed with the cares of this world and distressed by the limitations of the unknown is impossible. Naturally we become irritable, impatient, hard to live with. Who can blame us? When a man — or a woman — is struggling to take care of those dependent upon the effort, whether children, or parents, or broth- ers or sisters, or himself, he knows how ex- tremely difficult poverty is. There is no quality in it to sweeten the nature, to give the individual time to think about the great things of God. I defy any man, whose time is so filled with work that his mind is ab- sorbed with it and the thought of limitation [12] GOD THE BANKER and lack, who has no time to dwell upon the Spirit, to be as spiritual as he would be if his mind M^ere taken away from these dis- tressing- conditions! There are many men in the world M-ho would gladly become monks, if by taking orders and going into an institution, they could be freed from these responsibilities. But we never overcome an error hy running away from it. An error that is not fairly met and conquered by the truth, will live to torment us later. So it is that we are combating lack and limitation in our jier- sonal lives and in our business, — and that by divine authority. We are taking refuge in the Bible, in the teachings of Jesus. I know it is generally said that Jesus recommended poverty, and when the rich young man came to him and asked what he should do in order to enter into eternal life, Jesus said, "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven : and come follow me." It would seem indeed as if Jesus were recommending poverty. But [13] GOD THE BANKER that was only poverty for one man, because, if he sold all he possessed and gave to the poor, then the poor would not be poor. They would become comfortable and compara- tively prosperous. He did not give the same advice to Nicodemus. He did not give the same advice to the wife of the Roman offi- cer, who was fabulously wealthy, and who, tradition tells us, provided him with his wonderful seamless robes. We hear noth- ing of his giving this advice to other people, but just to this young man. And yet we take this isolated instance from the New Testament to recommend poverty as a ne- cessity on the part of those who would fol- low the Christ. Let us examine the case and see. This young man came to Jesus with great profession. He wanted to live the life, and asked, "What good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?" The rich young man only wanted another treasure. He wanted in addition to all his wealth, peace of mind and the spiritual life. They can only come through a certain amount of self- [14] GOD THE BANKER sacrifice. He wanted everything, as was evidenced by the fact that when Jesus said to him, "Observe the commandments, Hon- our thy father and mother, Bear not false witness, Love God and love your fellow men," the young man protested his great morality. He said, "All these have I ob- served from my youth." He was extremely moral. Then Jesus said, "One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me." Jesus knew that he loved money for the sake of it and not for the good he could do with it. Jesus was clairvoyant and he read the minds of men. He saw that this young man was an accumulator, an acquirer, gath- ering together and heaping up wealth with only one object in the world: to have it. And Jesus knew that nothing could be done for the man until he \vrenched him away from his love of money as such. There is no sin in having a great deal of money if we use it wisely; there is sin in [16] GOD THE BANKER not having any at all. If we have been as- sociating virtue with poverty and poverty with vice, we must stop it, because it has no Scriptural reason. On the contrary every text I have quoted is an indication of the fact that righteousness and riches go hand in hand. If we are not comfortable and prosperous, then in some mysterious way we are not righteous. Righteousness means right thinking. If we are not righteous it does not mean that we are not moral. Many a moral man is not a righteous man, but every righteous man is a moral man. Hence it is that we see so-called very pious men who are very poor. True; but there are riches that come through right thinking. There are many who do not realise that "all the Father hath is theirs." They do not realise that it is "the Father's good pleasure to give them the kingdom"; not realising it, they try to beat the desire down with semi-starvation, or starvation altogether, on the principle that goodness and gold are never found in the same company. Everywhere you hear it, [16] •A GOD THE BANKER until it has become common belief that a rich man must be a dishonest man, — dishonest somewhere, somehow, — or he would not be rich. People tell you that a man cannot acquire a certain sum of money without being dishonest, without doing dishonest things. That may be true in some cases, but not in all. The thing we must learn through the study of Christianity in its scientific sense, is that poverty is no more the creation of God than is disease, and that God does not wish his children to be poor any more than he wishes them to be sinful or sickly, and that it is man's divine right to be comfortable, to be well fed, to be well clothed, to be free. And when he knows the truth concerning his di- vine heritage, he will be free. And when worry and anxiety give place to trust and confidence in the Almighty, when man re- alises that God is indeed his Banker, even as he is his Life, then will man come to the mount of tranquillity^ of thought and clear- ness of mind and perspicacity, and these are the essential necessities of all successful en- [17] GOD THE BANKER terprise. But no man can succeed whose mind is hampered by fear and anxiety, for these hmit his vision. He can not see his opportunities. The man who is afraid "shall not see when good cometh," says the Bible. The man who is not afraid "does not see evil even when it approacheth," says the Bible. He has no eye for it. He has no belief in it. He has no thought of lack, no belief in insufficiency and poverty, and con- sequently having no belief in it, or fear of it, it can never touch him. We must go out in the direction of that which we desire, and going on in the direc- tion of it, we shall find it coming to meet us. Again it is the story of the prodigal son and the father. As man turns in the direction of God the Banker, God the Banker is there to meet him and his every demand. How often have we demanded of God that he meet our daily requirements ? Very rarely. How often have we turned to other sources, to other channels, to visible things, and often with the thought that if our sub- [18] GOD THE BANKER stance did not come through these, it would not come at all, for there was no other place for it to come from? How often men have said, "Every avenue and every channel is closed!" When men say that, they forget that the resources of the Holy Spirit are in- exhaustible, eternal, and infinite in number. When men limit the channels of their sup- ply, or the avenues for their advancement to their field of vision, or to a particular line of business, they forget that God has infinite resources wherewith to bless and en- rich them. And it is God who blesses and enriches us, — though some men think they acquire their fortunes through their own in- genuity. They deceive themselves. There is only one source through which true riches ever come, and this is the Great Source of all Substance, God. Riches come to the man who exercises his mind, his thought force, through concentra- tion on the plane of the subjective, dwelling particularly upon the thing desired, upon success, upon prosperity, and never allow- ing his mind to dwell upon lack or poverty. [19] GOD THE BANKER If it knocks at his door, he says to it, "Get thee behind me, Satan." How many of us do this when the sugges- tion of limitation or poverty knocks at the door, — how many of us say, "Get thee be- hind me"? Not many! We cry out and be- come at once trembly and shaky. Do things look as if they were going to turn the wrong way? Immediately the man's heart faints within him. How many take refuge in the thought: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," the Lord is my Banker? How many take refuge in the Truth ? How manj?^ are able in trouble to take refuge in the Di- vine Truth, remaining cheerful and realis- ing that God is indeed their Banker, and that "No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly"? At first, perhaps, ' this sounds somewhat foolish because we have not been taught in the past to rely upon the Infinite. We have been taught that when our material streams are dry, it is useless to look elsewhere ; if we have taken refuge in prayer, it has nearly always been a form of petition, a begging [20] GOD THE BANKER of God that he might in his wonderful mercy lift us up out of our trouble. How rarely have we said: "Thou art my Banker and Thou knowest my needs. Thy substance is greater than all my needs. Thine abundance is greater than every de- mand I can make upon it. Thy resources are unlimited. Thy ways are innumerable and infinite. There is none like Thee! If a few channels are closed on that side, there are others over here, and back of me and in front of me, that are open. I shall claim my divine right. I shall claim substance as my own." Some ma\' say that this new religion is deifying prosperity. Well, let us admit it is a new religion that is deifying prosperity. Is that not just a trifle better than the old religion in which men deified poverty? But we are not deifying prosperity. We are claiming it as the divine right of every child of God. And once this fact filters it- self into the mind of man he becomes strong in the degree he understands its meaning. Any thoughts that make for failure grad- [21] GOD THE BANKER ually lose their hold upon him, — anger, fear, ignorance, — these give place to spiritual en- lightenment. Knowing the truth, we be- come free, free from anything that makes for poverty. Slowly but surely we rise above the miasma of this blighting influence upon human life. Perhaps we have thought that society has conspired against us. Perhaps some of us have felt that it was a wise act on the part of God that we did not have prosperity and riches, because if we had had them we might have become renegade. Well, that may be so, but many become renegade without riches as the incentive. More men have become renegades without riches than with it. That a few rich men have become vicious is true. But we must not be limited in our investi- gation of things. Look where you will and what do you find? You find this wretched thing, — poverty! Truly there can be no more room for it in heaven than for disease. I can no more conceive of a poor man hav- ing a comfortable place in the kingdom of God than I can conceive it of a sick man or [22] GOD THE BANKER a sinful man; because, if a man were strug- gling with poverty or disease, and were in the kingdom of heaven, it would not be the kingdom of heaven to him. There is no room for poverty in the kingdom of God any more than there is for disease. Poverty is a shadow, that is pretending to be something, a passing ghost, that has derived most of its power from our belief in it. Who is there who has not felt its blighting influence ? Whether or not he has actually felt it himself, he has had those close to him who have felt it. Who is there who has not felt that old age will bring with it the pangs of poverty? This is a blighting thought. It is poverty that we must array ourselves against, because it is so provoca- tive of discord, disease and dissension. Who has not lived in a family and felt the weight of its limitations ? In the past we rather argued in favour of it, and said that mastering it developed character; through the clash with poverty genius was born. It is true that men have struggled up through wretched poverty and [23] GOD THE BANKER made good; but all the presidents of the United States were not born in log cabins. Do not let us forget that. We emphasise one or two who have succeeded, forgetting that the greater number of the successful were neither born nor raised in squalid sur- roundings. We have just as good and suc- cessful men who have come up out of a beau- tiful harmonious prosperity. So again we say that poverty has nothing to recommend it except the things it may develop in some characters. A man may develop a beauti- ful character in a harmonious, refined at- mosphere, though there are those who may disagree with me. It is said that the mus- cles of the most feeble become strong in an atmosphere of prosperity. I am sure there are those who would like a chance to try and see if they could not grow strong in an at- mosphere where there was less strife and struggle. I know there are many things you could do, not only for yourselves and for those you love, but for the outsider, if you had more substance, and could do it le- gitimately and in a Christlike way. [24] GOD THE BANKER You frequently wish that you had more than you have, that you might be of more service in the world. What are those wishes, those desires, if they are not the in- stinctive longing for those things you could use for yourselves and others? When you become rich and prosperous through Truth, you will not have any more than God in- tended you to have. "Behold, all that I have is thine;" and Jesus was not talking foolishness when he said, "It is your Fa- ther's good pleasure to give you the king- dom." "It is the father's good pleasure" that we may have life and health and strength and happiness and opulence. The new religion says: "Claim it. Not arrogantly, but as your divine right as the child of God. It is your right to be as free from poverty as from anything else that is distressing. Go out into the world, realis- ing that it is j'our right to live, and to live well and comfortably. This does not mean to live foolishly. It means to live as God intended you should. It is your right; claim it." [25] GOD THE BANKER in so-called charity, so as to lift them above poverty and the necessity for charity. Every one who reads this would be hap- pier if he had more means with which to do good. The resurrection of Jesus means vastly more than we shall find in many of the interpretations which have been placed upon it. The Christian who has not been resur- rected above lack is still in the abysmal depths where there is no peace, no power, no freedom, no liberty. Let him be resur- rected never so high above his passions, if he has not been resurrected above his pov- erties he is still unhappy because the thought of limitation oppresses him. We are not making prosperity a god ; we are making it a divine necessity. And when you think it over you will see it is your di- vine right; it is the divine right of every man, woman, and child in the world, not only to breathe all the air and take all the rest, comfort and relaxation he needs, but also to have all the clothes and the food he re- quires. We give him all the air he wants, because we cannot hide it from him ; but we [28] GOD THE BANKER do not give him the right to the other things, and we do not take the right ourselves to trade in all the other things. Demonstrating prosperity is not a sin. We should say every day, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not M ant." And you can substitute the word Banker for Shepherd. "The Lord is my Banker, I shall not want." Are you distressed in your business lives? Hold this thought. Are you suffering from the suggestion of limitation? Has some one defrauded you? Take this sug- gestion: The Lord is my Banker, I shall not want. Hold to it. And in ways you cannot think of to-day, through channels you never dreamed of, it shall come to you because it is the law : you shall have all you need. Let no thought of lack or limitation knock at the door of your mind and find ad- mittance. Put a sentinel at the door, and challenge every thought that comes. If it is the thought of lack, reject it instantly be- cause it is not of God. Reject the thought of poverty just as quickly as you would the [29] GOD THE BANKER thought of theft. There should be no more room in your mind for one than the other. A man who refuses to admit a thought of theft to enter his consciousness, will take a thought of poverty into his mind and not raise a doubt about it. He does not realise that he is unrighteous because he is admit- ting an unrighteous thought. He has ad- mitted the idea of poverty into his conscious- ness, and later on he marvels that he finds it manifesting in his bodily afF airs. It would be a miracle if it did not. Men become prosperous because of their prosperous thoughts even when they are not righteous. A man remains poor even when he is pious because his is the poverty thought. Challenge the thought of poverty every time it comes to your door. You do not have to admit it into your mental household any more than you have to admit a tramp of the road into your material household. You will find that it will cause you as much trouble, and more, than the tramp, because the poverty thought clings like a burr. Avoid it with all the strength of your char- [30] GOD THE BANKER acter and purity of your soul because it does not proceed or emanate from God, who is the Giver of all good, the Source of all blessings, the infinite inexhaustible Source of all supplj% in whom there is no lack; "in whom all fulness lies," says the Bible. There is no limitation ox' lack in the inex- haustible Source of all Good. If you can- not find it in God, you cannot find it any- where. If any suggestion of lack comes to you, be instant in prayer. Do not allow the thought of poverty to put its foot over the thresh- old. Meet it with this positive affirmation: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want;" — the Lord is my Banker, I lack noth- ing. I am living in the inexhaustible abundance of the Holy Spirit, I am not afraid. Depend upon it, if you do this, you will find yourselves benefited mentally, physically, financially; it will be the begin- ning of an excellent habit, a habit which will make for the building up of legitimate, hon- ourable prosperity and the usefulness which [31] GOD THE BANKER grows out of legitimate, honourable pros- perity. Let this thought remain with you: — The Lord is my Banker, I shall not want. A righteous man thinketh that which is righteous, and whilst he does so, and walk- eth uprightly, he shall have the Lord in heaven favourable unto him in all his ways, "ISIy God is able to make all grace abound imto you, that ye, always having all suffi- ciency in all things, may abound to every good work. "My God shall supply all your need ac- cording to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus." [32] 4